Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He noticed it the moment he first woke. It happened at once, with no preamble or trickle of warning. He was asleep, dead for all intents and purposes, and then he was not. Then he was in the body of his vessel, his spirit thrumming with the rush of cursed energy and adrenaline over, at last, possessing a physical body. 

A body which was not at all normal. 

The same strength, the same power, the same energy, though at the time unrealized, coursed through his vessel’s veins. More than what would be possible by having ingested just one finger– more than what would be possible from ingesting them all. This was something intrinsic, something he was born with that stretched beyond curses and sorcery.

Something related to Sukuna.

But, at that moment, he did not have time to linger on it, face to face with a new era of jujutsu. With one Six-Eyes and Limitless user.

It wasn’t until said user had knocked his wayward vessel out that Sukuna was able to truly assess what had happened here.

Summoning his innate domain, he pulled the boy in, finding the manifestation of his soul asleep and curled in a fetal position amidst the bloody pools and cracked skulls. 

Yuuji Itadori.

Such a worthless little thing. 

Sukuna chuckled, approaching his defiant vessel. He slept like the dead for reasons beyond being knocked out, Sukuna surmised as he sifted through the boy’s memories. One showed itself to contextualize the scene before him: A teenage boy passed out in his bed, groaning as his alarm sounded for school and looking no different than the boy passed out here. Truly, he was by all means unassuming like this, bathed in youth and basking in ignorance. 

“So,” Sukuna said, sitting with his arms resting upon his knees as he beheld his vessel. “What is it about you that makes you so special? That makes you able to withstand me? ”

His voice was harsh, but he wasn’t truly upset. Yuuji was a hindrance, for certain, and already got on his nerves. But that layer of intrigue to him was what kept Sukuna from ripping his heart out of his chest.

For now. 

Despite his life having been relatively plain, Yuuji was undeniably strong– inhumanely so. But he was born with such little cursed energy, he never knew of jujutsu, so how could he be so– so–

Another memory washed over Sukuna, hazy and rippled like looking into a river’s reflection. It was a distant memory, when his vessel was no more than three, looking at a picture his grandfather had accidentally left out. It was of his mother and father; that much was apparent by the pink-haired, pink-faced babe in their arms. The boy stared at it, seemingly figuring out the same thing, and cooed at his parents. What little Yuuji did not notice– but what Sukuna did – was the line across his mother’s forehead. Stitch marks.

Kenjaku.

Sukuna seethed.

No wonder. No, of course. He cackled mirthlessly, rising to his feet.

Kenjaku had been in possession of Sukuna’s fingers after he’d turned into a cursed object, something the body-stealer had urged him towards for years before he finally acquiesced. It seemed the bastard had done so with this very plan in mind: to create Yuuji Itadori.

To create the perfect vessel, the only one who could withstand Ryomen Sukuna. Perhaps, he thought distantly, a bit too much. 

He clenched his teeth, his hands shaking.

It all made sense now.

Kenjaku had planned this from the very beginning, some millennia ago. Although Sukuna had never revealed such information to anyone— not even Uraume— they’d found out about his twin. The one whom he’d consumed in utero, the one who’s wandering soul had somehow found its way into this era. And Kenjaku had subsequently found him and from that produced Yuuji.

Sukuna settled.

His gaze turned to the boy once more, still blissfully asleep and unaware.

Do you know what you are?

You’re not only the holder of a curse, but the son of a curse user as well. How charming.

Kenjaku wanted to meddle in his affairs? So be it then. It wasn’t as if he had a particular care for his family. If his vessel was the son of his reincarnated twin— if he was his nephew — that made no difference to Sukuna. Despite his heritage, he was weak, a drop of water in comparison to the raging maelstrom of Sukuna’s might. Eventually, that strong will of his would falter, and Sukuna would bask in the glory of his fully realized rebirth.

Until then— he thought as he watched Yuuji stir to wakefulness— he’d be content to see where his supposed nephew led them.

He and the brat did not speak very often. The first few nights, Sukuna would summon an eye and mouth on the boy’s cheek, murmuring disturbances into his ear for hours on end. He had done so out of curiosity— his vessel could get frustrated, sure, but he’d never seen true anger flare out of him. Yuuji, of course, was undeterred by Sukuna’s intonations, his state of sleep comparable to that of a coma. 

“You’re no fun,” he grumbled on his last attempt to rouse something out of the brat. Truthfully, however, Sukuna couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed by this. Yuuji’s sorcery was weak, but at the very least his mind and soul were strong. Not a total disappointment.

Perhaps something miraculous could come of him.

His mouth and eye faded from the boy’s cheek as Sukuna returned to his domain to ruminate. 

Much to his chagrin, the manifestation of Yuuji’s soul was sleeping in the same bloody pool surrounding Sukuna’s throne. 

For whatever reason, it had come here to rest, despite Sukuna not having drawn it in. Certainly it couldn’t have been intentional, but that almost made things worse.

How could he sleep so peacefully— chest rising and falling, mouth slightly parted and dripping with drool— in the garden of the King of Curses?

“What to do with you…” Sukuna murmured, bracing his jaw on his fist.

What to do with this whole situation, in all honesty. It was rare for Sukuna to be backed into a corner, unable to do as he pleased. At the moment Yuuji prevented him from doing so, but behind the scenes, and more pressingly, it was Kenjaku who held the strings.

Just what body does that parasite possess now? 

And how easily could he convince the boy to let him tear them apart?

Sukuna sighed. A mess of affairs, and it seemed he and Yuuji were at the center of it. There was no escaping this, and no charging head first with Shrine and Divine Flame at his full disposal. It seemed he’d have to sit back and wait for the opportune moment. 

He shook his head, leaning back against his throne of bones.

“You had better be something extraordinary, brat.”

Then Sukuna scoffed.

As if the manner of his creation didn’t already insinuate that.

“ The cursed spirit is a special-grade,” Sukuna said the following week, his tone neutral but echoing firmly in Yuuji’s head. “ You cannot defeat it, brat.”

Truly, the structure of jujutsu education was inane.

His vessel had no idea how to use cursed energy and was armed with nothing more than a blade he, also, hardly had any experience with. Yet here he was, saddled with a mission he had no hope of completing— even with two of his classmates. 

One of which, the girl, had already been overtaken by the curse. The other, the Ten Shadows User, had lost one of his shikigami to it. And Yuuji, of course, was useless.

But here they were, in the detention center, facing off a special-grade curse with no hope of victory. 

“ Help me then!” Yuuji’s mental voice retorted. “ Remember, if this body dies, you go with it!”

Sukuna held off on refuting that, even if he were to die, there were still eighteen other fragments of his soul remaining. Instead, he summoned an eye and mouth on Yuuji’s cheek and spoke thus, “I cannot help unless you acquiesce control to me.”

He could feel the beginnings of Yuuji retracting himself, only for the act to be rapidly cut off, like a portcullis slamming down. 

“But—“ The boy looked to Fushiguro— the aforementioned Ten Shadows User— and licked where the sweat had built up on his lips. “What will you do?”

What will he do indeed? He could kill Fushiguro and then the girl, just to see how much he could make his vessel squirm. To test how far Yuuji’s resilience could last. 

An enticing gambit to make, certainly.

But Sukuna had been effectively dead for centuries; he knew when to hold off on playing his cards. 

Instead, he merely muttered to the boy, “What do you think?”

It was not said unkindly, but a twinge of teasing was still felt nonetheless. He couldn’t help it; Yuuji was oh-so easy to mess with.

Presently, his vessel shook off his nerves and turned to Fushiguro.  The latter spoke first, “Itadori, time to run! We can—!”

His words were promptly cut off as the special-grade finally revealed itself. Though it hadn’t made another move yet, it was as if a dark force had crashed down upon the pair. The imminence of its power was ostensible, and both boys froze under the pressure of it. Their eyes widened, their hands shook, but neither one could seem to find it in themselves to move. 

How boring.

“Brat!” Sukuna snapped, and Yuuji darted to reach for his blade. 

He could only manage to unsheathe it before the cursed spirit severed his hand from his wrist. The blade snapped in half, shattering into a broken pile beside the boy’s detached fist. A wave of pain exploded like scattered fireworks up Yuuji’s arm. 

He stared at the gushing limb dumbly, so thoroughly discombobulated by the whole situation it was as if time itself paused to let the boy’s terror fester.

In the end, Fushiguro was the first to speak.

“Ita… dori?”

And just like that, his vessel snapped out of it. Sukuna couldn’t help but be amused; the boy was like a dog responding to its own name. 

Silently, Yuuji took off his belt, wrapping it taut around his bloody wrist in a surprisingly resourceful version of a tourniquet. 

“Itadori, we need to go!” Fushiguro shouted. 

The other shook his head. “I’ve made it this far; I can’t run away now!”

“Kuku, such valiance,” Sukuna cooed. “But how much longer will you live running on pure stubbornness alone, I wonder?”

Yuuji gritted his teeth in frustration, finishing the tourniquet. Before he could retort, however, the special-grade spat out a pulsating sphere of cursed energy, decimating everything in its path. Yuuji and Fushiguro had only narrowly dodged its area of destruction.

“Make up your mind, boy.”

The special-grade giggled to itself, pleased by its own capability for calamity. Yuuji took in a shuddering breath

“I know,” he mumbled. Then he turned to the other boy. “Fushiguro! Find Kugisaki and get her out of here! I’ll stay here and keep this one busy, at least until you two are clear. As soon as you’re both out, give me some sort of signal. And then… I’ll switch with Sukuna.”

So it seemed his vessel didn’t trust him. A wise decision; Sukuna couldn’t care less for the two child sorcerers, but pushing Yuuji into a position where he’d be forced to think critically was intriguing. He was more crafty than he let on. 

And far too headstrong.

Still, this was precisely the kind of moment Sukuna was hoping for.

“You’ll never stand a chance!” Fushiguro argued, cutting through Sukuna’s musings. “Fighting that thing with one hand?”

“Look, the curse is having fun. It’s obviously toying with us. I can use—“

“You can’t!”

“Fushiguro,” Yuuji said with a tone so soft it made Sukuna recoil. The boy smiled. “It’s okay.”

Such simple words, and yet they landed such a profound effect on the other. His expression stuttered, before a quiet understanding and resignation flitted over Fushiguro’s face. If Sukuna cared, he’d venture to say the Ten Shadows User was completely and utterly whipped for his vessel.

How fun. 

The other listened after that, hitching a ride from an owl-like shikigami to go after Kugisaki, leaving just Yuuji, the special-grade, and Sukuna.

Yuuji turned to face the cursed spirit, and Sukuna could sense his brain working to form a plan. Sukuna clicked his tongue. 

Too slow. 

Just as he’d anticipated, the curse left no time for Yuuji to ruminate, landing a blow on the boy’s cheek that sent him spiraling across the floor and into a nearby wall. It was a miracle (or rather, a product of Yuuji’s natural-born strength) that the force didn’t shatter his ribs entirely, and instead just knocked the wind out of him.

He coughed and struggled to catch his breath. Sukuna gritted his teeth. Again, the brat was too s—

Once more, the special-grade shot out a burst of energy, decimating the wall behind Yuuji and dragging the boy with it. He tumbled backwards, bones crunching as he landed on his back. He didn’t move.

Sukuna fumed.

“ Brat,” his mental voice reverberated to his vessel. “ Get up. ”

Yuuji didn’t even twitch.

“Brat!” Sukuna said, this time through his manifested maw. “Move!”

Yuuji shot up just as the curse began to summon more cursed energy, flickering around its form like lightning strikes. The energy swells and pulses, forming an immense, swirling, spherical mass larger and more potent than anything the special-grade has produced up to this point. Yuuji gritted his teeth. 

“Hold out your arms!” Sukuna barked.

The ball of pure power swelled nearer, and Yuuji— whether out of instinct or because of Sukuna’s instruction— raised his arms, his remaining hand bracing as it pushed at the circumference of the cursed energy. 

He strained against the force of it, the tips of his fingers beginning to burn and fry off. 

Sukuna was pissed.

“You need to repel the cursed energy, brat!” He snapped.

The boy let out a groan of pain. His arms shook and began to cave in; he was losing strength. “I… don’t know how!”

Curses, why was the state of Jujutsu education so useless?

“Rechannel it,” Sukuna urged. “Direct it elsewhere, evading your own cursed energy.”

“I… don’t…”

His fingers wobbled.

They hadn’t taught him how to use his own cursed energy either. Really, just what did that Six Eyes brat think he was doing “teaching” these kids ? 

Sukuna sank back into the depths of his innate domain. With Yuuji as his stringent vessel, both his and Sukuna’s souls were intertwined in a way. Moreover, their cursed energies shared a similar connection; Sukuna’s spirit pooled over and fed into Yuuji’s untapped potential. In that way, their powers were intrinsically connected, meaning Sukuna could pry it out if he worked hard enough at it. 

Summoning as much energy as he could to himself, Sukuna pushed against the walls of Yuuji’s will, channeling their shared power into a whirling hellfire inside the boy’s chest. It burned bright and white-hot, swelling within his ribcage, so apparent even a non-sorcerer would be able to sense it. 

“ There. Now, brat, wrap the special-grade’s cursed energy around your own.” 

He refused to let his vessel die to such a measly opponent before Sukuna had answers to the cluttered circumstances he’d been brought into. Yuuji’s stubbornness was tainted by recklessness, yes, but stubbornness was nonetheless a worthwhile trait in battle. So long as he refused to give up, the boy stood a fighting chance.

Presently, said boy howled in agony but seemed to take Sukuna’s words to heart, slowly pushing the opposing energy around himself. It was flimsy and uncoordinated, like a toddler first learning to hold a brush, but it would suffice for now. He had overcome the curse’s attack with nothing more than a few burns.  

With the attack thwarted, Yuuji dropped to his knees, panting. 

“S-Sukuna.” His words slurred. He was on the precipice of passing out,  and there was little Sukuna could do about it. Although, if that did happen, Sukuna might have an opportunity to take control of the body… A morbid sense of glee overtook his previous anger.

“I got ahead of myself,” Yuuji continued. “I thought I was strong. I thought I could…” He inhaled shakily. “But… but even if I’m weak, I’ve still got to give it everything I’ve got.”

Sukuna was dumbstruck. What’s with this asinine eulogy all of a sudden?! And why directed towards him, of all people?

The boy stood up, and Sukuna could feel the reinvigoration thrumming in his veins. Despite his injuries and the exhaustion nipping at him, he fell back into an offensive stance, his hand balled into a fist. Idiot! He was supposed to pass out, not die!

He arched his shoulder back, muscles tightening. When he finally launched the punch, to Sukuna’s quiet awe, there was the barest hint of cursed energy within it. 

Good. He’s not completely useless after all. 

Of course, even with the heroic preamble and the twinge of cursed energy, the attack did nothing. The special-grade caught his fist and snickered.

Yuuji’s heart plummeted when, all of a sudden, a great wolf’s howl emanated from across the detention center. 

Ah, there it was. Fushiguro’s signal.

Sukuna smiled, taking over his vessel’s form. His second eyes opened and his markings drew themselves across his face and body; Yuuji, true to his word, had instantly assented control to Sukuna. 

He twisted the special-grade’s clawed hand, and the latter squealed and writhed. To think the boy was about to lose his life to this. 

Sukuna huffed. 

“No matter how you slice it,” he said, exhilaration at the upcoming fight bubbling to the surface. “You’re such an annoying brat.”

The cursed spirit was dead. It was a short battle; the curse was no fun to play with. Inside of it, though, as Sukuna had suspected, was one of his fingers. He looked at it disinterestedly. 

“Well, there you have it, brat. A real demonstration of Jujutsu.” 

The boy hadn’t spoken since Sukuna had taken over, but his emotions were nonetheless apparent. During the fight, he would swell with excitement whenever Sukuna displayed his technique, even if in a more than gruesome manner. For that reason, Sukuna had found it enjoyable to toy around with the special-grade a little more than usual. His vessel was easily satiated, amazed at the most menial forms of sorcery like a child presented with a lollipop. 

Probably because he was still a child.

But that was neither here nor there.

“ That was so cool, Sukuna!” Yuuji’s voice finally piped up, and Sukuna almost wished it hadn’t. It was somehow more annoying having it ring in his head than emitted physically. “ I see why you’re a legend, now! Especially that last part, with the domain thing!”

“Domain Expansion,” Sukuna corrected, exasperated. Seriously, the jujutsu world was in shambles if it was up to him to teach Yuuji everything. He pressed two fingers to his temple, trying to soothe the headache he could feel coming on. “I will explain it to you at a later time. Now, are you going to switch with me? Or would you rather I go hunt down that classmate of yours and slice him into pieces?”

“ I will, I will!” His vessel whined. “ Just one thing: why are you helping me? I mean, you healed my hand— thanks for that, by the way— and helped me with my cursed energy.”

Oh, right. Sukuna had forgotten he did that; certainly, it wasn’t purposeful. He clicked his tongue. 

“I have no desire to fight one-handed, brat.” Fighting with just two was a pain enough. “It was no mercy to you, rather a benefit to me. Do not think too deeply into it.”

“ Well, sure, but why teach me? I just— I mean, I thought you hated me.”

Sukuna groaned. Since when was he so inquisitive?

But really, it wasn’t as if he could tell Yuuji the real answer: that he needed him alive to figure out the mystery of his creation. And, furthermore, to get to Kenjaku. That was all too much to explain, and too much for the brat to know. But what else could he say? That he cared? The notion made him sick.

In the end, he said, “Your weakness is as much a hindrance to me as it is to you.”

“ Okay, but that doesn’t explain why—“

“Fushiguro has not left the vicinity, despite your insistence. How about I—“

Sukuna was promptly shoved back into the depths of Yuuji’s soul as the boy resumed control of the body. 

The brat’s soul would not stop drifting into Sukuna’s domain to sleep. It was beyond aggravating; sleep was supposed to be Sukuna’s break from Yuuji, and yet here the boy was, worming his way into everything. 

On what had to be the fiftieth time Sukuna had woken from his meditation to find his vessel curled up in a soft patch of land between the skulls, Yuuji began to have a nightmare.

It started with mere tremors, which were easy enough to ignore. Then it escalated into broken whimpers and sobs, and Sukuna could no longer look past it. 

He sighed, rising from his throne to approach the cause of his vexation. The boy was curled in on himself, sniffling and shaking. Sukuna rolled his eyes and nudged him with his foot. Yuuji didn’t so much as stir. 

Damn brat sleeps like the dead.

Having no other option, Sukuna knelt down to the boy’s level, shaking his shoulder with his hand. Of course, this didn’t have the intended effect, because when did anything work as planned when it came to Yuuji Itadori? Instead, his vessel had the nerve to reach up and grab the sleeve of Sukuna’s kimono, tugging on it as if to draw it nearer. Sukuna attempted to pull it back, only to be shocked by just how firm the boy’s hold on it was— like he was clinging to a lifeline.

“Brat,” he growled. “Wake up.”

He flicked Yuuji’s nose, and the kid awakened with a gasp. He shot up, colliding with Sukuna’s forehead and drawing out a hiss from the latter. He recovered just as Yuuji turned to look at him, seemingly beginning to register what was going on as he let out a confused noise. 

His eyes were wide and rimmed red with tears, swollen and puffy. His mouth was slightly agape, and it took a full fifteen seconds before he realized he was clinging to Sukuna’s sleeve. Yuuji let go of it in a daze, still trying to make out what was going on.

“At last.” Sukuna breathed in relief, standing up. Yuuji was in the midst of attempting to catch his breath.

“Where— where am I?” He finally asked, his voice chalky with the residuals of sleep. 

Sukuna raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t know? You come here every night, brat.” 

The boy just looked even more bewildered. 

Sukuna sighed, sitting back down so he was across from Yuuji. “This is my innate domain. It is similar to a Domain Expansion, but more intrinsic. Because both our souls are sharing one body at the moment, you have access to mine.”

  Yuuji looked around at the viscera and nodded. “Your soul, huh… that would make sense.”

Sukuna couldn’t help but smile at that.

“I come here every night? Really? Why?”

“You tell me, boy.”

Yuuji seemed lost in thought, his brows pinching together. “But…” He shook his head. “If I come here every night, why haven’t you woken me up before?”

Sukuna squinted. “Why would I concern myself with you more than I already have? You were making a ruckus in your sleep, otherwise I would’ve continued to ignore you.”

“Well, then… thanks, I guess.” He rubbed the nape of his neck and gave the other a lopsided smile. “You know, you really aren’t as bad as I thought you’d be.”

Sukuna froze.

He… didn’t know how to respond to that.

Those words had never been uttered to him before.

Quickly, though, his momentary surprise flitted back to its carefully concealed facade, and Sukuna frowned. “Go back to sleep, brat.”

“But, I—“

“Sleep.”

He tapped two fingers against Yuuji’s forehead, and the boy fell unconscious. 

Usually, just before the boy woke up, his soul would fade away from Sukuna’s domain and return to his corporeal body, rousing him in the physical realm. He wouldn’t remember ever being there and would resume his day as normal. The night after Sukuna had woken him from his nightmare, however, Yuuji’s soul did not continue its normal routine. 

Instead, Sukuna was alerted of Yuuji’s awakening by a soft, sleepy calling of his name.

“Sukuna,” he mumbled, lying a ways away from where the other was meditating. “Su-kuna, Su-ku-na !”

He drew out the last syllable, irking the curse enough that he forwent his contemplation and stalked over to the wily brat.

“If you are awake you may leave.” 

Yuuji pouted. His cheek was squished against the red-stained grass beneath him, as if he loathed to get up. “The ground here is surprisingly soft. Did you make it that way?”

Sukuna felt the land with his foot and couldn’t find his vessel’s statement further from the truth— it was hard and sturdy, unrelenting. It certainly couldn’t be a comfortable place for resting. Still, he said nothing, other than reiterating, “Leave.”

The other ignored him. “Do I have an innate domain too?”

“If you do not leave, I will dismantle your head from your neck and force you to.”

The boy promptly shut his eyes and pretended to snore. 

Sukuna rolled his eyes (again) and took a seat on top of his vessel. The latter gave up on sleeping and squaked in indignation, squirming underneath him. 

“You have the potential to create one, at the very least.” Seeing as prodding Yuuji to do anything would never go anywhere, Sukuna switched tactics. “You need better control over your cursed energy, however.”

Yuuji managed to shove Sukuna off of him enough to slip into a sitting position a meter or so away. He frowned for a moment, then an idea seemed to suddenly come to him. He folded his hands in his lap, as polite as the curse had ever seen him. Then he said, with full conviction, “Alright, so train me.”

Sukuna smiled. This brat. “Why would I do that?” 

“Because! You need me to be strong, right? So I’m not a hindrance? You said it yourself! And besides, Gojo-Sensei is always so busy. Plus, I have a mission coming up I need to be ready for.”

“I’ll give you one minute.” Sukuna stood up, yawning.

“Huh?”

“If you can land a hit on me in the next sixty-seconds, I will train you. Within those sixty-seconds, I will not attack or make a move against you in any way, only dodge. If you fail to hit me once the minute is up, you will leave my domain and not bother me again. Agreed?”

Yuuji grinned, rising as well and rolling his shoulder out in preparation. “Absolutely! I’m gonna kick your ass for sure!”

“Begin.”

His vessel ran straight for him, not even attempting anything sly, and raised his fist at him. Sukuna side-stepped the attack with ease.

Yuuji didn’t seem discouraged by this, and leapt immediately into his second shot— quite literally. He flew in the air— an impressive height for a non-sorcerer, Sukuna would admit— and nose-dived down at the curse who, once more, dodged the attack. 

The boy landed on his feet, this time moving low to the ground and skirting along the blood soaked path to land an uppercut on Sukuna. Again, Sukuna evaded this. 

“Thirty seconds, brat,” he said as Yuuji whipped around to swing punch after punch at the other. He was off by a centimeter each time. 

The boy was fast, for one who’d never had any formal training. He’d only recently had lessons with Gojo, as his death had been faked after the detention center incident to allow the Six Eyes to train him without interference. 

Train, of course, was a strong word for what Gojo did. 

Regardless, the isolation had, evidently, made his vessel antsy if he was begging Sukuna for interaction. Briefly, he wondered if that had played a part in what caused Yuuji’s nightmare. 

Presently, Yuuji was releasing all he had at the curse, his mixed martial arts blending into acrobatics blending into calisthenics.  He was close, Sukuna could sense it. Just one more push…

“Use your head, brat. Ten seconds.” 

What Sukuna had intended with those words was for Yuuji to think of something tactically sound and crafty. And by the sudden sparkle in his eyes, Sukuna had thought he’d taken the hint. But his vessel, of course, did not heed his meaning. 

No, instead the boy had taken the words at face-value and slammed his head into Sukuna’s. The attack— the headbutt— was so abrupt and so absurd Sukuna had no time to counteract it, instead falling backwards from the force with Yuuji tumbling down beside him. 

For a moment, no one said anything. 

Sukuna laid stunned on his back, as Yuuji panted and rose above him. There was an ugly red-purple bruise building on his forehead, but the boy was grinning from ear to ear.

“There,” he said between breaths. “I did it. I landed a hit on you. Now you have to train me.”

Sukuna grabbed the brat by his hair and flung him face-first into the curse’s knee. 

“Ow! Ow— Hey, what the hell!”

He let go and his vessel toppled over, cradling his abused head. 

“You are an idiot, Yuuji Itadori.” He stood up, folding his arms over his chest. He made a point not to check if a similar red-purple mark donned his forehead as well. “But you are a successful idiot, nonetheless. I will train you.”

The night before his mission, Yuuji came to Sukuna’s domain. He had figured out how to come here of his volition, instead of just subconsciously drifting there (for whatever reason), and now it seemed Sukuna could never get rid of him. Mostly, he came to train, which Sukuna was amicable about. 

The boy was getting better, stronger. He had more control over his energy and his senses were further fine-tuned. He would still easily lose to Sukuna in a true battle, but that was as it should be.

He was training this brat to survive, not to surpass him. 

Tonight, Yuuji was quiet— a rarity for him. He had propped his elbows up to cradle the back of his head as he leaned against a pile of skulls. A few days prior, Sukuna had sliced the bone into what could almost be considered a chair, after Yuuji had whined that it wasn’t fair Sukuna had a throne all to himself and Yuuji was stuck standing. Sukuna had reminded his vessel that this was his innate domain, suited for him only, but it went nowhere.

“Speak your mind, brat.” Currently, the curse was sitting cross-legged on the ground near the blood river. He was carving the handle of a calligraphy brush with his technique, carefully rounding the edges to better fit his hand. Though physical objects didn’t really exist in one’s innate domain, and were rather metaphysical expressions of thought, Sukuna still derived comfort in the task of writing. It gave him something to do, something to keep his hands and mind busy, when he wasn’t training Yuuji.

“Hm?”

“You came here for something. Quit wasting my time and tell me what it is.”

“Mm,” the boy looked at his lap, his eyes dimming. “I don’t really know, to be honest.”

Sukuna withheld a sigh. Fine, then. He’d go on ignoring the brat.

“I just—“ And there went that idea. “—Wanted to know if you think I’m ready for this mission, I guess. I mean, you saw how my last one went.”

This time, Sukuna really did sigh. “If you go on thinking that you’ll continue to be just as weak as you were then. You are stronger now, you know that. Believe yourself ready or not, I don’t care. You will be, whether or not you think so, and that is all that matters.”

He finished whittling the handle and moved to attach the ferrule. 

“Okay,” Yuuji said, hopping up from his bone chair. Just like that, his mood completely changed. He smiled and sauntered over to Sukuna to peer over his shoulder. “Whoa! I didn’t know you were an artist.”

Sukuna scowled. “Anyone with a semblance of dignity in the Heian Era possessed knowledge in calligraphy.”

“Oh, yeah? Even you? You’ve got to show me, please!” 

He narrowed his eyes at the other. “Since when did you develop a fascination with the arts?”

“Aw, c’mon, Sukuna!” Yuuji whined. “I don’t know anything about you other than your ability to kill things. Let me see it just this once, please?”

“You truly are the most vexing of creatures.”

Even as he said this, he set aside the brush he was working on and retrieved a pre-made one, an ink slab, and a sheet of parchment. He was never too pedantic about setting up a perfectly fitted station and whatnot, merely wrote where and what he wanted when he wanted. 

As of now, the ground of his innate domain would do just fine as a desk. Dipping his brush into the ink, Sukuna carefully inscribed thus: 

“ Why ever come into this life to grow, young sprout—

don’t you know sorrows flourish in this world as countless as

the nodes on a bamboo stalk?”

