Tyger, Tyger - Messier_47 - 呪術廻戦 (2024)

Chapter 1 Chapter Text

“What are you?”

The question was asked in reverent horror.

Candlelight from the dozen lanterns danced across the layering expanse of wards, spells, and talismans that covered the cold walls of the dungeon. Yet still shadow and darkness pervaded, the light not quite strong enough to thwart the black tendrils from its intent to conquer. Despite the depth in which this particular dungeon was held beneath the Jujutsu Headquarters and the hour striking at the beginning hour of the tiger, the chill of the night and cold, merciless confinement could not be felt; chased away by some inexplicable presence that scoured the air with its humid breath.

The source of the displaced heat, the reason why Gojo Satoru had been called and brought down here, sat still and unbothered to the fact he was entrapped within one of the strongest nye inescapable prisons of jujutsu society.

“What am I?” the other repeated. A frown marred his face, wicked scars pulling taunt and in stark contrast, the minute expression -though minimal- made savage. “A bit rude, don’t you think? Shouldn’t you be asking my name first?”

“Do you have one?” Satoru asked though the answer had little relevance beyond that of what he truly wanted to know.

“Ask nicer.”

The fire of the candle lights flickered.

A bead of sweat dripped down the neck of the young Gojo Heir, his eyes staring ceaselessly at the creature bound and chained before him. Thick coils of cursed subjugation rope tied the other’s arms behind his back, ankles too locked to the bolted iron chair in which he sat. The ropes, wards, spells, talisman, and every failsafe made to keep him put did nothing to ease Satoru’s instincts.

‘What the hell have they done?’ Satoru wondered, realizing with a sense of dread that for everything the jujutsu sorcerers did to keep the being ensnared, it would never be enough. “What is your name?”

The other chuffed (it was the only word Satoru had to describe the odd sound and he would soon realize just how apt the description was), reluctantly amused by the boy’s absence of manners, accepting this response as if he already knew he wouldn’t get much more respect from the petulant teenager. He said, “My name is Itadori Yuuji.”

Itadori Yuuji.

He said his own name as if it hurt to even utter it. It hurt to even hear it. The monstrous cursed energy that’d been gnashing its teeth and clawing at the prison walls howled, screaming to the high heavens with ferocious agony it’s anger.

“Itadori,” Satoru repeated, tasting the name on his tongue, testing to see if it’d cut his lips but the strange power had lost its strength, “and what exactly are you, Itadori?”

For the other was unlike anything Gojo Satoru had ever seen.

It wasn’t in his pink hair, scar riddled face, dishevelment of clothes, or breath of body that left him so unmoored, scrambling for any sort of definition of what he could see because there was no simple explanation for the existence of such a being.

It was his cursed energy.

It bled.

Well, of course it did. Describing cursed energy as ‘bleeding’ was no rare thing. Cursed energy could ooze, stink, stain, drip, drool, reek, cry, broil, and a plethora of other adjectives but Itadori’s presence of cursed energy didn’t f*cking bleed like any other signature Satoru could reference. It caused others to bleed.

Like knives cutting paper thin welts across his skin, razor blades slicing into flesh in an attempt to split muscle from bone. And it wasn’t just him who suffered from the effects, the Six Eyes witnessing small molecules of ink, paper, concrete, iron, and wood floating in the air; a form of corrosion so menacing to cause pain.

But Itadori’s cursed energy couldn’t just be described as ‘cutting’. There was another more subtle aspect hidden underneath the pain and bloodlust. It set Satoru’s teeth on edge.

It was a grinding. Bones breaking -shattering- underneath some unfathomable pressure. A stone rolled endlessly up the mountain. The weight of the heavens bearing down on one’s shoulders. A painful, agonizing grind of a clenched jaw and straining teeth. Endless, inexhaustible pressure crushing against his chest, Satoru’s heart rate spiking from the adrenaline needed to survive an avalanche. Disaster. Calamity.

“And could you f*cking stop,” he complained, bravely grimacing with distaste, “it’s you being the rude one here.”

“Oh! Some hospitality then,” Itadori grouched before somehow leashing that metric-f*ck-ton of his cursed energy bullsh*t.

Immediately, it was easier to breathe.

The room grew lighter.

Gojo Satoru sniffed as if unaffected by the other’s intimidating figure. Obnoxiously he dusted off the sleeves of his yukata, offhandedly said, “Now, won’t you hurry up and tell me what the f*ck you are? You’re disrupting my beauty sleep and faster I can give the Council of Idiots an answer, faster I can play Castlevania: Curse of Darkness.”

The other didn’t find Satoru to be very humorous.

Which was a tragedy because Satoru was hilarious but kind of expected; no one who looked like they’d barely survived a war ever seemed to regain their levity of life.

Itadori Yuuji looked to be a young man in his early or mid-twenties. The only things normal about him seemed to be the color of his hair, weathered face, the fact he had a pair of eyes, arms, and legs and…that was it. Everything else was extraordinary.

First of all, Satoru could suddenly understand and relate to everyone’s obsession with fascinating eyeballs. His own Six Eyes were quite a treat (or so he’d been told) and gazing at Itadori was just the same though opposite. Itadori had eyes of gold, beautiful on their own, with slit pupils and reflective eyeshine.

Like an animal.

Like a predatory animal and Gojo Satoru had never heard of anyone be they sorcerer or curse user somehow evolving such features. Was it somehow part of his cursed technique? Did they actually work to see in total darkness?

Secondly, Itadori had an interesting set of teeth.

That was to say ‘not human’ and ‘not human in the very slightest’. The other could try to hide his fangs by speaking minimally and keeping his lips close together but Satoru’s Six Eyes could see the outdent of overgrown canines framing the corners of his mouth. If Itadori were to open his maw, Satoru would bet the other had the full monstrous set; teeth meant to tear and rip apart flesh, completely divorced from a blunted human’s.

Thirdly…well, Gojo Satoru hadn’t seen it yet.

But the initial report said that Itadori had claws. Sharp, thick, blackened nails that grew to a tip on each digit. It was rather funny actually, Itadori having the eyes, fangs, claws, and the ‘stripes’ across his face, Satoru could liken the other’s everything to that of a tiger made man.

For he was a man.

Or perhaps not. His cursed energy didn’t seem to think so. It wasn’t just the odd dichotomy of two distinct signatures intertwined, or even the potency of negative energy usually only felt around curses that clued him in.

It was…the hollow.

There was a hollowness to Itadori’s signature. Some incomplete expanse filled with nothing, meant for something, that raised every red flag and had sent the Council of Idiots wailing for Satoru to save them. From what exactly? He had no idea.

Gojo Satoru was fifteen years old.

Why the old farts had called for him to combat against the scourge that showed up out of nowhere wasn’t hard to guess. But Satoru was still so inexperienced, still learning, Six Eyes still seeing what cursed energy could do, how it could be used, cataloging the disgusting expanse of what it may look like and he’d never seen such hollowness within a person before.

Maybe in a cursed womb but it was impossible for Itadori Yuuji to be considered a cursed womb.

So Satoru had been left with too many questions and too few answers. Might as well ask directly from the source.

“Can you not already tell?” Itadori asked nonsensically.

He frowned, “If I could, I wouldn’t be asking you, now would I?”

“You’re so young.” For some reason, the other seemed to both mourn and shudder from some implication.

“Hey, old guy, aren’t you going to answer me?”

“Sorry, yes I will,” whatever funk that passed over Itadori was just as quickly exorcized, the man’s expression falling back into horrid blankness, “I am a ‘Vessel’.”

Satoru grew alarmed, murmuring, “Vessel!” before sealing his mouth shut, unwilling to expose his inner thoughts to the Vessel right before him.

“What?” Itadori said as if he didn’t already f*cking know, “I don’t bite.”

Vessels…well no wonder why the Higher-Ups were so freaked out by Itadori’s presence.

(If Itadori Yuuji’s presence was like this while still ‘hollow’, then what would he be like when ‘full’?)

“Do you already know what you’re supposed to be the Vessel of?” Satoru asked, running through his mental list of cursed objects and artifacts, wondering what sort of evil Itadori was to both revive and contain within his flesh.

(If Itadori Yuuji’s presence was of cutting and grinding, then what would he be like when encasing a spirit of pure malice?)

“What would you do if I told you,” the Vessel asked rhetorically, knowing the answer.

It was as good a confession as any. So Itadori did know what exactly he was to contain. The fact he was hiding it didn’t inspire confidence.

Satoru scoffed, “Report it to the Higher-Ups, what else? You’re already deemed a massive threat to Jujutsu society should you live, might as well know exactly how to execute you properly so you don’t haunt us after.”

“...huh,” Itadori said with a strange look on his face, “Didn’t take you for such a stickler for the rules, even this young. Tell me, what’s the date today?”

Gojo frowned. Oh, he did not like that. Did not like that at all. Satoru wasn’t supposed to be a stickler for the rules, already on the cusp of his rebellious teenage phase and enjoying the high of it. To be caught off his game by Itadori seemed even worse; a powerful existence seeing past the facade, his soul weighed, measured, and found wanting. He hated it.

“August 16th,” he answered, choosing to ignore the discomforting indignation swirling around his gut, “Few hours after-”

“Obon,” Itadori suddenly snarled, “f*cking figures.”

Now what the hell does that mean? Satoru was the one searching for answers, why was the other man -Vessel- acting as if he was making his own discoveries and conclusions of his own? He could at least share with the class!

“Missed a hot date?” Satoru questioned. Though subtle interrogation wasn’t exactly his strong suit, he made due with what little skill he had. “How unromantic.”

“Nah,” the Vessel said with feigned casualty, “Just the irony isn't very subtle.”

‘Irony’. Heh, so he does realize how f*cked it is of a Vessel appearing literally out of nowhere on the last night of the lunar calender’s Obon.

Modern sorcerers don’t like admitting that the world of jujutsu and cursed energy was enslaved by spirituality. Cursed energy gave credence to the belief of spirits and hauntings. But belief gave sorcerers a way to combat the cesspool of negative emotion. Ceremony, ritual, traditions oft had far deeper reason and meaning than at face value. The Obon Festival in Japan was one such event.

Since the beginning of memorable history, human cultures around the world propagated the idea that the veil between mortals and spirits waxed and waned depending on celestial bodies. Western beliefs tend towards the end of the autumn harvest, whilst eastern beliefs tend towards the height of summer when the moon draws nearest to earth. Obon was a three-day festival in remembrance and celebration of loved ones who’d past on to the afterlife. The spiritual belief was that within those three days, the veil between the living and dead weakened for ghosts to return and visit those who may remember them. On the last day, the living would help guide the spirits of the dead back to the afterlife with ceremony, the veil closing upon the stroke of midnight.

So why the hell, on the last day of Obon, upon the hour in which the veil was to be closed, did the Vessel of a cursed spirit appear in the very heart of Tengen’s barrier?

“What year is it?” Itadori asked.

Satoru frowned, “Hey, you’re the one who’s supposed to be interrogated.”

“And you’re doing a fantastic job,” the other said, though whether he meant to be sarcastic or not was up for debate. “Humor me; what year is it?”

“2005,” he said, still frowning, “Which you would know if you weren’t living under a rock.”

“`05,” Itadori murmured, his golden eyes flickering away, looking beyond him.

It bothered Satoru. Was it not enough for the Heir of Gojo, wielder of the Six Eyes and Limitless, to stand before the Vessel’s chained form to gain his full attention? Where was his mind going? What was he even thinking that was more important than the here and now? Here: where he’d been locked and chained so tight behind wards and seals it’d be a privilege to piss. Now: when his fate hinged upon the report made by a fifteen year old boy.

Treating the current reality as an inconsequence was unthinkable. Shouldn’t a Vessel know? What did he know that made him so fearless?

“Can I get back to the interrogation?” Satoru asked with some irritation, “Or are you gonna after what my favorite food is, next?”

“No, I’m done,” Itadori said, turning his eyes back to the matter at hand but for some reason, the boy sensed that the other still wasn’t taking this seriously, “Continue on.”

It was uncomfortable.