“Huh,” was Yuuji’s succinct reply. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the characters are super pretty! But the poem itself is a little dark, no?”

Sukuna scoffed. “You are young and foolishly sanguine. Reality will sink in for you eventually.” 

The boy just frowned. “Let me try,” he asked, holding out his hand for the brush.

Amused, Sukuna handed it to him and pulled out a separate sheet for him to write on.

“Go ahead, brat.”

Yuuji’s grip on the brush was all sorts of incorrect, and his position hunched over the parchment was even worse, but Sukuna said nothing until his vessel finished and pulled away. What he revealed was (at least intended to be) this: 

“ Petals bloom then scatter

a sorrowful spring parting

but surely you will come again

to view the flowering capital.”

Sukuna burst into a laughing fit, his sides splitting the more he looked at the poem. The characters were horribly misshapen, each blending into the next with no hope of salvage. To make matters worse, most of the ink had been smudged and blotched about, leaving a nearly incomprehensible mess.

“Hey! It’s my first time, okay! No one is good at something on their first try!” Yuuji tried to defend himself, his hands on his hips.

“Truly, brat, in my thousand years of living never have I seen worse handwriting,” he replied once his laughter finally died down. 

“Will you at least say something about the poem itself?”

Sukuna hummed, rubbing his chin between his forefinger and thumb. “It is the sort of blind, hopeful optimism I would expect from you, boy. Though I am surprised you are familiar with Lady Murasaki Shikibu.”

Yuuji squirmed a little, looking away. Sukuna couldn’t tell if it was out of bashfulness or discomfort. “Grandpa used to read The Tale of Genji to me when I was younger,” he replied quietly.

Ah. It felt as though ages had passed since Sukuna first sorted through Yuuji’s memories. He had forgotten that particular detail. 

“Hm,” Sukuna grunted, in lieu of a response. “Go to sleep, brat.” 

“Aww, you always say that when I start to have fun!”  Yuuji droned, standing up. 

“Because you are a petulance. Sleep.”

That night, Yuuji dreamt of a much younger version of himself running through a hazy field, trying to capture each and every peach blossom before they were carried away by the spring wind.

His mission was proceeding swiftly by. Though Yuuji was still technically dead in accordance with all previous records on him, Gojo had felt it prudent to let another in on their secret. Kento Nanami.

There wasn’t much Sukuna could say about the man, other than he appeared to be a better mentor than Gojo (not that that was a hard thing to accomplish, though). In all honesty, Sukuna was a bit bored of the situation. 

They were investigating some punk kid with curse residuals on him, and Sukuna could really care less about what happened to him. Yuuji, of course, was the complete opposite.

He immediately grew attached to the other boy— what was his name? Junya, Junki, Junpei, something like that. Despite the warning signs, and Jun-whatever’s apparent connection to the cursed spirit and Sukuna’s finger, Yuuji didn’t care. He followed his heart before his head to the umpteenth degree.

There was no better example of this than the events currently transpiring now.

After Junpei’s (Sukuna retrieved the name from Yuuji’s memories) connection with the cursed spirit was confirmed, Yuuji was given strict instruction by Nanami not to go after Junpei and the cursed spirit. Sukuna agreed with this sentiment; the creature behind the scenes wasn’t a mindless one like the previous special-grade Yuuji had fought. While he was certain Yuuji could, by now, tackle something like the detention center’s curse, he was apprehensive towards one with more wit.

Hell, even Ijichi, the glorified valet, had tried to dissuade Yuuji from going. 

Still, the boy did not listen. 

He burst in through the high school gymnasium doors, finding the floor scattered with dozens if not hundreds of student corpses. Behind the calamity stood Junpei, his hand raised with a composed, unshaken expression as another student writhed a foot off the floor in front of him. Yuuji’s heart stuttered.

“What’re you doing,” he screamed. “Junpei!?”

The other turned to him, unphased. “Stay out of this, jujutsu sorcerer.”

Junpei summoned his shikigami— a jellyfish type, and a large one at that— and Yuuji wasted no time in jumping into action. They had repositioned into the hallway to fight, away from the mound of corpses. Even so, the friendship that had been building over the last few days tugged at their heartstrings, forcing them to hold back. 

Junpei urged Yuuji to leave. Once again, this did not work.

The moment his vessel had his mind set on something, his resolve did not falter. This must have been especially true after having witnessed the dead bodies back in the gymnasium.

“What’s the point of thoughtlessly saving people?” Junpei argued, cursed energy boiling to the surface as he propelled his shikigami at Yuuji with full force. Sukuna had been mostly tuning their scuffling out, more interested in Yuuji’s combat ability. ”That’s not what life’s about!”

The shikigami swarmed Yuuji, but the boy had been trained by Sukuna himself, and so he hardly struggled against it. With little difficulty, he reached a hand through its tendrils to grab onto Junpei’s collar, shouting back, “Who are you making excuses to?”

He moved to attack the shikigami, but his strikes were worthless, and the shikigami didn’t even shift under the weight of his onslaught.

“Use more cursed energy, brat,” Sukuna encouraged.

Yuuji, for once, listened. His fist swelled with power, and he slammed it into the shikigami. The force of it flung the other boy out of the window, and he landed on the overhang of one of the school’s bike racks.

Junpei quickly recovered and repositioned his shikigami, just as Yuuji followed him out of the shattered window, assenting through the air to be at his level.

Moving on instinct, Junpei tried to thwart Yuuji’s landing with his shikigami, but the latter merely slammed his fists into the metal rooftop, destroying both it and the shikigami’s reaching tendrils. 

The other must have been shocked at this display, but Sukuna wasn’t, he mused with a sense of satisfaction. The brat was improving. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Junpei,” said his vessel. He arched his fist back, channeling his cursed energy to flow within it. “String together whatever logic you want. But all you’re doing is trying to convince yourself you’re on the right side of this.”

His knuckles smashed into Junpei’s cheek, launching him backwards and through another window. The kid struggled to retrieve himself, and Yuuji took his chance.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this, Junpei. You must have a reason.” He slowly stepped through the windowsill, drawing in closer. His guard was down, and Sukuna bristled. Foolish. “But is it really worth throwing your life away?” 

The other hung his head, still sprawled out on the floor. He murmured, “Having a heart is a delusion.”

Yuuji froze. “Are you serious? Can you really say something like that to your mom?” He cried.

Junpei kept going. “People… they don’t have hearts.”

“You’re still just trying—!”

“They don’t!” Junpei snapped, his fists trembling. He tilted his head up, and Yuuji found tears streaming down his cheeks. “Otherwise— otherwise, how could people with those same hearts curse me and my mom? That would just be— too much! Then I… I wouldn’t even know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”

He sunk back into himself, his outburst having taken everything out of him. His shikigami, however, floated up behind him, and Sukuna barked at Yuuji to move. But the boy did nothing, and the jellyfish’s spears lodged themselves into his chest.

Sukuna was aggravated.

Junpei was shocked. 

“Why… why didn’t you dodge?” 

He withdrew his shikigami, still kneeling before Yuuji, still trying to process. Sukuna’s vessel approached the other boy, his steps strained from the two holes in his chest. Blood stained the tiles, but he paid it no mind.

“Sorry,” he said, with a genuineness only he could produce. “I said a lot of arrogant stuff back there without knowing what you’re going through.”

Yuuji knelt down, looking at Junpei without a trace of anger or indignation. Only... 

Sukuna cut the thought off.

Useless.

“But you can talk to me. If you do, then I swear to you I won’t curse you anymore. Please.”

He took Junpei’s shaking hands into his own, and Junpei told him of his mother’s passing. Sukuna felt Yuuji’s heart clench, and he closed his metaphysical eyes in frustration, shaking his metaphysical head. There really was no stopping his bleeding heart.

“Junpei,” Yuuji spoke up after a while. “Join Jujutsu High. You’d like it. There are lots of crazy strong teachers, and good, reliable friends there. If we all work together, I guarantee you we can find out who cursed your mom.”

He spoke with renewed vigor, but Sukuna wasn’t paying attention to any of it. There was some other presence drawing closer, something fresh and potently strong. More pressing. 

“We’ll punish ‘em. So, let’s fight together!”

There it was.

“ Brat!”

Yuuji looked up just in time to see the cursed spirit prance down the staircase behind Junpei. He was human looking, with long bluish hair and stitch marks across his skin— ones that almost reminded Sukuna of Kenjaku, but he would know if the bastard was around; he was sure of that— but behind that crooked smile Sukuna sensed a rich, rotting darkness. 

“Who are you?” His vessel asked, perhaps not yet realizing the man before him was no man at all.

“I guess it’s nice to meet you,” said the curse. He reached up, and his arm swelled to double its size. Some sort of body modification technique? “Sukuna’s vessel.”

So the cursed spirit did have more knowledge that he should. Sukuna suspected as much, but to have it laid out before him directly… just what was a curse like that hoping to achieve? 

“Wait, Mahito!” Junpei tried fruitlessly to assuage the situation, but the cursed spirit— Mahito– evidently didn’t care.

His arm inflated to ten times its size and slammed Yuuji into the wall behind him. The enlarged hand kept him pinned there as the boy strained and struggled to release himself from its grip.

“Junpei, run!” He shouted. “I don’t know how you know this guy but just run away! Please!”

“Don’t worry, Itadori! Mahito isn’t a bad per—“

Junpei’s words were cut short as the cursed spirit appeared behind him, his hand on his shoulder.

“Junpei,” Mahito said, that sickly smile still plastered on his face. If he were a living creature, his breath would’ve pressed against the kid’s cheek. “You’re a pretty smart guy. But you overthink things when you should act, which puts you in some pretty bad spots.”

“ Forget the kid,” Sukuna told Yuuji. “ Get out of here. This is a foe you are not yet strong enough to defeat.”

“This is a perfect example! Junpei, all those people you think are stupid… Well, guess what?” He snickered. “You’re just as stupid as they are.

“That’s why you’re gonna die.”

Just like that, the kid’s head swelled like a balloon and his body contorted, twisting around until he was some animalistic shell of himself. Unrecognizable.

His cursed technique affects others too.

Mahito released Yuuji, and the boy stood frozen in horror. 

“Junpei..?”

The creature who was once Junpei barged into Yuuji, and the latter wrapped his arms around his neck to keep him in a headlock.

“Junpei, get it together!” The creature squirmed and writhed. “I’m gonna help you!”

He seemed to be incapable of rational thought at this point, though, and continued trying to attack Yuuji.

“Sukuna,” His vessel called out. “Sukuna!”

“What?” Sukuna snapped, forming an eye and mouth on the boy’s cheek. The brat hadn’t listened to him thus far, but now all of a sudden he wanted something from him? What a bother.

“I’ll do anything! Anything you want, anything I can! Just help him, help Junpei. Please, like when you fixed my hand.”

His voice cracked pitifully, but unfortunately for him, Sukuna was in no merciful mood.

“No.”

“Wh— What?”

“Your insatiable desire for saving everyone is getting on my nerves, brat. You have forgotten your place, ordering me around like that. Why should I do you any favors? You are my vessel. The kid is beyond saving, it’s time you face the truth.”

“No, you’re wrong—!”

“Yuu— ji—“ Junpei pulled at Yuuji’s pants, startling the latter out of his quarrel with Sukuna. “W-why…?”

Then he slumped to the floor and died.

Mahito burst into laughter. Not like Sukuna’s fit the other night over Yuuji’s lowly handwriting; this was cruel, condescending. Deriving joy in other’s suffering.

“Oh, already dead?” The curse giggled, like a toddler who had accidentally torn the sleeve of his doll. “I transfigured him a little aggressively, I guess.”

Yuuji had yet to take a breath, still staring at the lifeless mound of flesh at his feet, unable to believe what was before his very own eyes.

Sukuna sighed. “Brat, it is as I said, you cannot—“

Yuuji slammed his fist into Mahito’s face, sending him flying into the stairs. The attack was surprisingly strong, reaching Mahito’s soul enough to cause his nose to bleed. He had learned to intuit, by virtue of being a vessel and sparring soul-to-soul with Sukuna, the contours of a spirit— a skill Sukuna, at the time, hadn’t realized would become so valuable. 

He felt the twinge of something warm blossom in his chest, but he couldn’t quite pin down what it was he was feeling, so he ignored it. 

“ I’m gonna kill you,” Yuuji said, and Sukuna was taken aback by the ferocity of the statement. Not only was it violent in nature, it was assured. It was not just a desire, but a declaration of fate. An assertion that, no matter what, such an ending would come to be. 

From a boy as heartfelt and naive as his vessel, it was nearly unbecoming of him.

The cursed spirit, of course, didn’t understand (or care) for the complexities of such words.

“Don’t you mean ‘exorcise,’ jujutsu sorcerer?” He teased.

The pair lapsed into battle after that, and Yuuji held nothing back. His cursed energy output was getting better, and so too was his strength and quick thinking in battle. Honestly, all things aside, it was a good demonstration of  just how much Yuuji had grown since the detention center incident if nothing else. 

But he was no match for Mahito.

They had made it out in the courtyard by the time Sukuna spoke up again.

“This is pointless, you cannot defeat him. Leave, brat.”

Yuuji paid him no mind, grunting as Mahito sent spikes through the backs of his hands. Sukuna growled.

“Listen to me, you punk! If you won’t flee then switch with me; I’ll kill him!”

“Why should I?” Yuuji snapped back. “You didn’t want to help me before, so why should I believe anything’s changed?”

You weren’t in danger before. 

But of course, Sukuna couldn’t say that. 

Yuuji swung Mahito around and darted at him, landing punch after punch before, inevitably, Mahito usurped him. Caught in a pile of spikes that were strung through his chest, Yuuji was powerless to do anything as Mahito approached him with his technique.

“Sukuna is right,” he said. “You can’t beat me. Now, go on and switch.”

He pressed a hand to Yuuji’s chest and activated his technique, presumably to force the switch into occurring. 

Instead, he found himself in Sukuna’s innate domain.

The King of Curses was sitting upon his throne of skulls, and when Mahito arrived, he tilted his chin onto his fist and looked down at him; an ant amongst the rubble. 

“You dare attempt to touch my vessel’s soul? To touch my soul?” He hissed out the words, watching with muted pleasure as Mahito squirmed.

He was a young curse, just recently born, Sukuna could tell. That gave him no excuse for such impudence, however.

“You are worse than the brat. Die.”

He threw out the beginnings of Cleave , but the cursed spirit was smart enough to realize he’d been subdued and backed out of his domain just as the attack started to land.

In the physical world, he howled out in pain, clutching at his bisected face. Yuuji, realizing what was going on, used Mahito’s momentary weakness to his advantage.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m not gonna switch. I’m gonna kill you.”

He smashed his head into Mahito’s.

Sukuna shook his head internally. Seriously, who had told him that was a smart move?

Nonetheless, the boy was more feral and vicious than Sukuna had initially given him credit for. Despite the marked difference in their skill, he was holding his own surprisingly well.

But for how long would that last…

The brat survived. 

Soon after Mahito had left Sukuna’s domain, Nanami came to Yuuji’s rescue. They hadn’t fully vanquished the cursed spirit, though, and that was Sukuna’s only regret.

Other than that, his vessel had proven himself in battle, but he was still so irritatingly philanthropic. Hell, he even went so far as to break into Mahito’s domain, just to rescue Nanami. 

Foolish little thing.

He had hoped that seeing Junpei die would’ve made it click in Yuuji’s brain that his continued existence relied on being selfish, disregarding those weaker than you. But no such luck.

And that was another thing: Yuuji had stopped coming to Sukuna’s innate domain to rest. 

Whereas before he would do so unintentionally (and later, Sukuna suspected, with enthusiasm), he avoided Sukuna at all costs. He didn’t even ask for training or to try out a new move, something Sukuna was all but anticipating would happen after his first real fight with a cursed spirit. 

But there was nothing.

Instead, it seemed as if… Well. It almost seemed as if he was going out of his way to pretend the King of Curses didn’t exist at all. 

This all came to a head when Yuuji awoke from a nightmare. He had had several since the fight with Mahito; at least one every night. Tonight’s was particularly bad, leaving him sweaty and shaking and gasping for air. His face was stained with tears, and he groaned as he sat up.

The sheets shuffled around him, and he balled the fabric into his fists, letting out a frustrated cry as he knocked his head into his knees. 

He hugged his legs to his chest, trying to hide his face. From whom, Sukuna didn’t know. Certainly it couldn’t have been him, given Sukuna witnessed everything from Yuuji’s own perspective, but then who else? It was empty here, in the basement.

He was alone.

The boy trembled, and a few more tears slipped from his eyes.

Angered at himself— for reasons Sukuna couldn’t yet piece together— he slammed his fist into his legs, letting out the same stunted cry each time. After the fourth round of this, Sukuna summoned an eye and maw on the boy’s cheekbone. 

“Brat,” he said calmly. “Enough.”

Yuuji’s hand— which was still raised in the air, ready to strike against himself once more— fell and landed beside him on the bed. With that one move, it was as if all the energy had been sucked out of him, and he deflated in defeat. 

“Why are you here,” he mumbled eventually. He sunk his right cheek on his knee as if to push Sukuna away, but the curse just relocated to his other one. 

“I am always here,” Sukuna replied. “You are my vessel.”

The boy tensed. “Don’t.” He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “Don’t call me that. I can’t— not from you.”

“Then cease this loud self-destruction of yours. It is very disruptive.”

“It’s not self— can’t I be angry?! Don’t I have a right to that, at least!”

“Brat.”

“Just leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough?”

Done enough—! 

Alright. That was it.

Sukuna dragged Yuuji into his innate domain; the first time he’d been there since Mahito. The boy was sitting on the ground in his pajamas, and after a brief moment of silent shock, he turned to face Sukuna.

“ You!” He swung a punch at him, and then another after Sukuna dodged the first, and then another, and then another. 

In the end, Sukuna had to restrain him, pinning his arm behind his back while the other one reached out fervently in an attempt to grab him. 

“Let go of me! Let me out of here!” He shouted. 

“Enough with this tantrum, brat.” Sukuna said firmly, still keeping the other’s wrist in place even as he wriggled around and kicked up dirt. “It is annoying, but more than that, it is hindering your training. Explain yourself or get over it.”

The brat gave escape one more valiant (worthless) attempt, before ostensibly surrendering. He slumped to his knees and, after a few moments, Sukuna slowly released his arm. When Yuuji made no move to strike him again, Sukuna huffed.

At last, his vessel spoke up. “I don’t understand.” 

His voice was small and timid. That irked Sukuna, for some reason.

He sat down, crossing his arms. Yuuji’s back was to him, his head dipped in a low display of vanquishment. “Elaborate, boy.”

“You,” he continued, as if that was any help. “I don’t understand you. One moment you’re disregarding me, the next you’re— you—“ He gestured vaguely with his hand before finally turning around. “Doing this.” Yuuji waved his hand at him. “I don’t get it. Do you care or not? Gojo-sensei said you were once a real person— a sorcerer— but just how much of that is left in you? How much of you is an irredeemable monster from legend, and how much is…” 

He trailed off, but Sukuna got the picture. 

How much is human?

And if it were anyone else, anyone but his vessel, his accursed nephew of unknown origin, they would’ve lost their ability to speak after the first few words. But Yuuji wasn’t anyone else, and so he remained, all pieces intact.

Sukuna sighed and answered, “If you mean to ask if I care, you are entirely mistaken. I do not care, I have never cared, and I never will. For you or for anyone else. Even before I became a cursed object, I understood the worthlessness of love. That is simply who I am, who I have always been, and who I will continue to be.”

Yuuji listened, and his eyes darkened. He was quiet for a long while.

“Is that why you let Junpei die?” He murmured under his breath. 

Ah. Still upset over that, are we? How could one weak, futile little life mean so much?

“You still don’t get it, brat. Love is meaningless. Love will not save you in a fight, nor will it preserve your life should you fall victim to any other affliction. Love offers nothing. Yet you place it above all else, and that is your ultimate flaw. You cast aside your life for others, even those who have no hope of surviving with or without your help. Junpei was a prime example of that.”

“Liar! He died because you didn’t want to save him!”

“And if I had?” Sukuna snapped back. “Would he not have just continued to get in your way, falling victim to the same attack again and again until no amount of reverse cursed technique could save him? Or, worse, lead to your own demise? You were barely holding your own against Mahito without that nuisance there.”

“Stop it!” Yuuji stood up, his eyes shimmering and breath hammering in his lungs with unshed emotion. “That doesn’t matter. I would’ve figured something out. That’s what love is: trying again and again for someone even if it’s hard.”

Sukuna scoffed. “And you still see no problem with that?”

“No, I don’t. Because people aren’t meant to go like Junpei did. They’re meant— they’re meant to go surrounded by others. And if I can make sure even one person I love has a proper death, then I’ll know my life, and everything I sacrificed along the way, was worth it.”

He huffed, sitting back down. When he looked at Sukuna, his eyes were burning, but not with the hatred he would’ve expected. 

“So answer me honestly, Sukuna. Do you really understand love, or do you just find it easier to cast it aside entirely and act like loneliness doesn’t affect you?”

The curse paused. Then, he laughed, harder than he had before, with the calligraphy. Harder than Mahito had laughed at Yuuji, when Junpei died. Harder than he ever had in his life, he was sure. He laughed without regard for the situation, without regard for Yuuji’s reaction to it.

He laughed because no one, no one, other than the one before him would ever dare to ask him such a thing.

“You are an unequivocal thing, Yuuji Itadori. You truly have no regard for your own self-preservation, saying things like that.” Sukuna smirked, thoroughly amused, and thought to himself how much more fun keeping the brat alive was than he could’ve ever anticipated. “Do you mean to suggest that you be the one to teach me the ‘true’ meaning of love?”

Yuuji nodded, with no indication of sarcasm or flippancy. He was dead serious. “If that’s what it takes to get you to see the flaws in your logic, then, yes.”

“Kuku, you truly think you can? I have been alive for a millennium, and not once has anyone or anything shifted my perspective.”

“Then I guess I’ll be the first.”

“Oh?” Sukuna sat up. He couldn’t keep the bemused smile off his face, to the point even Yuuji was starting to mirror it. “And what makes you think you’re so different from all those in the past?”

“You said it yourself, Sukuna,” Yuuji said. “I’m your vessel.”

He didn’t realize the gravity of his words, the uniqueness of his very construct, but that just made it all the more striking that he was saying things like that at all. 

Yuuji Itadori.

Are you really the son of Kenjaku? The nephew of mine?

But then again, who else could have come up with such a strange conviction? 

Still, he didn’t bear the weight of such knowledge yet, and for now, Sukuna would keep it that way. 

Afterall, he was eager to see just how Yuuji planned on convincing him of all this.

The next night, Yuuji came to his domain to rest. He did not have any nightmares. Sukuna told himself this was because earlier that day Gojo had told him he was to reunite with his classmates, and the promise of that had incited comfort and excitement.

There was surely no other reason.

Chapter Text

The Kyoto Goodwill Event was something Sukuna, admittedly, had little interest in. Apart from Yuuji experiencing more battles with curses as well as other sorcerers, there was little intrigue for Sukuna to care about.

Although, just prior to the event, Yuuji had revealed his status as alive and well to his classmates. He had been excited about it for hours, expecting to be greeted with overwhelming joy and celebration. Which, of course, did not go as planned. Amidst everything, that had made Sukuna chortle; the boy truly didn’t understand the difference between the life of an average civilian and that of a sorcerer. Death of a peer was commonplace, expected even, and the mourning period for such an event was slim to none. 

In Sukuna’s eyes, Fushiguro and Kugisaki had taken Yuuji’s apparent “revival” better than expected. 

And that Fushiguro boy…

“ Itadori, are you okay?”

“Well, it’s a big job, but I should be fine!”

“Not that. Something happened while you were away, didn’t it?”

Inside his innate domain, Sukuna pinched his brow. Fushiguro’s scrutiny went beyond simple observation and breached into genuine care for the other. It seemed not even Yuuji’s faked death was able to crush one boy’s feelings for another. 

Sorcerers and their accursed hearts.

Whatever. As of currently, Sukuna didn’t suspect Yuuji reciprocated (or even understood) the Ten Shadows user’s feelings, and that was fine by him. The last thing Yuuji needed was to be more distracted by the tribulations of the heart.

Although, what Yuuji had told him the other night… 

Sukuna brushed the thought aside. His vessel would fail in his “attempt” to enlighten Sukuna, and the latter would revel in the aftermath of his self-imposed defeat. 

For now, Sukuna was more interested in Yuuji’s fight with the boy from the Kyoto school— Aoi Todo. Although he was a little (actually, scratch that, very much so) unhinged, and his technique was not all that impressive on its own, he was a respectable fighter and, more importantly, pushed Yuuji to his edge.

A disadvantage of training in Sukuna’s innate domain was that any physical or spiritual attacks performed by either party were not in their true forms. None of the attacks could truly harm the other, and any residual damage would be immediately healed by Sukuna’s Reversed Cursed Technique. It made Yuuji’s wariness towards fighting with Sukuna subside, knowing the curse couldn’t actually kill or incapacitate him, but there were always drawbacks to everything. 

In this way, there was a certain satisfaction Sukuna felt towards Yuuji sparring with someone who could quite literally push him into a stronger version of himself. Even if said someone had a weird affinity for asking a person’s romantic preferences and then declaring said person their best friend.

All sorcerers were peculiar, though.

It came with the job.

The brat was doing well, by all accounts. Sukuna thought this as he folded his arms into his sleeves, a smug smile drawing on his lips. He was durable and relentless, and was taking at least some of the tactical lessons Sukuna was feeding him to heart— if that attack from the tree was anything to go by. Yuuji was smarter than he let on and grasped concepts with ease. Truly, it was as the saying went: children were malleable like clay. Particularly so in Yuuji’s case.

For the briefest moment, Sukuna returned to his own past, and wondered if he was like that at Yuuji’s age. But there was no point in doing so; Sukuna never had someone to teach nor guide him in the same way his vessel did.  

In the present moment, Todo suddenly backed away from their duel.

“Itadori, my friend!” His boisterous voice echoed throughout the forest. “That delayed hit holds you back, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what I have been trying to tell you, brat,” Sukuna added.

Todo continued, “As long as you remain satisfied with that, you’ll never defeat me! If you’re okay with the way you are now then… Our friendship won’t last.”

He bowed his head in disappointment.

“So,” he said slowly. “Are you?”

Yuuji looked unimpressed, the same as how he’d looked when Sukuna had lectured him about the same thing. 

That all changed, however, when Todo reiterated, “Are you okay with being weak?”

Immediately, the boy startled and cried out, “Hell no!”

What? Why the sudden switch up! You don’t care when I say that!

Yuuji, of course, did not reply.

Sukuna huffed, leaning back on his throne. Disobedient wretch.

Still, when he made another strike against Todo, his form was better. But the Kyoto student didn’t seem content with just one menial fix. Instead, he sought to bring Yuuji’s fighting spirit out to its fullest, which was commendable. Todo lapsed into the intricacies of channeling cursed energy throughout the body, the ways in which it ebbed and flowed, and it was then Sukuna realized what he was trying to do.

He wanted Yuuji to learn to perform a Black Flash. 

Interesting.

Sukuna had never put much thought into the technique; Shrine and Divine Flame covered most of the battles he got himself into succinctly. But for Yuuji, whose style was concentrated on brute force and martial arts, the technique could prove itself useful. 

Sukuna steepled his fingers beneath his jaw, thoroughly entertained.

“ Listen well to him, boy,” he encouraged. 

Yuuji never really responded unless Sukuna fully came out and spoke through his summoned eye and mouth, but he knew the boy had heard him. 

“Todo,” Yuuji said, when the other had finished his explanation. “Thank you. I think I get it now.”

“Good. So, let’s go all out!”

They had only begun fighting again for a few moments before Sukuna felt a well of dark cursed energy boil over and barrel into him. Worst of all, the curse could sense Mahito among the pack. He straightened immediately; Yuuji’s cursed energy level was still too low to pick up on cursed presences like Sukuna could, meaning it was up to him to alert his vessel.

“Brat!” He said, peaking through Yuuji’s cheek. The boy paused his step, and even Todo hesitated to stare. “The school has been intruded upon.” Worthless staff. “There are special-grade cursed spirits approaching.”

Sukuna made a point not to mention Mahito’s presence. His vessel was dead set on killing the curse, and while Sukuna wasn’t opposed to the idea (so long as he was able to derive some information out of it), at Yuuji’s current rank he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Worse still, Sukuna had yet to form a binding vow with Yuuji, meaning he couldn’t just take over the boy’s body and move as he pleased. 

No, if he wanted to reach Kenjaku, they would have to be careful about their next steps. 

Just as he thought this, the sky began to darken, and an inky black substance encircled the forest like a dome.

“That’s a veil,” Yuuji said, his eyes widening. “Sukuna’s right. There are cursed-spirits here.” 

Todo gaped at him. “You… talk to him?”

The boy shrugged. “Yeah? I mean, he knows a lot, so he’s helpful in battles and stuff.”

“Hah! You really do have him under your control. As expected of my best friend!”

Sukuna snarled. “How dare you—“

“Sukuna, I’ve got a question for you.” Todo pointed a finger at him. “What’s your type? Women? Men? It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you have one.” 

Sukuna was dumbstruck. 

Nevermind. Even if the idiot did teach his vessel to perform a Black Flash, it wouldn’t make up for this. 

“Go on, answer! I’m really curious, you know.”

“ You—“

“Don’t worry about that!” Yuuji cut in, smacking his cheek before Sukuna could finish. The latter begrudgingly resigned back to his domain. “We need to regroup with everybody else! There’s a good chance the teachers can’t reach us because of the veil, and if there are special-grades around, we need to group up to defeat them.”

Todo clapped him on the back and hummed his agreement. 

However, when Yuuji attempted to call Fushiguro (then Kugisaki, before he realized belatedly he’d forgotten to get the second-years’ numbers), no one picked up. The brat sighed in dismay. It seemed they’d have to search for the others the old-fashioned way.

By the time Todo and Yuuji found them, Fushiguro and the Zen’in girl were standing in a pond, toe-to-toe with one of the special-grade curses. It was humanoid, with a ghastly white, muscled body and a head with black markings and wooden stems that protruded from its eyes.

Hm.

Cursed spirits rarely teamed up unless they were one in the same. So what had brought them together? Or, more precisely, what had Kenjaku done to bring them together?

“You good, Itadori, my friend?” Todo called over his shoulder after they’d slammed into the curse together. His constant reassertion of their being friends was starting to get on Sukuna’s nerves, but then again, it wasn’t like he was an expert on interpersonal relationships. Perhaps this was normal for teenage boys of the time. 

“Yeah!” Yuuji replied.

His vessel, though a little battered and bruised, was high-strung on energy. Even Sukuna himself was galvanized.

Though the cursed spirit was undoubtedly strong, he wasn’t too worried about Yuuji’s own mortality. His classmates were there; more importantly, Fushiguro was there. And, as much as it pained him to say it, if the boy bit off more than he could chew, Sukuna could be assured Fushiguro would pull him back from the edge.

After all, it was he who had implored Gojo to keep Yuuji alive after Sukuna had taken over. He, who had waited back at the detention center for Yuuji. He, who had found the blood of the other boy scattered across the building and still refused to believe him dead until Gojo told him so.

Yes. They would be fine.

“Stop, Itadori!” Speak of the damn devil. “That’s not the kind of enemy we can—“

“Panda,” Todo interrupted Fushiguro, carrying the Zen’in girl in his arms. “Take these two and get out of the veil. According to Nishimiya, it’s specifically designed to counter Satoru Gojo, so you should be able to go in and out no problem.” 

He handed the Zen’in off to Panda, but Fushiguro was still having none of it.

“ Wait! Even you won’t—“

“Fushiguro. It’s okay,” Yuuji soothed, just as he had the last time they’d seen each other. He turned to face the other boy and smiled.

Perhaps Sukuna was wrong in assuming his vessel didn’t reciprocate.

With one last, “If you die again I’ll kill you myself!” (to which Yuuji had retorted, “I didn’t even die last time, but okay! I won’t! Promise!”) the Ten Shadows User finally left.

It was just Yuuji and Todo now. 

“Itadori, I won’t interfere,” said Todo, stepping back to the rocky banks of the river. “Not until you successfully use Black Flash! No matter what, if you can’t use it, then I’ll watch you die!”

Yuuji, used to such harsh reprimands from a certain cursed spirit that lived in his body, replied only with a curt, “Got it!”

“ Kuku. Good luck, brat.”

In front of him, the special-grade murmured some ostensible gibberish, and Yuuji’s heart stuttered.

“You can talk?” He hesitated. “Then… There's something I want to ask you.”

The cursed spirit paused, seemingly humoring him. 

“Is there a curse in your group with a human form and a stitched-up face?”

Shit.

This was precisely the event Sukuna didn’t want to occur. If Yuuji knew of Mahito’s involvement, he would be distracted, which would surely render him unable to perform a Black Flash.

Sukuna tried to assert as much. “ Do not get distract—“

“And if I said there is?” The special-grade responded, unintentionally interrupting him. 

Not even an assured yes.

But that was all it took. 

Yuuji saw red and immediately launched into his attack. His blows were hard, fast, and agile, but his cursed energy output was all sorts of jumbled. He was letting his emotions get in the way.

With one move from the special-grade, Yuuji was forced to dart back into the banks. His vision, however, was still narrowed at it. Thus, he didn’t notice when Todo appeared next to him.

“Itadori, my friend,” was all the elder said before landing a heavy slap on the other’s face. He was speaking again before Yuuji had even recovered. “Anger is a valuable trigger for a Jujutsu sorcerer. But… Mishandling cursed energy when angered wastes your skills and will end in defeat. 

“Your friend, Fushiguro, is hurt. And worst of all, our bonding time as friends was interrupted, so I understand better than anyone why you would be angered.”

Aside from the first part, that was probably not at all why Yuuji was so upset. Still, the boy was listening. Why did he listen when this imbecile taught him something, but not when Sukuna said the exact same thing!?

“But that anger is not for you. Suppress it, for now.” Todo slapped him again, but this time, Yuuji was smiling. He understood. 

His vessel always had been a tactile learner, Sukuna supposed. 

“Any more distractions?”

“Nope!” Yuuji wiped his cheek. “Thank you so much, my best friend, Todo!”

God. Fucking. Dammit.

What an annoying brat. 

Why did he always seem to attract the most infuriating of allies? 

At the very least, Yuuji was more focused after that. His mind was loud and spiraling, echoing with the terms of a Black Flash, the requirements, the history of it. He was so surrounded by it all he didn’t even notice the bit of drool falling from his mouth. Sukuna cringed. He had half the mind to reach out and wipe it away, before recalling that this was not his innate domain, and he could not enter the corporeal realm to do so. 

Still, his concentration was at the highest Sukuna had ever seen.

Yuuji could do this. The curse was sure.

The boy charged in and—

There it was.

In .000001 seconds, his fist shot through the special-grade’s chest. Cursed energy crackled and sparked around them, a cacophony of surged power, of which the ground shook from the force of.

In only a few months after becoming a student, Yuuji had landed his first Black Flash. 

“ Good!” Sukuna couldn’t hold back his praise, grinning wildly. “ Under all that strife, you are a fearsome one, Yuuji Itadori!”

His vessel was stunned, looking at his fists in disbelief.

I really…. Did that? That was me? My cursed energy?

Sukuna laughed. “ Did you really think you would be so weak as to not be able to?”

The brat smiled.

But the battle wasn’t over yet.

The special-grade had already regenerated itself, and it seemed to be only increasing its strength. Seeing this, Yuuji hesitated. 

“ Go on,” Sukuna nudged. “ You have the skills. Exorcise it.”

Well, alright then, came Yuuji’s resounding reply.

They did not, in the end, exorcise the special-grade.  The Six Eyes (mark his words, Satoru Gojo would be the first one Sukuna would kill, if for nothing else than for his annoyance) had appeared and ruined the whole show, much to Sukuna’s chagrin. Still, in that time between, Yuuji had managed to land four Black Flashes on the curse. An impressive number for any sorcerer, let alone one so young and new to the field. 

Sukuna would admit it: he was pleased.

It was hard not to be. The brat’s strength was growing at a rapid rate, and though part of that had to do with him obtaining more of Sukuna’s cursed energy, the majority stemmed from Yuuji’s own latent potential. And besides, the stronger he was, the better things tended to be for Sukuna.

The boy would consume more fingers, and, moreover, bring them both closer to the pit of whatever scheme Kenjaku was unfolding. Not much longer, now…

Furthermore, the more Yuuji understood about Jujutsu, the more willing he would be to form a binding vow— something Sukuna was increasingly having trouble trying to set up. One would be needed, certainly, as in almost all cases Yuuji was loath to let Sukuna switch with him. But the boy was stubborn in that way, and he was becoming more and more intuitive by the second. He would not let a binding vow come to fruition without careful consideration. 

Once again, everything came with its drawbacks. 

As of currently, Gojo had seen to it that his students receive a short break from missions after the fiasco that was the Kyoto Goodwill Event (which had ultimately ended in a baseball tournament, of all things). Thus, Yuuji was sitting at his desk in his dorm room, practicing his calligraphy at Sukuna’s prompting.

He was also listening to music at an aggravatingly loud level. 

Sukuna had gotten used to possessing another’s body, which included having learned to tune most of what went on in the corporeal realm out. Yuuji’s penchant for blasting music in his ears, however, he had yet to get over.

“Brat.” He summoned an eye and mouth on the back of his vessel’s hand. “Turn it down.”

“Hm?” Yuuji slipped one side of the headphones off his ear, cradling it in his other hand. Sukuna repeated his statement with more vitriol. The boy frowned. “What? You don’t like Notorious B.I.G.?”

“Not when it is played at that volume. You humans have such sensitive ears, and yet you mutilate them with this crap.”

Yuuji sighed, sinking into his chair. “You’re so old, Sukuna,” he whined. “Like. So old. I bet the music you listened to was so boring.”

Sukuna scoffed. “Can you even understand yours?”

“Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve always wanted to learn English. And I think Gojo-sensei knows it, so maybe I should ask—“

“ No.” Sukuna cut that thought off before it developed into something far worse. “You spend enough time around that fool as it is. I despise his influence on you.”

“You despise everybody.”

Well…

“Show me what you’ve created, brat,” he said instead. 

Yuuji set the brush down (he had asked Gojo for a calligraphy brush; when Yuuji explained why, Gojo had laughed for a full three minutes) and tilted the hand with Sukuna on it so he could look. He’d written the same poem as before, and the characters were… marginally better. If he squinted.

He withheld a sigh.

“Hold the brush less aggressively,” Sukuna said at last.

“Okay!” Came Yuuji’s cheerful reply. He rolled up the scroll and placed it beside some other texts that had piled up on his desk.

While his vessel was still under the guise of being deceased, Gojo had retrieved some literature from Jujutsu High’s library for Yuuji to read over. Yuuji had, admittedly, not gotten very far in that aspect, but Gojo didn’t seem to be in any hurry to return the books, so they stayed on his desk.

Presently, Yuuji moved to inspect one.

He flipped it open, scrolling through the pages of monotonous history and Jujutsu techniques until he found something that appealed to him: a drawing of Sukuna from the Heian Era. 

He lingered on it for a moment.

“Something the matter, brat?” Sukuna asked.

“Is this really what you looked like, back then?”

Yuuji moved his hand so the other could stare at it. His eye blinked a few times. The etching wasn’t all that inaccurate, in actuality. It was heavily stylized, of course, and presented Sukuna as an undoubtedly evil monster, but his base level features were correct. The four arms, the eyes, the mask… the markings were a little off, but overall, it sufficed.

“Mm. It is not a horrible interpretation,” he ended up answering.

“So you really had four arms? Before you turned yourself into a cursed object?” 

“Mm.”

“Even when you were first born?”

“Yes, brat. Does this line of questioning have a point?”

“No, but…” Yuuji traced his fingers over the picture, as if he were in awe of it. “Wow. Your family must’ve been shocked.”

Something twisted in Sukuna. Cracked . Shattered.

The boy didn’t know how close to the truth he was getting. 

He didn’t understand— Family was— He was— 

Sukuna closed the eye that was on Yuuji’s hand. In order to not arouse suspicion, he had to draw his vessel away from this topic. The boy was too y— It would not do well for him to know this information just yet, if at all. It was… unimportant.

“I do not remember if they were,” Sukuna said, with as little feeling as possible. “I was an unwanted child.” 

“Oh.” Yuuji frowned, looking at his hand with… sadness? Irrelevant. “It’s okay. I don’t remember my parents either.”

You don’t know what a blessing that is. 

If Kenjaku had manipulated him, done more to worsen the situation than they already had by creating it in the first place, or so much as harmed him—

Well. 

That would surely be irritating, wouldn’t it?

But, as it were, Yuuji never knew his mother. He was spared from that, at least.  

“It was just me and Grandpa,” Yuuji continued, even though Sukuna hadn’t said anything. “Though I guess you already know that, ‘cause you went through my memories and all. Yeesh, that’s probably embarrassing.”

The boy was rambling. Still, Sukuna didn’t leave, his eye blinking lazily up at the other.

“Did you really not have anyone else?” 

He thought, very, very briefly, of Uraume. How he’d taken them in, put clothes on their back, given them a place to eat, a place to stay. By his side. They were still a child, back then, not too far off from Yuuji’s own age. But, at the end of the day, they were his servant, nothing more. They didn’t even exist at this point. And so Sukuna discarded the thought.

“No one of importance,” was all he ended up saying.

“Yeah, I figured. I guess I wouldn’t know what it’s like, not fully, but… I’m alone too, in a way. ‘Cause Grandpa died, and he was the only family I had left. So… you know.” He gesticulated wildly with his hands, something Yuuji often did when he was at a loss for how to convey something. 

“You’re trying to find common ground between us,” Sukuna realized.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

His lips pulled into a grin. “You really wish to equate yourself with the King of Curses?”

“Oh, come on!” Yuuji slapped the hand with Sukuna on it on his face, causing his iris to spin wildly. He groaned as he sunk back into the chair. “I told you I’d get you to change. See the errors in your ways, and stuff. How can I do that if all I think of you is a demon?”

The other chuckled. “You are very entertaining, I will give you that.”

The boy shot up in his seat, shouting at his hand like a madman. “There! You said it! I knew it— I knew you secretly liked spending time with me!”

“That is not what I said.”

“Yes, it is! No take-backs, okay? Whoa, it’s only been a couple days and you’re already learning how to be nice. I am so good at this.”

Sukuna disappeared from Yuuji’s hand, and the latter gasped in faux-betrayal. He went to clean up his desk, and by the time he finished, midnight was steadily approaching.

He curled up in his bed, exhausted from the events prior. “So mean…” Yuuji mumbled, just before falling asleep. 

Sukuna could only scoff. As if the brat wouldn’t show up to sleep in his innate domain moments later.

It was growing colder. For some reason, that seemed to have an effect on Sukuna’s domain as well. The wind blew with a steady, frigid air. Sukuna paid it no mind– he was resistant to such changes in temperature, but… 

The brat would not stop shivering in his sleep.

And, well, if anyone were to see the cloak Sukuna had fashioned and laid over Yuuji’s body, then he would say that it was only because the sound of chattering teeth and constant trembling was grating to the ears.

There was surely no other reason.

The brat had killed another human. Er– humanoid; Sukuna suspected neither Eso nor Keichizo were just ordinary curse users. In fact, knowing them, Sukuna would venture as far to say the pair’s existence had something to do with Kenjaku. Still, despite his previous experience with the transfigured humans, Yuuji wasn’t over killing rather than exorcising. 

“He cried when his brother died. Doesn’t that make you feel a little bad, at least?” He’d asked.

“Why should it make me feel bad?” Sukuna had responded. They were talking telepathically, Yuuji trying his best to keep the conversation a secret from Kugisaki, who was walking beside him as they moved to rendezvous with Fushiguro.

“Well because, if you had had a brother, wouldn’t you have felt bad if he’d died?”

He scoffed. “This hypothetical is useless. I don’t have–” 

But that was a lie. Sukuna had a brother. And the man was, of all things, Yuuji’s father. A man who had lived a normal life, outside of mingling with Kenjaku. A man who had grown up unknowing of the Jujutsu world. 

A man who had, presumably, been happy. Human.

In another life, another reality, would Sukuna have been afforded that much? 

Would he have been different, had his brother survived in the Heian Era?

Would he–

Why was he entertaining this? 

Nothing would have changed his fate, his state of being. Even Yuuji, heartstrung and pacifistic by virtue of his upbringing, would see the faults in his tenets. 

All beings cracked when pushed to the brink; Yuuji could not be immune to that fact. Eventually, he would develop a tolerance to killing, too. Perhaps then would be a good time to arrange a binding vow.

Despite this, Sukuna was still pleased with his vessel’s rapid growth; the boy hardly struggled in this fight. Sure, he benefited from Sukuna’s defense against poisons, but the pain he did feel he was easy to ignore. Yuuji was like him, in that way. Unbothered by agony.

Sukuna froze.

Did he really just compare himself to–

He shook himself out of it. The Fushiguro boy had one of his fingers in his hand. 

“I’m giving this to you, because you have the most energy. But, we don’t know your tolerance for how much you can consume yet, so do not eat this,” the Ten Shadows User said, and only began to pass it onto Yuuji after the latter had given verbal agreement.

Sukuna, naturally, did not care. When the finger was within reach, he summoned a mouth on the boy’s palm and ate the thing.

Yuuji seized from the sudden power and gagged, though he didn’t so much as submit a twinge of control to Sukuna, despite the markings that briefly appeared on his face. 

“Ewugh!” The brat spat. “You didn’t even warn me you were gonna do that this time!”

Sukuna laughed at him. Yuuji returned the gesture with what was approximately the mental form of sticking one’s tongue out.

“Hey!” Fushiguro exclaimed. “What did I just tell you!”

“That wasn’t me! Sukuna did it!” 

Fushiguro and Kugisaki sighed, disbelieving, and Yuuji pulled the former to his feet.

He scrubbed his mouth, complaining, “It really never tastes any better.” 

“That’s because it’s a special-grade cursed object, idiot!” Kugisaki shouted at him.

They lapsed into a semi-argument of sorts, and Sukuna returned to the depths of his domain.

Despite everything, the three of them returned to Jujutsu High with vitality, happily eating sushi together before promptly crashing the moment they reached their dorms.

Sukuna kept a careful eye on Yuuji as he slept, anyway. Just in case.

Because, really, it would be terribly annoying if the brat had another nightmare about some damn worthless idiot’s demise.

“Are you scared of dying, Sukuna?” Yuuji asked one morning. It was the weekend, and while the boy had risen in Sukuna’s innate domain, he had yet to do so in the corporeal one. Currently, he was playing with the stem of a flower that had begun to blossom. 

That was a new addition to Sukuna’s domain; flowers had begun to grow where Yuuji’s soul usually slept. Poppies, peonies, roses, even a few lilies– all scattered about in a bed for the boy to lay on. It was horribly ugly in contrast to the dark viscousness of the rest of the domain. 

But Yuuji had insisted they stay, and Sukuna had yet to oppose him

“That is a bit morbid for you, brat,” the curse replied half-heartedly. “And so early in the morning at that.”

“Okay, but do you?”

“I have died once before. Why would such a thing matter to me?”

“Yeah, but that was different.” The boy sat cross-legged, Sukuna’s cloak splayed across his lap. “You were turned into a cursed object, so your soul was, you know, still able to come back. But if I really do consume all your fingers and get executed, you’ll be gone for real.” 

Sukuna scoffed. “If you had consumed all twenty of my fingers, I would be beyond execution.” Even that accursed Satoru Gojo stood no chance against the King of Curses at his full power. “Then again, if by some miracle they did manage to kill me, my soul would not be truly lost, I can assure you of that. I am not so concerned about it. Why are you?”

Yuuji shifted around uncomfortably, not saying anything. He fiddled with the cloak.

Sukuna quickly whisked it away. 

“Hey!” His vessel shouted, leaping up to run after him. “Give me the blanket back!”

“It is not a blanket, brat.” Sukuna began folding it in his arms. “And you are already ruining my domain with those weeds of yours. What need do you have for this?”

“They’re not weeds! It’s like I said before, you could use something nice to look at now and again. Maybe it’ll make you wanna be nicer too!” Yuuji narrowed his eyes at the fabric that had been stolen from him. “And what is that, then?” 

He sighed. “My cape.”

“Huh?’

Exasperated, Sukuna lamented, “I wore it in the Heian Period. It was suited towards my unorthodox stature, then. This is a flimsy imitation of the real thing, of course, but I have no use for it in this body.” 

“Then why steal it!?” Yuuji propelled himself at the other, snatching the cloak back. He held it to his chest like a tiger cub holding a treasured toy in its maw.

The curse snickered. “I wanted to see how much it mattered to you. Clearly, I underestimated its significance.”

“I–!” He flushed. “It’s warm, and it almost reminds me of–” His eyes widened and he quickly shook his head. “It’s nice.”

Sukuna raised an eyebrow but didn’t pry for more. 

“If that is the case, you may keep it.” He wrinkled his nose at the flowers beneath Yuuji’s feet. “But no more of this. Need I remind you that this is my domain.”

“Really?”

“Don’t make me revoke my words, brat.” 

“Okay, okay! Sheesh.” The boy tried to pout, but his lips couldn’t stop tugging into a smile. Could a little thing like this really mean that much? “Thank you, Sukuna.”

“Mm.”

He walked over to Yuuji, kneeling so he could inspect the boy’s appearance. His hair was stuck up every which way from the chaostrophic way in which he slept. The worst part was his vessel hardly did anything to counter it— to the contrary, he used gel to spike it up more. 

Distantly, Sukuna was glad none of the illustrations of his true form had retained their color. If the brat were to know they shared the same characteristic pink hair, he surely would have suspicions. 

Presently, Sukuna huffed, reaching out a hand to smooth over the brunt of the mess. He was surprised when Yuuji didn’t flinch, merely scrunched up his face in a boyish manner.

“You need to better tend to your hair. It is improper, leaving it like this.”

“Your hair is practically the same!” The other whined. “All you do is flatten it.” 

As if to exemplify his defiance, Yuuji reached up and mussed up his hair once more. Sukuna sighed.

“You’re such a brat.” Then he paused. “What is with this sudden interest in death?”

His vessel’s fussing stopped instantly, and he hesitated, solemn. 

“I guess…” Yuuji began slowly. He reached back over to the flower bed, caressing his fingers against the dainty, fragile petals. For some reason, no matter how much he rolled around or messed with them, they never were crushed or wilted. Eternally bright and blooming, it seemed. “I was just thinking about what I’m gonna do, when this is all over. I mean, I became a Jujutsu sorcerer to give people a good death, but… to do that, I also swore to kill you.”

“And yourself,” Sukuna reminded him.

“Yeah. That too.” He fiddled with his hands. “I just— I don’t know what’s right anymore. I thought that, by doing this, by exorcising this curse , I’d do the world a favor. But now I… I don’t wanna… you know…” He trailed off. 

Sukuna rolled his eyes. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not scared—“

He set his hand back down in Yuuji’s hair, pushing it down once again with a little more force. Yuuji squirmed against him. “I already told you I won’t be exterminated so easily. And your precious Gojo-sensei won’t let you die like that either, I’m sure. So, enough with worrying yourself over the impossible.”

“But, if that’s the case… What would you do? If I ate all twenty fingers?” Yuuji asked. 

“It would depend on if you still had control over me or not— which, certainly, you wouldn’t.”

“And then?”

Sukuna exhaled, worn out from Yuuji’s near ceaseless prodding. “And then what?”

The boy fidgeted. “What would you do… about me?”

“Hm.” He propped up a knee, settling his arm on it before bracing the side of his jaw with his fist. He made an exaggerated noise of thoughtfulness. “It depends.”

“It depends? On what?”

“Isn’t it about time for you to be getting up, brat?”

“Ugh, Sukuna!” Yuuji droned, slumping backwards in an over dramatic display of annoyance. “You always avoid my questions!”

“What reason do I have to answer them?”

“Because—!”

Sukuna flicked his nose. “Go.”

His vessel returned to the corporeal world. 

Later that day, the brat happened upon the Six Eyes. 

“Gojo-sensei,” Yuuji called. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course!” The other replied, far too elated for a man that was pushing thirty. “Anything for a treasured student.”

“Ah, well.” He rubbed the nape of his neck, sheepish. “I know Sukuna’s fingers draw in curses, but… if they were all consumed by me, would they continue to do so? Or, I guess what I’m trying to say is: would you have to exorcise Sukuna in order to put an end to the attacks caused by his aura, or… Or would they stop on their own just by me consuming all his fingers?”

There was a beat of silence. 

“An interesting question, Yuuji. When did you start thinking about things like that? That line of deliberation is too dark for you, in my opinion.”

“Oh, I was just wondering, you know. I’m still kinda new to all this.”

Gojo hummed, thinking for a moment. “Well, there’s never been anything recorded on such a rare and specific event occurring but… there’s no reason to believe it couldn’t happen. However, Ryomen Sukuna is, as I’m sure you know, too big of a threat to keep around at full power.”

Yuuji frowned.

“But don’t worry, Yuuji!” He patted the boy on the shoulder, smiling assuredly. “We’ll figure something out before your execution comes— those old higher-ups only want to consider the most straightforward possibility.”

“Told you, brat,” Sukuna said to his vessel. “ He won’t let you die.”

“Alright. Thank you, Gojo-sensei.”

He attempted a smile. For some reason, though, Yuuji didn’t seem entirely happy.

Sukuna’s vessel had been training with excruciating fervor these past few weeks. If he had to guess, Sukuna would presume it was a mixture of the events of his previous missions and all the encouragement from Todo that had made Yuuji so insistent on getting stronger. Whatever it was, the curse would watch with intrigue as Yuuji improved and point out flaws or offer advice where needed. Recently, given he’d destroyed the blade Gojo had handed him, Yuuji had been testing out other weapons. Katanas, wakizashis, shurikens— even a kusarigama, at one point— all of which had been stock-piled in Jujutsu High’s sad excuse for a weapons’ storage. A particular weapon of Yuuji’s own had yet to stick, though. 

For today’s exercise, the boy had chosen the bow and arrow.  

Sukuna couldn’t hide his delight; he hadn’t used a bow in nearly a millennia. Of course, the brat was more cage than vessel, and it would not be his own hands piloting the bow, but nonetheless, Sukuna was exhilarated.

“This might be fun,” Yuuji said. He had gotten in the habit of talking to himself— or rather, to Sukuna— when he was alone. “I used to practice archery as a kid. It’s been awhile, though.”

“ Let’s see your form, brat.”

It wasn’t terrible, to be honest— which was high praise coming from Sukuna. He made Yuuji fix his posture and grip slightly, though. 

“ It is the same as holding a brush,” he explained. “ You must not be too heavy-handed with it. Archery is an art form, remember.”

The words didn’t really seem to leave an impression. 

His vessel, youthful as he was, hastily drew back the bowstring and fired the arrow at the target. It missed completely, landing on the ground beside it. Yuuji pouted.

“ Focus, boy. ”

He plucked the arrow from the grass, renotching it. He aimed once more and fired. This time, the arrow landed on the target, though a little ways away from the bullseye.

Yuuji sighed, walking over to fetch the arrow with defeat. “I used to be so good at this when I was younger. I should’ve kept up with it more.”

“Let me show you.”

“What do you mean? Like in your domain?”

“No. Switch with me.”

The other froze. Distantly, Sukuna recalled that Gojo had given Yuuji a direct order not to switch with the curse, and that the boy had stayed true to this ever since the failed attempt with Junpei. Now, his trust in Sukuna had been broken, and he was wary with how much he placed in the curse again. This did not bode well for establishing a binding vow. 

What a pain.

Sukuna summoned a mouth on his vessel’s cheek. He spoke, “There is no one around to see, and you have the strength and ability to return control to yourself at any time. Allow me control, or continue with your flimsy attempts. But don’t expect any help from me.”

Yuuji shook his head. “You’re so mean, Sukuna.”

Still, he slunk away, allowing Sukuna’s soul to replace his.

He grinned. True to his word, Sukuna ignored everything else and picked up the bow, notching another arrow. Unsurprisingly, his vessel had picked one of the heavier draw weights for his bow, which, coincidentally, aligned with Sukuna’s preference as well. Although it had been a thousand years, he aimed and shot like it was instinct to him, with hardly any consideration afforded to the task at all. 

The arrow landed in the dead center. A perfect bullseye.

Sukuna moved down the line, attempting to slow his rate of fire in order for the boy to pick up on his technique. But, by the time he’d finished his set and all of the targets in the range had a clear arrow protruding from their centers, the curse couldn’t lie to himself any longer: he was having fun.

Sukuna huffed a little. “There. Simple.”