Why would the Higher-Ups entrust this man’s interrogation to a fifteen year old boy? Already, Satoru felt that the situation was out of hand. With just a few questions in exchange, somehow Itadori gained the authority to allow his own questioning.

This was probably why the other, more experienced sorcerers had to rely on Satoru; as a last resort. Itadori had been more than a little bit reluctant to provide helpful information to the interrogators who’d come before, resisting even truth charms and lower inhibition spells. It was thought that even if the other refused to say another word, at least the Six Eyes may be able to clearly see the inner workings of Itadori’s cursed energy. Satoru was then to report his findings and from there a decision could be made on how to properly respond to the powerful existence that made itself known.

“How did you appear?” he asked first, “Teleportation? A Vow?”

Itadori humorlessly smiled and said, “Would you believe me if I said, ‘I don’t know’?”

He did believe him.

Someone who smiled like that -devoid of joy, as if the idea of happiness was a foreign concept- wouldn’t try and make a joke. Satoru said, “Make a guess.”

“I’m not smart enough,” Itadori said, easy as anything. E=mc², ‘an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force’, a²+b²=c², boobs are nice, and apparently Itadori Yuuji wasn’t smart enough. “but if I had to guess; the gods don’t f*cking care about when the movie ends.”

That answered nothing though the other seemed to think it answered everything.

Satoru was dissatisfied with such an answer. ‘The gods don’t care when the movie ends’ when the f*ck did movies ever matter to the gods? If there were any gods at all. If there were, they wouldn’t matter.

“You show up,” he said, blisteringly annoyed that he was up past three in the morning for this sorry sack of sh*t, “traumatizing everyone with your blood curdling cursed energy, breaking through Tengen-sama’s barrier, claiming to be a Vessel and you want to blame it on gods?”

Itadori shrugged.

It was odd. For such a dour, painful-looking man, shrugging would seem too casual a motion to put effort into. It was almost comedic how the bulk of his shoulders and the rigidity of his face did nothing to help the expression. “If you have another answer, I’m all ears, sensei.”

Satoru took it back.

The man must have a sense of humor. He was making a joke out of everything.

“And I’m not ‘claiming’ to be a Vessel,” Itadori said when it looked like the boy was stuck, “You already know I am.”

Yes. He confirmed that.

“Vessel of what?” he asked.

The man…did something. He didn’t know what but it had to have been something because it was inconceivable to think that the most subtle change of Itadori’s expression was able to catch Satoru’s throat with instinctive fear. The immediate, subconscious response of ‘run’; the animal hindbrain still haunting human evolution screaming as loud as it could that there was a danger present.

Those eyes glowing in golden reflective light, better fit on a beast more than a man, grew all the more dangerous as Itadori’s focus narrowed, contemplating, his head tilting a few degrees off center. A predator considering the worth of his next meal.

It struck him then, as human error always seemed to strike when least expected, that Itadori was beautiful.

The same way a tiger was beautiful.

That is to say ‘terribly’ and ‘fearfully’.

Juxtaposed the warring factions of his mind, Satoru’s Six Eyes burned as more cursed energy was fed into his retinas. Pride dictated Satoru be fearless and confident; is it not he that stood outside the confines of the dungeon and Itadori the one imprisoned? Doubt whispered that in a battle of strength, Satoru would lose between the two.

He did not know why.

Losing had never been a consequence he had to face and yet now, standing before a Vessel of some putrid cursed spirit enchained by jujutsu sorcerer’s strongest seals and wards, suddenly ‘losing’ became a possibility. Against all probability and equation Satoru may implement, not a single expression equated to total victory.

“Kinda sucks,” Itadori murmured quietly, but within the silence of the cell he might as well have shouted, “but we’ll see each other again, Gojo Satoru.”

His expression cleared, contemplation making a decision. He said-

“I am the Vessel of the Double-Faced Spector, King of Curses.”

Ryoumen Sukuna.

Cursed energy lashed out, howling and laughing in sad*stic delight, straining at its leash and scouring for a bite to eat and Satoru was closest.

He slammed Limitless to full capacity, the Six Eyes watching as cursed energy -not even a technique- broke through one, two, three barrier seals, reaching its claws out to slice at his flesh when just as suddenly, something swallowed it whole.

Only he and Itadori remained.

Satoru panted for breath, sweat beading off his temples as his Six Eyes looked at Itadori, trying to understand, trying to see the monster he promised to be.

But all he could see was the hollow.

That’s when he realized;

Itadori wasn’t just a Vessel. He was a harbinger.
A premonition, promise, prophecy, and a curse.
Ryoumen Sukuna, King of Curses, demon made flesh
will return.

Gojo Satoru wheezed out an exhale, pressure around his esophagus holding back his breath, instinct loudly screaming to survive, survive, survive.

And Itadori is just sitting there.

Knowing exactly what he is and what it means for him to be alive.

“Go,” the Vessel said, “tell the rest. I’ll be right here waiting.”

He did not know if Itadori Yuuji had the ability to lie.

It didn’t matter. Satoru left.

Stumbling away, up the stairway leaving behind menace and ruin. Too distracted by the chemical concoction of fear and panic in his brain to truly see where he was going, only realizing he’d escaped when assaulted by the crisp cool air of night. The waxing moon hanging overhead bathed the world in purifying light.

“Satoru!” an indistinct voice shouted, hands reaching out to grab hold of his shoulders, so caught up was he that the boy lashed out with Limitless in defense. His father hissed, the tips of his fingers burned by the sudden rejection of space between he and his son. It took a moment between gasping breaths of fresh air for Satoru to blink back to awareness, turning to look at his father, ignoring the clustering jujutsu sorcerer’s around them.

“What is it?” his father asked, perturbed that his son and Heir was so compromised.

‘What is it?’ Satoru heard over-and-over again, ‘What is it?’

What is down there?

“`Tou-san,” he murmured, “I think I know what I was born for.”

To exorcise Ryoumen Sukuna.

It’s been eleven years since he’d last seen Gojo Satoru.

The reunion was bittersweet.

It’s hard to see the man he once knew in the teen he’d just met. In all honesty, Yuuji could hardly remember the man. Brief flashes of incandescent light, the reflection of the sky upon a still pool of water. Sometimes, when he felt a sudden change of atmospheric pressure, he remembers Gojo-sensei.

It hadn’t been long enough for the grief to turn into fond remembrance.

As Itadori Yuuji sat there, arms tied behind his back, waiting for the jujutsu sorcerers above to do something, he remembered where he’d come from. When he’d come from.

What it’d been like in those final hours.

“Aren’t you tired?” is all Yuuji thought to ask.
He was tired. Exhausted. The movies all make the end of the world to be some fast paced action sequence. It wasn’t. He hadn’t expected that.
Ryoumen Sukuna stood beside him.
There was an irony there, he thinks, that in the end Yuuji does end up on his knees at the feet of the King of Curses in defeat. All his loved ones dead. Humanity, dead and long past. The irony was that despite it all, this was no victory.
It’d been…how many years since Yuuji had last seen Sukuna? Vice versa. Ruination oft changes some priorities. Yuuji had just been trying to survive, carve out a space for himself and his last remaining companions to be safe in. But between the curses growing exponentially stronger as time passed and natural disasters swept through the land like Mother Nature’s version of The Purge, it’d been hard to care or make plans on how to save the world.
Kenjaku died. Somewhere and at some hour, the parasitic curse had f*cking died hardly making a blip on the radar of catastrophic events.
Yuuji had heard about it some time after. Like he hears all news. Gossip seemed to be the hom*o sapien trait inherited by the last age of sorcerers. That’s how he heard of where Sukuna was and what he’d been up to.
Which…hadn’t been much in all honesty.
Not that Yuuji could blame either Kenjaku or Sukuna for their sudden loss in motivation. After Tengen-sama had merged with the world…well…no one expected that outcome. For a couple of evil, destructively old curses, it probably disappointed them. So they moved on with their lives, not realizing (or caring?) that the proceeding events set in motion a mass extinction event so severe, humanity couldn’t recover from it.
It was poetic. Destiny, perhaps, drawing both Vessel and Curse together one final time before the end.
Because this was the end. Yuuji was no longer naive enough to believe that he’d be given a chance to fight for his life.
There’d be no last stand.
No blaze of glory.
Just…he wanted to see the sunset. Found Sukuna waiting for him on the ocean shore.
Once, Yuuji would’ve been furious. Reached inside himself to tap into that bottomless well of anger and hatred, aimed to punch Sukuna’s face with a Black Flash and kill that f*cking monster once and for all.
But…it’d been much too long since he’d felt that kind of rage. Certainly wouldn’t start now.
And Sukuna didn’t seem so eager to see him either.
Yet here they were, destinies intertwined once again.
Yuuji had joined Sukuna on the beach, exactly at the spot he thought was best to see the sunset. No words were exchanged. Hardly even a passing greeting. He sat down on the bleach white sand, looking out over the water to witness the last hour of the setting blood red sun. The sky burning colors of pinks, purples, and magenta. The sea breeze smelt minimally of fresh blood but that’s why Yuuji liked it here. He even had a bunker behind the hill.
‘Aren’t you tired?’ Yuuji asked, his question breaking the silent disparity between them.
What was a Vessel without their Curse? What was a Curse without its Vessel? He didn’t think jujutsu had any answers for that.
Sukuna did not answer straight away. Did not look in Yuuji’s direction. Hardly showed a single sign that he was even contemplating an answer. Sukuna was as he always is; unrepentant and unashamed. Why would he be? He got everything he ever wanted. That the world was too weak to hold him accountable was no fault of his own.
“I see you haven’t gotten any smarter,” Sukuna said finally, not an answer to the Vessel’s question. Just a response.
It made him laugh. How long had it been since he laughed? It was pitiful, for sure, but Yuuji did not begrudge himself for lack of conviction. And neither did Sukuna disparage what little levity was taken.
There hadn’t been much reason for laughter.
“No one’s ever accused me of being smart,” Yuuji said, the scars on his face pulling uncomfortably around his mouth, small muscles unused to the act of smiling.
“Cause you’re not,” the Curse said.
“I’m not,” Yuji agreed, “just durable.”
It took a moment for Sukuna to say, “Durable enough to survive for this long.”
Yes. That was true. Some would say Yuuji would then be the most durable to get this far after extinction.
It…hadn’t been that long since the last of Yuuji’s friends died. A year ago, perhaps? He hadn’t been too up to date with the calendar. It’d been sometime in the high summer when…yeah. Heh, it was kinda funny really, Yuuji being compared to a Duracell™ bunny with how he could go on-and-on-and-on, endlessly pressing forward through the treacherous inhospitable world they now found themselves in. It had been too much for the humans.
Not enough for Yuuji.
In fact, the last year he’d spent alone had done more damage to him than a decade of constant peril and anguish. That was perhaps why in the end he’d greet death like an old friend.
“What will you do?” he asked the Curse, “Afterwards, I mean. There’s no one left.”
No one.
Not even that ice prick, Uraume.
After the humans died, there wasn’t enough ambient cursed energy to go around. The stronger the Curse, the more vigorous an appetite. And Sukuna prided himself being the King of Curses.
“I don’t know,” Sukuna said. Honest as he always was. Lying to Yuuji would serve no purpose. “Perhaps it’d be fun raising the next species of apes to replace you. They’d revere me as a god and the cycle can start again.”
Yuuji offered no opinions or insight. A long time ago someone said that Sukuna served only his own pleasures and displeasures. So should Sukuna raise the next conscientious species for a few centuries, only to wipe them out on a whim…well that’d be so very him. And none of his business anymore.
The sun dipped lower over the horizon. Streaks of light flared through the air, a layer of built up gasses within the stratosphere catching aflame like a f*cked up aurora borealis. In the distance was a black cloud rippling over the ocean. Probably a flock of mutant scavenger birds picking apart the last of whatever had been discarded.
“Will I be tortured?” he asked, finally looking up at Sukuna’s towering form.
It took a moment for the Curse to answer. Yuuji waited patiently for an answer. It’d been so long, those moments where Sukuna swore to kill him slowly, in the worst possible ways, a half remembered memory from a lifetime ago. Did Sukuna even want his suffering anymore?
“Now you’re just being pathetic,” the Curse sneered, one of his four hands clenching tight as if resisting the urge to grab Yuuji’s skull and squeeze until his brains oozed from his eye sockets.
“So ‘myself’ then.”
Sukuna huffed, reluctantly amused by his Vessel. The Curse turned, finally looking down upon the last remnant of humanity.
He said, “You were, perhaps, the best the humans had to offer. Naive, stupid, pathetic, weak, your flaws know no bounds. But even at your lowest, most pitiful point of your life…you showed a strength even I can only applaud. You were everything, Itadori Yuuji. I don’t think I would ever want to forget you.”
Oh.
Oh perhaps this was why everyone was so eager to die.
Tears came unbidden to Yuuji’s eyes, leaking down the sides of his face. Long has it been since he actually cried and even in this, he couldn’t emote properly. Tears simply dripping down his face with hardly a twitch of expression to belay his true feelings.
“Goodbye, Sukuna,” Yuuji said and for the first time in years, he was at peace, “Live however the hell you want to live.”
Ryoumen Sukuna laughed.
A true, genuine laugh that came up from his gut, a smile twisting his usually sinister face into something beautiful and-
Yuuji’s head was cut off in that next moment.