“ For you, maybe,” Yuuji’s inner voice grumbled. “ I suppose you have more experience than me from back then, right?”

“I recall a similar line of defense being made in regards to one’s lackluster calligraphy,” he teased. “Shall I remind you that both skills are easily acquired with enough practice? Or would you prefer I stay in control of the body at all times, and handle everything in your steed?”

“ No!”

Yuuji immediately switched with him once more, and Sukuna cackled from his innate domain. Upon returning to his body, the boy already had something new to complain about. 

“Ugh! You left me to pick up all the arrows. Be honest, Sukuna, do you really hate me that much?”

“ Mm, perhaps.”

“That’s a lie!”

After his measly attempt at archery, Yuuji set his sights on sparring with the Zen’in girl. She was proficient in hand-to-hand, however, and the boy got what was coming to him several times over. Sukuna watched his vessel get knocked on his back for the umpteenth time with a deranged sense of amusement. 

Still, when he had finally seen to it that their sparring was going nowhere, Yuuji was battered all over. The boy was musing over this particular aspect as he finished rinsing himself off in the bathroom. 

“Maybe I should visit Shoko real quick,” he mumbled, rolling out his shoulder. 

“ No.”

“Huh?”

“Come here.”

“Why?”

“ You—“ Sukuna groaned. “ I am going to teach you to use Reverse Cursed Technique.”

“Oh!”

Just like that, Yuuji was in his innate domain. He sat cross-legged on his designated spot atop the flowers, looking up at Sukuna with eagerness. His face was reduced to a bloody pulp, however, and skewed the expression slightly.

“This should be easy for you,” Sukuna said, sitting on his knees in front of the boy. “The ability is already imprinted on you from when I used it.”

“To heal my hand, right?”

“Indeed. You can also use it to heal others, but that is a more advanced skill.” 

“Wait, can you do that?” Yuuji asked. 

“Of course.”

His eyes lit up. “That’s awesome! Fushiguro always gets beat up on missions, so—“

Sukuna groaned. “This is not about your boy-thing.”

“My what?”

Idiot. For one so in tune with his own emotions, how could he be this clueless?

“Nevermind.” Sukuna raised a hand for silence. “As I said, using Reverse Cursed Technique on others is more challenging. For now, we will begin with yourself. Starting with the wounds on your face.”

This was actually something he’d been wanting to teach Yuuji for a while, but up until now, his cursed energy hadn’t been realized enough yet. Now, it was pertinent he understood the technique, if he wanted to stand a chance against facing higher grade enemies on his own. 

With how resilient he was against letting Sukuna take over, the curse couldn’t shield Yuuji from everything that sought to harm him. He must learn to fly by himself, away from the safety net of comrades or teachers. At least until Sukuna summassed enough of his fingers to take control completely. 

But as the curse taught his vessel to utilize it, a separate conclusion came to him. 

The brat was taking on Sukuna’s technique— Shrine.

It was far from fully realized, still in its infantile stages, but there nonetheless. Situated between his heart and soul; not only gathered from being Sukuna’s vessel, but also from being of him. A few months more and Yuuji would begin to wield it as his own, Sukuna was sure. 

He didn’t know how to feel about such a cognizance.

Sukuna and his twin– his other half— were identical, so it made sense that Yuuji would share physical similarities to him. But to also share his cursed technique…

In Jujutsu society, twins were seen not just as a bad omen, but as one in the same. Sukuna was as much his brother as he was himself, and vice versa. Which, if one were to contrive of this, meant he was as much Yuuji’s father as—

“Sukuna!” The boy’s cheerful voice drew Sukuna out of his wandering mind. “I think I did it. Look, see!”

He tilted his face, and sure enough, the cut along his jaw was gone. Yuuji was grinning, pleased with himself and clearly awaiting praise.

Praise from… him.

Sukuna reached over, extending a hand to cradle the boy’s cheek. He was extremely conscious of the action, keeping his touch light and steady as his clawed thumb rubbed along the smooth skin where Yuuji’s newborn Reverse Cursed Technique had been used. 

No one said anything.

“Good,” he intoned under his breath at last, his hand still pressed against Yuuji’s face as he poured his own technique onto the boy. The rest of his scrapes and bruises faded, and his vessel’s unmarred face stared back at him.

And for the first time, Sukuna really looked at the other. 

He was so young. 

The tufts of unnatural strawberry hair that poked out in every direction, the sharpness to his brow, and the markings under his eyes that labeled him Sukuna’s vessel. Really, despite the lack of extra extremities, their relation to one another would never be contested should they stand side-by-side in their true forms. But there was a softness to him unlike that of Sukuna’s demeanor— even at the tender age of fifteen. Where Yuuji’s eyes were a sweet honey-brown, Sukuna’s had always been an unrelenting crimson-red.

Yuuji was just a child, ignorant and naive, putting blind faith into the curse before him. 

Sukuna could never describe his own youth like that.

He let go of his vessel’s face, drawing back as he folded his hands in his lap. 

Foolishness, foolishness, foolishness.

What was he trying to achieve, analyzing their similarities like that? There were countless marked differences between the two, and there always would be. Yuuji was not like him. He was incapable of sacrificing his human heart, even before the King of Curses.

That would be the cause of his demise.

There was no point in mulling over anything else. 

He was a curse, he had forsaken his humanity so long ago it was barely comprehensible to him. So why then did he—

“That is enough for today,” Sukuna said, turning to walk away from the boy. “Go and rest.”

“Okay,” Yuuji replied, a little befuddled.

It was only when his soul came drifting back to him, lying in that wretched flower garden and clutching that blighted cloak, that Sukuna realized the error in his words. 

Anger flooded him, but there was nowhere for him to direct it to.

He had done this, he had allowed this to come to fruition— allowed Yuuji to worm his way into the very manifestation of his soul and tear him limb from limb.

No more. No more.

Sukuna seethed as he loomed over Yuuji’s sleeping form. 

I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him, over and over again, and make him watch as I destroy everything he hoped to preserve each and every time. Once I am finished with Kenjaku, he will be the one to suffer my wrath.

For some reason, that didn’t seem to subside his rage.

Chapter Text

Sukuna was quiet after that. The boy was, for the most part, too busy to notice this change– though he did still mumble to himself occasionally. He also, despite everything, continually showed up to sleep in Sukuna’s domain, his flowers never wilting, the grip on his cloak never straying. Sukuna tried not to be bothered by this; Yuuji was a pest, but all pest’s receded to nothingness eventually. 

His fragile, infinitesimal life would come to a close shortly; Sukuna needed only the right moment. 

This incident in Shibuya was looking to be a good opportunity. 

Though he was silent and otherwise unobtrusive in Yuuji’s day-to-day life, that did not mean he was inattentive. Quite the opposite– as the assistant supervisor relayed the mission information to Yuuji and the adult sorcerer leading him– MeiMei– Sukuna listened with vested interest.

This was what he had pieced together thus far: 

There were two veils surrounding Shibuya, one of which kept humans from entering, the other sorcerers. Moreover, the cursed spirit or curse user who had orchestrated the event had done so primarily to drag Gojo in. It was quite an obvious trap.

But sometimes walking straight into a trap was the best course of action– or, in less pleasant circumstances, the only one. More importantly, the society of Jujutsu was fragmented at best, held together by fraying strings and the hope that, maybe someday, one of their worthless, sacrificial exorcisms would profit them, instead of leading them straight back into a never ending spiral of curses vs. humans with no hope of gratitude. They had no other choice but to throw caution to the wind and jump headfirst into the pit of spikes. 

Targeting Gojo specifically, too, had an obvious goal behind it: that of one which could not be carried out with the Strongest in the playing field. They therefore had to in some way incapacitate him.  

Sukuna mulled over all of this. 

The careful and conflating way in which the plan had been enacted as well, with so many unknowns and sorcerers strung everywhere but the active combat zone… It all reeked of Kenjaku.

What ludicrous idea had they strung together now? 

“Between these barriers…” The assistant supervisor began once more, breaking Sukuna’s line of thought. She was younger than Ijichi but older than the supervisor they’d had back at the bridge– Nitta, or something. The blonde one, somehow more useless than Ijichi himself. “I shouldn’t say. It’s still just a guess, and we really can’t be certain yet.”

She was sweating, clearly uncomfortable, and the curse could feel as Yuuji’s heart hammered with increasing trepidation. Even he, with his limited and newborn knowledge of Jujutsu, understood whatever was going on here was abnormal. 

“That’s fine,” MeiMei said. “Say it anyway. It might be helpful.”

The other’s eyes darted around nervously. Slowly, she explained, “There are transfigured humans between the barriers.”

Yuuji’s heart stopped. 

A cold wave of horror flooded down from his brain to settle in an uneasy pit in his stomach. His eyes widened, and the color drained from his face. For a moment, Sukuna wondered if he would faint. He did not.

He kept himself upright, though inside he was an unstable swirl of emotions, each one coiling and tangling into grisly knots in his chest. Usually, Sukuna would urge his vessel to compose himself, or, if necessary, manually undo the stress from his soul. Today, he stayed silent. 

The boy was still not over his detestment for Mahito– and if that was the case, then fine. So be it. Perhaps Yuuji would never learn, in which case Sukuna would use his juvenile rage and fear to serve as tools for his own delight. He was reliably manipulatable, in that way.

Shortly thereafter, the woman sorcerer utilized a technique of hers– projecting her sight to that of her crows– to inspect the upper floors of the Shibuya subway station. At the same time, Yuuji was practically bursting with anxiety, urging her and her little companion (a younger brother, Sukuna thought) to make haste. 

Finally, MeiMei spoke up. “Alright, I’ve got the gist of it. Itadori, which would you prefer: Killing lots of weak, transfigured humans? Or exorcising one powerful cursed spirit?”
Sukuna huffed in his domain. 

As if that was even a question. 

True to his assumption, the boy chose the latter. Figuring the cursed spirit had to be Mahito, Yuuji wanted nothing more than to exorcise him– it was just about the darkest feeling Sukuna had ever encountered from his vessel. His determination was nigh frightening. 

The sentiment was still thrumming through his veins as he began his mission solo.

Heading down to floor B2, Yuuji found himself face to face with the presumed cursed spirit. Much to his disappointment, it was not, in fact, Mahito.

In his place was a grasshopper-like curse, crunching on the bones and tissue of human corpses. Yuuji stood frozen– honestly, Sukuna was getting annoyed by this vice of his. Freezing at the sight of danger– what was he, a prey animal?

“Well?” The cursed-spirit hissed, turning away from its food to face Yuuji. “You gonna stop staring while I eat?” 

It rambled a little more to itself, something about Jujutsu sorcery, but by then Yuuji had snapped out of his trance. 

“I know Mahito is around here somewhere,” his vessel said, ignoring the curse. “The patched-face cursed-spirit. Where is he?”

Truly a one-track mind on this kid.

“Mahito isn’t here,” the cursed-spirit answered, oddly conversational. “He told me to stay here and make sure that I protect the veil. I’m very clever, you see?” 

Clearly, this wasn’t the curse who had set up the veil. Something else was afoot.

Yuuji seemed to be coming to a similar conclusion. 

“Mahito’s sorcery is very bad,” the cursed-spirit continued muttering. “Very, very bad. Which is why I–”

It continued uttering more nonsense as Yuuji’s eyes caught onto a strange, bandaged object behind the curse. 

Without letting the other finish, the boy darted in and landed a kick across the cursed-spirit’s jaw. Not letting it reach the ground, Yuuji furthered the attack with a punch to the gut, sending the curse reeling into the wall. It wasn’t a Black Flash, hell it hardly had any cursed energy behind it to begin with, but his vessel’s innate strength sent the cursed-spirit through the wall and into the room behind it with little trouble. 

“All you curses need to stop underestimating humans,” the brat intoned.

Ah. 

This was going to be a fight unlike any Yuuji had had before. One in which he had spunk behind him.

From across the shattered brick, the cursed-spirit rose. “I get it. You’re not clever, are you? You don't even know what curse I am, do you?”

The boy said nothing, stepping back into an offensive position.

“Well, do you? I didn’t think so. The not-so-clever ones in this world are always the first to die!”

“Huh?” Yuuji raised a brow, unenthused. “You’re a grasshopper curse.”

For whatever reason, that sent the curse into a befuddled spiral.

Idiot.

Sukuna grinned as the boy beat it to a pulp, not sparing a moment for the cursed-spirit to recover. 

It was decently fast and decently powerful, darting across the hall with its mandibles flared. But Sukuna’s vessel had improved decently as well, able to avoid the curse’s attacks and land a few of his own, even as it chased him through B2. 

They’d smashed each other through another wall when the cursed-spirit spoke again. “All you do is run away from me! Do you wanna fight? Or don’t you?”

The boy used this moment of relative armistice to think through his tactics– something Sukuna, begrudgingly, noted had come from his lessons. 

He shouldn’t have taught him so much.

But, then again, his vessel needed to survive.

For the moment.

“I don’t know yet,” Yuuji replied. To be expected of the wishy-washy brat. 

The curse made a chittering, despondent noise. “Well, are you clever? Or are you not clever? ‘Cause you know what? I’m clever!” 

“I don’t think you are,” he said, drawing closer. “Clever people don’t go around calling themselves clever.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” The other screeched, horrified. 

But, by then, Yuuji had closed the gap between them. He stood, fists clenched, eyeing the curse without a shred of fear– only resolve. Resolve to win. Assurance. 

He had removed the idea of losing from his mind entirely.

Cursed energy surged within him, and the boy gathered it in his fists and launched into an attack. Though the other had four arms– and therefore four hands– his vessel hardly struggled to keep up with the punches being rained down upon him. His reflexes were commendable; he had leveled beyond that of the cursed-spirit before him. 

Sure enough, Yuuji landed a punch to the curse’s face, and by then, it was over.

His attacks were like the heavy rain of a thunderstorm– fast, unpredictable, unbeatable . At least by such a weak cursling. 

By the time his vessel had paused his assault, the cursed-spirit was on the cusp of death. It wavered, spitting out a stream of poisonous, magenta blood, but Yuuji was faster. He dove underneath it, and despite it attempting to combat this with its tail-like abdomen, the brat just drove his hand straight through it. Curse blood stained his hand, but of course, since Sukuna was the King of Curses and Poisons, it did nothing to him. 

“You’ve eaten people,” Yuuji growled– no, not quite a growl. But close. Where had he learned that from? “You’re prepared for what that means, right?” 

The battle had ended.

Yuuji exorcized the grasshopper curse and destroyed the cursed object it was protecting– the one keeping the veil up. Typically, Sukuna would praise him for an accomplishment like that– especially one completed all on his own. Once again, however, he stayed quiet. 

A new dawn was approaching, one that would not do well with any unnecessary… frivolousness. 

Presently, Yuuji kowtowed over the corpse of the man the curse was eating when he had first arrived on the scene, offering a quick prayer.

See, Sukuna? 

He thought quietly, that previous sternness almost entirely absent from his internal voice.

It’s the little things like this that matter.

This time, Sukuna did humor the boy, just a little. 

“Matter? To whom?” He snorted.

I thought you’d say that. Don’t worry, you’ll learn.

Yuuji was so sure of himself on that end that it startled Sukuna. 

Too hopeful… Too naive… 

Too… young.

Ah, but it didn’t matter. That emotional vulnerability would be his undoing, one day. Sukuna would see to it. 

Yuuji rendezvoused with MeiMei and the child brother soon after his victory, the three of them heading down to B5.

“Very impressive, Itadori,” MeiMei praised uponing hearing his version of events, in lieu of Sukuna.

“What was?” asked Yuuji.

“To be honest with you, I thought you were going to struggle a little bit more. But, it seems I was mistaken– you’re practically a first-grade already. I haven’t seen anyone get this far without a technique since Kusakabe.”

The mention of a technique sent a shiver down Sukuna’s spine, as he recalled the boy’s potential for Shrine. Nonsense. Just because the technique was inherited didn’t mean it would fully realize itself any time soon, not without the proper teacher. Which, given the rarity of it and the sparse information about his abilities in general, meant there was no chance in hell Yuuji would ever utilize it, not unless Sukuna himself drew it out of him.

Of course, Sukuna had no intention of doing so; his vessel would have long passed his worth shortly.

Yuuji, usually one to bloom under the sunshower of praise, practically ignored MeiMei’s words. Instead, he elaborated, “It wasn’t Mahito I fought. If it was him that I was fighting, it wouldn’t have been so easy.” 

So honest, so humble. Unable to receive compliments unless he was entirely worthy of them.

The little one spoke some vexing drivel about respecting his sister, and Yuuji quickly rectified his statement with an expression of gratitude. 

They had come down a flight of stairs when Yuuji saw a human woman sitting against a sign. Without hesitating, he rushed over, calling out to her. But once he reached her, her condition was apparent: she’d gone into shock. 

Still, he knelt before her, speaking in a gentle tone. “Hey there. Are you okay?”
The woman snapped out of her stupor only to look more afraid. “Everyone… Everyone turned into monsters. And then they all got on the train. I was told–” Her words turned into a swirl of verbiage as her head swelled and sloshed around like jello on a sliding plate. It inflated until, ultimately, the woman fell to the side with a thud.

Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration. 

“So then he was in this area.” Yuuji gritted his teeth. 

The automated train announcer’s voice suddenly emanated overhead. “An eight-car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.”

The boy froze– the woman’s words had sunk in. 

If all the transfigured humans had gotten on the train, then…

“Gojo,” he realized in horror. This was all just more ploy to ensnare the Six Eyes. 

Immediately, both Yuuji and the sibling pair ran out onto the tracks, hoping to make their way to the platform Gojo was on. However, as they were moving, a piece of machinery stuck itself onto the boy, causing the latter to stumble back with a yelp.

The little one turned around. “What’s the matter?”

“There’s something in my ear,” Yuuji answered, pressing two fingers to the earpiece. 

Just then, a mechanized voice spoke aloud, “Can you hear me, Yuuji Itadori?”

Is what that of his classmate from the neighboring school– the one with the Heavenly Pact that allowed him the range to puppeteer robots using cursed energy. He was also the one under suspicion for treason. Mechamaru… Sukuna retrieved the name, if only to save himself the momentary headache.

“There’s no time,” Mechamaru continued, only to be promptly cut off as Yuuji tore the machinery off his head and slammed it to the ground. It bounced back into the air, and he caught it once more, squeezing it to pieces in his fist. 

“Wait, wait!” The voice hurriedly tried to assuage. “I’m your ally, you idiot!”

Sukuna laughed. Took the words from his very mouth. 

“It’s Mechamaru, from Kyoto!”

Yuuji stopped, releasing his grip on the earpiece to allow it to speak.

“There’s no time,” Mechamaru began again. “I am only going to say this once. Satoru Gojo… had been sealed.”

Sukuna humphed– at least it wasn’t an outright kill, as he still had plans to maul the annoyance to pieces once he got out of this lowly vessel. Still, it was almost humorous; the sorcerers tried and tried over and over again and always came up short. Even their so-called strongest couldn’t escape his own downfall.

This amusement was only muddled by the fact Sukuna was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Kenjaku at the end of this entanglement of threads.

Presently, Yuuji sucked in a shaky breath. Sukuna could already tell what the brat was thinking: If Gojo-sensei is gone, what hope do we have of ending this?

MeiMei, on the other hand, wasn’t so easily convinced.

“We’re talking about Satoru Gojo here,” she said with a touch of sternness. “What proof do you have for me to believe you?” 

“Sorry, but I don’t have any,” Mechamaru answered. “The only thing I can offer is the very fact that I’m here. I was killed on October nineteenth by the special-grade cursed-spirit called Mahito. What’s here is no more than the insurance I left when I was still alive. This was my contingency plan. I had no choice but to set its condition to activate after Satoru Gojo had been sealed. To decrease the risk of a malfunction, I limited the position of these puppets to three locations. The first–”

Ugh.

Sukuna groaned, nodding his head back against the backrest of his throne. How utterly boring.

He tuned the rest of the maundering out, propping a hand up to brace his jaw. He could ascertain the rest of it passively later, if he really needed to. Currently, he sat fiddling with a calligraphy brush between his fingers, and thought belatedly that he hadn’t written anything in a while. Nor had he checked the boy’s progress with his own penmanship.

But why should that matter? 

When he gained control over Yuuji, the brat would be effectively dead. Even if he switched bodies, the boy stood no chance against him. In actuality, it would not do well to keep him alive in any capacity, for he had spent too much time harboring the curse and had learned from him.

Indirectly and directly.

No matter how hard Sukuna tried to convince himself of the necessity of his prior actions, they still irked him to no end. Yuuji Itadori… 

“Do you mean to suggest that you be the one to teach me the ‘true’ meaning of love?”

Yuuji nodded, with no indication of sarcasm or flippancy. He was dead serious. “If that’s what it takes to get you to see the flaws in your logic, then, yes.”

How dare he.

Opposing the King of Curses in such a defiant, arrogant manner? The Sukuna of the Heian Era would have his head for less. Why then did this Sukuna– the one who was more curse than human, the one who had long since forsaken love– stay his hand? Indulge the boy?  

I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, Iwillfuckingkillyou. 

He forced his breathing to slow.

Why was he getting so worked up about this? 

Everything would fall into place– it was only a matter of time. A new age of curses would come, and Sukuna would lead the charge of pandemonium. 

 Sukuna was roused once more by, of all things, Yuuji’s shouting. He was not in danger, nor was he in pain, but rather, he was screaming incessantly for Nanami.

“Nanamin! Na-na-min!” He called from the rooftops of Shibuya, not stopping even as the Fushiguro boy appeared behind him. 

It wasn’t until said Fushiguro boy struck him upside the head that Yuuji finally ceased his bellowing. 

The boy whipped around, delighted as he saw both Fushiguro and Nanami, along with another sorcerer. 

Yuuji briefed the three about the situation with Gojo. When asked who was behind the entrapment, Mechamaru spoke up to offer insight.

“Geto sealed him?” Nanami asked, incredulous.

“To be more precise, the thing that’s living within Suguru Geto did so.”

Sukuna froze.

There it was.

Whereas before his suspicions had just been that; though founded in truth and logic, they were still merely suspicions.

This, however, was outright proof of Kenjaku’s direct hand in the playing field. Even more so, it meant their presence was here , in full display.

“Shibuya Station is in absolute chaos right now,” Mechamaru continued, unknowing of the turmoil stirring in Sukuna’s chest at his previous statement alone. “It’s full of those special-grades, the cursed-spirits they brought with them, the curse users tied to Geto, as well as transfigured humans and normal people.”

“In that case, it’d be faster to attack through the subway from the neighboring stations. But to do that, we need to find a way to lift that veil first,” said Nanami. 

Mechamaru huffed– or, as much as the machinery could. It was more like a burst of static than anything. “It’s an emergency. Please multi-task.” 

Their plan from there on out was simple: Nanami left with Ijichi to handle a separate task, leaving the new sorcerer (Ino, or something. God, what did all these useless whelps’ names matter?) to watch over Yuuji and Fushiguro as they attempted to break down the veil keeping sorcerers out. Yuuji had, of course, tried to tackle this challenge in a literal sense– punching at the veil with all his might. It went about as well as expected.

This all, naturally, mattered little to Sukuna.

There were a large portion of his fingers here– he could sense it now, with Gojo’s overwhelming aura of cursed energy having been evaporated. Whether or not that had anything to do with Kenjaku’s plan, Sukuna couldn’t say. However, no matter what, ingesting them would be the best circumstance to come from this– and certainly something he would need before facing Kenjaku.

The power he had over Yuuji was minimal at best. The power he had in general was a fraction of his true might.

Beyond obtaining power for power’s sake, a confrontation with Kenjaku would go nowhere as things stood now. Given the curse user was budging into things head on now, it was only a matter of time before such an event occurred. Sukuna would have to be ready for it, when the time came.

And perhaps, he mused a little gleefully, something fun could come of all this wallowing. 

For now, Sukuna would deign to reside in his domain, keeping quiet until an avenue showed itself that would allow for him to steer his impertinent vessel in the direction that most benefited him. Afterall, Yuuji was getting to trust him.

He grinned.

Yes, this would all do just fine.

He and Fushiguro managed to take down the veil– destroying three cursed objects similar to the one the grasshopper curse was protecting– but the Ino sorcerer was worse for wear. Thus, Yuuji and the other boy made the executive decision to split up, with the Ten Shadows User fleeing the veil to get Ino to safety while Yuuji advanced onward.

This was not without, of course, some apprehension on Fushiguro’s part. However, it was obvious the pair had no other option. Yuuji would be continuing on alone.

Fushiguro sighed, standing up with Ino on Nue’s– the owl shikigami’s– back. “Alright, but if you–”

“I know, I know. If I die, you’ll kill me, right?” Yuuji teased, shooting finger guns at the other. “Don’t worry so much. I’ve got Mechamaru with me! And Sukuna will help me too if I really need it.” 

Fushiguro rolled his eyes but accepted this and fled with Ino. 

It was all up to the brat, now. 

“Hey, Sukuna,” Yuuji said after a moment, as he headed down the subway station. Sukuna didn’t answer. “Hey, dude, c’mon.” He nudged his cheek a little with the knuckles of his index and middle finger, as if that would prompt the King of Curses to make an appearance. “Quit ignoring me!”

With a groan, Sukuna manifested an eye and mouth on the boy’s cheek. Although he was in no mood for conversing with the brat, there were appearances to be kept up– at least until he could form a binding vow with Yuuji. 

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on your mission, brat?” He growled.

The smile that tugged at the boy’s cheeks at the other’s arrival made Sukuna uneasy. “I know, I know. I just wanted to ask you something.”

Sukuna huffed. “Speak your mind.”

“Back there… when Mechamaru was explaining who sealed Gojo-sensei, you seemed… I dunno, like you knew the guy? Geto?”

“Not him.”

“Oh, right, there was something inside him, puppeteering him, wasn’t there?” Yuuji hummed, thinking. “Is that the one you know?”

The other considered this for a moment. Revealing anything about Kenjaku was a risk, a slippery slope into a pit of hellfire Sukuna had no intention of touching when it could still burn him, but at this point, Yuuji would learn of all in due time regardless. Better that Sukuna get a headstart on what information he did and didn’t know. 

“We are familiar with each other, yes,” he admitted. “They hail from the Heian Era– no, before that, even. I do not know this Suguru Geto whose body they have possessed, but as it were, you would do well to avoid them at all costs.” 

“Oh.” Yuuji laughed. “Well, I’m doing just the opposite, aren’t I?”

Sukuna submerged a snarl. True, he was heading straight for the floor Gojo was on, one Kenjaku would no doubt be presiding over. 

However, there was more than one high-ranking cursed-spirit still crawling throughout the station. Surely, Yuuji would be stopped short before he reached Kenjaku. And, if luck would have him, that curse would be Mahito. 

“Yes,” Sukuna agreed. “So, focus.” 

His vessel nodded as Sukuna disappeared from his cheek.

Yuuji dashed through the halls, leaping over stairwells and escalators until, at last, there it was.

Not quite Mahito, and not quite a full-blooded curse either, but he would do. 

Without wasting any time, the half-curse shot out a beacon of compressed blood at Yuuji, who crossed his arms in an attempt at blocking it. The blood cut through his ulna, and the boy grunted, deflecting it upwards. It slashed through the roof of the station, reaching up all the way to the surface. 

Blood Manipulation– a signature technique of the Kamo.

Interesting.

“Piercing Blood,” the half-curse uttered, sending out another spear of supersonic plasma before Yuuji had the time to recover. 

With haste, Sukuna’s vessel narrowly avoided the initial shot, then began to run across the hall as his opponent pivoted his aim to catch up. 

Firing blood like that left the curse fully enraptured in the ability and therefore exposed. Yuuji realized this and closed the gap between them, landing a punch to the other’s arm. The latter was rendered off-kilter and stuttered backwards, but unlike Yuuji who was panting from the exertion, he was unfettered. 

His arm was bleeding from where the half-curse had hit him, and Yuuji attempted to use Reverse Cursed Technique on it. The hole began to close, but the boy lost focus as his assailant spoke up.

“There’s something I have to ask you,” said the other. From all appearances, he was a normal man, dressed in robes and sporting two messy, brunette buns. However, across his face was a line of black– the mark of a curse. “Did my brothers leave behind any last words for me?”

Ah. 

Sukuna had suspected his relation to the two half-curses Yuuji had killed months prior, and once again, his suspicions had been verified. 

“Brothers?” Evidently, this same realization had not yet hit for Yuuji.

The half-curse scoffed, irritated in a way Sukuna could sympathize with. “I’m talking about my younger brothers that you two killed.”
The boy gasped, understanding flickering over his face. “Not really,” he said, his tone softening with a tinge of remorse. He could no longer look the other in the eye. “But they… They– They were crying.”

Wrong choice of words.

The half-curse shook with rage, his cursed marking bleeding as it stretched along his cheekbones and cut two perpendicular lines across his eyes. “Eso! Kechizu!” He howled their names in agony. “Please.” Yuuji watched in horror as a surge of blood began to bubble behind him, electricity sparks flying from where his Piercing Blood had nicked an outlet. “Watch over me– your older brother!” 

The blood flooded over the half-curse like a swirling curtain, pooling into a pulsating orb in the palm of his hand. He raised it into the air, prepared to attack, but Yuuji had caught onto this scheme. The boy launched himself at the other, ignoring his half-heartedly healed arm, and tackled the half-curse to the ground. The blood orb splattered uselessly against the tile flooring. 

Straddling the other, Yuuji attempted to punch him but was quickly thrown over, tumbling a ways away. The half-curse summoned a rain of blood spears to cascade down on him, and Sukuna’s vessel rolled to evade them. Still, he was too slow, as his assailant summoned a wave of blood to crash into and envelope Yuuji. 

He drew the blood back to himself and slammed his fist into Yuuji’s sternum, knocking the wind out of him. He followed this up with a punch to the face, which the boy narrowly avoided by falling backwards, only to be slammed once more in the chest and thrust halfway across the room.

Catching his breath, Yuuji watched as the other began to start the beginnings of Piercing Blood once more. Assured that he stood a slim chance facing the attack off sheer intuition alone, the boy leapt into the air, knowing the beam would hit him once his feet hit the floor.

Smart. 

Maybe there was more between those ears of his than just air.

The soles of Yuuji’s shoes brushed the title, and the half-curse launched Piercing Blood at him. Yuuji ducked and swerved, once again side-stepping the laser of blood to close the distance between them. Once he was close enough, he raised his fist, prepared to land it directly at the other’s face, only for…

Well. This battle was not that of the grasshopper curse. His opponent had more than one trick up his sleeve. 

“ Supernova, ” he chanted. 

Behind Yuuji, three spheres of ichor appeared, each shooting into the boy’s brat sequentially. The half-curse then drew back the blood, summoning a blade out of it, which he used to drive into Yuuji’s foot. The latter screamed in pain, agony flaring in what seemed to be every part of his body. Very, very briefly, one thought appeared in Yuuji’s mind that stood out amongst the rest, if only for the potency and vulnerability in which he thought it:

Sukuna, help me!

This was not the same call as the one he had used when Junpei had been transfigured– no, this was one of genuine desperation for his own self. 

But just as quickly as it had come, it faded out of existence.

Yuuji tried to kick the half-curse, but his movements were sluggish from pain, and his opponent blocked the attack. 

They exchanged more blows, but it was clear the curse had the upper hand, and so Yuuji ducked behind a wall for the moment. He began to heal himself once more, and just as he did so, another voice spoke up.

“Hey!” The boy looked down, fishing out the Mechamaru earpiece from his pocket. “Hey, what’s the situation?” 

“Mechamaru! Where have you been all this time?” Yuuji exclaimed. Once again, he forgot all about utilizing Reverse Cursed Technique. Tch. 

“Conserving energy. There’s still much I need to do,” Mechamaru replied. A ding sounded from the machinery, as it was alerted to the presence of another. “Choso! Blood Manipulation, huh?”

“You know it?”

“Yes, it is the same cursed technique as Kamo.” 

He lapsed into an explanation of the technique, in lieu of Sukuna doing the same. Eventually, the two managed to devise a quick plan of sorts. 

Dodging Choso’s attacks, Yuuji sprinted into the bathroom and began to burst open the pipes. Water flooded the stalls, and Sukuna understood: they were going to dilute Choso’s Convergence. 

Outside, Mechamaru taunted Choso, luring him in with wayward comments about his brothers. Once he was inside, right where Yuuji wanted him, the half-curse could no longer use his Blood Manipulation like he was used to.

Striking him over and over again, the two were neck-and-neck. Choso’s hand-to-hand was surprisingly adequate, allowing him to face Yuuji even without cursed energy. Still, the brat was nothing if not resilient. Eventually, one would wear the other out.

Choso grabbed hold of Yuuji’s hood, and by sheer reflex, the latter opened his mouth and bit down hard on the back of the other’s hand. Then, before Choso could retaliate, the boy slammed his head into the half-curse’s, sending him reeling.

God. 

Sukuna couldn’t even fault his vessel for that; he was a feral one when pushed to the edge, and didn’t restrict himself based on pride when it came to fighting. Of his detestable traits, his  determination to win was one that Sukuna found himself hard pressed to find an issue with.

Except for the one stipulation it loaned itself with: self-sacrifice.

Yuuji saw battles as bigger than himself– viewed himself as a cog in the machine of Jujutsu Sorcery. If his death lent itself to a greater outcome, he would accept that. Which was, naturally, unacceptable to Sukuna.

This all came to a head when Choso revealed– what had to be the umpteenth– trick up his sleeve. Quite literally; he had shielded a coagulated clot of blood from the water by keeping it in his sleeve, and only when Yuuji had let his guard down did Choso set it free. Immediately, it pierced through his liver– a wound that would become fatal in mere minutes if nothing was done about it.

The boy began to faint, his mind spiraling and unable to focus on healing or guarding himself. And then– a last burst of energy strengthened him, coursing through his veins.

His last hurrah before certain death.

He knew he was going to die, and yet, he allowed this to come to pass so long as it meant Choso would go as well.

Sukuna had to admit, the kid gave it his all, but it wasn’t enough– not at his current level. Choso tore Yuuji’s arm from its socket, and that was the end.

Smashed into the wall behind him, the boy sputtered up blood and promptly lost consciousness. 

Yuuji was a writhing, bloody mess atop the bed of flowers in Sukuna’s innate domain. There were too many wounds on him to count. Even as a manifestation of the soul, his spirit was weakening, drifting from the mortal realm. Sukuna hadn’t brought it in, and so he had yet to heal it. Instead, the boy had come here of his own volition, weak and frail as he was. He twitched and opened his eyes slightly when Sukuna approached him.

“Su… kuna…” he mumbled, croning the name like an injured pup whining for its mother. 

“Yuuji,” the curse responded in kind, his tone carrying no essence of mockery or disgust. This was as things were supposed to go– as Sukuna wanted them to. 

The arm that hadn’t been entirely dislocated spasmed and shook as it reached for Sukuna. The latter knelt before him, taking the proffered hand in his own, clawed one. Yuuji breathed a sigh of relief.

Sukuna raised a brow. “Pleased by something, brat?”

His vessel closed his eyes, smiling slightly. “Just happy. Happy I won’t die alone. You know, it’s not so scary— dying beside someone else.”

A muscle beside Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “You are not going to die, not here.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yes.”

“Mm. Okay.”

Sukuna fixed the superficial damage, but Yuuji still made no move to get up.

“Brat,” he said eventually. “Do you know what a Binding Vow is?”

“Huh?” At last, Yuuji opened his eyes, though his tone was still a little bleary. “Oh, yeah, I think so? Gojo-sensei asked if I’d made one with you, a while ago. It’s an agreement made between Jujutsu users that is strengthened by cursed energy, right?”

“In rudimentary terms, yes. They are also, if used properly, extremely powerful.”

“You want to make one with me?” Despite everything that had just occurred, Yuuji seemed distracted, tracing the markings on Sukuna’s wrist. “Why?”

Why indeed… 

Sukuna furrowed his brow, whisking his hand away from Yuuji, causing the latter to frown. “I will describe my proposal to you,” he said. “In exchange for my aid in keeping you alive, I will have possession of the body for five minutes if I speak the incantation ‘ Enchain’ twice in a row.”

“What? Why?” Yuuji asked, befuddled. Sukuna said nothing, and the brat changed his line of questioning. “Well, how can I be sure you won’t kill anyone?”

 Sukuna smirked. “I thought you were the one who believed in my capacity for compassion?”
“That’s different!” The boy pouted. “I haven’t finished teaching you everything yet.” 

The other rolled his eyes. “Fine. Within those five minutes, I won’t kill or injure anyone. Does that suffice?”

Yuuji pondered on it for a moment. “There’s something I need to know first. Answer me honestly: Is Choso still alive and able to fight?”
“What do you think?”

His vessel sighed. “I can’t die, then. Not yet. I have to eliminate him from the field, so the others can get to Gojo.”

So righteous… And yet so, so treacherous. Signing a deal with the devil, have you really fallen so low?

“Well then, brat? What will it be?”

Yuuji sat up, his face pinching together in an expression of absolute resoluteness. “I agree. Save my life, and you can have your five minutes.”

Sukuna grinned, and Yuuji closed his eyes and returned to his slumber.

Sukuna kept Yuuji asleep as he healed him; the boy’s body could not handle any more exertion than it was being put through keeping itself alive through everything. Yuuji possessed a supernatural strength, but he was not inhuman, and not immune to the looming, everpresent demise that plagued all humans. 

Despite this, Choso did not deal a finishing blow on the boy. Instead, he seemed to come to some horrible conclusion, as he trembled and stumbled out of the room, leaving Yuuji’s body still breathing in the flooded restroom. Sukuna could hear him scream.

How intriguing.

A mystery for later, he supposed.

Before he could linger more on this, two high school aged girls suddenly approached them. Curious, Sukuna watched as they dragged his vessel’s body out into the hallway— notably, Choso was nowhere to be seen. Then, they revealed themselves to be in possession of one of his fingers, as they slowly began to feed it to Yuuji.

Oh?

Sukuna grinned; things were turning out better than expected.

The blond one spoke first— it was she who had dared to feed him the finger. “Please come out, Sukuna.”

So they wanted an audience with him, hm? Sukuna snickered.

Just as soon as she’d spoken, the volcano-head cursed-spirit made his presence known. He was the same one that Gojo had toyed with, back when Yuuji’s status was still undercover. Somehow, he’d been lucky enough to survive.

Currently, he was running towards them, skittering to a stop once he laid eyes on Yuuji. 

“Okay, you two,” he shouted, enraged. “Just how many fingers did you feed him?”

“I won’t tell you!” The brunette spoke up this time.

The other girl stood up, shielding her companion. “Mimiko!” She hissed warningly.

The cursed-spirit raised his hand. “That so? Then die.”

Flames burst from his palm, a line of fire burning where they had once stood. Though, Sukuna thought idly, he wasn’t too sure if they were dead. Something about one of their techniques…

Regardless, it was the cursed-spirit’s turn to approach Yuuji. He knelt down and inspected his condition, mumbling something about the markings still being present on the boy’s face. Then, he unraveled a roll of parchment which contained more of Sukuna’s fingers— ten, to be precise. Ah, so this was where they had been hiding. 

Accounting these ten with the one he’d just consumed and… Yuuji’s body wouldn’t be able to adapt fast enough. Sukuna would take control. 

“Wake up,” the cursed-spirit intoned. “Sukuna.”

Sukuna scoffed— ordering him around like that, who did this curse think he was? Still, the cursed-spirit fed him the ten fingers— meaning there were 15 inside the boy as of currently. Three quarters of his total power had been restored.

And Yuuji was none the wiser.

Apparently, the girls from before hadn’t gone far, as they appeared once more upon the cursed-spirit’s— Jogo’s, Sukuna had ascertained— fire dying out. Sukuna didn’t give much of a damn.

Jogo turned to yell at them, and Sukuna sliced off his arm just as he used it to point and say, “Do not waste my time any longer— Wha—?!”

“I’ll give you one second,” Sukuna said, having more than enough power to overtake Yuuji for the time being. “ Move.”

Instantly, Jogo removed his hand from Sukuna’s face and stepped backwards, allowing Sukuna to rise. Surely feeling the surge of energy emitting from the curse, Jogo leapt to stand beside the girls— the three of them watching him in terror. 

They understood his unrivaled strength. How sweet.

Sukuna dusted himself off; being fully in control of the body allowed him to heal the wounds Yuuji had sustained much faster. They had disappeared completely by the time he’d stood up.

As he began to approach the trio, the stench of fear became more potent. The girls began to panic, hyperventilating and sweating as his steps drew nearer and nearer. It was all too exhilarating. Sukuna hadn’t been able to exercise any real strength since the detention center— and even then, that had been a piss poor display of the power he possessed now.

This, on the other hand.

This would be fun.

“You hold your heads quite high,” Sukuna remarked.

The girls dropped to a deep bow, their foreheads nearly touching the floor. Jogo, on the other hand, merely sat on one knee. Sukuna cut off the top of his head as a warning.

“Did you believe just one knee was enough?” He cooed, watching the purplish blood pour down the other’s face. “The boughs that bear most hang lowest, yes? But I suppose you three are fairly lightweight.” Sukuna turned to the girls. “You kids first. You wanted to speak to me? Go on, ask what you please. I’ll grant you a finger’s worth of time.”

The blond one began to cry. Despite this, she was the more fearless one of the pair, and so she spoke, “B-below us, there’s a man in monk’s robes with stitches across his forehead. Please kill him.”

“And please…” Added the brunette. “Please free Geto.”

So these two had to have been close with the man whose body Kenjaku was possessing.

“We also,” continued the blonde, “Know the location of another of your fingers.”

Sukuna hummed thoughtfully. “Below here, hm?” He kicked some rubble around with his shoe. They had some audacity, ordering him around like that, with only the promise of a finger Sukuna could already track as their sole incentivizer. But, regardless, they had potentially useful intel. Sukuna would kill them later, if they turned out to be useless. “I see. I don’t particularly care about the finger, though if you want to please me, I’d see to it that you go fetch it for me. When you return, I will have more I want from you. But not now. Get lost before I change my mind.” 

The pair heeded Sukuna’s words and fled the area, hand-in-hand. Hm… Perhaps they would make for decent servants, in Uraume’s steed.  

Otherwise, they were easy enough to kill. 

He sighed, pivoting his attention to Jogo. “Next, the cursed-spirit. Your turn to talk. What is it you want?”

“I want…” His voice wavered. “Nothing.”

“Is that so?”

“Our objective was bringing you back, Sukuna. We just wanted your complete revival. Right now, Itadori is helpless to counter you, but that is only temporary. Of course, I’m sure you know that better than anyone. I see only one way forward for us: forge a pact with Yuuji Itadori, one that will grant you perpetual authority over his body! There are a lot of his classmates here in Shibuya, you could use them as leverage.”

“ No.”

“I— Huh?” The cursed-spirit was speechless.

“I have plans of my own,” Sukuna explained. “You cursed-spirits are all so desperate, it’s lamentable. Who are you to order me around, telling me what to do with my vessel?” 

Jogo was undeniably a comrade of Kenjaku’s. Even if he didn’t understand entirely what was going on, that didn’t absolve him of blame. He still had his own role to play, using Sukuna’s own blood like this.

Yuuji was his.

His to decide if to kill or spare. 

His to handle however he pleased.

No one would usurp him in such an intimate, nauseating way again.

“You’ve actually irritated me a little, spouting horseshit like that. More than those kids, even.” The grin he gave Jogo was all fangs, mirthless and deadly. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go all out. How about I play with you again and again until I tire of making you suffer?”

The cursed-spirit couldn’t begin to comprehend Sukuna’s words, nor the fury laced between them. But that mattered not. All of Shibuya would soon learn the unenslaved wrath of the King of Curses.

And that included the brat nestled in his domain.

Sukuna exorcised Jogo.

That, of course, came after a long slew of fighting, muddling around, and engaging in… other activities along the way.

Sorcerers were just too easy to mess with. 

One order from him and they all stood frozen, no matter the impending doom of the hellish meteor approaching them.

But, overall… It was indeed fun.

He’d killed Jogo with Divine Flame, and it had been all the more amusing seeing the curse lose to a contest of fire— his prized technique. So, so, weak— they all were.

Sukuna could massacre this entire city in the blink of an eye.

Hell, he already had killed a large amount of the humans still residing on the surface of Shibuya— intentionally or not.

As he watched the corpse of Jogo disintegrate into ash, a new presence made itself known to him.

“Who are you?” He asked without turning around. If they dared to get those close to him, they were surely no normal pedestrian or sorcerer. 

“I’ve come to welcome you, Master Sukuna.”

Sukuna’s eyes widened. “Uraume!” He called with delight, turning to face them. 

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” They replied, smiling up at him from where they were kneeling.

The vessel they appeared in wasn’t too far off from their actual appearance, oh-so many years ago. The red marking splotched across the side of their pale hair was about the only indication anything had changed.

Though he longed to spend more time catching up— particularly so as the nature of Uraume’s reincarnation had yet to be fully understood by him— something far more pressing scented the air. He grunted. 

“Sukuna?” Uraume inquired.

“Urgent business,” Sukuna explained. That Fushiguro boy had an interesting trump card, didn’t he? He would prefer the kid alive, in all honesty. Beyond keeping Yuuji in check, he had his uses. More importantly, the two relied on one another immensely— disgustingly so. What had happened in Shibuya would be rattling enough for his vessel, and given that this control he had would only last for so long, Sukuna wouldn’t allow for Fushiguro’s death to befall the boy as well.

Afterall, deciding what to do with Yuuji was still something he had yet to answer— something that could only come after confronting Kenjaku.

“I see,” Uraume replied, a bit of reluctance in their tone.

“I will return,” Sukuna soothed. “It won’t be much longer now. Do what you will until then; we have much to discuss.”

“Sir.” The other nodded. “I shall be waiting for you.” 

He smiled, heading for Fushiguro. “Be seeing you, Uraume.”

Sukuna found the boy in a similar state as Yuuji– passed out and bloodied, slumped against the side of a wall. Next to him was curse user, scrambling around fearfully as Fushiguro’s shikigami followed him. 

It was unlike anything the Ten Shadows User had ever displayed before– large, grotesque, and shockingly humanoid. 

Mahoraga. 

And, from the looks of things, Fushiguro was using a type of suspended animation to keep it operating. One in which a ritual was performed, wherein once Mahoraga killed the curse user it was targeting, the boy would die as well. 

So foolish. 

Sukuna placed a hand atop Fushiguro’s chest, activating his Reverse Cursed Technique on the worst of the other’s injuries. “Don’t die just yet,” he said. “Your life still is of use to me.”

On his left, the curse user began whimpering again.

“ Quiet. ”

The curse user went silent, watching as Sukuna approached the shikigami.

It would seem, in order for the boy to live, he would need to defeat it as an outsider. 

Well.

What was one more bit of fun before Yuuji’s body adapted and the brat took over once more? 

Mahoraga chased Sukuna across the city, the two of them battling through buildings and people as the curse threw out Cleave and Dismantle. It had Sukuna captivated, darting back and forth and wielding his cursed technique without reservation. 

The shikigami was quite an interesting one. It could adapt to any and all techniques, and it therefore learned from Sukuna’s Shrine just how to withstand his severances. That left only one avenue for Sukuna to defeat it with: his Domain Expansion. 

Malevolent Shrine. 

Out of consideration, he’d narrowed its 200-meter radius to just 15, exchanging area of effect for potency. 

Then, before Mahoraga could adapt, Sukuna had summoned Divine Flame, and a surging, goliath sphere of fire befell the shikigami and the surrounding region. It was glorious, the red-orange ball of hell illuminating the midnight sky. Fear erupted across the city by the thousands, a swarm of cacophonous terror. 

Beauty. 

The flames dissipated, the smoke cleared, Mahoraga returned to Fushiguro, and Sukuna found himself inside his innate domain.

It was eerily quiet.

And dark; whereas his domain was usually illuminated by a reddish-orange glow, now it was so dark it was as if there was an expanse of nothingness that ran eternally. The abyss was only disturbed by Sukuna himself, and the boy that had become his vessel.

He sat on his knees on top of the garden of flowers– all of which had died and were further crushed by Yuuji having sat on them. He was silent, unmoving, with a haze over his eyes that made him look dead. Sukuna thought he was disassociating until–

“Sukuna..?” Yuuji whispered brokenly, tilting his chin up to stare at the other. His eyes were wide– afraid. 

Sukuna smirked. “What? Did you really expect–”

The boy hunched forward and screamed. Tears streamed down his cheeks endlessly, and he tremored, broken gasps of air interspersed between wails. Somewhere along the way, he had vomited. 

The curse’s face fell. He frowned. “Brat–”

“Do you know how many people died?”  Yuuji shouted at him, his voice chaffed and thick from crying. “How many people you killed!?”

Sukuna said nothing. 

His vessel tore at his own skull, the tips of his fingers bloodied and raw.

Some subconscious urge thrust itself forward, and Sukuna reached for him, his hand hesitating just before it made contact. “Cease this. You’re injuring your–”

“I don’t care!” Yuuji howled. “Why? Why! Tell me!”
Sukuna retracted his hand. 

“Tell me why, please .” His voice cracked. “So I can make sense of– of any of this.” 

There was a pregnant pause.

“You know why, you little brat,” Sukuna said at last, his words harsh but uttered so softly their true intention was hard to read.

Yuuji shook his head miserably. “I don’t. Everything you’ve done, none of it makes any sense! You taught me to write, you trained me, you even saved Megumi for me! You’re a cursed-spirit, you kill without conscious, I know, I know. So why– why? Why not just discard and kill me like all the rest? You didn’t answer me back then, after Junpei, so I’ll ask again: Why show consideration for me, if all you are is a heartless curse?”

Sukuna said nothing, his eyes a flaming, swirling crimson sea. There was a fire burning and contorting within him, itching to destroy and rid himself of every meaningless figment of aching the boy stirred up inside him.

Kill him, kill him, kill him. The mantra he had been repeating to himself the past week suddenly seemed so null to him, mere words without any meaning behind them. 

And yet, even now where he held all the power, Sukuna did nothing. 

“Answer me!” His vessel screamed, reaching up to tug at Sukuna’s kimono with both hands. Begging, pleading, demanding. He let go and crumpled back into sobs. “W-why? Why have a heart, why have the capacity to love, and– and burn it all away?” 

Slowly, painstakingly slowly, Sukuna knelt before Yuuji.  

“Yuuji,” he intoned the name once more, but the boy did not look up and cling to him as he had before. Still, Sukuna continued speaking. “You proposed to teach me about love all those months ago, did you not?”

The other nodded, sniffling and scrubbing at his face. 

“That is your version of love, the one you have carried with you throughout your youth, and the one that has been accepted by all who have known you. But what if it had not been?” Sukuna reached into the sleeve of his kimono and produced a calligraphy brush. He held it up, drawing characters in the air. “Think of it this way: everyone has their own style of writing, distinct from one another even in marginal discrepancies. True, a portion of one’s writing style comes from the person’s innate personhood, but a large majority of it comes from who taught them. That is why others' writings, though different in small ways, are legible to us. But what if they had not been taught how to write? What if, instead, the only way they knew was the first concept– that which was intrinsic to them?” 

Sukuna set the brush down, laying it vertically between the two, the handle positioned towards Yuuji. An offering. 

“The writing would surely be incomprehensible to others, then– perhaps even thought to not be writing at all. Even if it makes sense to the author, what is the purpose of writing if there is no one to understand it? No one to return it in kind?”

He exhaled.

“Do you understand what I am trying to say, boy?”

Yuuji swallowed. He had stopped crying, but his eyes were still dazed. Even so, Sukuna knew his vessel was thinking– he was smarter than he looked. 

“You said you were an unwanted child,” Yuuji began at last, his tone devoid of emotion. “No one taught you to love in a way that was acceptable. So, after being rejected over and over again, you gave up on anyone ever being able to understand that part of you– to reciprocate it.” 

Sukuna hummed. “There. Does that suffice as an answer to your question? Will you finally cease your trivial pursuit?”

The boy picked up the brush. “No,” he said. “Because you’re wrong.”

“I am? About what?”

“No one understanding you,” Yuuji replied, tilting his head up to face Sukuna. His eyes were darker than before, but they had returned with their unyielding valiance. “No one loving you.” 

Sukuna raised an eyebrow. “And who would? Perhaps in the past, had someone been so inclined to alter my path as a youth, but no longer. Who would dare to love a King of Curses?”

“I would.” His gaze was steely, unforsaken. “I would love you, Sukuna. Even after everyone you’ve killed, even if you’re a King of Curses, even if no one else will accept you, I will.” 

Sukuna’s mouth ran dry.

Now it was his turn to question, his turn to posit excuses of denial. The boy didn’t understand, he didn’t know what he was saying– but he did. He did.

And that was what made it all the more damning. 

He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, at Yuuji’s idiocy, but it wasn’t idiocy if the boy believed it so.

It was genuine.

“The truth is, Sukuna, I tried so hard to separate myself from you. I wanted to believe I wasn’t like you, that I was better, in some way. And maybe that came from how hard I had to defend myself being your vessel, but the truth is– I am you.”

In Jujutsu society, twins were seen not just as a bad omen, but as one in the same. Sukuna was as much his brother as he was himself, and vice versa.

He was as much Yuuji’s father as– 

“You are not me,” Sukuna hissed, anger flaring out when no other emotion could make sense of the situation. “You would not have wrecked the city into carnage as I have– that is not your way of loving.”

“No, it’s not. And I don’t forgive you for that, either. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.”

“Then what will you do, now?”

Yuuji thought for a moment. “I won’t discard you.” He held the brush back up, returning it to Sukuna. “I won’t try to shape you into anything you aren’t either– I won’t be naive anymore. I’ll show you my love, and I’ll let you show me yours in return. If you think no one understands you, then I will understand you. If you think no one loves you, then I will love you. I will prove you wrong.” 

His anger all but dissipated. 

And, for some odd reason or another, Sukuna had the strangest urge to tell the boy everything– his parentage, his relation to Sukuna, what that all entailed, everything. Yuuji had wormed his way into Sukuna’s forsaken heart, but the latter had no desire to kill him. For it was he who had led the boy in.

Yuuji was merely proposing what had already been decreed.

“You really are such an annoying brat,” Sukuna said, reaching for the hand that wasn’t offering the brush. He took it carefully, bringing it up to cover the other one, both hands now clutching the pen. “A gift given from an elder should be received with gratitude.”

Yuuji pouted. “You sound like MeiMei’s little brother.”

Sukuna flicked his nose. “Compare me to that irksome whelp again and I’ll leave you a mutilated stump.”

Despite everything, his vessel laughed, the color returning to his face and the domain as a whole. Though the flowers were still withered and grey, the boy’s heart had not been done away with. There was still shelter for him here.

“I need to get back to the real world, now,” Yuuji said, standing up and dusting off his clothes. He frowned at the tatters. “I need to clean up the mess you’ve made and get Megumi to safety.”

 “You know, it was your dear Megumi’s shikigami who’s behind most of the damage.” He realized, belatedly, that Yuuji had started using Fushiguro’s given name when referring to him. How charming. 

“Oh, don’t even! Without your technique, most of those buildings would still be standing!”

Sukuna hummed, amused. “And who forced me to bring out my technique like that?”

“You!” 

The other waved a hand. “Go, brat. I didn’t kill all the humans in Shibuya, so you’d best make haste before the cursed-spirits do so in my place.” 

Yuuji smiled, nodding. “See you, Sukuna. And… I’m still really, really mad at you, like, you made me cry and throw up, kind of upset, and I’m gonna be having nightmares about this for–”

“Brat.”

“Okay! I’m still mad at you, but… Thank you. I guess. For not giving up on love.”

Sukuna returned his smile.

“Goodbye, Yuuji.” 

Chapter Text

Yuuji picked up Megumi’s unconscious form and cradled him to his chest, darting across the city to find Shoko– the school’s resident healer. Sukuna had healed the most concerning wounds, but the boy would still have some recovering to do outside of the battlefield. As Yuuji walked, there was a fine scent of smouldering ash in the air that the boy tried pointedly to ignore, but his disconcert was made apparent in the way he evaded his gaze from any of the remains of destruction Sukuna had caused.

Still so sensitive. 

Yuuji hadn’t yet gained the ability to pinpoint cursed energy signatures– in truth, that was a skill developed from experience more than anything else– so Sukuna carefully guided his vessel to the woman.

It was his first test of sorts– to reveal if Sukuna was actually being complacent or if he’d returned to that monstrous, apathetic state of being that had led him to destroy a good chunk of Shibuya. If Sukuna were to really venture, he might even say this was Yuuji’s way of seeing if he’d made the right decision in giving the curse inside him another chance. Not quite a path to forgiveness, but a path to renewal, at least.

Sukuna figured he’d passed this supposed test when the boy audibly sighed and physically relaxed upon seeing Shoko and Yaga up ahead. 