Death also wasn’t like how it’s portrayed in the movies.

Sorry Robin Williams in “What Dreams May Come”, Yuuji didn’t wake up in his own persona paradise after death. Not that he’d ever expect himself to go to heaven.

He remembered distinctly thinking for a single moment, ‘I’m dead.’ Just…knowing that whatever Sukuna did was enough to kill him and accepting it. But after that…nada. Zilch. There was no heaven or hell for his soul to shuffle into. No ‘darkness’ or ‘light’ that his soul could recognize as an element of passing on.

And then pain.

Red hot blistering pain from the tips of his toes all the way up to his f*cking hair. Yuuji instinctively breathed in and choked, convinced to swallowing poison.

Alot of his…‘reanimation’ had been a confusing, nauseating mess of impressions. All of his senses flipping the f*ck on the instant his soul regained a physical body, every cell screaming in unison upon conception and Yuuji’s poor brain had been overloaded with visceral information.

He’d passed out.

Awakened to find himself in a familiar situation. Tied down, locked up, in a room surrounded by a bunch of creepy spells.

But Gojo-sensei hadn’t been sitting in front of him this time around.

No, Yuuji knew that things would be different when jujutsu sorcerers started coming down to demand answers. It was just…everything felt so wrong. Why wasn’t he dead? Where was he? Where the f*ck did his soul even go after death?

Was this some sort of sh*tty afterlife? Was Yuuji now supposed to pay for his sins in life in this mock purgatory? Was that why none of these sorcerers seemed to f*cking be able to tell exactly what he was?

It was…kinda annoying really.

His own experience with traditional jujutsu sorcerers had only been six-months of care exposure before the world went to sh*t and the ‘Higher-Ups’ became a non-issue and jujutsu sorcerers left, right, and center all died for not being strong enough. And here Yuuji is being questioned by them? Ha! If this was a joke, he didn’t find it very funny.

And then Satoru showed up.

Not Gojo-sensei, Satoru. It was Gojo-sensei if he’d been shrunk into a pipsqueak. He was so young! Just a baby! His voice cracks were so cute when he was trying to be all tough and cool interrogating him! It was adorable!

But at least it gave Yuuji a real good idea of where the hell his soul ended up. Or more specifically when his soul ended up.

2005.

That was…thirteen years before Yuuji had first eaten Sukuna’s finger. Way before alot of important events took place but…hmmmm, actually this might work out better for him.

Itadori Yuuji had no intention in being so passive as to allow himself to be imprisoned here. Jujutsu sorcerers and whoever these ‘Higher-Ups’ were can go jerk off to the thought they had him ensnared, but he had things to do that wasn’t ‘let them kill me before I finish the job’.

Judging that it’d been long enough for Satoru-kun to have gone away (and wasn’t that a mind f*ck? Itty-bitty Gojo-sensei~), he tested the suppression ropes that tied his wrist behind himself. The spells that made up the suppression-half of the binds were solid, good enough to lock in any cursed technique or hand seal and unknown cursed user may attempt. But…rope was rope.

And it hadn’t been enough to hold him back since kindergarten.

Yuuji flexed, pulling apart his wrists and like floss did the strain and stretch before snapping off. With his hands free, he rubbed at his wrists to find his new body still able to withstand rope burns. He checked out his ankles to find not rope but suppression shackles. Reaching down and using both hands, it took a minute until the hinge began to crack.

He stood from his seat, taking a quick note that reanimation may have given him a new body, it was an exact copy of his old self. The scars on his forearms were the same. By the familiar tightness around his face, this body kept more of his old scars as well. His clothes were the same as when he’d died, and the side-effects having lived so long in the apocalypse were still hanging around. Yuuji stretched his fingers, wickedly sharpened black claws glinting in the firelight, ready for use.

Looking around, his eyes focused not on the wards themselves, but on the cursed energy that made them. His new eyes weren’t exactly Six Eyes level of sight, but it was enough to see the chain-link fence weaved to cage him in.

All he had to do was to cut it.

Somewhere, there were alarm bells going off. Itadori Yuuji didn’t mind one f*cking bit that the entire jujutsu society was going to go apesh*t upon his escape. Serves them the f*ck right.

No one and nothing was going to impede his purpose.

To stop ruination.

And if he had to be the villain in their narrow worldview to do that, then so be it.

Chapter 2 Notes:

Happy birthday Toji you bastard man
(sorry he won't be showing up in this chapter)
hope ya'll enjoy, I'm having fun with this

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Do you regret it?”
“Hm?” Yuuji murmured, hardly hearing the question when he was so absorbed in the careful duty of clearing rubble. An apartment building had fallen some days ago and a desperate father had made an insane request to the sorcerers who’d just been passing; to help dig for his little girl.
Luckily for him, the two sorcerers he’d just happened to ask were the sort of bleeding hearts to lend a hand.
“Becoming a sorcerer,” clarified Okkotsu Yuuta. The young man sat upon a slab of concrete, covered in dust and had been taking a break as his dear Rika-chan had been helping Yuuji in lifting support pillars, walls, and rebar-riddled concrete away from the site. The Queen of Curses was strong. But she wasn’t delicate. If they were to dig through rubble with careful consideration to this corrupted game of jenga, it was by Yuuji’s and Yuuta’s discerning eye in which pieces to be removed and exactly when. “Do you regret becoming a sorcerer? Being introduced to this life?”
Yuuji rolled a concrete slab up on its side and waddled it over to a line of other slabs, leaning up against each other like giant-sized dominoes. He looked up at the midday sun, idly wishing for a single cloud in the sky for some relief, wiping a hand across his sweaty brow as if it did anything to abate the heat.
“Do you?” Yuuji asked in return. He liked Yuuta. Sure there’d been that bad first impression when the other sorcerer stabbed a sword through his chest, but that’d been a long time ago and at this point; what was friendship without a little murder?
“Sometimes I do,” Yuuta said with a ‘what can ya do?’ shrug, “Sometimes I think I’d be better off if it hadn’t been Gojo-sensei that brought me in. If some nameless sorcerer killed me before even meeting Gojo, Maki, Inumaki, Panda, and the rest. Sure, it’d be pretty miserable to die like that but…wouldn’t it be better to not have to face so much misery?”
Flights of soul eating pessimism had been his thing lately. Not that Yuuji would blame him. Out of all his friends, Inumaki was the last one and…it wasn’t for long. Sukuna’s cursed technique acted like a poison so that if even a scratch was made and the victim survived, it promised death for certain. Inumaki had gotten his arm taken in Shibuya. After so many years, the warded bandages mitigating the damage done by Sukuna’s cursed technique were deteriorating quickly and the jujutsu sorcerers who knew how to make them were almost nonexistent.
Inumaki would die and with him the last of Yuuta’s reasons to live on.
"̷͎̙͛͘Y̶̭͓̜͗͗ų̵̺͛͋͝ͅu̶͍̳̇ṱ̵̑̈̑a̶̢̤͕͌?̶̨͚̗̃̓"̴̛͈̳̙̽͘ called out Rika-chan, the Curse having flown back from having dumped the six support pillars away from the site, "̷͇̹̂̀Ẃ̴̞̎h̵̯̱͚̋ẹ̷̜͒ŗ̶̭̋̾e̷͕͝.̸̯̤͝.̸̦͖̙̓̀.̴͍͙͚͊?̴̮̲̈́̈̑ͅ"̷̹̈́͑͆
“Ah, Rika-chan,” Yuuta said with an adoring smile, “There’s a wall over there for you to take.”
The curse turns her head, helpfully guided by Yuuji’s pointed finger at a large piece that had been readied for her to take away. She took hold of the entire section of wall and lifted it up into the air, rubble and dust kicking up in her wake as Rika flew, carrying off one of the bigger obstacles to digging for the little girl buried beneath.
Watching her do the work of a construction crane with ease reminded Yuuji of something. In answer to Yuuta’s question he said, “Do I sometimes curse that fact I stupidly ate Sukuna’s finger? Yeah. Of course I do. I was a dumb kid that didn’t read the terms & conditions. If I hadn’t swallowed Sukuna’s finger, he wouldn’t have come back, right? He wouldn’t have had a body to possess and do terrible things.
“But I don’t regret the reasons as to why I swallowed the finger in the first place,” Yuuji said, “I don’t regret meeting the people I’ve met, the friends I made, or the incredible gifts they’ve given me. In the end, I don’t regret becoming a jujutsu sorcerer because I still think there’s something here only I can do. If that is to consume Sukuna, be a friend, protect what little I’m able, or even to dig through a fallen apartment building to dig for a little girl, then I’m glad to help.”
He spots a portion of the site where it looked like a bedroom had collapsed. Seeing the same thing, both Yuuta and Yuuji went over, pulling apart the scene, trying to find what may remain of a little girl who’d hidden in one of the safest places she’d known.
Yuuta makes this half-aborted sound of disgust, freezing in place over what he’d found. Yuuji stopped trying to pull up the tiny child mattress to investigate the closest his friend had been searching to see-
-what remains of the little girl. Curled up, her body broken and pulped underneath the weight of the building. Blood had soaked into her little wardrobe, turning the frills, sparkles, pinks, and girly dresses black with gore. The pillow she must have held over her head did nothing but protect her face from their view.
“I’ll tell the dad we found her,” Yuuji said quietly, gently.
Yuuta would need a moment to mourn.
Death was an inescapable, unforgettable consequence that sorcerers had to face. In an apocalypse, this scene was no different to the other thousands of little girls and boys, women, and men, made casualty in this losing battle for life.
But in this moment, Yuuji could take the burden of allowing one man to properly grieve for his daughter-
-and another man to grieve for innocence.

Wow.

Sugisawa Town #3 High School was so much smaller than he remembered.

And…just as old as he remembered?

It f*cked a little with his perception, Yuuji looking upon the vaguely familiar building and realizing that nothing had changed even thirteen years before he was supposed to enroll. Goddamn, was his high school that old? Or was it some sort of time capsuled liminal space meant to traumatize impressionable minds?

…actually, considering the reason why Yuuji was here, it was believable to think #3 High had somehow become a pocket dimension of inchangeability.

…yeah, that wasn’t it. If Yuuji could think of that as a plausible reason why his high school has seemingly always looked like sh*t then it’s probably just his imagination.

He hadn’t been here for long. No need to scope the place out when there was a convenient schedule of where people should be after hours. All he had to do was wait until school was let out and gates were closed for the night to sneak in and do his business.

As he waited, he’d gone to the public library to use their computers as a guest.

And…aha, Yuuji quickly realized that maybe he needed to do some personal work before he could go gallivanting with his ‘save the world’ quest. Namely, he didn’t have sh*t all.

No ID, no place of residence, no backstory to explain how and why he’s not yakuza.

Yakuza! And he doesn’t even have sh*tty tattoos all over his body!

But also wow 2005 was a different world than what he’d grown up with. The internet was so different. Flip phones were popular, Yuuji saw a woman reading her book off a PDA, and oh my god MySpace was a thing.

After eleven years living in the wastes of human society, being confronted with all this retro-tech made him want to cry.