“Itadori!” The principal whipped around, seeing Yuuji. His eyes cast down to find Megumi, and his face went pale.

Sukuna’s vessel wasted no time, leaping and bouncing off of the walls to reach the bridge the two adults were standing on. He was surprisingly graceful, barely jolting Megumi.

“Itadori, what happened?” Yaga asked, as Shoko discarded her cigarette.

“Don’t worry, he’s okay. Sukuna healed him,” Yuuji replied, gently setting Megumi down so the woman could assess him. 

“Sukuna? You let him out?”

The boy instantly grimaced, his face flickering with remorse. “It’s… kinda a long story.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve consumed eleven more fingers now.”

Yaga’s face contorted so much he resembled a shriveled grape. “ What–!”

“Not on purpose!” Yuuji hastily defended himself, flailing his hands around in an attempt to soothe. “Some cursed-spirit fed them to me. And these other two girls– curse users? I don’t know, a lot happened. It’s hard to piece it all together.”

“You had better get started, then.” Yaga leaned over the railing, covering his eyes with his hand in exasperation. “And I thought teaching Satoru was a hell-ride. Is Sukuna the one responsible for all this destruction as well?” 

The boy cringed. “Well… Not all of it!”

“Itadori.” 

“It’s a long story! But I promise, I’ve got it all under control now!”

Yaga pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are lucky there are more pressing matters at hand than this. The special-grade curse with the technique that creates transfigured humans is still lurking about. We can reconvene about this matter after he and the cursed-spirit or curse user behind this incident are apprehended, and Gojo has been unsealed.”

“You’re… just letting me go?” Yuuji asked, flabbergasted. “But, what if I–”

“We are short on sorcerers at the best of times, Itadori. And…” He sighed heavily. “You have proven yourself to be more than just Ryomen Sukuna’s vessel on numerous occasions. We all have faith in you. I trust what happened here is more complicated than meets the eye, and that you would never do something that puts others at risk. Now, go on. Nanami and your classmates should still be in the area; rendezvous with them and report back any new information to an assistant supervisor. The situation is dire, and time is of the essence. We’ll take care of Fushiguro. Now, go.”

The boy swallowed down his guilt and held his chin up high, bowing affirmatively. Then he sped off. 

Yuuji was walking through the subway station once more, searching for his comrades, when Sukuna sensed it– Mahito. 

He considered warning the boy or trying to steer him in a different direction, but it would be no use. Yuuji would come across the cursed-spirit one way or the other, this battle was only a matter of time. What mattered was if the brat was ready for the oncoming battle or not.

Sukuna grimaced.

Seeing what happened the last time Sukuna had been let out (i.e. thirty minutes ago), there was surely no way Yuuji would allow him to take over the body so soon. Even if he could switch with Sukuna at will should the latter stray from what Yuuji wanted, their trust was still broken. It wouldn’t be mended for a while– not tonight, at the very least. 

He sighed.

One taste of freedom had gotten to him– he mourned the loss of his ability to move around as he pleased, kill what he wanted. But, Sukuna had waited a thousand years– what was a little more patience in the grand scheme of things?

Just as Sukuna was ruminating this, the boy began to hear the sounds of clashing blades against flesh and the squelching of organs from across the hall. Immediately, he bolted into a sprint to find the source of the noise. 

There, on the platform beside the tracks, stood Nanami. His shirt was off, revealing the left side of his body and face to be covered in dark red, vicious burns. He was fending off a group of transfigured humans, but even as he slashed and tore through them, it was obvious his strength was waning.

He wouldn’t make it much longer. 

To make matters worse, just as Yuuji stuttered to a stop, Mahito made his presence apparent. He stood behind the man, his palm flat against Nanami’s back. Given the curse’s technique worked via physical contact, this was… Well. It was certain; the boy was about to watch his beloved mentor die.

Yuuji was again rendered silent and frozen, nothing more than his panting breaths and Mahito’s quiet gloating filling the air. The cursed-spirit turned around, cooing at Yuuji’s sudden appearance, and the boy forced himself out of his stupor.

“Nanamin?” he called out with trepidation, stepping carefully out into the fray. It seemed even he knew it was over; Mahito had won, and now he was drawing out his victory. 

“Itadori,” Nanami replied, tilting his head to regard the boy, his voice just as soft. “You take it from here.”

In the end, he died smiling, even as Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration imploded his upper body from the inside out, leaving him a mush of gore bits and blood. His lower half fell to the floor with a resounding thud. The room was stained red from it and the blood of the transfigured humans– their corpses didn’t disintegrate in the same way an exorcised curse did.

Yuuji couldn’t escape it– the acknowledgement of everything he had failed to prevent from occuring. 

He couldn’t escape Mahito. 

“What the hell are you, Mahito?” He screamed, his voice cracking.

“You don’t have to shout, I can hear you fine, Yuuji Itadori!” The other mocked him.

Sukuna’s vessel spared no time, charging in headfirst to exorcise him. This was what it had all led up to– his intensive training, his unwillingness to lose, even his offering Sukuna another chance. All so he could kill the cursed-spirit that truly had no heart. 

But it was that very heart that stood in Yuuji’s way.

Mahito tossed out a transfigured human, stretching it to form into a wall of sorts that blocked him from Yuuji’s reach. The human’s desperate cries of ‘ Help me!’ echoed in the boy’s head, forcing him to stay his fist.

He still could not bring himself to kill them– innocent people. Even knowing they were beyond saving.

Not even Reverse Cursed Technique could undo the damage done to their souls.

Mahito launched more attacks at him– his technique had skyrocketed in advancements since he and Yuuji had last fought. His taunting had gotten stronger too; he continued to parade Yuuji with insults, even mimicking Junpei at one point, just to get under the boy’s nerves.

“ Do not let his words fester,” Sukuna told his vessel. “ No one can claim they know who you are but you. Nor can they decide your fate. He wants to upset you, so prove that you can not be so easily sueded.” 

For a boy as ideal-stricken as Yuuji, he needed to be reminded of his purpose in order to let those stray feelings aside. Sukuna was not one for ideals, but in his vessel, they flowered and bloomed like nothing the curse had ever seen before. He had tried to push them down, burn them to ashes, but the boy never strayed from them. Not even the ones attached to Sukuna himself.

Just as Sukuna’s lack of ideals was his ultimate strength, the same could be said about Yuuji’s insistence upon them. The idea had first disgusted him, but by now, it was starting to take on a new color. He and his vessel’s dichotomy with one another would always be present, but perhaps there was something to be said about Yuuji’s proclamation of them learning from one another. 

As for now, Sukuna would utilize Yuuji’s heart to their shared advantage.

The boy eased his mind of wavering thoughts, focusing solely on the task at hand. He tried once more to use Reverse Cursed Technique on the gash on his face– one that had narrowly missed piercing into his skull and destroying his brain– but he lost focus and only managed to patch up the deepest layer of skin. Sukuna was beginning to regret not enforcing the RCT lessons more. 

Yuuji was quick to get things, but in a fight where emotions were so prevalently involved, he was also quick to revert back to his most primal of techniques. 

Still, Yuuji dove underneath Mahito, kicking him hard enough in the face to send the cursed-spirit spiraling. The boy wasted no time, slamming his feet into him again to seal the deal before moving onto combating the wall of flesh pressing in on him.
Pulsating cursed energy, he hollowed out a gap in the wall with his fists, stepping out of it with a coldness to his steps. Behind that ostensibly calmness, however, was a storm of rage brewing inside of him. 

Mahito chased Yuuji through platforms and floors, even following him up an elevator, at one point. The boy’s resolve never faltered, however, and it even seemed as though he was gaining the upper hand.

That was until he ran across two human men.

“A kid? Come here, there’s monsters lurking about!” One of them shouted. 

“Hey, listen,” Yuuji said to them, trying to scout out where Mahito had fled to. “There’s really no safe place left in Shibuya, so—“

Mahito transfigured both men, knowing it would set the brat off, and used the momentary shock to slam into his opponent. Yuuji recovered quickly, racing after the cursed-spirit as he targeted more and more of the remaining humans who were hiding. 

Mahito slung another man at the boy, and the latter caught him. The aforementioned man had a wound in his chest but was still breathing, and Yuuji held him upright as he asked if the other was okay. His distraction allowed Mahito to transfigure the man, exploding his head into a gushing downpour of blood and brain matter that doused Yuuji’s face and hair.

Mahito’s goal in weakening the boy’s spirits was apparent, but just as he moved to launch an attack from behind, his body suddenly writhed as three spikes shot through his chest.

Yuuji whipped around just in time to see the other sputter blood, and he figured out what was going on: Kugisaki’s technique. How she had managed the attack was unknown, but the boy spent little time mulling on it, using Mahito’s fleeting weakness to strike attacks on him.

Again and again, he landed punch after punch, and Sukuna realized: this was not the same boy who had lost to Mahito before. He was stronger, faster, but most importantly, more resilient. He knew when to linger on feelings and when to cast them aside in favor of finishing the job.

The brat had truly grown.

Just then, Mahito slipped past Yuuji, speeding off down a hall. The boy chased after him and found that a second Mahito was racing down to meet the first. He’d doubled himself? Was he planning on conjoining with the other to regain strength? 

Except, instead of combining back into one like Yuuji had expected, they ran past one another, the double running to Yuuji and the other continuing up ahead. 

And there, where the real Mahito was approaching, Kugisaki stood. 

“Itadori?” She sounded surprised.

Oh. 

Then it all made sense.

“Run!” Yuuji screamed. “Kugisaki!”

Too late.

The real Mahito’s hand reached her face, and it was over for her just as it was for Nanami.

The double turned around to see the success of his creator and cackled gleefully. “A direct hit!”

Yuuji slammed him into the wall, rendering the clone body useless. He sprinted towards Kugisaki, still so full of desperate hope, but he stopped short once the girl turned around.

“Itadori,” she said to him, a smile on his face, just like Nanami . “Tell everyone for me: Life wasn’t so bad!” 

The half of her face Mahito had touched exploded with blood, and Kugisaki fell backwards, dead. No— not completely. Suspended between life and death would be a more accurate term. But she’d be dead soon enough. 

And, for Yuuji, there wasn’t much of a difference. 

“Kugisaki?” Murmured the boy, in disbelief. Memories flooded through him, too fast for Sukuna to process. His vessel trembled, sniffling, his breaths shaky and uneven. 

Sukuna sighed. “ Yuuji…”

“I… I can‘t…” The boy, despite his best efforts, started to cry once more. His face was bloodied, the tears spilling down his cheeks muddling with it, leaving his appearance in complete disarray. 

He was fighting so hard with himself not to completely break down again he didn’t notice Mahito darting towards him.

“ Brat, focus!” Sukuna shouted. Though Mahito might not be able to alter his soul— not with Sukuna in the way— there was more than one way to kill a sorcerer.

Yuuji didn’t react— not when Sukuna called for him, nor when Mahito relentlessly attacked him. 

“ Yuuji, boy, listen to me—“

“I bet you thought,” Mahito ridiculed. “You’d be doing some common pest control!”

“— Ignore him!”

“Or defeating ghosts like in an old fairytale!”

“Get up.”

 “That’s what you thought you’d be doing when you came down here, wasn’t it?”

“Brat, get up!”

“Damn little brat, you’re so naive!”

“ Stand up, heal yourself, you–”

“Idiot, this is war!”

“Is this all you have? Is this your love? Dying– for nothing!”

“It’s not some fight to correct a mistake! It’s a clash of what we believe is right!”

Why wasn’t he getting up? Yuuji Itadori, who was so headstrong, who put everything he had into his goals– why wasn’t he getting up!? 

“You and your fragile ideas of justice!” Mahito continued belittling him. The boy was backed up against the wall, like he had been moments before, with Choso.

The realization trickled down onto Sukuna, then. This whole night had all but been one giant, neverending spiral of torture for Yuuji. Again and again he had been pushed to the brink, and now, with his comrades dead, he had lost all sense of himself.

No. That couldn’t be true.

He hadn’t given up on Sukuna; how could he give up on himself?

“ Yuuji,” he began again softly, though his voice overpowered that of Mahito’s squabbling. “ Exorcise it. You are a sorcerer, are you not?”

I can’t. Yuuji’s weak, feeble internal voice responded to him, as if on instinct. I can’t fight anymore. You killed so many people. Mahito killed so many more. I thought I could make it up by saving that many people, but I can’t even do that, not even when the opportunity is right in front of me. I’m nothing more than a murderer!

Sukuna was stunned. This was… He’d never seen the boy like this before. He wasn’t mad or upset at anyone, no, all of it was self-directed. He… He despised himself. 

You were right. Mahito is right. My convictions are worthless. I can’t forgive myself anymore. I can’t keep saying I’ll become stronger, when I know it’s all a lie!

“Enough!” Sukuna had reached his limit. “You are not yourself. Your heart is sensitive, vulnerable, and easily wounded. But your motives, however senseless they may be, are not! How many second tries have you given me, brat? What makes that so different from sparring yourself from this worthless self-hatred?

“You forget, boy, that I was once a sorcerer too. The ones of my time died more often than yours do, and yet the strongest of them still fought onward! Because, brat, their conviction did not end with the death of their allies. Right now, you are a pitiful excuse of a sorcerer, a pitiful excuse for yourself, Yuuji! You said you wanted to show me love– is this it? Is this how far your love goes? Does it become meaningless after one foul stroke?”

“NO!” Yuuji called out, into the physical world. Despite his wounds, despite the exhaustion, he stood up to meet Mahito face to face, determination surging.

Sukuna smiled.

There he was. 

A clap suddenly echoed through the hall, and Yuuji’s body was transported elsewhere. No– not transported. Swapped.

The boy looked up, and saw none other than Aoi Todo.

“My brother!” Todo said. 

Yuuji’s eyes lit up. “Todo!” 

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Mahito remarked, dashing after them. Todo used his technique, keeping the cursed-spirit occupied for a time.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Todo addressed Yuuji, but his focus was on Mahito. “So long as we keep moving forward, we’ll exorcise this thing. Nitta, if you’re finished with her, help Itadori.”

The boy that had come with Todo– Nitta, apparently, which was the same surname as the other assistant supervisor, so Sukuna assumed this must be a younger relative of hers– came up behind Yuuji and drew a symbol across his back. The remnants of pain from his injuries immediately disintegrated, and Yuuji felt his strength return. 

“I have just applied my technique on you,” Nitta explained. “Listen carefully: the wounds you have suffered so far will not become any worse. They are not healed though, but you’ll stop losing blood, and it should take the edge off the pain.”
Seeing as Yuuji still couldn’t accurately use Reverse Cursed Technique in battle, Sukuna thought, that would have to suffice for now. 

“However, if you suffer any other wounds after this, my technique won’t apply, so be careful. The girl over there,” –he gesticulated to Kugisaki, “--I gave her the same treatment. She didn’t have a pulse, nor was she breathing, but I don’t think it’s been very long. Her chances of survival aren’t zero.”

If Yuuji was still wavering from his breakdown earlier, that line alone eased out any lingering complications he had. 

Nitta ran off to collect Kugisaki and take her to safety, and the boy watched on with a warm feeling swelling in his chest.

Sukuna scoffed. “What did I tell you, brat. And here you were, getting all upset.” Even so, his words were not unkind. He was, strangely enough, glad.

What fun would his vessel be if he gave up so easily? Sukuna refused to allow that to pass when things were only just beginning to get interesting. 

Still so mean. Yuuji mumbled mentally. 

He huffed. “ Go kill that damn curse already, kid.” 

Mahito had brought the fight outside of the station, bringing them to the outskirts of Shibuya. Yuuji benefited from that, at least— given there wouldn’t be as many humans around.

However…

The cursed-spirit knew he was backed into a corner, and, in a desperate gamble, unleashed his domain.

It was short-lived— extremely so. The bonding of unleashing one’s innate domain and technique in less than a second. 

But it was enough.

He was once again face to face with Sukuna.

“So, then,” Mahito said. “I assume I’m safe this time, Sukuna? Knowing you, you have some kind of backup plan with Itadori, right? I won’t let you, though. I’ll kill Itadori before you can switch with him. So shut up and watch from here.”

“Kuku, do you truly think that scares me?” He was smiling, but his words were hissed with an undeniable vitriol. “That brat of mine is going to exorcise you, without need for my interference, and I am going to watch in bemusement as he tears you limb from limb. How dare you call yourself a curse, you useless swine!”

Mahito escaped Sukuna’s innate domain, but not without a few ruptures. Sukuna kept them superficial, because Mahito’s death was one he intended on coming from Yuuji, but they were enough to give the boy a tiny nudge.  

Even so, Mahito directed his attacks at Todo, forcibly removing him from the fray and isolating Yuuji.

But, just as Sukuna knew it would happen, nothing Mahito threw at them worked. Todo, even with his hand severed and his cursed technique destroyed, continued supporting Yuuji from the sidelines, and Yuuji… 

He’d unleashed another Black Flash.

Cut down and wounded, without any more transfigured humans to rely on, Mahito sat on his knees before Yuuji. His eyes were wide, and he trembled at the face of certain death— unbefitting of a cursed-spirit. 

Yuuji looked him in the eyes and spoke thus, “I won’t pretend I don’t understand what you said. Cursed-spirits and humans… They aren’t as far removed from each other as I thought. I wanted to reject you, but that’s different now. You have no ability to love. You have no heart. You are complete darkness. So. I’ll just kill you. And if you’re ever reborn again as a new curse, I’ll kill you then too. Change your name and appearance, I’ll still kill you again and again. I don’t need meaning or a purpose anymore— not for this. I don’t care if I’m just one cog in the machine. I’ll just keep killing curses, over and over, until I rust away. That’s all the purpose I need.”

Mahito, terrified out of his wits, scrambled to his feet and ran, whimpering along the way. Yuuji followed him at a leisurely pace, unfazed, unrattled. Finally, finally, he was calm enough to use Reverse Cursed Technique properly, healing the cuts and gashes on his face till they were nothing more than miniscule scars.

Mahito tripped and stumbled, his leg broken and mangled, and he laid there panting and weak like a prey animal who’d lost the hunt. Yuuji gazed down upon him, his eyes dark and without pity. Without warning, Mahito began to scream, thrashing his arms about in a tantrum of sorts. From his domain, Sukuna cackled endlessly.

What did I tell you, cursed-spirit?

Yuuji punched the ground beneath him, then kicked Mahito in mid-air, sending him tumbling around. The curse continued his noisy cries, attempting to belly crawl away from the boy.

Pathetic.

Sukuna had really gotten tired of this—

No.

Mahito froze.

So did Yuuji.

Before the cursed-spirit stood what appeared to be a man, dressed in monk’s robes with long black hair, half of which was tied up into a bun. Across his forehead, barely noticeable from afar, was a line of black stitch marks.

Kenjaku.

“Geto!” Mahito wailed in desperation, clawing at the other’s feet.

“Would you like me to save you, Mahito?” Asked the would-be Geto.

Yuuji, sensing something was awry, started sprinting towards them. Sukuna’s instinct was to shout at him to stop, but why should he? Wasn’t this what he wanted? But— a confrontation like this, so soon? Yuuji still didn’t—

“Give him back,” the boy hissed. Then, louder, “Give us back, Gojo! Now!”

Oh, right. Sukuna hadn’t almost forgotten it was Kenjaku who had sealed the Six Eyes— it seemed less important, given everything else that had occurred.

Kenjaku wasted no time, sending out a cursed-spirit to distract Yuuji. The ability to corral curses? Interesting. Must be this Geto’s technique. 

“The greatest strength of Cursed-Spirit Manipulation—“ There it was. Kenjaku’s signature garrulousness. “—is its quantity of options.”

“Yuuji, careful.”

I know, Yuuji replied, trying to find his footing for the oncoming onslaught. 

“Of course, I can also simply pile on attacks without giving you time to analyze each cursed-spirit’s technique and abilities.”

Yuuji leapt into the air, avoiding the cursed-spirit and planning to land a punch on Kenjaku, only for his attack to be thwarted by a collection of centipede-esque curses.

They swarmed him, nibbling on his flesh and sending him plummeting back to the ground.

“This won’t stop me,” Yuuji insisted. Despite the circumstances, Sukuna was pleased. His conviction would not wane as easily any longer.

“His forces were divided,” Kenjaku continued on their spiel. “Last year in Kyoto and Shinjuku during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. Otherwise he’d have won against Okkotsu.”

They recalled the centipede curses, and Yuuji was left covered in his own blood and panting as he tried to push himself off the ground.

If this kept up, Sukuna would have to utilize their Binding Vow sooner than expected.

“Though I suppose that had nothing to do with you, did it?”

Yuuji ignored them. “Give him back.”

“Guess I should tell you that even I’m impressed. Sukuna’s vessel is tough.”

Sukuna withheld a growl. That confirmed much of what he’d suspected; Kenjaku had created Yuuji with the intent on using him as Sukuna’s vessel. 

Mahito leapt to Kenjaku. “I already knew that,” he said. “I mean after all, I was born from you humans.”

Kenjaku paid him no mind. Using the body’s technique, they dragged Mahito’s form into a capsule, unbothered by his writhing and howling as he failed to escape their grasp. Once he was sealed, they held him a swirling orb of blue, outstretched in their hand.

Yuuji had failed once again in exorcising Mahito.

Kenjaku continued speaking. “Do you know about what they call a ‘Supreme Art?’ It’s very much like the ultimate expression of a cursed technique aside from one’s domain. The Supreme Art of Cursed-Spirit Manipulation is Uzumaki. This combines the absorbed cursed-spirits into one super high density cursed energy to attack your opponent with.”

They began to shake with laughter, their eyes crinkling into crescents, and a flare of anger pushed its way through to Yuuji.

“What the hell do you think is so funny?”

“Oh, sorry for laughing,” they responded, in much the same way a parent would coddle a small child. “I just realized I started acting like him.”

Sukuna, called Yuuji’s mental voice. You said you knew who was puppeteering Geto. Who are they?

“Someone you should not concern yourself with,” Sukuna growled back. “ Be on guard, and do not get distracted. Do not reveal anything either. Stay composed. They may seem passive now, but they will get the better of you easily if you are not careful.”

“We were talking about Uzumaki, yes?” Kenjaku’s voice broke through their private communication array. “Uzumaki is very powerful, but it throws away the quantity of options— Cursed-Spirit Manipulation’s main strength. So you can see why it wasn’t very tempting to me at first.”

Most sorcerers had a Binding Vow that, in exchange for revealing one’s technique, allowed for the enhancement of said technique. Sukuna had always found it petty, though he wondered what Kenjaku’s reason for doing so now was. Whatever the case, it was starting to get on his nerves.

“But I was clearly wrong. It shows true value when a cursed-spirit who’s above semi-first grade is used in Uzumaki. And their technique is extracted.” Kenjaku placed the orb of Mahito’s spirit into his mouth, slowly and grotesquely swallowing it and absorbing him. “Well, Yuuji Itadori. Do you know what you are?”

Yuuji’s thought was loudly apparent: How do they know my name!?

Having had enough, Sukuna summoned an eye and mouth on the boy’s cheek. “Do not answer them.”

“How nice of you to join us, Ryomen Sukuna. It has been so very long since we last spoke.”

“How you have managed to survive all these years, I will never know. However, you are not immortal— so, do not speak as though you are.”

Kenjaku guffawed. “Not pleased to see me? But you seem so very happy with the vessel I gave you.”

“What?” Yuuji blurted, confused.

“Your tampering with my blood will be the very sin you rue for the rest of what little time you have left, Kenjaku,” Sukuna sneered.

“And here I thought you’d forsaken attachments, old friend.”

“You—“

“Hold on, your blood?” Yuuji interrupted once more, his right eye trying to look down at where Sukuna’s manifested one was. “Sukuna, what are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“Oh?” Kenjaku cooed. “He hasn’t told you yet?”

“Do not speak to him!” Sukuna snapped. He was well-aware how desperately pathetic the act was, given he couldn’t do more than speak through this pocket-sized maw, but the words still spilled out of him of their own accord. 

Ignoring him, Kenjaku continued, “Haven’t you wondered, Itadori, why the King of Curses has taken such a liking to you, of all people?”

“Brat, don’t—“

“Itadori!” Panda’s booming voice overtook the scene from behind them. He placed a ginormous hand on Yuuji’s back. “It is you, isn’t it?”

The boy turned around, forgetting, for the moment, all about the conversation at hand. “Panda, you’re here!”

“Good, you’re back to normal! Oh, well except for this—“ Panda poked at Sukuna’s summoned eye, and the latter responded by attempting to bite off the creature’s finger. He backed off, after that.

Beside him was the Kamo brat from the Kyoto Goodwill event. It was he who spoke next. “That man has Satoru Gojo?” He asked, looking over to where Kenjaku stood. “And he’s trapped inside the Prison Realm?”

“Apparently so,” Panda replied.

“Brat,” Sukuna addressed Yuuji. “Heal yourself.”

His vessel nodded and began to do so. Just then, a new figure arrived— it seemed everyone was being drawn to this area.

Across from Kenjaku stood Choso, worn from his prior fight with Yuuji but still standing with palpable energy regardless. The boy’s eyes widened.

“Why’s he here?” Yuuji wondered aloud.

“Well, Choso.” Kenjaku turned to speak to him. “You finally figured it out.”

“Indeed, I have!” Shouted Choso, brimming with ostensible rage. “Noritoshi Kamo!”

Yuuji and Panda both turned to gawk at the Kamo boy next to him who bore the same name. He raised his hands in a confused gesture of defense.

Kenjaku seemed, as always, unfazed. “Noritoshi Kamo is merely one of the many names I’ve had. You can call me what you like.”

“How dare you.” Choso seethed. “How dare you make me try to kill my little brother, Yuuji Itadori!”

Ah. 

Things were all clearing up now. Kenjaku must’ve fathered Choso and his brothers as well— that would explain why they were half-curses, given the hybrid species rarely made it to maturity. Though how Choso had figured out Yuuji was also a product of Kenjaku’s, Sukuna had yet to know— perhaps a product of his blood-related technique?

In any case, Choso and his brothers were certainly no product of his lineage like Yuuji was, so Sukuna paid them little mind. 

The half-curse stormed over to Kenjaku, only to get stopped by— Uraume!

Everyone really was showing up to the event.

“Stand down, you third-rate,” Uraume hissed. “Don’t keep me waiting even a second longer.”

They were protecting Kenjaku— had they not realized the nature of the crime Kenjaku had committed?

Perhaps not; no one had known of Sukuna’s twin but he. And, somehow, the body-less parasite themself, but there was a possibility Kenjaku hadn’t gone into detail about that process with Uraume.

There would be time to divulge into all this later, Sukuna supposed.

“Move it!” Choso howled in the present. “I’m Itadori’s older brother!”

His technique bubbled to the surface, blood swirling around him as he aimed it at Kenjaku and Uraume.

“He’s using Blood Manipulation?” The Kamo boy exclaimed, shocked. The blood in Choso’s hands began to sear. “And creating so much pressure—“

The beam shot at Uraume, and they shielded the attack with their hands. Choso retrieved the blood and fired it in a circle around Kenjaku, sending the land beneath them towering into the air. Propelling coagulated blood throughout the tower, it exploded into shards of rock and earth, catapulting Kenjaku spiraling down. Choso followed this up with another round of Piercing Blood. 

However, Kenjaku summoned a cursed-spirit adjacent to a flying manta ray, zipping around in the air and avoiding Choso’s blood laser.

Choso was undeterred, combating each and every cursed-spirit Kenjaku sent his way. The battle had escalated into a series of hand-to-hand combat, when Kenjaku spoke once more.

“You’ve fought hard. You must be exhausted.”

  “So what if I’m exhausted?” Choso retaliated, launching into another strike. “Is that a reason not to risk my life for my younger brother standing right in front of me!?”

Yuuji swallowed awkwardly at that.

Truly, Choso’s immediate and intense protectiveness of his brother the moment he had figured out their relationship was beyond Sukuna. Although, most things were unorthodox when it came to Yuuji— even his relationship with the boy was a testament of that. 

“Just asking,” Panda piped up. “But you and Choso are strangers, no?”

“Worse than strangers,” Yuuji replied grimly. “He nearly killed me once.”

“First it was Todo. Are you sure you’re not emitting dangerous pheromones, or something?”

“What the brat says is not a lie,” Sukuna grumbled. “Nor is Choso’s declaration of brotherhood incorrect.”

“And why should we believe you!” The Kamo snapped.

“Out of the four of us, need I ask who is actually familiar with the being inside that body?” He jeered. 