In misery.

All he wanted was some goddamn YouTube but all the videos were just a bunch of people life blogging!

Yeah, Yuuji was having a pretty rough day. He’ll come back to the state-of-internet issue later, after he makes a quick grab of Sukuna’s finger and secured a place for himself to sleep.

The first of Sukuna’s fingers Yuuji ever ate had been in an remote storage closet for facility members. In hindsight, he wondered exactly how a high school managed to get one of the most cursed objects in jujutsu history. Forget the explanation ‘a powerful curse can ward off other curses’ this was Sukuna’s finger! But…despite the pervading thought of the finger being planted by Kenjaku and Yuuji’s entire life being a fabricated set up for Yuuji to be Sukuna’s designated meat suit, Kenjaku simply didn’t care enough about Yuuji's existance beyond his birth. He’d only been another discarded experiment in a long line of discarded experiments.

The finger had just been an example of jujutsu society’s negligent care.

There were dozens -if not hundreds- of cursed objects around the world that jujutsu sorcerers simply didn’t care enough to contain. Some were lost, hidden among the vastness of earth, waiting for the chance to sink their claws into new victims. Others were traceable, but it was never a priority to find them. Most were used for ritual purposes regardless to the danger they may cause.

Sneaking onto the high school campus wasn’t hard. In fact, Yuuji did so, walking along the edge of the fence to get to the back garden, with his hands in his pockets, head held high, with absolutely no regard to being seen. The storage closet was exactly where he remembered it. And now that he knew what to look and feel for, he could sense Sukuna’s menace energy reeking from it.

The storage box wasn’t even locked! Which wouldn’t have been a problem for Yuuji but what if some hapless janitor, gardener, teacher, a person were to stumbled across the sealed box of Sukuna’s finger not realizing that they were holding the equivalent to a radioactive orphan source?!

Whatever. It was in Yuuji’s possession now. If he could only-

“Freeze.”

Yuuji froze.

Reaching out with his senses, he cursed the fact that Sukuna’s latent menace had so completely blinded him to the fact someone had followed him here.

“Hands in the air where I can see them, Curse User.”

Slowly, he raised his hands up, keeping the box within his palm and hidden from view. Whoever was behind him had called him a ‘Curse User’ so they definitely were part of the jujutsu world in some way. His surroundings were so soaked by the presence of Sukuna’s finger that it was covering up his senses, obscuring the feel of who may be behind him. However…

“Don’t be afraid,” he called out, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You’re the one at a disadvantage,” hissed the man behind him, “Make one sudden move and I’ll end your life right here and right now.”

If the imprint was enough to obscure the sense of the other’s cursed energy, then there wasn’t much to sense.

Quicker than sight, Yuuji launched himself into a quick three step spin, managing to grab ahold of the man’s wrists with one hand and with the other he pressed the tipped claws directly to his jugular. The man gave an aborted cry of fright, freezing in place once he felt delicate sharpness at the thin skin of his neck.

Yuuji raised a brow at that man’s ordinary business suit, seeing nothing of note beyond that of the cursed weapon in his hands, a gun.

“A Window?” he questioned, not expecting to receive an answer from the sweating, trembling man. sh*t. He’d forgotten Windows exist. Jujutsu society's invisible eyes and ears. They were everywhere, living normal lives, but all were aware and could see the true ugliness of humanity. Their job was to report the unusual to the sorcerers and alert the Higher-Ups if a situation involving a cursed spirit got out of control.

A scarred man reeking of evil cursed energy breaking onto a high school campus was exactly the type of sh*t they kept an eye on.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Yuuji said very calmly and carefully, looking this Window in the eye to show he meant business, “You’re going to drop the gun. I will let you go. You will give me your phone. Do I make myself clear?”

“And if I don’t?” said the Window, using what little bravery he had to put up a strong front.

“Wrong answer.”

With the hand already at the man’s jugular, Yuuji clenched a fist and slammed it into the guy’s chin. He crumpled to the ground, a meat puppet with his strings cut.

Yuuji snatched up the gun, releasing the clip with a swift drop, kicked it away before grabbing the slide to pull it back, the last bullet still in the barrel releasing from the ejection port. Pushing down on the safety, he grabbed the slide to slam it back towards the hammer, his strength making it so that the mechanism broke at his first attempt, the top popping off, completely destroying the gun for further use. Dropping the scrap metal, he looking down at the Window who was going to wake up with a killer headache come morning. Kneeling down, Yuuji patted down the other’s pockets, finding the covert flip phone in the front pocket of his suit jacket.

The phone wasn’t even password protected. The background was a picture of an adorable scottish-fold cat sitting in a cardboard box. Yuuji went through the man’s call log and text messages, finding the most recent message sent to an “HQ”. It was a picture of himself, taken at a distance, with the message, “CU spotted @ Sendai highschool3”

Nothing else.

Huh, so the Window’s priority was to do surveillance, not direct confrontation. Was it perhaps Yuuji’s direct approach to a cursed object that pushed the Window to do something? He could have at least texted someone that he was going to try detaining an unknown Curse User. Oh well, not exactly his business to nitpick at Window protocol.

Going through the Windows phone revealed that this was most definitely a work designated phone with a horrid amount of cat pictures. What Yuuji was most happy to find was of it’s internet access, something he most sorely needed if he was to get sh*t done quickly.

“Sorry man,” he murmured to the concussed Window, “I’ll email your cat photos later.”

Snapping the flip phone closed and putting it in his pocket, Yuuji stood back up and went to where he’d dropped Sukuna’s finger in his haste to deescalate the situation. The finger was still in its encasing, the box a little smaller than he remembered it back when he was fifteen and thought the cursed object had been nothing more than a scare high school kids away from the facility equipment.

Weighing his options, he slid the box open to find the finger wrapped tightly with seals. But even to Yuuji’s eyes, who was barely familiar with seal work, he could tell that the wrapping was in a state of deterioration. Sukuna’s latent cursed energy was enough to cause corrosion.

With his clawed finger he sliced through the seals, unwrapping the finger until it’s putrid, mummified form landed naked in his palm.

f*ck, it was much stronger now out of it’s seal. In fact, if Yuuji wasn’t mistaken, he could almost…feel the portion of Sukuna’s soul dwelling in this bad joke of a horcrux start waking up. A shudder rolled down his spine. It revolted him to be this close to Sukuna once again. It didn’t matter that his own cursed energy was forever tainted by Sukuna’s presence as the Curse’s Vessel, nor that the last tie he’d been around Sukuna had been… not even twenty-four hours beforehand.

It’s just…godf*ck, he had to swallow this thing again? Another lifetime of torment and misery, just so that the world may be saved though his soul won’t be. If this was a joke, Yuuji wasn’t laughing. Damn it, he almost wanted to cry. The only peace in life he’d ever gotten was at the hands of death and now this motherf*cker was about to come back and ruin his life once more.

It sucked. It wasn’t f*cking fair. He didn’t want to suffer, just as anybody else wouldn’t want pain and anguish in their own life. Why was his existence the doomed one? How did he deserve any of what he went through before and what will come later? What god allows this? Would even think that putting this burden on a man not once, but twice, was in any way an acceptable price to pay for the absolution of evil?

Heck, Jesus only had to die once. Why does Yuuji have to die twice?

At the very least, he knew what he was getting himself into. He wasn’t an ignorant boy anymore, unknowing to the monster he was awakening by becoming a viable Vessel in which the King of Curses may dwell, gather strength, and make his grand return with blood and destruction in his wake. Not only that, but Yuuji was now knowledgeable and well prepared on how to properly deal with Ryoumen Sukuna.

He knew what had to be done. And he was the only one who could do it. The only person in the entire world who can consume and contain the King of Curses. Who knew what it’d take to get all twenty fingers and finally exorcize that motherf*cker. It’d be hard. Yuuji may die before he could even complete his destiny. But even if he were to die with regrets, he didn’t think he would regret this.

Yuuji swallowed the finger.

The familiar putrid taste made him instinctively gag, his crying soul wanting to reject Sukuna’s finger at the very last moment, but Yuuji slapped both hands over his mouth and with all the strength of his will, forced his body to swallow the finger.

He waited.

The ‘hollowness’ of his soul felt and caused the cursed object to unfurl itself, filling up the empty gap, Sukuna’s consciousness realizing he was in a Vessel and one that could contain him.

Sukuna slammed into the confines of his soul, eager to break free, take control, to reign supreme once again in this new age of ripe opportunity for carnage.

Menace. Savage cruelty. sad*stic lust. Glee upon the first taste of true freedom the King of Cursed had since being chopped up.

Only to get no further than the epidermis of the Vessel’s skin.

“You think to control me, maggot?”

Yuuji gritted his teeth, feeling the contours of his soul stretch and expand to accommodate the breadth of Ryoumen Sukuna’s own. Even at 1/20^th of his original strength and soul, Sukuna was a formidable piece of work. It was actually because he hadn’t been expecting this stretch the first time around that Sukuna managed to break free for a breath of fresh air.

But he knows better now.

“f*ck you,” he spat, putting every ounce of hatred into his voice so that the Curse may feel it. “Don’t speak unless spoken to.”

With the viciousness all his suffering had earned him, Yuuji slammed the gates of his soul shut, the shape evening out to it’s preferred form. With no more threat that Sukuna would be able to seize control of his body, he watched idly as the blackened streaks of Sukuna’s cursed energy fade away from his skin.

Like this, Yuuji couldn’t feel Sukuna within his soul. Unlike what most people think, containing the King of Curses wasn’t all that difficult for him. With what little wiggle room the Curse did have in his past life, had been a product of ignorance, not inability.

“What is this?” he heard Sukuna question, intaking the situation he found himself in, “Why are you so tainted with me?”

Yuuji felt the other’s cursed energy squirming through his body, an attempt to take control or at least test the limits of his ability. If the Curse was to succeed, he’d be able to formulate that mouth on his cheek to speak, or open his secondary set of eyes.

He forced the other back, his own cursed energy strengthening the confines of his unique spirit.

“You have no dominion over my soul,” Yuuji snarled, “So sit the f*ck down and realize exactly what situation you’re in cause I promise, you’re not gonna like it.”

Sukuna didn’t so much as calm as Yuuji just shut out the impressions of whatever the King of Curses was sending from within his prison. Looking around, he realized with distaste that the surrounding area now was tainted with cursed energy. Well, it wasn’t like the revival of Ryoumen Sukuna wasn’t expected to leave some sort of a wound, even if the wound itself was largely invisible.

Eh, he’ll leave it to someone else to clean up. Wasn’t like Yuuji had any sort of skill or specialty in purification. He was usually the source of the taint. And the Window was still here, knocked out and due to awake so he’d have to trust that jujutsu society wasn’t going to do something as stupid as leave a crime scene so disgustingly tarnished.

Whatever. He still had things to do. Namely, finding a place to sleep tonight.

Masamichi Yaga surveyed the scene with a critical eye.

It was worse than it’d been reported to him.

Just a few hours before at the break of dawn, HQ had received a payphone call from one of their Windows reporting a ‘highly dangerous Curse User that stole a cursed object and attacked senior Window’. Yaga had been ordered to investigate, to see if the Cursed User’s detectable cursed energy was apart of their catalog of Wanted Cursed User list. He had been given the special instructions to report if he felt the imprint signature of the cursed object itself, which was a little odd because cursed objects weren’t exactly known for leaving behind impressions unless they were Grade 1 or Special Grade.

And by the looks of things, it couldn’t have been any worse.

To the human eye, there was nothing out of sort; the grass was still green, trees all lively with its thick canopy. The storage box wasn’t even well used, the supplies inside were old and meant for the rare task of a facility member, not a space advertise to hold ritual significance like a shrine.

But it was to a sorcerers other senses that revealed the bloodcurdling violation that took place. Cursed energy, so potently vile it dripped like gore, had soaked into the ground and surrounding environment like a bloodbath had taken place. Or a body exploded cause there’s no f*cking way to get cursed energy up into the tree leaves like that without tossing body parts into the air like a juggling clown.

And whoever had done this was no clown.

Their cursed energy was violence made tangible, with some subtle flavor Yaga couldn’t quite get a distinct read on. Had there been two Cursed Users here? One the dominant partner and the other submissive? The report from the Window said the Cursed User had been alone but he’d been concussed for most of their confrontation. But why were they here? For what?

Turning back to the storage box, Yaga barely had to put a hand onto the door before feeling-

Oh this is not good.

He was going to hate having to make this report.

Because it was a very, very bad sign for an unknown Cursed User of this magnitude to come into possession of the cursed finger of Ryoumen Sukuna.

Notes:

I promise as the story continues, there'll be more dialogue to read as we start meeting reoccuring characters.

Chapter 3 Notes:

Say hello to our favorite boy.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Fushiguro Toji was prepared to kill whoever this next client was.

It scratched underneath his skin. Bothered him like a cracked tooth or a dislocated joint. The commission Shiu sent him had been inordinary to say the least, and a trap to say the worst. He was almost glad the client requested to meet face-to-face first before either deposit or giving the exact details of their request.

He wanted to look this motherf*cker in the eye and an excuse for violence.

The location in which they were to meet had been a stereotypical one, a bar down in the seedier, cramped parts of Tokyo where the grime never seemed to wash away. It smelled of tobacco smoke and the sour stench of old drunkards, their presence felt even in the middle of the day when they’d all gone to whatever sh*thole they hid in when the sun came up. The only patrons were embittered, unemployed salarymen running away from their nagging wives and troubles.

No better place to strike a deal.

Toji came early, which was unusual for him, but he really wanted to see that f*cker who dared use his name with intention.

Inexplicably, a shiver rolled down his spine for whatever the f*ck reason, meer seconds before he heard, “Wow, so that’s why.”

Toji refused to startle when his client (mid-twenties male, pink hair, sorcerer? definitely a Curse User at least) slid into the booth seat in front of him. Quickly, he made an estimate to the other’s capabilities and judged if he should get this over with by telling him to f*ck off, maybe break his kneecaps with a well placed kick. The man before him was a little older than himself and well sh*t, wouldn’t be an easy take down. Built like a sh*t brick house, dressed like a homeless martial arts fighter, scarred to sh*t, he looked like an underground cage fighter having slipped his leash. What didn’t help was the f*cking stomach churning malice he could sense.

His client feigned interest with the drinks menu, eyes and attention seemingly off Toji at the moment but he wasn’t fooled for a second. Whoever this guy was, he didn’t come for a proposition. No, his singling out Toji for his commission and coming here was entirely intentional.

“I wondered if ‘Sorcerer Killer’ had been just smoke,” his client mused, putting down the menu and crossing his arms over his chest to hide the calluses of his knuckles and-were those claws? “but now I can see why the reputation had been earned.”

“Oh?” Toji mused, bearing his teeth with a bored smile, “got a reason why you’d be nervous meeting a sorcerer killer?”

“Not really,” the other said, disgustingly self-assured by his own capabilities (Toji wanted to break that self assurance). “Though it would be a problem if your bloodlust was more priority than my commission.”

“I don’t think my bloodlust is the issue here,” he said, tilting his head back with an overexaggerated sniff.

Fushiguro nee-Zen`in Toji might not be able to sense a lick of cursed energy or see the vile curses sorcerers so loved to harp about, but that wasn’t the only thing monkeys could rely on to get a feel for the metaphysical. If he were being cute, he’d say it was aura that gave him a glimpse of that invisible world, but it was much more intricate than that and killing intent wasn’t very hard to sense.

“Sorry,” the other said insincerely, “can’t do much about that. But are you willing to take my commission?”

‘Take my commission’ and not ‘listen to my commission’. Well, if his client wants the false reassurance that Toji couldn’t turn down his services, then he could have it.

“Shoot,” he said, slouching further in his seat.

The man tilted his head, his dull red eyes glinting with an odd film of gold (who the f*ck is this guy?) in thought and musing, “Huh. So even a Binding Vow won’t work on you.”

“You want a Binding Vow?” Toji asked, chuckling with amusem*nt, “looks like you’re out of luck.”

“Yeah…” he pondered, whatever thoughts in his head flickering faster than Toji could try to guess. “Interesting. So having zero cursed energy would negate the application of cursed methods on your soul. Your body doesn’t even intake ambient cursed energy all around you.”

Toji stopped smiling, unamused by this Curse User’s dissection of his restrictions.

“Is that going to be a problem?” he challenged because no matter what this guy may think he knows, Toji knew better.

“Not at all,” the other said, relaxing further into his seat and huh, he hadn’t noticed just how prepared this guy was to fight until now, “In fact, it makes things better.

“I want you to steal something from the Zen`in Clan Compound,” his client said, “I can’t give you details on where exactly it is, or what you might run into as resistance but I’m sure you’re already aware of the obstacles you may face. That’s why I asked for you specifically, Zen`in-san. Your abilities are more of a confirmation that I will get the item in question, and not a possibility with risk of failure.”

So this Curse User was clueless about Toji’s true relation to the Zen`in Clan. Hadn’t heard sh*t all about his restrictions and was making assumptions of his capabilities right here at the f*cking table. Unless he was lying.

Was this a trap? This seemed like a pretty convenient trap in getting Toji to walk himself straight back into the hellhole that is the Zen`in Compound. What was strange about all this was the client himself. It would be…surprising if this guy was in any way in connection with the Zen`in. For such a reputable clan to have such an irreputable man on their payroll was surely a blemish on their pride.

“What’s the item?” he asked, curious despite himself and testing to see if by information alone, he could spot this trap.

“The cursed finger of Ryoumen Sukuna.”

A shiver crawled down Toji’s spine upon hearing the name, his instincts kicking in and adrenaline pumping in his veins, sensing a near palpable malevolent force he couldn’t deccern the source of.

No, that was quite true, the source was the client sitting before him looking all too understanding at his sudden unease. What the hell was that?

“Jeez,” he grumbled in an attempt to shake off his more vicious urges. His mouth was already salivating to bite at the other’s throat. “Could you have picked an easier cursed object to steal? Like the Clan Head’s dick pics?”

The client’s face twisted, reacting to Toji’s absurd suggestion, breaking whatever noxious tension had pervaded their space. “The finger is all I’m interested in. Though, if you want to go ahead and raid their cursed weapons vault, then please do so. I want the theft of the finger to be a coincidence and not suspected of a targeted interest.”

“Do you even know how the Zen`in contain it?” Toji asked.

“With my luck, in a shoebox kept in a baby’s nursery,” the other grumbled.

Ha. Funny. The Zen`in Clan kept one cursed finger of the King of Curses under lock-and-key, sealed and warded to contain the vile menace out of sight, out of mind, and out of the way. Not that the Old Man doesn’t use the fact that the Zen’in Clan has such an object as a way to scare kids. Mistakes -failures- could mean a night in the pit with The Finger exciting the cursed spirits into a frenzy.

But more than that…

“I don’t know where they keep it put away,” Toji said, “it’s not like the Clan Head to show off his vault and secret passcodes.”

“Ah, I have something for that,” said the client, reaching down into his pocket to pull out a…compass?

“It’s endowed with cursed energy,” the other explained, “It’ll point in whatever direction it’s ‘true north’ is.”

The red arrow was pointing directly at the client.

Instead of explaining, he sheepishly smiled with a ‘what can ya do?’ shrug. The expression pulled tight across his face, looking more like a grimace than something more light hearted.

Now Toji had a choice: either tell this man to f*ck off and later kill him for the audacity of getting involved with his continued fight for control with the Zen`in Clan, or he could accept the client at his word and f*ck over the Zen`in Clan by stealing their sh*t for fun.

…well, he never could resist sticking it to that Old Man.

“You got down payment?” Toji asked.

“Hope you don’t mind it in cash,” the client said nonsensically, cash was always the preferable method of payment. He reached into his pockets to pull out a nondescript fat envelope, sliding it next to the cursed compass. Toji snatched up both, nonverbally agreeing with the commission and his client’s specific instructions.

“Got a due date for completion?”

“Soon,” he said with promise, “Jujutsu society is about to get busy, like an upset anthill. Would rather you move fast before they have a chance to get prepared.”

Toji hated these kinds of clients.

They appeared every now and then, people with grandiose words and vague intentions. This guy wasn’t even original, foretelling an event that’d have Jujutsu society quivering in their diapers.

He wasn’t even paid enough to be interested.

“My agent will call you when it’s done,” Toji said, slipping out from the booth seat to leave first, “you better have the rest of that eight million yen ready for me.”

The man gave him a two-fingered salute, picking back up the drink menu, his attention already moving on from the mercenary.

For an instant, the thought to test himself, see how close to killing this man, test to see if the other had reason for that accursed confidence. Sorcerers were stupid like that, trusting that their voodoo techniques were all they needed to be superior to the rest of the monkeys surrounding them. The thought came and went.

If he killed this Curse User now, he won’t get the rest of his money. He could kill him later, after he raided the Old Man’s sh*t and got paid.

Toji left the bar, pulling out his phone and pressing speed dial. Walking off, pocketing both envelope and compass in his pocket, he started talking immediately after his phone call was answered.

“Yo,” he said, talking to Shiu, “Who the f*ck is this guy?”