“Wait! That reminds me: Sukuna, what were you and Kenjaku saying about your blood?” Yuuji asked.

“More importantly, Itadori, your ‘brother’ has turned the fight chaotic,” said the Kamo, unintentionally coming to Sukuna’s rescue. “We should use this as our chance to retrieve the Prison Realm.” 

“Right.” Yuuji nodded, brushing back his hair in a manner that was oddly familiar to how Sukuna would do so. 

“I still have two cores, so I’ll lead the front,” Panda said. “If we all attack together, it should create an opening.”

They rushed in, hoping to flank Kenjaku by surprise, but the three had failed to take Uraume into account. They unleashed their technique, freezing both Choso and Yuuji’s group into mounds of ice.

This wasn’t the time for Sukuna to explain the intricacies of the situation to Uraume, so instead, he allowed Yuuji to spearhead the operation. Uraume’s ice was ineffective against Sukuna, and thus he freed the boy, allowing him to rush in and rescue Choso from where Uraume was attempting to kill him.

Destroying the ice surrounding Choso, Yuuji freed him and the pair darted back for a moment to recover.

“Are you our ally?” Yuuji asked.

“I’m not!” Choso answered.

“Huh?”

“I am your older brother.”

“Could you please take this seriously!”

Choso, serious as ever, simply said, “Let me hear you say it out loud, Yuuji. Call me brother.”

Before Yuuji could respond, Uraume struck again. They sent out a gust of icy wind, freezing Yuuji and Choso momentarily before revealing their true ambush: crystalized spears of ice that rained down from the sky. Gritting his teeth, Yuuji struggled to move his frozen limbs, before closing his eyes in preparation for the oncoming onslaught.

Luckily for him, this onslaught never came, for another new face had made their appearance.

“Long time, no see, Geto.” She was a tall woman, with long blond hair and a bone dragon shikigami wrapped around her. “Could I get your answer to my question from back then? I was wondering what kind of women you go for.”

Not this again. 

“Yuki Tsukumo,” Kenjaku greeted, though their smile was strained. 

As they were speaking– something about evolving away from cursed energy, a topic Sukuna had no such interest in– Sukuna ushered Yuuji to quietly remove himself from Uraume’s icy hold on him. 

“What are they talking about?” Yuuji whispered, rolling out his shoulder.

Sukuna groaned. “Uselessness.”

“Good, ‘cause I don’t really understand either way.”

“And that is far from the ideals in which I pursue,” Tsukumo finished her speech. Yuuji looked over to where Choso was still half-frozen, undoubtedly plotting out in his mind how he’d come to rescue him.

“Hah, as if that matters. For one thing, our objectives are different. I don’t desire a world without cursed-spirits, or any sort of idyllic peace.” Now, Sukuna was listening in a little. Kenjaku had always been cryptic in their plans and motivations, but now, it seemed they were loosening up a bit. Which could only mean that said plans were nearly all the way to fruition. “Non-sorcerers, sorcerers, cursed-spirits– those are all possibilities of cursed energy in the form of human beings. And yet… there must be more to human potential.

“I was attempting to give rise to other possibilities for mankind.” Kenjaku turned to where Choso was using his Blood Manipulation to melt the ice encasing him. “But that didn’t work. Everything that I created myself was limited by the bounds of my own potential.”

Choso was proof of this failed experiment of Kenjaku’s, no doubt, but then… What did that make Yuuji? 

“What I actually should have created was chaos that went far beyond my abilities to control. And I’ve already finished extracting the technique.”

There it was. Resurrecting Sukuna was part of that uncontrolled chaos, no doubt. Which just further reinstated what he already assumed: he and Yuuji were mere tools of Kenjaku to get what they desired. 

Tsukumo jolted, turning to address Yuuji. “There was a cursed-spirit called Mahito, right?” She asked. “The one with a technique that can manipulate the soul. What happened to it?”

“They absorbed it before you got here,” Yuuji said, pointing to Kenjaku.

Horrified, Tsukumo exclaimed, “No way!”

Leaning down, Kenjaku pressed a hand to the ground and intoned, “Idle Transfiguration.” 

Rising from the ground was a blinding, purplish symbol that hovered above them. Yuuji looked at it in a daze.

“I think that might be Tengen’s barrier– No, wait. Remote activation of a cursed technique?” Tsukumo muttered to herself.

“Yuuji Itadori,” Kenjaku spoke next, causing the boy to draw his vision away from the floating symbol and face the other. “You have my thanks. A cursed-spirit’s mastery of their technique ceases to grow at the moment they’re absorbed by Cursed-Spirit Manipulation. Mahito truly matured through his fight with you.” 

Yuuji sucked in a breath– just how far did Kenjaku’s strings reach? 

“What have you done?” Tsukumo asked.

“I remotely activated Idle Transfiguration ahead of time on two types of non-sorcerers. There were people whom I had absorb cursed objects, like Yuuji Itadori did. And there were people who have cursed techniques, but whose brains were structured like non-sorcerers, like Junpei Yoshino.”

Yuuji shivered at that. 

“And now, I have released the seal on those cursed objects. Some of them have been in a deep sleep since coming into contact with my cursed energy, but they’ll soon awaken. When that happens, I’ll have them fight each other in order to deepen their understanding of cursed energy.” Their smile was calm, unslighted. “Think of it as unleashing a thousand malevolent Yuuji Itadoris on the world.”

“A thousand? That’s conservative. You’re also underestimating human rationality. Do you think people will start killing each other just because they were granted power?” 

Kenjaku tilted their head. “Everything has an order, you see. I certainly didn’t cut corners like that when making my preparations. Your questions are starting to become shallow.”

Tsukumo gasped in feigned offense. To Yuuji, she said, “They’re pissing me off, so let’s beat them up together!”

“Sure, but–”

All of a sudden, the ice formations surrounding them dwindled into waves of liquid water, like a fountain of rain pouring down on them. Turning back to Uraume, Yuuji found them collapsed to their knees in pain.

“What’s the matter, Uraume?” Kenjaku inquired. Sukuna was beginning to grow tired of seeing his servant at their side.

“I regenerated my body with Reverse Cursed Technique– this is… poison?” They answered between hollow breaths.

Choso filled in the gaps. “My blood was mixed in with Piercing Blood. It’s poison.”

“ Take Uraume with you before this ends,” Sukuna told Yuuji, his eye lingering on their defeated stance.

What, why? Yuuji replied.

“ They are not your enemy. Think of them as you do Choso– they are unaware of the truth.” 

Okay. So long as you promise they’ll be our ally.

Sukuna laughed. “ They are my loyal servant. They will follow me regardless.”

“Can we please get back to our talk now?” Kenjaku began once more. Sukuna was really going to enjoy ending their drawn-out life once this was all said and done. “The cursed objects that I distributed are what’s left of the sorcerers I’ve been secretly making pacts with for a thousand years. Of course, I forged pacts with more than just sorcerers. But then, those pacts were nullified when I obtained this body.”

“No…” uttered Tsukumo. 

“Yes,” they continued, with a deranged sort of delight. “This is the world of the future.” 

From beneath them, curses swarmed and levitated into the air, chittering and squabbling in a maelstrom of dark, sickly cursed energy. They overtook the land, distorting the view in pools of black smoke. All Yuuji could see was Kenjaku, standing before him with the Prison Realm in their hand– just out of reach.

“Goodbye, Yuuji Itadori,” they said. Yuuji leapt to his feet, scrambling to reach the other. “I have high expectations for you, Sukuna. After all, it would be such a shame if the golden age of Jujutsu was prohibited from being reborn because some unwarranted familial ties got in the way, don’t you think?”

“Huh?” the boy breathed.

“Yuuji!” Sukuna snapped, directing him to where Uraume’s crumpled figure was. They would no doubt be taken by Kenjaku to wherever the curse user was going, should his vessel not work fast enough. 

Of course, Sukuna need not worry. Yuuji worked quickly, pushing past the mist and dense conglomeration of cursed energy to reach Uraume. He scooped them up and over his shoulder, and at first, they began to struggle.

“Uraume!” Sukuna called over the chaos.

Their eyes widened, and they strained to find the little eye and mouth present on the boy’s cheek. “Master?”
“Much has occurred. Kenjaku is no longer our ally. For now, do not resist.”

“Mm.” Uraume, who must have been feeling the effects of Choso’s poison, surrendered easily and went limp in Yuuji’s hold. They were still alive, however, and that was all that mattered.

Sukuna sighed.

This was all turning out to be more of a mess than anyone could have anticipated.

Hours had passed. Yuuji, having been separated from the rest of the group, was walking around the city, exorcizing cursed-spirits where he could and trying to come up with his next steps. In his hand was a flashlight he had stolen from an abandoned convenience store– along with a meat bun he’d already consumed. At his side was Uraume, who was recovering from the effects of Choso’s poison. It would surely not kill them, but it would take a bit to fully expel it from their body– a process neither Sukuna nor Yuuji could accelerate.

That was fine, though. 

“Master Sukuna, if I may,” Uraume began, their voice hoarse from all the retching they’d been doing. The three of them had been mostly silent, up to this point. “Why can we no longer trust Kenjaku?”

Sukuna summoned an eye and maw on Yuuji’s face– keeping it there for extended periods turned out to be difficult, with Yuuji subconsciously resisting him. They were… getting better though. 

“They have betrayed us,” Sukuna answered. He was struggling to figure out a way in which to disclose the nature of Kenjaku’s crime to Uraume without exposing their relationship to Yuuji himself.

The boy, however, had other plans. “Wait, I wanna know this too.” Yuuji stopped in his tracks– damn him and the inquisitive nature of the youth. “What were you two talking about before? About family and blood and… me?”     

“Quiet, brat. Do not ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

“What do you mean? I do what answers! And, you said Choso wasn’t lying about being my brother. How do you know that?” 

Sukuna scoffed. “It’s not a matter of knowing for certain. It’s merely that all the information given to me points to the same conclusion: Kenjaku fathered Choso and his brothers as an experiment– they are half-curses. How they did so, I have no idea. That occurred long after my passing. You can ask Choso for the specifics when you reunite, if you so wish.” 

“But how does that make me related to Choso? I’m not a half-curse, right?” Yuuji suddenly seemed unsure.

“No, you were born human.”

“Then…” The boy grunted, thinking for a moment. “I have no memory of my parents. They died when I was a baby. So… Are you saying– could it really be that Kenjaku is my father as well?”

Sukuna sighed. “Not your father. Your mother. I saw an image of her when I first skimmed through your memories– Kenjaku was undoubtedly possessing that woman’s body to create you.”

“Create?”

“Brat, heed my words carefully: you are exhausted and worn out, both in body and spirit. Do not poke into things that will only exacerbate your pre-existing wounds.”

“Like hell I’m ignoring this! You’ve kept this from me this whole time, and I’m just supposed to trust you have good reasoning for doing so?” Yuuji shouted. Calming down, he continued, “Look, I never really cared much about my parents or family or blood or any of that. It was just me and my grandpa for most of my life, and I was happy with leaving it at that. But that’s different now. So– so if there’s something about me that everyone else seems to know, then I think I should get the right to too.”

Sukuna looked at Uraume, and a small flicker of realization shone across their eyes. They had begun to piece things together, which meant that once more, Yuuji would know less about his own making than the people around him.

Dammit. 

“They made you to be my perfect vessel,” Sukuna forced the words out, not waiting to gauge Yuuji’s reaction. “Kenjaku sealed one of my fingers inside you when you were born to strengthen you– that is why your body has always superseded your peers, and partly why you are able to resist my control. But, perhaps more importantly…” He grimaced, closing his eye. “Kenjaku did not choose your father to mate with without purpose.”

The boy was quiet. “Why then?” 

“It is a long story.”

“We have time.” Yuuji sat down, leaning against the railing of a bridge. He flicked off the flashlight– the sun was beginning to rise across the east. Then, he patted the pavement beside him, gesturing for Uraume to sit there.

So friendly.

So quick to bear his heart.

So– unlike me.

Sukuna began the tale quietly, his eye on Uraume, for their reaction would be easier to stomach than the boy’s. “I was meant to be born as twins. However, something occurred– perhaps my mother was starving, or perhaps it was simply the damned nature of twins falling down upon us– and I ended up consuming my brother in the womb to survive. I was born disfigured and wretched, doubled both physically and through my cursed technique. I never thought much of him, my twin, for he had succumbed to my hunger before I’d even known him in any real capacity. But… somehow, his soul survived and drifted along the spirit realm until it reincarnated in this era. Kenjaku sought him out, though I don’t know how, and from that came you; my brother’s child, my nephew, my blood. The only thing that could stand in the way of my might. That is what you are, Yuuji. Kenjaku deceived me all those centuries ago and meddled with my lineage, so that one day I would be reborn in you. ”

Uraume was furious, that was more than apparent by the crease in their brow and the hard lines beside their jaw. They were easy, predictable, wholly loyal to Sukuna without question.

Yuuji, however…

Sukuna didn’t know how he would take it. And, for the first time in his life, that uncertainty rattled him, sinking its fangs deep in his veins and making him tingle with disgust. Yet, he said the words anyway. He kept Yuuji alive and breathing anyway.

“Oh,” Yuuji said. “That’s it?”

“ What?” 

The boy laughed– laughed! “It’s just, from the way you were warning me about it, I thought it would be something serious.”

“This is not serious to you!?”

”Well, I mean, not really. I’m already your vessel, what difference does it make if you’re also my uncle? Or if that was all part of Kenjaku’s plan? You said so yourself earlier: no one can decide who we are or what our paths are but ourselves. Actually, us being family makes things easier. Now I know for certain your heartlessness isn’t intrinsic to who you are!”

“You–” Sukuna tried, but in the end, he couldn’t fight the smile that spread across his manifested maw. “You are truly an enigma.”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m pissed at Kenjaku, same as everyone else. But them being my mother? I really don’t care.” Yuuji looked at his hands in his lap, solemn. “I didn’t think much about my parents, because they weren’t the ones who were there for me growing up– Grandpa was. That still hasn’t changed. The only thing that has is you, Sukuna.” 

“Have I, now?”

“Yes. Even Kenjaku saw it. You were there for me. You still are.” He looked up at Uraume and smiled. “So, whatever happens, I’m not mad about that. I told you I’d show you love and understanding, and I won’t rescind that. You are me, I am you. Blood or not.”

It was Sukuna’s turn to laugh. “Do you see what that parasite has left me to deal with, Uraume?”

The other’s lips trailed upwards, amusement glimmering in their eyes. “This certainly clears many things up. I presume Kenjaku is our enemy, now?”

“Indeed it would seem. A new age is beginning, boy. Do not disappoint me.” 

“Somehow,” Yuuji said, rising once more. He bore a soft expression as the wind tousled his hair and the rising sun brought color back to his cheeks. “I feel like everything will work out.” 

Chapter Text

An hour or so later, Yuuji stopped at a building, sitting on the steps leading up the foyer. He sighed, rolling out his wrists. Then, he turned to Uraume and spoke.

“How’s the poison?” He asked.

“Thoughtful of you to ask,” they said, not unkindly. “It should all be expelled from my body by now, you needn’t worry. I’ve forgotten what a burden possessing a corporeal body is.”

Sukuna could sympathize; though he was resistant to all toxins, a body that was not his original posed other challenges.

Yuuji hummed. “That’s good.” He said as much, but the way he was wringing his hands and unable to sit still told a different story.

Sukuna was about to question the boy’s plan moving forward, when a presence made itself known. 

“Yuuji,” Choso called, emerging from the building. Yuuji craned his neck to see his brother, and the latter startled at the sight of Uraume.

Recalling their earlier dispute, Uraume leapt to their feet and raised their hands, the air noticeably dropping in temperature as their cursed technique bubbled to the surface. Choso’s facial muscles tightened, and he replicated the stance. 

“You.” They sneered at the same time.

Yuuji, ever the mediator, hastily rose as well and positioned himself between the two. “Whoa, whoa, calm down! It’s okay, we’re all allies here!”
“They are aligned with Noritoshi Kamo. They are no ally of mine or of yours, little brother.” Choso’s eyes darkened. Meanwhile, Yuuji cringed at the moniker.  

“It was a misunderstanding, Choso, just like it was for you. Uraume is on our side now,” the boy explained.

The pair stared at each other for a moment more, but with Yuuji standing between them– arms outstretched to block any incoming attack– there was not much more either could do. Besides, Uraume was Sukuna’s servant. They would not so blatantly go against the nephew of their master.

Although Yuuji bristled at the thought of someone serving him.

Eventually, and at the same time, Choso and Uraume surrendered, relaxing and dropping their techniques. Breathing a sigh of relief, Yuuji turned to address his brother properly.

“How did you find us?” He asked. “And how did you figure out I was your brother?”

“I share a special connection with all my brothers. I can feel you through our blood relation– when I almost–” Choso paused, swallowing down the emotion before it could breach through. “When you almost died, I saw a vision of you and all our brothers together. That’s how I knew you were my brother as well, and how I was able to locate you.”

“Oh.”

“So you understand it?”

“Not really, but it’s not the first time something like that has happened to me.” At the very least, that other occasion wasn’t actually blood-related. “Besides, Sukuna already confirmed the possibility of our relationship, so I’ll trust what you say is true.”

Choso inclined his head. “That is all I wish for. How are your injuries?”
“I’m fine,” Yuuji rolled out his shoulder. “I’m learning Reverse Cursed Technique, and Sukuna takes care of everything else. It must be the fingers I consumed, but I can feel him growing more powerful. He absorbs the brunt of most of the attacks that land on me.”

“Good. I reckon you wish to return to Jujutsu High? Don’t worry about me; our remaining brothers are there, so I will follow you and rescue them as well.”

Yuuji shook his head, directing his vision elsewhere. “I can’t return, even if I want to. I’ve caused too much damage and killed too many people to go back and beg for everyone’s forgiveness. I have to resolve things, at least somewhat, before I can say hello to everyone again with a genuine conscience.” 

The boy was isolating himself out of guilt.

Foolish, but not unlike him. He had yet to fully forgive Sukuna for Shibuya, let alone himself. Even if their relationship was making progress, Yuuji’s faith in himself had shattered completely. It would take mending a few things to bring his spirit back in full. 

Well. What a blessing it was then that he and Uraume had turned a new leaf. If the boy wished to use Sukuna’s hands to fix rather than destroy, the latter would indulge this game of his. If only out of curiosity. 

“And you?” Yuuji returned his gaze to Choso. “I also killed your little brothers. Could you stand to be by my side and forgive me, knowing that?”

The words were painful, but spoken without emotion, as if Yuuji were prepared to face the rejection he was sure was coming.

The boy truly underestimated his own, intrinsic charm. He’d won over the King of Curses— that alone should have told him something. Yet now it almost seemed as though he didn’t want anyone to forgive him. 

Too bad he was so likeable, then. 

As a testament to this, Choso simply responded, “It’s fine. That, too, was a misunderstanding. If Eso and Kechizu were in my place, they would say the same thing. It’s not a matter of forgiving or not forgiving. Brothers are just like that.”

“Mm, I see.” Yuuji looked back at his clasped hands. He was quiet for a moment. “So, are you coming along with us?”

Choso nodded. 

“Alright. Then, let’s go. Our focus right now should be wiping out as many cursed-spirits as possible and rescuing any survivors. Then we can worry about Gojo and Kenjaku.”

“Kenjaku?”

“Noritoshi Kamo— Kenjaku is their real name. They have a technique that allows them to move from body to body. Sukuna knew them a thousand years ago.”

“I see… That would explain how they’ve existed for so long.” 

Yuuji looked to Uraume, then back to Choso, then sighed. “And, please don’t fight.” The two of them eyed the other, wrinkling their noses. “You don’t have to like each other, but at least work without disturbing one another. Okay?”

“There will be no problem, I assure you. I am no child. This one, on the other hand…” Uraume sent another glare Choso’s way, causing the latter to flare up in anger.

“I am not–!”

“...was just recently given a body for the first time, so it is understandable if he is not as well-adjusted.”

“Well-adjusted– At least I have a semblance of loyalty! What reason do you have to help my little brother other than the fact he is the vessel of your former master? Do you even see him as anything beyond that?” Choso postulated, issuing a submerged hiss from Uraume.

Sukuna snickered.

“Okay, enough!” Yuuji rubbed his temples. “Seriously, aren’t you guys supposed to be older than me? Why am I the one telling you to calm down?”

“My apologies.” They said, bowing before his vessel in an unintentionally simultaneous manner. 

Sukuna suspected the two had more in common than they’d like to admit.

A topic for later, he supposed.

For now, the three of them were headed out to exterminate some curses.

After much persuasion– both from Choso and Uraume, as well as Sukuna’s admittedly less pleasant mental insistence– Yuuji finally gave up the battle and went to sleep. After stealing more convenience store food and consuming that as their dinner, the three of them had settled in a mattress store for the night. 

Yuuji, despite his protests, was exhausted. He’d passed out the moment his body hit the soft firmness of the display bed. Sukuna found him curled up in his innate domain once more, cocooned beneath his cloak, and couldn’t help the faint smile that pulled at his lips.

There were still no flowers, however.

Nonetheless, the boy slept onward, with Choso and Uraume standing guard, given they had no biological need to sleep. They had resorted to a silent ceasefire for the time being, in order to not disturb the boy under their watch. They were not aware, it seemed, of Yuuji’s superhuman ability to sleep through the most disastrous of environments. Even this location was unnecessary– the boy could sleep just fine standing upright. 

Still, Sukuna supposed his vessel had earned as decent a night’s rest as the circumstances could provide him. Much was still to be done, so proper rest was of utmost importance.

Thus, why he too was watching over Yuuji.

“Are you truly Sukuna’s servant?” Choso asked, breaking their truce. It would seem his human side was presenting itself more and more since meeting his youngest brother, making his desire for conversation apparent. 

“His most loyal follower, his right hand, his sole confidant– yes, I am. Do you doubt this?” They narrowed their eyes at him.

Choso looked up at the moonlight beaming through their window. “It is not you I doubt. It is Noritoshi Kamo whose words I do not trust.”

Uraume hummed. “Kenjaku has truly brought upon a confusing series of events. That, we can agree on, Death Painting.”

“If you are all that you claim, then I assume your goal is to bring back Sukuna.” Uraume didn’t respond, but their answer was evident. “Unfortunately, that is not something I can let come to pass. Though we may be allies for now, I won’t allow you to harm my little brother or to turn him into an unwilling vessel.”

“I figured as much. In truth, the plan Kenjaku and I had did not involve Itadori in such a manner.”

Choso’s brows pinched together. “Oh?”

Drifting their vision to the lump on the bed that was Yuuji’s sleeping form, Uraume said, “A discussion for later, when my master and the young ward are present participants. Kenjaku’s plans stretch far and wide, beyond that of ourselves, even. I never cared one way or the other, so long as my master was resurrected.” 

“Have things changed?”

“Mm. Itadori is here.”

Choso huffed. “Indeed.”

Satisfied with his listening in on the outside world, Sukuna slipped back to his innate domain. Much to his dismay, he found Yuuji twitching and struggling in his sleep. 

The beginnings of a nightmare.

It was not that Sukuna didn’t expect this– on the contrary, even the boy himself had known it would come to pass, given the nature of everything he had witnessed– but rather that he was uncertain how to approach the situation. He would have to do so quickly, or else the display would present itself in the corporeal realm, leaving Uraume and Choso to handle it. Yuuji, not all that familiar with the two, would likely wave away their attempts to soothe him in embarrassment, then spend the rest of the night in awkward silence, unable to find sleep. 

That was not the preferable outcome.

So, it would be up to Sukuna once more– but how so? A large chunk of the boy’s distress was due to Sukuna’s own actions, and while they were bridging the gap of understanding between each other, he still could not fathom how to comfort his vessel when it was he who haunted Yuuji’s nightmares.

Enough. 

He had dealt with Yuuji’s night terrors before, what difference would this one be?

Silencing his own meaningless thoughts, Sukuna knelt before the boy. With practiced ease, he reached over with his thumb and forefinger and pinched Yuuji’s nose. Disgruntled, his face scrunched up and, sure enough, he awoke.

“Sukuna?” The brat mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he sat up. 

“I’m here,” said Sukuna, before realizing that likely wasn’t a comforting statement.

Yuuji blinked a few times, registered his surroundings, and hummed. He wrapped the cape tighter around himself and shivered, but he made no move to lie back down. 

Sukuna sighed, sitting back on his haunches. “Well? Get on with it, brat.” 

“Huh?”

“You were having a nightmare. Vent your frustrations and go back to sleep.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” He looked at the ground, as if expecting to find the flowers he would usually fiddle with, only to be disappointed. “It wasn’t anything in particular. You know, I never used to have bad dreams before. Maybe when I was a kid, over like, vegetables or homework or something. But that’s not the same. These are… not like dreams, more like recalling memories.”

“Of Shibuya?”

“Just now? Yeah. Sometimes they’re other things, though.”

Sukuna hesitated. “And who plays the role of the perpetrator, in these dreams?”

“Mahito, most of the time. Kenjaku, too, and–” Yuuji’s eyes widened and he clamped his mouth shut. But Sukuna had already anticipated this. 

“And me.”

Defeated, Yuuji’s shoulders slumped. “...Yeah. Isn’t that weird? You destroyed so much, but when you woke me up, I wasn’t scared or upset to see you. Actually, I’m glad it was you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if Choso or Uraume woke me up. But this feels… right? Is that strange?”

“Mm, but you’ve always been a strange one.” Sukuna stretched out his hand to flatten the tufts of wayward hair that had been shuffled about in the boy’s sleep. 

“So are you!”

Sukuna tugged on a strand of his hair, not enough to tear it out, but just enough to cause his vessel to wince and stick his tongue out at the other. Sukuna laughed. “You should learn to respect your elders, brat.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. As if you’re a prime example of respect, Uncle.” 

Sukuna froze.

Yuuji had been so nonchalant about their relation to each other, he had almost forgotten his vessel knew…

The boy frowned. “Does that really bother you so much?”

Sukuna clicked his tongue, pointing his vision elsewhere.

“It does!” He laughed. “C’mon, I’ve met three family members I never knew about in the past day, and you don’t see me complaining! And one of them tried to kill me! And the other two are super evil bad guys!” 

The other scoffed. “So strange.”

Yuuji pouted in faux-disconcert.

Eventually, his expression took on a more solemn look. “But, I mean, Choso and Uraume tried to kill me, and I’m not mad at them. I don’t have nightmares about them either. It's probably not the same, because that was a matter of miscommunication, but…” He looked up at Sukuna, honey-brown meeting crimson-red.

“You give your heart out too easily,” Sukuna stated. 

“Maybe. But, until I have a reason to stop, I won’t.”

“You wouldn’t be such a brat if you did.” He laid his hand on Yuuji’s head, mussing up the hair he just fixed. The boy whined, which only made Sukuna’s mirth grow. 

“But still, it’s weird, thinking about the you who killed everyone and the you right now.”

“Are those two parts of my being so far removed, to you?”

Yuuji rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I guess not. I guess it just means you’re… trying? You’re not all evil, but not all good either. But that’s okay.”

With a devilish grin, the brat extended his hand and pulled at Sukuna’s hair. Snarling, but not truly angered, Sukuna tugged at Yuuji’s ear. Yuuji swatted at him, rolling to the ground to avoid him. The boy collapsed into a fit of giggles and, not for the first time, Sukuna reminded himself how young his vessel was. 

“See? There’s good in you and a want to be good too, I think. Knowing that helps.”

“You talk a lot of drivel and pull a lot of nonsense for someone speaking to a demon god.”

“But you haven’t killed me yet!”

Sukuna smirked. “Who else would entertain me, if not you?”

“Well, in any case, thanks, Sukuna.” Yuuji smiled at the other, his eyes and the crescent lines beneath them wrinkling. “I think I’m ready to go back to sleep now.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

All he really needed was someone to talk to. Someone to listen, even if everything he said was foolish and aggravating and he– 

He was so strange. 

Sukuna shook his head. 

What a brat.

Yuuji curled back into his cocoon and, just before he fell asleep, grinned and said, “Goodnight, Uncle.” 

His heart twisted beyond what his ribcage could hold, and a low hiss fell from Sukuna’s tongue. “ Don’t you dare.”

But Yuuji was already asleep. 

When morning came his vessel, figuring his uniform would be too recognizable, stopped at a clothing store to change into something less suspicious. Naturally, he chose a zip-up hoodie and a plain white undershirt, keeping the shoes and pants from his uniform. At one point, he asked Sukuna what color he should pick— yellow or red? Sukuna gave no comment. 