“Why?”
“Hm?” Choso mumbled, distracted by the delicate work of his hands.
“Why do you still call yourself ‘Kamo’,” asked Yuuji, “when you hate Noritoshi Kamo?”
He’s fifteen years old and Tokyo was in ruins. This was back when Gojo-sensei was still alive, the rest of their group was still planning out the details of the ‘defeat Sukuna, save Megumi, and kill Kenjaku’ plot. Yuuji had found himself migrating away from the group when the ideas and techniques shared became too intricate to make an opinion of.
He found Choso in the open dining area of the hotel where they were squatting. In front of him were the bits and pieces of a mechanism Yuuji couldn’t yet tell what they made up. He took the moment to ask the question that’d been bugging him since the other had explained his life story.
Choso paused in his fiddling, looking up at him with a ‘what the sh*t?’ expression. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m most serious!” Yuuji said, nodding his head to emphasize, “It just seems weird to me. You’re one-hundred-and-fifty years old, hate the man who created you, yet still claim his last name. I don’t get it.”
There was alot of weird sh*t going on to call ‘Choso claims the familial name of his father’ “weird” but Yuuji didn’t get it. Oh, there was so much that he didn’t understand, but he sorta prided himself in knowing people’s hearts. Choso was kind, with a deep love for those in relation to him, and had a softness that bred intense feelings against those who may harm his loved ones.
Yuuji had earned his ire for killing his brothers. He didn’t understand how Kamo Noritoshi could earn an even heavier grudge yet the other still claimed their familial relation.
Choso looked back down at the scrap metal in his hands, turning back to his fiddling as he said, “He’s not my ‘creator’.”
“Alright then,” he said with easy acceptance, “Father then.”
“He’s not my father either,” Choso said, his tone dropping down a few octaves, expression twisting in disgust.
“Then…what is he to you?”
The other paused, brows lifting with a little surprise but then understanding softened his expression.
“Do you know how Death-Painting Wombs are created?” he asked Yuuji.
“Uhhh,” he hadn’t been expecting a pop quiz but he tried to remember what he’d been told or remembered, “No, I don’t. Sorry but your brother’s weren’t exactly chatty and I never thought to ask.”
“I’m not surprised that the sorcerers never told or taught you such things,” Choso said evenly, “The creation of the Death-Painting Wombs is surely, one of the more egregious crimes they have to carry. Even one-hundred-and-fifty years is not enough to wipe away the stain of what had been done. As long as us Death-Painting, half-cursed exist, we are testimony of that great shame.
“Yuuji,” he said, “We are the products of rape.”
His stomach fell straight down to his feet. Yuuji hadn’t expected that. Wouldn’t have guessed, not even considered the possibility of…yeah, it was hard to even think, let alone say. Looking at Choso, it was even more so. To say he was the product of rape was even less humane than the act itself.
But Choso said it as a statement of fact.
“My mother,” he said carefully, as if the word was fragile in his mouth, “was human. Completely ordinary except with the ability to reproduce with a cursed spirit. She’d been violated before, had been brought to jujutsu society for a special exorcism. She’d come to the greatest sorcerer clans to be saved. To purge the product of evil from her body and find some sort of protection so that she may never be violated again by a Curse. Only to find herself imprisoned, raped, and forced to bare the creations of a Sorcerer and Curse.
“Due to my unique nature as both a half-curse and a Kamo,” Choso said, “I gained awareness early on. Very early on. Noritoshi didn’t rape my mother when she was pregnaunt with me or my siblings. But he grew more and more impatient for the product before they were fully formed. Nine pregnancies. Nine abortions, each earlier done than the last. We weren’t even fully formed. Contained in tubes filled with embryonic fluid, that monster barely waited for our mother to heal before trying again. Do you know how much it takes to get pregnant? Humans like to say ‘all it takes is once’ as a cautionary tale but in reality, it takes more than that. My mother wasn’t raped nine times for nine pregnancies. She was raped however many times was needed to get nine fetuses.”
It was a horrifying explanation. Yuuji was silent, drawn, and pale. Looking down at his own hands, he thought about the perspective of his own mom and dad. The reality was a little more convoluted, Kamo Noritoshi having been possessed by the Curse called ‘Kenjaku’ and it was suspected that this Kenjaku possessed either his mom or his dad in order for Yuuji to be born.
It was disconcerting.
Weren’t…both his parents raped? One was possessed, and the other might not have known about the possession or the attempt to conceive a chimera of Curse, Human, and Sorcerer. Was his birth, one-hundred-and-fifty years apart, the same crime that made the Death Painting Wombs?
“I claim the Kamo name,” Choso answered, baring his teeth with vicious revelry, “because it’s the least the bastard could give after what he did to my mom and brothers. Let the whole Kamo Clan bear the shame of their transgressions, remember that it is the blood of a Kamo that runs through my veins. I am a memorial, specter, and debt collector of that vile sin and I will never stand to represent forgiveness.”
He smiled suddenly, looking back to Yuuji with happiness, holding up the trinket in his hands, “Look, I finished it.”
“What is it?” he asked, a little desperate to take a step back from the heaviness that was the earlier conversation.
“It’s a compass,” he explained, “That’ll point us to Noritoshi. Kenjaku, as it were.”
“Whoa, really?” Yuuji asked, mystified how the hell a simple compass could act like a tracker for the wayward Curse. The compass itself was built from a thumb tag, paperclip, and a man’s wrist watch but as he turned the watch, the paperclip needle wavered before pointing to Choso. “How’d you do that?”
“I put a little bit of my blood and cursed energy into the pin,” the other explained, “My cursed energy is a product of Noritoshi and the Curse that possessed him, Kenjaku. The further away the compass is from me, it’ll naturally turn to the closest source of my signature.”
That’s pretty cool. It sounded a lot like how Minecraft compasses could work.
“Let go get this to Fumihiko and Okkutsu,” Choso said, standing to his feet, “Bet they’ll be glad for it.”
Yuuji stood to join his half-brother, putting in the back of his mind the history the other had to tell, lived to be testimony of, and promised to think about it another day.
It would turn out that while he would have all the time in the world, history ended up being not very important in the end.

Yuuji breathed in a deep sigh.

Eyes closed, he focused. Felt the oxygen in his lungs burn through the blood in his veins. He did it again, a meditative motion to silence his mind and focus in the present.

The sun was shining.

Sky blue, cicadas screamed in the air.

He bent at the waist, reaching down to place the tips of his fingers upon the ground. The asphalt was hot but he remained focused, bending his knees and placing his feet back, his toes and balls of his foot digging for stability.

Yuuji mentally retraced the map in his mind; down the road six-hundred meters straight, the jump needed to surpass the gate was little over three meters tall. There were no obstacles in his way. He very carefully raised his cursed energy to cover his entire body. Kept it close, but forced it to gird itself, not to act as a lashing cutting force as it was used to.

He breathed out.

And shot straight out from the starting line.

Sprinting as fast as he can
down the street
gain momentum
Run!
Gain speed
be faster than reaction time.

He leapt-!
-over the Kamo Compound front gates!
Landing on his feet
racing through
past people (ignore them)
Search!
Feel~
Feel from where he calls.

There,
Yuuji found it.

Run, run, run
slip through their defenses
Kamo’s yell and scream in shock
(ignore them),
race to warehouse.

PUNCH!
through front doors,
-yeowch-
their defense wards are mean trying to yank out his blood
his own cursed energy stops it
Run
dodge boobytrap
jump!
down the stairs.

He paused once, looking down the dim hallway of the warehouse basem*nt. Severely rooms remained locked behind thick, warded and sealed doors. But only one sang the sweet siren call Yuuji could hear from Sukuna’s cursed finger.

As warded, spelled, and under a thick covering of seals to contain its cursed energy as it was, Sukuna’s little horcrux could sense when its match was near. It could feel Yuuji coming for it.

He went immediately to the door, resting the tips of his claws against the seals keeping it in place. Hmmm, figures. After a millennium, the terrible legend of Ryoumen Sukuna’s cruelty had become only that: a legend. So what need did the Kamo have for ever single possible protection for both containing the cursed finger, and to keep others away.

For surely the thought was, ‘No one would break into the Kamo Compound anytime soon.’

Aha. Yuuji wasn’t laughing.

He scratched at the door and the wood tore like paper. Ops. Forgot he’d endowed his entire body with cursed energy. The room within was completely empty except for a little tea table and upon it was a single box.

Notes:

Bottom pic is body type comparison! Sadly, working with pencil and paper doesn't give me the ability to resize the head *after* finishing all the details...oh, and I drew this BEFORE figuring that Yuuji wouldn't have Sukuna's tattoos on his arms so...have a treat.
I draw slower than I can type so sorry if y'all don't immediately see the chapter drawings.

Chapter 4 Chapter Text

Claws are really handy in The End.
Curses, people, it…was simpler if Yuuji had a weapon to make the clean up easier. He’d been given a cursed weapon before but that broke after an encounter with his first Special Grade. Now, with the whole country consumed by Curses Grade 1 and higher, it was imperative for Yuuji to polish his skills with close combat, martial arts, and the purposeful use of superhuman abilities to survive. His claws, teeth, and other animalistically-enhanced features had developed later.
He’s fast. Faster than the humans, a lot faster than reaction times, Yuuji makes use of this advantage by speeding through the mob of mutated half-curses. His claws are outstretched, coated with his cursed energy, ripping through bodies with a wet, meaty plunge.
He’s strong. Coiling his muscles tight, he bends his knees and launches himself into the air; high, high, high into the sky forty feet in the air. He could jump higher, but that's all Yuuji needs to get airborne, spot the biggest troll-like Curse in the midst of chaos, clenching his fist and using every ounce of momentum built to put a crater into the beast.
Black blood explodes out of the troll like a popped water balloon and the Curse dies having its insides liquified by the force of his blow. Yuuji doesn’t pause for a second, already sweeping the side street with his claws ready to tear into more. Black blood, blue blood, purple, green, red all gushing out, bodies falling limp, a carpet of hot, twitching meat for Death to pick through after.
Yuuji’s blood is buzzing beneath his skin. Adrenaline and battlelust both pumping through his veins, giving him a better high than the nicotine Shouko-sensei sometimes offers. He’s standing still, panting, steaming from body heat underneath the pale light of the moon when he’s found.
“Yoooo!” Hikari called out, ignoring how the wet blood sticks to his trainers, “Kusakabe said he’s found a place to camp! You finished here?”
Hikari’s familiar abrasive cursed energy brought Yuuji out of his head. He looked down at his hands covered in blood. The gross coagulating colors staining his hands all the way up to his elbows is already disintegrating, turning to dust and from dust nothing. Leaving behind the red.
Red, red, red, blood red dripping from his claws, covering his skin, soaking into his clothes the hot rot of oxygenated blood.
He looked down the street, seeing now the path of slaughter he’d carved from flesh. The Curses were already gone, leaving behind the corpses of what had to be a hundred humans in his wake. Yuuji does not feel horror.
“Yeah,” he croaked out, his throat dry after his ‘workout’, “Yeah, I’m finished here, senpai. The group’s waiting for us?”
Hikari had come closer, still heedless to the boy parts he knocked out of his path and the bloodstains now splattering on the hem of his pants. He’s already scowling, scoffs at something he must see on Yuuji’s face, cause he said, “You can’t save everyone, Itadori. You especially can’t save them.”
It’ll take a few hours for the smell of blood to putrify.
The scent would call for scavengers miles around. By morning, the mass of mutilated body parts would be covered with opportunistic vultures, flies, and whatever else wanted a meal. Curses had no interested in eating the dead.
What they wanted was the taste of fresh misery. Broken husks without their souls were of no interest to Curses. As the human population dwindled, so too had a Curses desperation for ‘fresh eat’. So much so, that there has been an odd development of Curses latching onto a human’s soul like a parasite, feeding off pain and anguish directly from the source. Infected persons turn into…not zombies per say…but half-curse devolved beings. A little like Mahito’s toys. Human bodies mutating from within, people growing more and more desperate to feed a hunger they couldn’t understand.
In The End, there was only one entity in the world who could cure this infestation.
Kenjaku had never been accused of benevolence.
So it was better to put them down than to elong their suffering.
“I know,” Yuuji said.
Something on his face must have said something to Hikari cause the older man sighed terribly loud, reaching out to snag his kouhai closer, tossing an arm over his shoulder.
Hikari’s painfully aggravating (like a bed of nails, loud music, and blinding strobe lights) cursed energy settled over his shoulders, somehow comforting Yuuji despite not needing it.
“Come on,” the other said, jostling him along, “gotta get there before the others. Heard that Ijichi managed to find spam.”
“Ah,” Yuuji murmured, leaning into his senpai and walking in step with him, “Tonight, we eat like kings.”
They still had to walk through the bodies to get back.
Yuuji still hates killing humans.

Don’t kill them!

Yuuji gritted his teeth, clenched his fist instead of extending claws, and punched the Sorcerer in the face.

Bones crack. The Sorcerer falls away with a cry of pain. Yuuji had already launched himself over the man, speeding away with the rest of the Sorcerer posse close in following.

It’s night. They’re in the more suburban part of Tokyo, and Yuuji’s being chased by four (now three) Sorcerers through the streets. He’d gone out to the konbini for some late night junk food, and found himself being followed by shadows.

He ran.

Speeding down the narrow streets, vaulting over cars and obstacles in his way, two Sorcerers came out from his left and right. Both side-swiped, cursed weapons glinting silver underneath the light of the moon. Yuuji leapt, tucked himself in, and barrel-rolled between the pincer-movement, landed on both feet and was already gaining speed before the two could readjust.

He duked left, changing direction and ran down a more claustrophobic side alley, bicycles and garbage bins astrude. Yes, more difficult for him to put distance between, but it was just as difficult for his pursuers to follow. The sorcerers weren’t unprepared for resistance, keeping up admirably by vaulting and dodging the same obstacles as he.

The alley came to an end at an old two story building and Yuuji jumped onto whatever stepping advantage he could before launching himself up to the first floor overhang, using his momentum and strength to jump up to the second floor roof, conveniently breaking the overhang so that the others couldn’t follow.

Distrusting that it’d delay them for long, he instantly began running on the rooftops, dodging AC units and exhaust pipes, jumping from one roof to the next, the close-knit houses optimizing the terrain for a good chase. The three sorcerers followed semi-close behind.

Soon, the houses ran out and Yuuji jumped to the ground, already kicking off into a run because there-

-an open field -a park- that provided enough space to get away from the population and some breathing room.

He ran, bringing the three sorcerers out and when he judged that he was fall enough, Yuuji whipped around in a complete stop. The three others followed, spreading out themselves whilst one shouted, “Tired of running scared, Curse User?”

Again with the ‘Curse User’. So they weren’t told exactly who they were hunting.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Not exactly hard finding a thief who stole our coworker’s sh*t.”

f*ck! The phone! Yuuji hadn’t expected tracking technology in ‘05. The three sorcerers before him readied themselves for a fight. One let the blade of their kusarigama drop, rocking the chain links to get it’s momentum up for the throw. Another (the leader?) repositioned his katana and the last took a moment to make a hand seal, whispering the mantra to drop a curtain over them, before his cursed energy spiked and raised his fists.

“This should be easy,” one jeered as they waited for the curtain to complete, “don’t know why the Higher-Ups are pissing themselves over a coward.”

“Ran at the first sign of trouble,” another joined in with eager glee.

The curtain fell.

And Yuuji raised his fists.

“Is that all?” he questioned, raising his own cursed energy in answer, it’s miasmic wrath feathering out to lick across the expanse of space between them, “Come on, my dead grandpa could heckle better than that.”

There was no more talking after that.

The katana-wielding sorcerer launched forward, aiming a fast, piercing strike directly at Yuuji’s heart. Not only does he dodge the blade, but his forearms knocks it off coarse by the flat. The sorcerer spins around, using what little momentum left to strike but just as easily does Yuuji sidestep out of the way of the razor edge.

Coming back in close, Yuuji jabs the man in his sternum just hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. The sorcerer stumbles back but just as quickly lunges close once again, aiming to slice any part of the ‘Curse User’. It turns into a dance; the sorcerer going in for the kill again-and-again, only to be outmaneuvered by Yuuji’s martial arts. But more than that, it was like Yuuji was testing for something.

He threw punches, jabs, left and right hooks, kicks and leg sweeps, but never in combination. Never so overwhelming for the sorcerer not to find some vantage point. It gets frustrating, after awhile, being so expertly played with.

Their fight gets interrupted by a seamless high kick.

Yuuji ducked his head out of the way but still felt the faintest breeze tugging at his hair. He knocked the swordsman back, positioning himself to take on two sorcerers at the same time before again, he had to jump, fight interrupted by a swinging chain and a sharp, heavy blade at the end.

The three sorcerers have finally got their sh*t together enough to tag team. Yuuji sighs out an exhale, now having enough information to accurately guess the skill level of the sorcerers before him.

“A bit disappointing,” he said, letting the blaze of his soul resonate with bloodlust, “to see what today’s Grade 2 sorcerers are like.”

Properly angered, the sorcerers all lunge forward.

They’re all so slow.

Yuuji lets them draw near, encroaching into his space before snapping out one, two, three jabs at their rib cage in succession. Able enough not to fall flat on their asses, they try again, throwing themselves against the impenetrable offense of the Curse User’s martial arts. No curse energy. No curse technique in sight.

He doesn’t let up.

Yuuji hits them and makes it hurt. Smashing rock-crumbling fists into soft tissue, he doesn’t fight to break them into pieces, just to tenderize them a little, make their bones creak and muscles ache that’s hard to recover from. He’s stopped testing their skills and starts testing their limits.

What does it take to break a human body without killing them?

He’s forgotten.

This was his chance to gleen that sort of information. How weak were regular humans after so long having to fight mutant half-curse entities? What was it like to fight Sorcerers that weren’t Grade 1 or higher?

The answer was: overwhelming disappointment.

When the katana cuts a little too close to his face, the cursed weapon’s energy eagerly tasting for weakness, Yuuji puts his own cursed energy into his fist, slams it into the flat of the blade and it shatters into pieces. Taking the moment of surprise, he knees the swordsman on the chin, kicking out his foot to land in the other’s stomach, launching him clear across the field where he won’t manage to get up anytime soon.

The martial artist sorcerer is even easier to deal with; only needing to amp up his own speed and reflexes, firing off punches like an automatic rifle into his rib cage, fracturing his bones and pulping his guts.

The kusarigama aims at his throat, Yuuji raised his arm to catch the chain, letting the blade spin around to lock in before he yanks–pulling in the sorcerer that’d been fighting long distance this entire time. The sorcerer didn’t expect the fast reaction, is pulled out of his stance and before realizing it, Yuuji’s already wrapped the remaining chain around the man’s chest, locking his arms at his side and tangled with his own weapon.

The fight is over.

But not the encounter.

Yuuji approached his prey, gazing down at the…shameful display of a modern jujutsu sorcerer. The man is panting, having worked hard with his team to fight the ‘Curse User’, only to not only be destroyed but humiliated by someone they were told was-

“Oi,” Yuuji called out, questioned, “what were your orders?”

“H-huh?”

“Orders,” he repeated himself, squatting down so that the sorcerer couldn't mishear him, “What were your orders? Execution? Capture? What did they say for a bunch of Grade 2 Sorcerers to try their luck?”

“Semi-Grade 1,” the other corrected through gritted teeth, pride trampled on, “We’re Semi-Grade 1, you ass.”

“No,” Yuuji murmurs, “You’re just weak. Now, tell me; why did they send you for me?”

“You’re not supposed to be this strong!” the sorcerer spat, angered and bitter for having been lead onto such a dangerous mission, “It was a mission for all Semi-Grade 1 or higher! The capture or execution of one ‘Itadori Yuuji’ of suspected theft of more than one Special Grade object. They didn’t say you were-!”

“A Special Grade?” Yuuji rhetorically asked, chuckling humorlessly. It was so like the Higher Ups to throw bodies at a problem, hoping it’d go away. “So what if I am? Maybe I should just kill you all, send a message to everyone of who exactly they’re dealing with.”

“And who exactly are we dealing with?”

Yuuji whipped his head around, having not felt someone else having come into the curtain. In his distraction, the sorcerer ensnared by kusarigama chain was yanked out from under him, the chain falling loose and useless to the ground. But he’s no longer paying attention to the weak prey he’d caught, but the predator having come out to play.

“Tsukumo,” Yuuji breathed, “Yuki.”

“Oh!” she called out with delight, “So you’ve heard of me!”

In this day and age, it would be hard not to. Tsukumo Yuki was Japan’s only Special Grade Sorcerer. She was so young. Much younger than Yuuji remembered, but the few fleeting memories he had of her paled in comparison to her being alive.

She looked like a movie star; long blonde hair, a pretty face, tall with a strong form, dressed in a tanktop, shorts and boots. She looked like a summer’s dream come to kick his ass.

“Hey,” she called out once they were done sizing each other up, “What’s your type of woman?”

…ah, it’s been so long since Yuuji’s had to face jujutsu’s brand of crazy.

“Of women?” he said, taking the time to think. What was his go-to answer a long time ago? “Gotta be tall with a fat ass. Kinda like Jennifer La-”

He cut himself off, realizing something.

“Time out,” Yuuji said, digging out the phone from his pocket to look something up.

Yuki watched the Curse User punch something in on the flip phone that’d been stolen from the Window. It was almost comical, seeing such a big man with his strangely clawed fingers use the delicate little buttons, staring at a screen no bigger than half-a-palm wide.

Yuuji cried out in shock, staring down at whatever his phone was telling with betrayal, “SHE’S FIFTEEN!?! NOOOOOOO!!”

“What the-?” Yuki murmured, a bit surprised, “Did…did your crush turn out to be a minor?”

“She wasn’t fifteen when I started to like her,” Yuuji said nonsensically, making absolutely no sense with that time-perspective conundrum.

“Oh!” Yuki said, figuring out, “You’re a freak.”

A bigger freak than he already is.

Tsukumo Yuki didn’t earn her Special Grade status just by being the strongest sorcerer in the current era. She earned it by deserving the recognition of being the strongest. The Curse User before her was also pretty dang strong, perhaps even Special Grade like he implied. Tall, super buff, with some fast martial arts skills, Itadori Yuuji promised to be a hard opponent to beat.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked her, “Aren’t you supposed to have f*cked off somewhere the Jujutsu Higher Ups can’t touch so easily?”

Haaa? So an unregistered Curse User would even know that?

“I was,” she said, co*cking her hip in mock nonchalance, “but a little birdy told me that the Special Grade cursed objects the old farts are so panicked about were the cursed fingers of Ryoumen Sukuna.”

The name of the King of Curses changed Itadori’s demeanor immediately.

Time had run out.

One of the greatest weaknesses of Jujutsu Society was reacting in a timely manner. The flow of information had always been stilted. It ran upstream quickly, but trickled down slow, but if Tsukumo Yuki could be dragged out of whatever foreign country she’d been vacationing at because of a ‘little birdy’ then that meant very soon, the whole of Jujutsu Society would be hunting him down in droves.

Which was a problem for a lot of reasons.

“So really,” she shrugged, “I had to come out and do some legwork of my own. Can’t let the King of Curses wreck my home country while I’m away. That’d be too embarrassing!”

Yuuji sighed out an exhale.

Readied himself, amping up his cursed energy, enforcing his fists and body with its malice and rage. Taking a stance, he watches carefully, eyes glinting gold in reflection of the moonlight. He noticed something and asked, “Where’s your shikigami?”

“Hoh?” Yuki murmured, her own blood heating up with her competitive spirit, the vileness of Itadori’s curse energy antagonizing her to exorcize the evil before her, “So you know about that as well?”

From her back, having been hidden from view, came a serpentine augmented shikigami, her ‘Garuda’. The shikigami formed into a ball, dropping down as if weighed by gravity and once it reached a level, Yuki pulled her foot back-

-and kicked the hell out of Garuda!

The balled up shikigami shot out! aimed directly at Yuuji’s head and he raised his forearms as a guard. The shikigami hit and Yuuji was baffled by the outstanding pressure of the shikigami turned cursed weapon!

It felt like an entire building suddenly dropped onto his forearms!

He rebounded the shikigami up into the air instead of taking the full force of the blow. Yuki having used his prior distraction to get in closer, suddenly threw a punch directly into Yuuji’s face!

It hit!

All two-hundred pounds of pressure into that one punch, slamming into Yuuji’s face!

But whereas any other person wouldn’t been thrown back, gone flying from the kinetic force of her punch, Yuuji’s head only turned. His feet kept solid on the ground.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice of you,” he said, turning back to look Yuki in the eye, blood dribbling down his nose.

Furious, she launched her fists at him again, using her cursed technique ‘Star Rage’ to magnify the weight of her body with no drawbacks from the user. So she could throw punches to topple mountains and could be just as fast and agile as her beautiful body implies!

Yuuji knocked her fists away, managing to slam his own hook right into her undercarriage, letting her have a taste of his own heavy fists. She wheezed, lucky that she’d increased the mass of her side to absorb most of the hit but damn he was f*cking strong and his cursed energy hurts, too!

He throws another punch at her face which she manages to dodge, then has to nearly bend over backwards to absorb the kick to the back of her knee.

Answering with her own kick, she put as much force as she could to knock him back, landing her boot against his sternum. Yuuji does get knocked back a few feet, but not enough to satisfy Yuki.

“Figured it out already?” she jeered, now having gauged the level in which she needed to bring on the power, starts shuffling on her feet for a real fight, “My Cursed Technique?”

The blood from Yuuji’s nose had dripped into his mouth. He spat it out to the side, an unconscious smile pulling at the corners of his scarred mouth, excited despite himself. “Do you need the HP buff? Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you to finish your explanation.”

For some reason, he had the unique ability of getting on her f*cking nerves with as few words as possible. Opting to not explain her technique over the option of beating his ass, Yuki launched into another attack, Throwing another fist as hard and as heavy as she could to break his face!

She missed, Yuuji having ducked out of the way and just as quickly jabbed her in the face! Owch! His fists were coated in his own angry cursed energy and every hit felt like a mini-Black Flash!

He throws another punch when Yuki grabs his fist, guiding his forward motion and in an expert toss, managed to get Yuuji off his f*cking feet, flipping into the air to land heavily on his back. She follows after him, putting weight on her forearms to send crushing steel beams into his chest. Just as quickly, Yuuji kicked up, his knee knocking against her head and making her fly off him.

They scrambled to flip over and stand to their feet, lunging at each other just as fast and Yuki slammed a knee right into his jaw.

It didn’t even phase Yuuji, having grabbed her by the middle, picked her up, and bull rushed her to the treeline to slam her back against the heavy wood. Caught up on coughing Yuki couldn’t defend himself against the rapid rain of punches he sent to her abdomen, her Cursed Technique creaking from the brunt of power.

She’d just caught her breath, about to uppercut this motherf*cker when…there was this…thing…the exact moment when her brain registered ‘I’ll die’.

Yuki didn’t see it.