Though there was no one left to see or bother about him stealing— nor would many of the items likely ever be sold again— Yuuji still felt bad about the robbery. It took Choso offering to have him wear his outer robe instead that got the brat to move past it.  

As of currently, Yuuji was walking back along the bridge he was on prior to reuniting with Choso, retracing his steps to properly assess the area. He had sensed some curses lurking in the water and on the underside of the bridge earlier, but hadn’t had the chance to exorcise them with Uraume still suffering the effects of Choso’s blood. Now, however, he had a plan in motion.

As the boy had anticipated, a swarm of giant-sized cursed-spirits flew out at him from all angles, squirming and squealing about. They crashed through the bridge, and Uraume sent out a spear of ice, giving Yuuji the opportunity to leap off of it and evade the curses.

He sprinted onward, ensuring the monsters were following him, until he came across an underpass. He skirted down to it, then shouted for Choso. Just as the cursed-spirits were about to reach the boy, Uraume sent out another block of ice to propel him to the wayside. Meanwhile, the curses surged through the underpass into Choso’s waiting hands, their exorcisms imminent by the draw of Piercing Blood.

All their exorcisms, but one.

A cursed-spirit resembling a sugar glider managed to avoid Choso’s technique, and began closing the gap between the two. Annoyed, his brother mumbled Yuuji’s name.

The boy, however, had already begun to chase the creature, descending from above to land a punch square on the curse’s face. With just one hit, it fizzled away.

His vessel truly had grown. Not just in strength, but the planning (although nothing too complex) was commendable too, especially for a boy as brash as Yuuji. Granted, he had the level-headed Uraume and Choso at his side, but nonetheless, praise was due where praise was needed.

Yuuji had grown and still had some growing to do. The potential of this one wily brat was… Well, he and Sukuna were related for a reason, no?

“As impressive as ever, little brother,” Choso spoke for him.

“You’re still calling me that?”

“Of course. And I will continue to do so until it sticks. Try to remember, Yuuji. Your father, he had stitches on his forehead, did he not?”

“Mother, actually.” The boy ignored the other’s bewildered expression. “But, even so, we just met each other. Shouldn’t the title of brother be earned, regardless of blood?”
“I–”

“I don’t see Megumi,” said a voice. Yuuji and Choso turned, finding a blonde man standing atop the underpass and looking down at them. As if summoned by the new threat, Uraume appeared at the side of Yuuji not occupied by his brother. “Am I the first one here? Is that possible? Is he that slow?

The man kept mumbling to himself, but Yuuji’s mind was hyper focused solely on the name he’d spilled. He hadn’t seen Megumi since he’d left the other boy with Shoko and Yaga, so his status and whereabouts were unknown.

That unnerved Yuujj.

“What are you two doing?” The stranger finally addressed them. “You totally stand out. Don’t you want to run?”

“Run?” Yuuji questioned. The man was most certainly a sorcerer, but from where or for whom was still up in the air.

“Huh? Don’t you know?” The other mocked, hands on his hips. “Your death sentence is back on since Satoru’s support is gone.”

Ah, right. The only thing that Six Eyes was good for– keeping Yuuji’s execution at bay. With him out of the way… Indubitably, the higher-ups were having their fun. 

On either side of him, both Uraume and Choso tensed, their cursed signatures broiling an ugly red. 

“My business is with Megumi,” continued the strange man. “So I honestly couldn’t care less if you live or die. However, I can’t have you scampering around and interfering. So, I think I’ll start by breaking your legs.”

With the mention of Megumi being brought forth once again, Yuuji’s cursed energy too began to burn with anger.

“What do you want with Megumi?” He shouted, his muscles constricting as cursed energy saturated his body. Truly, he was at his scariest when his dearest beloved was threatened. 

Sukuna once again found himself thankful he’d saved the Ten Shadows runt. To think what the brat would be like if Megumi had died…

The blonde man smiled. “Hm… I think I’ll have him die. But it’d help if he wrote a little something for me first.”

As per usual, that was all it took. Yuuji pinched his brows together, readying his fighting stance and–

“I heard Megumi is looking for you.” 

He was already there!? 

Such speed, they hardly even noticed! 

He slammed his right fist into Yuuji’s neck, blocking Choso’s attacks with left. From the opposite side, Uraume attempted to freeze the sorcerer’s legs, but he simply leapt off the ground and dodged the ice.

Just as his feet touched the ground, and Yuuji and Choso prepared for round two, the man zipped away. Their punches hit air, and the two of them stood stunned before realizing their opponent had dashed to the other side of the road.

“He’s really fast, but something’s weird,” Yuuji muttered.

“It’s probably a cursed technique,” Choso supplied.

“My ice isn’t fast enough to catch up to him. We’ll have to predict his moves,” added Uraume.

Nodding, the three prepared their next advances, when a sudden compression of cursed energy befell the area, staggering even the stranger. Uraume, used to Sukuna’s overwhelming presence, remained the only one unfazed.

Yuuji whipped his head around to find the source of the power, and from the roof of a neighboring building was the second intruder of the day. He was significantly younger than the first intruder— not that much older than Yuuji, really— and was carrying a scabbard. On his white top were two golden buttons with the symbol of Jujutsu on them, not that that meant much now. 

All sorcerers were to be assumed as enemies, given this new update to Yuuji’s status.

“Who are you?” His vessel, never one to instigate anything unless prompted, asked as the other drew his katana from its sheath. 

The newcomer said nothing, merely stepping off the roof he was on to descend upon the group. His landing was effortlessly powerful, exploding the material of the wall under and behind him. 

Such potent strength… Undoubtedly a special-grade. 

“Who’s with Itadori?” The stranger asked, walking along the rubble he’d created.

No one answered him.    

“So you’re Yuuji’s executioner,” Choso growled.

“Wait just a second!” The man with the speed-related technique spoke up, his hands raised in feigned surrender. “I’m on your side. You’re Okkotsu, right?”

Ah. 

One of Yuuji’s memories trickled to the present, as he recalled the name as the one of the second-year Megumi had mentioned in the past. He was supposedly studying abroad, so then, why was he here? A summons? If he was to be Yuuji’s executioner, as Choso had predicted, that certainly made sense. 

But why him?

“Who are you?” The boy– Okkotsu – asked the other.

“I’m Naoya Zen’in, Maki’s cousin,” he responded. A Zen’in. Of course. Irritating sorcerers, that bunch, even in the Heian era. “I’m also here to kill Itadori.” 

As the Zen’in continued rambling, Choso turned to his brother and mouthed, “You gotta run, Yuuji.”

Evidently, Yuuji couldn’t quite catch his meaning, but Uraume understood.

“No need,” they mouthed back. “I can handle them just fine.” 

Choso’s face twitched, and he sent a challenging glare at the other, which Uraume returned in kind. Yuuji, naturally, stood in the crossfire of an argument he didn’t even know was occurring. 

Still, Uraume was right; there was no opportunity for them to run, and even if they did, their assailants would catch up eventually. Choso begrudgingly accepted this, however, a new idea formed in his head.

“There’s a trick to the blonde one’s speed,” Choso murmured– aloud, for Yuuji’s sake– focusing on Naoya. “Playing chase with him won’t work, but I have tricks of my own, so I’ll take him.”

“You sure? You’ll be alright?” Yuuji asked. 

“I will be, don’t worry. The one they want is you, Yuuji. So, focus on getting away from Okkotsu.”

“I will handle that one,” interjected Uraume. “He’s a special-grade, I can feel it. I am the only one here with the same rank, so I’ll take him.”

“Fine by me. We’ll meet back up at yesterday’s spot,” Choso said.

Yuuji shook his head. “No, wait. I’ll run, but I’ll come back, and I’ll bring some curses with me. That should create enough of a distraction for us to get the upper hand.”

“ Not to kill them?” Sukuna asked. 

A shiver went down Yuuji’s spine. I… 

He trailed off, and Naoya and Okkotsu struck. 

Naoya went for Choso, which worked well for their plan, however Okkotsu was solely focused on Yuuji. 

True to his word, Yuuji sprinted off, but Okkotsu was fast, even with a drawn katana in his hand. Uraume formed a pillar of ice, flipping a car over and allowing Yuuji to leap over and duck behind it. 

Okkotsu caught on quickly, however, and darted along the side of the vehicle to draw a slash at Yuuji’s landing. Uraume shot out a blade of ice, cutting off the other’s attack and allowing Yuuji the momentum to propel himself back over the car.

Thinking fast, the boy smashed his fist into the car, and with just pure strength alone, he rammed it into Okkotsu. At the same time, spikes of ice protruded from the ground, disturbing Okkotsu’s landing.

No way out. 

Taking his chance, Yuuji sped off once more into an alleyway, searching for nearby cursed spirits. However, Okkotsu remained unfettered, sending the car overhead and crashing into a nearby wall. 

At this rate, even with Uraume as back up, Yuuji wouldn’t have an opportunity to duck away. Unless….

“Surprised?” said Okkotsu, slowly closing the space between them. “I don’t look like the power type. I’m actually on the weaker side. But I’ve got more cursed energy than Gojo-sensei.”

“Huh?” How was that possible?
“But Sensei has– Urk!” A rain of frozen daggers fell from above them, whilst icy stalagmites rose from below. Okkotsu managed to avoid most of them, but his leg and arm had been impaled. He stumbled.

“Done talking?” Uraume hissed. “You can use Reverse Cursed Technique all you want, but you won’t be able to melt my ice.”

Sukuna. Yuuji thought, as Okkotsu was momentarily distracted by the other. Do you remember, back at the detention center, when you made my cursed energy flare up?

“Mm, I do.”

Could you do it again? But with your cursed energy, not mine.

Sukuna raised a brow. “Why?”

Cursed-spirits are drawn to your cursed energy, aren’t they? 

Oh, now Sukuna understood. Instead of finding his own curses, Yuuji wanted to drag them to him. Smart. “ If you insist.” 

Inside his chest, a boiling hot, searing hellfire began to stir and fester. It was contained inside Yuuji’s own body, the same as it was inside his fingers, but it was potent nonetheless. Like the howl of a wolf, it was a beacon to all who recognized it. 

And it worked.

In a matter of seconds, a crowd of cursed-spirits were bounding down the streets and between buildings, all scampering to find the source of that energy and consume it.

Yuuji grinned as Sukuna drew back his cursed energy and the spirits all rushed at Okkotsu. In their confusion, they must have assumed Okkotsu, with all his boundless cursed energy, was the source of the calling. 

This was perfect for Yuuji and Uraume, given he would be too overwhelmed by the mass to fight them properly, but–

Okkotsu sprang from the swarm, charging once more at Yuuji.

He completely ignored the cursed-spirits! Even as they bit and clawed at him, he paid them no mind, healing himself over and over again so he could delegate everything he had at Yuuji. Damn. His never-ending cursed energy was good.

To make matters worse, the curses had recognized Sukuna’s residuals on the boy and pivoted their attention to Yuuji.

With both Okkotsu’s unpredictable moves and the scrambling, erratic attacks from the cursed-spirits, Yuuji was worse off than he was before.

Shit. 

“Uraume!” He called over, scarcely missing Okkotsu’s blade. “I messed up! Hold off the curses for me!”

“But, young master–!”
Young master!?

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!”

With no time to argue, Uraume set off on exorcising the horde, corralling it away from Yuuji and Okkotsu.

Yuuji re-centered himself. Just as Okkotsu was solely focused on him, so too would he be solely focused on Okkotsu. 

“Sorry,” he said. “But I can’t die just yet.” 

Okkotsu had a shikigami up his sleeve. The shadow-like creature, who Okkotsu so affectionately called Rika, grabbed hold of Yuuji. The boy struggled in its grasp, but was ultimately overpowered by it, unable to break free.

Okkotsu approached them, holding his katana up and–

No.

“Sorry, Itadori.”

Rika fizzled out, and the blade drove straight through Yuuji’s heart.

Sukuna was about to chant enchain and fix the boy himself, when…

Oh?

Okkotsu had done it already, at the exact same time as he had stabbed the boy.

He’d both killed and resurrected the boy simultaneously.

Interesting.

Sukuna pivoted his attention to Yuuji’s body, which was lying in his innate domain. He was injured and unconscious, but not mortally wounded. 

Moreover: he was alive.

“You are one lucky brat,” Sukuna muttered.

When Yuuji woke up again, night had fallen. Immediately, he gasped and sat up, ignoring the aching in his chest and side. Before him was a fire, and behind that was Okkotsu, sitting on a broken piece of wall.

Confused, Yuuji looked down at his intact chest, marred only by two stains of blood on his undershirt. His jacket had been carefully laid across his lap.

“What a relief!” Okkotsu cheered, a genuine smile stretching across his face. “I think it was around September when Gojo-sensei came to see me. He asked me to watch over you, so I had to put on this act.”

“Act?” Yuuji, intrigued, crossed his legs and sat upright.

“Instead of allowing a different executioner or having all information about you being hidden, I decided this work-around with me as your executioner was best. But the higher-ups at Jujutsu Headquarters aren’t dumb, so to approve me as such, I had to enter a binding vow to ‘kill’ you. So, I did. Sorry about that.”

“Then why am I still alive?”

“Because of Reverse Cursed Technique. At the same time your heart stopped, I instantaneously healed you. I’ve never tried it before, so I’m glad it worked!

“Still, this is the second time your death has been staged. Given the circumstances, people might find out soon. But, for a time, your death sentence will be considered complete. You’re safe.”
Yuuji, struggling to trust yet another person who had attempted to kill him, asked, “Why are you doing all this?”
“Because you’re important to people who are important to me,” came Okkotsu’s simple answer. “And… I understand what it’s like to bear a power you can’t handle. You aren’t to blame for what happened in Shibuya.”

“You don’t understand.” The boy frowned. “It isn’t about whether it’s my fault. I–”

“Yuuji.”

Yuuji’s head spun around at five times a normal speed— even for him. “Megumi,” he gasped, both in relief and in anguish.

“What are you doing?” Megumi approached him, his eyebrows pinching together. “Let’s head back to Jujutsu High. The barrier around the school is loosening. As long as no one directly sees your face, it should be no problem for you to go back. We’ll rejoin the older students and–”

“Stop!” Yuuji cut him off, sweat pooling down his temples. The sight of Megumi had brought everything back to him. “Don’t act like everything is normal, like nothing happened!”
He trembled, and Sukuna was once again reminded of the fact that, where forgiveness was easily given to others, it was not so when it pertained to himself. 

“I killed people!” Yuuji shouted, as if the events of Shibuya had simply slipped Megumi’s mind. “Because of me, so many people died!”

“It’s our fault,” Megumi snapped. “Don’t be selfish and give up all alone.”

Yuuji froze, starstruck as if he’d expected the other to suddenly despise him. Truly, it was beyond Sukuna how the two hadn’t figured out their feelings for one another yet. 

Megumi sighed. “We aren’t heroes fighting for justice. We’re Jujutsu sorcerers,” he reminded the other. “No one can say who and what we are, nor can they judge us. So we must continually prove the worth of our existence. And we don’t have the luxury of thinking about ourselves. We’ve just got to save people. Wasn’t that the principle behind your actions? Behind becoming a sorcerer?”

In his mind, and the boy sure thought loudly when he was in an emotional state, Sukuna could hear him think: No, Megumi. It’s because, as long as I’m around, you will suffer!

The curse at Yuuji’s old school, the detention center, the Yasohachi Bridge, Shibuya– all of it flooded through his vessel’s brain. Regret. Remorse. Helplessness.

But just as quickly as Yuuji had sunk, Megumi dove in and brought him back to the surface.

“So start by saving me, Yuuji,” he said. Despite everything Yuuji had caused, Megumi still had faith in him. Perhaps that was the benefit of wearing one’s heart on their sleeve. The Ten Shadows user continued, “Noritoshi Kamo has made plans for those involved with Jujutsu to face off in a culling game. My sister, Tsumiki, is ensnared in that. So, please, Yuuji. I’ll beg if I have to, but… I need your strength.”

Such a blatant cry for help, and coming from Megumi himself?

As if the brat could ever say no to that. 

Yuuji stood up and, with renewed vigor, addressed him. “What should I do?

Megumi explained the plan, which boiled down to contacting Tengen– something Sukuna was, admittedly, not looking forward to. Other than Uraume, there were few people from the Heian era he wished to see again.

“Sorry, Megumi,” Yuuji said, when the plan had been laid out. “I have to ask: what happened to Kugisaki?”

The other boy was quiet, his eyes drifting from one spot on the floor to the other. “It’s… complicated.”

Yuuji squeezed his fists, biting his lip. “Oh, I get it. I–”

“Young master!” Uraume, who was approaching the group with Choso close behind, surged forward. They reached Yuuji’s side, looking him over top to bottom and frowning at the tear in his shirt. “I apologize sincerely for my failure to ensure your safety.”

They were about to drop into a bow when Yuuji caught them, giving an awkward laugh. “It’s fine! I’m fine.”
“Of course, but Master Sukuna has such a fondness for you I would never wish to–”

“It’s fine!” Yuuji waved his hands about in a nervous manner, flushing a deep shade of scarlet.

Sukuna scoffed. Fondness? Uraume must not be seeing things properly. 

The boy looked over Uraume’s shoulder to find his brother. “Choso, hey, when did you guys get here?”

“We followed Okkotsu after he explained himself,” replied Choso. Uraume glared at the name; certainly, they weren’t pleased about his having murdered Yuuji, even if not completely. “About that concealing barrier of Tengen’s… There may be a way past it.”

“Oh?” Okkotsu prompted eagerly. Apparently, between the time Yuuji had been comatose, the three of them had gotten acquainted with one another. Megumi, on the other hand, didn’t seem all too pleased with Yuuji’s new companions. “What do you mean?”

“Mahito once stole Sukuna’s fingers and the Death Painting Wombs, right?” Choso elaborated. “We can do the same thing.”

As they were headed down to the basement beneath Jujutsu High’s main floor, Yuuji slowed his step to match Uraume’s.

“Uraume– uh– san,” he fumbled for the correct honorific. “Back there, why did you call me ‘young master?’”

They glanced at him, then at the others before them, and leaned closer to him, quietly explaining, “You are my master’s next of kin. He has claimed you as his own, thus you are under his wing, so-to-speak. What else am I to call you?”

“Uh, my name?”

Uraume wrinkled their nose. 

Sukuna snickered. 

In the basement where Yuuji had once spent an entire month was Tsukumo and the Zen’in girl with the Heavenly Restriction, though her appearance had changed significantly since their last meeting. Her hair was shorter, her glasses different, and there were burn marks all over her body.

But Sukuna didn’t really care all that much. 

Yuuji and his group relayed the information to the others, including how they planned on bypassing Tengen’s barrier— essentially, they were to utilize Choso’s technique to locate the remains of his brothers locked inside. With all that settled, Maki turned to Yuuji. 

“Who are those two?” She pointed to Uraume and Choso.

“They’re Sukuna’s servant from the Heian era, but they’re working with me, so consider them an ally,” Yuuji gestured to Uraume. Regarding Choso, he said, “And he… For now, think of him as my older brother.”

Ah, it seemed the title had at last been earned. 

This all mattered little to everyone else, but to Choso, it was enough to make him call out Yuuji’s name in adoration whilst practically holding back tears.

A strange bunch they all were.

But, well, it was as Yuuji had said: Sukuna was fairly strange himself.

Thanks to Choso, they located the gate where Tengen laid. Her shrine, if one could call it that, was an empty and endless vortex of white, devoid of color but bursting with light. For a moment, Tsukumo thought Tengen had rejected them.

But her voice carried over resolutely.

“Child of the Zen’in, Michizane’s descendant, Death Painting Womb, and Sukuna’s vessel…” She called their names out one-by-one. 

“You gonna say hello to me too, Tengen?” Tsukumo asked. 

“This is not the first time we’ve met, Yuki Tsukumo. Nor is it for you, Uraume.” 

Uraume narrowed their eyes at her. 

“Why did you close off the tombs of the Star Corridor?” Tsukumo asked.

“I was afraid you might be in alignment with Kenjaku.” She pivoted her attention to where Uraume and Yuuji were standing. “I am most surprised you are not, Uraume.”

“Their goals contest with my master’s, that is all,” Uraume responded, though there was an edge to their voice. Even in the Heian era, Tengen had always been unnervingly perceptive, always extracting things from the least suspecting. She almost resembled Kenjaku in that way. 

“Is that so?” She smiled and looked at Yuuji. “Has the little one charmed you, Sukuna?”

What a blessing it was that Yuuji did not understand what was meant by those words. 

That made it twice today that somehow had pointed out his relationship to his nephew. Sukuna could only hope she did not know of that particularity of their connection to one another.

“No matter. After all, I cannot see into the human heart.”

“Master Tengen,” Yuuji piped in. “Why do you look like that?”

Inside his domain, Sukuna cackled. The brat sure had guts.

Tengen merely smiled once more, her four eyes crinkling into crescents. “Indeed you are charming, young one. I may be immortal, but I’m not immune to aging. After five-hundred years, you too would look like this.”

“For real?” The boy breathed in awe.

“ Don’t indulge her,” Sukuna reprimanded.

Wait, Master Tengen is a woman!? Yuuji’s mental reply came bouncing back. 

“Eleven years ago, after failing to merge with a Star Plasma Vessel,” Tengen continued, “My aging accelerated and my self-awareness as an individual diminished. The very world became myself.”

“And that’s why your ‘voice’ doesn’t proliferate,” Tsukumo commented.

Megumi raised a hand. “Excuse me, but…”

Okkotsu took over for him. “We came to ask about Kenjaku’s objectives, and how to open the Prison Realm. Will you tell us what you know?”

“I wish I could simply say yes, but there is one condition. Yuta Okkotsu, Yuki Tsukumo, Uraume, and the Death Painting Womb: two of you must remain here to serve as my guards.”

“Guards? Aren’t you immortal?” Okkotsu questioned. 

From beside him, Maki offered, “Are you worried about the seal?”

“No fair!” Tsukumo whined. “You haven’t even told us why or for how long we’d stay here?”

“So then, shall I speak of Kenjaku?” Tengen explained the curse user’s goal, and it was worse than Sukuna had anticipated. They wanted to expedite the evolution of mankind by merging them with Tengen.

An insane desire to have.

Even more insane was how close they were to achieving it. 

Successfully angered, Yuuji asked, “Why would Kenjaku do that?”

“I do not know,” answered Tengen. “As I said, I cannot read the human heart.”

“So, why don’t you just refuse to merge?” Maki wondered.

“That is the problem. Now that I have evolved, I am more cursed-spirit than human. Which makes me susceptible to Cursed-Spirit Manipulation.”

The air intensified dramatically. 

“Considering Kenjaku’s ability as a sorcerer, they may be able to seize me the moment we encounter each other. That is why my main body is rejecting everything at the tombs of the Star Corridor.”

“And the reason you want guards, right?” Added Okkotsu. 

“Correct.”

Megumi cut in, “So why is the culling game happening?”

“Think of it like the breaking in of the body prior to merging. It is not impossible to merge with someone other than a Star Plasma Vessel, but it is highly unlikely and would be incomplete at present. The culling game uses the players’ cursed energy and the boundaries binding barriers in a ritual for conveying the human beings of this country to the other side. Through that custom, he will begin merging with me.

“Kenjaku has set up many binding vows to perform this ritual. One of which states that they are not the game master, though this does not aid you. On the contrary, it means that even if you kill them, the game will continue— nothing can interrupt it.”

“Which means…” Megumi gritted his teeth.

Once more, Okkotsu continued for him. “We have no choice but to participate in the culling game and add a rule whereby Tsumiki and other unwilling players can get out.”

“We should also free Gojo-sensei. That guy could settle everything on his own.”

At this, Yuuji turned to Tengen. “Master Tengen, could you…”

“First, decide who stays.”

Irked when eyes flew back to them, Uraume shifted closer to Yuuji, staunchly proclaiming their decision. 

Luckily, both Choso and Tsukumo chose to stay. 

“Yuuji, you will need Uraume and Okkotsu’s help, especially if Noritoshi— if Kenjaku comes here for Tengen. Ending their life means salvation for my little brothers, so I will stay.”

“And I’m not done talking to Tengen,” added Tsukumo, who received a word of appreciation from Okkotsu for taking his place.

“Thank you,” Tengen said, then fished something out of one of her gateways. “This is necessary for freeing Gojo Satoru.”

It was a cube of similar shape to the Prison Realm. However, in place of the many eyes was a line across one of its sides, sutured up with stitches. 

“It is the ‘back’ of the Prison Realm,” she explained.

“You mean like a back gate?” Yuuji asked.

“Yes, that is right. Satoru Gojo is also sealed in this one.”

“Then, if we open it, we can—“

“No, the authority to open the gate rests with Kenjaku alone. Breaking it up would require either the Inverted Spear of Heaven that nullifies cursed techniques, or the Black Rope that disrupts and cancels cursed techniques. Both of which have been destroyed by Satoru Gojo.”

Yuuji and Megumi groaned simultaneously.

“But there is a way, right?” Tsukumo said.

Tengen inclined her head. “Indeed. Among the culling game players is a sorcerer from a thousand years ago who calls herself an angel. Her cursed technique can extinguish any other cursed technique it reaches.”

Another Heian era figure? Sukuna rolled his eyes.

Well, no matter. 

The brat was getting stronger, and he did well fighting alongside others. This would all work out fine.

Sukuna was sure of it.

With the rules of the game understood, each person was delegated their own role. Maki was to return to the Zen’in clan to retrieve weapons, Yuta was to join the game forthwith to gather information, and as for Yuuji and Megumi, they were to collect the suspended third-year as an ally.

Uraume, of course, was to tag along. No one contested nor agreed to this. 

They were saying their goodbyes when Yuuji called out to Choso. 

“Thank you,” the boy told him. “I appreciate it— this, and everything else.”

“Don’t die, okay?” Choso’s attempt at nonchalance was butchered by his immediate ducking away to hide the tears falling down his face.

Sukuna huffed.

Definitely Yuuji’s brother.

“Oh, Uraume-san!” The boy pivoted, heading down with the others to exit Tengen’s shrine. “How do you and Master Tengen know each other?”

“You do not wish to ask Master Sukuna?”

Yuuji squirmed. “He got really mad when she addressed him, so I figured I probably shouldn’t. Oh, what did she mean by that, by the way?”

Immediately, Sukuna manifested an eye and mouth on his vessel’s cheek. “Do. Not.”

Uraume poorly attempted to hide their chuckle behind a fist. “If you do not already know, young master, it should be apparent now.”

“What? But I still don’t get it!”

Uraume didn’t even try to hide their laugh this time. 

Later on, in a brief moment of peace before they headed out on their mission, Yuuji spoke to Megumi properly.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I am actually happy to see you. You were really hurt back there, I wasn’t sure...”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Megumi replied. 

They walked in silence.

“Just.” Megumi sucked in a breath between closed teeth. “Quit being so reckless. And so hard on yourself, at that. You don’t have to save everyone– don’t put that on yourself. You’ll never be satisfied. Just a few is enough. Even just one.”

“Just one?” 

“Mm.”  

“Then…” Yuuji looked the other in the eye, his gaze steely and resolute. “I’ll be sure to make that one count.”

Megumi huffed. “I’m sure. But, knowing you, that one will turn into a dozen, then a hundred, then you’ll be upset at yourself because you didn’t save a thousand.”

“Well, that’s what I have you for, isn’t it?”

Megumi lightly smacked Yuuji on the backside of the head, but he was smiling something too soft for the action to hold any austerity. 

“Idiot,” he said, with all the care and pining in the world. To make matters worse, Yuuji caught the hand that had hit him, and the two found themselves caught in a spiraling whirlpool of each other wherein time itself seemed to slow to make space for their incessant, unexpressed yearning. 

Sukuna blanched. Gross. 

“Young master, I– Oh.” Uraume entered the room, carrying the undershirt they had insisted upon mending for Yuuji, and paused at the sight of the two– who were fully engaged in holding hands and standing millimeters away from each others’ faces to notice their approach. “I apologize. I wasn’t aware you were courting–”

“We are not courting!” Yuuji and Megumi shouted in unison, their cheeks and ears burning a hot red. 

Almost as an afterthought, Yuuji dropped the other boy’s hand.

“There is no need to be ashamed. Although, I do wonder what Master Sukuna thinks about this…” 

“No, wait, I can explain–!”

“I’m leaving.”

“Meg– Fushiguro! Wait, c’mon, it was just a bad time to suddenly walk in! I mean, not bad, but out of context, you know!”

“Not helping!”