She didn’t even know it was going to happen.

But as suddenly as her subconscious instincts realized, ‘I’m going to die,’ was the same moment when Yuuji’s fist landed deep within her gut and an explosion of cursed energy wrecked her insides.

Black Flash!

Yuki coughed up blood and the Curse User took a giant step back for her to get her barrings.

She didn’t need it.

She threw a high kick to lobe that f*cker’s head off, turning her foot to stomp his head in which he dodged like a puss*. Yuki followed through with a heavy hook and a flying kick to really push Yuuji back with no moment for a return counter.

Taking up all his attention for when Guruda unfurled, the shikigami lashing out at Yuuji’s back, it’s segmented body armor made heavier by Yuki’s Curse Technique. She’d gone to kick Yuuji in the head, putting as much power as she could so that both of his arms were forced to defend himself, opening up an opportunity for Guruda to wrap it’s body around him and lock on.

Yuki vomitted up more blood. Itadori’s Black Flash was no f*cking joke. If his cursed energy was this bad and his Black Flash too, she did not want to find out what his Cursed Technique might be. So she needed to end the fight here.

“Sorry,” she said, forming a handsign for her technique. With Garuda properly locked around Yuuji, she could- “I’m going to kill you now.”

Yuuji did not know Yuki’s true abilities.

Her limits.

How she died in his first timeline, how strong she’d become in her prime, what she could do with those heavy hits and heavier shikigami.

But if she was going all out for one fatal attack, he would not let her.

“Domain-”

“Dismantle.”

Yuki didn’t see it.

Couldn’t understand the Cursed Technique, it’d simply been too fast for her eyes to see. But it’d was enough of a disruption for her own Cursed Technique: Domain Expansion to fail.

Garuda fell apart.

Sliced to pieces. Not only that, but the world around them felt a little different, a little more off kilter and that had upset the boundary she had tried to enforce with Domain Expansion. Like trying to build something in the middle of an earthquake, it simply toppled over.

With new eyes, she looked over Itadori Yuuji’s form, trying to understand what the hell that’d been. ‘Dismantle’? Was that his Cursed Technique? Why hadn’t he bring it out before? Why did he fight her so heavily with martial arts and Black Flash as if he hadn’t used a world destroying Technique like that from the very beginning?

And his cursed energy now was going rampant.

Toxic and feral, cursed energy lashed out of Itadori like a tidal wave of fangs and angry hornets. It raged and howled against the heavens, it poisoned the grass beneath his feet and slashes began to rake across the ground like the claws of a massive beast.

But…strangely enough…Itadori seemed to take the brunt of it.

He’d kneeled down, head ducked as if in supplication, if not for his own claws to be digging holes into his thighs, his pants absorbing little streams of blood from the points.

It was…as if his cursed energy was attacking him.

And-oh.

Oh, she had it all wrong since the beginning.

It took minutes for the feral cursed energy to calm, be leashed and back under Itadori Yuuji’s control. He raised his head, panting for air and looking all the worse for having taken a penalty for using a Cursed Technique not his own than he did fighting her. Honestly, Yuki was kinda miffed about it. But more importantly-

“You’re a Vessel?!”

The konbini was one of those 24/7 types.

A harmonic bell rang as the front door opened, two pairs of shoes striding in and making a beeline towards the back where the ice cream was at.

“Irasshaimase,” called out a bored teenager, eyes not leaving his phone and an earbud in one of his ears playing music from his iPod. The customers came to the front and dropped their purchases on the counter. The teenager pulled out the earbud, standing up and off from his stool before actually looking at the customers-

-and promptly froze.

They looked like they tried to kill each other!

The gorgeous woman stood in front of the man, hands on her hips, smiling proud over her purchases, seemingly not noticing the blood staining her clothes and teeth, the dirt, and bruises accumulated on her face. The man behind her looked just as bad, blood coming out of his nose to soak the bottom half of his terrifying face, a big bruise forming on his cheekbone and roughed up like he’d tumbled down a grassy knoll.

They look like they could kill him!

“So?” the woman questioned, her voice high and light despite the wicked cut at her hairline, “What’s our total?”

“I said I could pay for it,” the man grumbled behind her.

“And you can shut your mouth and let me say sorry,” she snapped back. What? Did she really beat up this brutal looking man? Should he be calling the police for domestic violence?!

“What’s a little attempted murder between friends?” the man asked and the teenage cashier had no clue if he was being sarcastic or not.

“I like your style,” said the woman, “but I still feel bad.”

“I’m the one who broke your sh*t.”

“Feh,” she scoffed, “Bygones. And if you’d have been serious, you would have killed me in that last attack.”

“U-U-Um,” the teenager interrupted, the attention of both psychopaths landing on top of him. All his bravery turned to dust under their gaze. One a bright pink and manic, the other a glowing gold and murderous. “That’d be ¥998 please?”

The woman pulled out her card to pay.

Once outside, the two sorcerers headed back to the park, finding an empty bench that overlooked the scenery where they’d fought. The curtain was long gone and the team of sorcerers with it, having left as soon as the two Special Grade monsters were locked in combat. Well they weren’t anymore, and the night was still young enough to enjoy.

“So,” Yuki said, peeling back her double-fudge-sundae out of its packaging, “Sukuna huh?”

“Tengen?” Yuuji questioned right back.

“That is so funny,” she said upon reflection, giggling to herself, “Those old guys are gonna sh*t themselves when they hear about it; Japan’s only Special Grade Sorcerers just happen to be Vessels and both are outside of their control!”

She laughed. High and in hysterics, enjoying the irony and petty satisfaction of it.

“Is that all it takes to earn your trust?” he questioned, peeling back his own strawberry swirl.

“Heck yeah!” she cheered, “You’re a Vessel. I’m a Vessel. We’re practically siblings!”

“Yeah,” Yuuji said in monotone, “Me, the Vessel of the King of Curses. You, the Vessel of a living, breathing god.”

Yuki calmed down enough to weigh the disparity between their circ*mstances, “Hey, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows being a Vessel to Tengen-sama. I would never want to compare the misery and strife you have to go through, and what I’ve been through. That wouldn’t be helpful to anyone.”

Not to mention the difference between their Vessel statuses. Itadori Yuuji currently housed the revived spirit of Ryoumen Sukuna, the devil of the jujutsu world. Tsukumo Yuki had escaped from such a fate as being the Star Plasma Vessel. The weight of their souls were different. Their experiences would be different. Hell, looking between her and him, it was obvious who got the rougher handout, though she also had a sh*tty luck of fate.

But still, they were both Vessels. Such was a rare thing to run into that it was kind of a novelty to be able to sit down and actually talk.

“Help what?” Yuuji asked, taking a bite of his ice cream like a barbarian.

“What do you plan to do?” Yuki suddenly asked him, “You’re stealing the cursed fingers of the King of Curses. Do you even…have a plan or are you some evil freak who wants Sukuna to be revived and make the world a realm of chaos?”

The ice cream in Yuuji’s hand exploded, his fist having clenched tight.

“I will never,” Yuuji snarled, glaring at her with his weird eyes, “allow him to reign havoc on the world.”

She threw her hands up in the air in surrender, “Okay, okay, chill man, you ruined your ice cream.”

He dropped the ice cream cone to the floor. The strawberry pink had splattered, melting, mixing with the dust and dirt like a swirl of chocolate.

“Sorry,” Yuuji murmured for his temper, insincere.

Yuki…had to reevaluate herself. She’d come in like a bulldozer, excited to meet another Vessel, without properly gauging exactly how the other may take the approach to someone like herself.

A Vessel who escaped her destiny.

To a Vessel trying to fulfill his destiny by consuming Ryoumen Sukuna, someone like her might…be a bit too much. Like a reality he couldn’t grasp anymore.

“The Higher Ups are running scared,” she said, watching the other carefully, “They don’t know who you are, your motives, or the next step of your plan. I even came out to see what all the fuss was about.”

“They know who I am,” sighed Itadori, “Told them my name and everything. That Gojo-kid even took a peek under the hood.”

Yuki was surprised until she realized that sounded exactly what the Higher Ups would do. Having learned that the Vessel of the King of Curses was now here and now, they scrambled to cover it up. It’d be easier for them if Yuuji died quickly, known as an unregistered Curse User and forgotten about by Jujutsu Society so that panic and fear didn’t become widespread, weakening their control of the sorcerers on their payroll. But Itadori was strong. Absurdly strong and already having swallowed a cursed finger. It was actually a curiosity how the other could already be considered a Special Grade and be entirely unknown.

“How many fingers have you swallowed already?”

Yuuji weighed his options, looking her in the face to decide whether to tell the truth of not. He shrugged and answered, “Four.”

Four. The unlucky number of death. If that wasn’t a sign, she’d be blind and dumb.

But Yuki also liked to bet against the odds.

“Four fingers down,” she said, “And from what I hear, you haven’t hit the Gojo Clan yet so there’s four fingers in total at Jujutsu Headquarters. How do you plan on hitting that?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuji snorted, not disguising at all his distrust, “Are you going to help me steal the fingers?”

“Yes.”

His head shot up and Yuki didn’t think she’d seen such a human expression on him. Itadori had been so tense, stiff, and a little awkward, as if unused to people wanting to be friends or stick close. It was kinda sad, really. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be the Vessel of a malevolent calamity.

“Why?” he asked, “Why would you help me?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen you take the penalty for using the Curse King’s Technique. Shows you haven’t forged a Pact with him and even though I was within your range, you held back his nasty cursed energy so that it wasn’t aimed at me towards the end. I might not know what your grand plan is, but I know you’re not on the Curse’s side.”

Yuuji looked at her, his odd animal eyes glinting gold at this angle and- “You want to show up the Higher Ups by helping me, another Vessel, steal their sh*t, huh?”

“f*ck yeah I do!” she cheered, excited for the prospect, “Down with the patriarchy! And traditionalism! And whatever it is that makes sacrificing people okay!”

Itadori Yuuji’s mouth pulled up at the side. It strained the scars on his face, the bruise on his cheek, and the dried streaks of blood on his chin but Yuki recognized a smile being made.

“And is that your plan?” the older man asked. Gosh, how much older was their age difference? Yuuji looked to be pushing ancient with those stress lines and wicked scars. “To continue being as petty as possible? Show those Higher-Ups that us Vessels are more than just tools to expire for immortal Curses?”

It threw her off a bit to hear the slight tinge of bitterness in his voice. Huh, she hadn’t pegged Itadori to be politically or social-justice minded. But maybe he had his own opinions with the way Vessels were being raised like lambs to slaughter.

“No,” she said, entrusting her fellow Vessel and Special Grade sorcerer with her dream, “My goal is to figure out how to dismantle the entire system of jujutsu society at its source.”

He blinked. It honestly was a fair reaction to her astounding claim. “What?”

“Jujutsu society exists,” she said, “as the only way a sorcerer can live ‘legally’. A sorcerer that’s not affiliated with the jujutsu world? They’re called Curse Users. But what are Sorcerers if not Curse Users with a license? With all the ‘legal’ sorcerers under their thumb, the Higher-Ups could make whatever rule they want; no women sorcerers, the three clan supremacy, civil obedience over common sense and survival. No wonder why people are leaving in droves and there are now more Curse Users than there are Sorcerers. A bunch of old people say children should suffer horrible treatment for the sake of power and people just accept that? No. I refuse. I might’ve escaped the confines of what they said I ought to be but there has to be a way to attack them directly at the source of their power.

“That’s why I plan on figuring out how to take cursed energy away from the world. Let Jujutsu Society unravel completely. Without cursed energy, there is no Curses. Without Curses, there is no need to develop Cursed Techniques except for civil war, and still; without cursed energy, Cursed Techniques wouldn’t exist either. Just imagine! A world without Curses, Jujutsu clans, segregation of Curse Users, Vessels–all of it gone just by taking away the root cause.”

Itadori Yuuji stared at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Yuki wondered idly what was going on in his head. What vision must he be seeing? If he was talking to Sukuna right now, the King of Curses having grown furious with her gaul. For some reason, she didn’t think the guy currently doing his own thing by swallowing Ryoumen Sukuna’s cursed fingers outside the control of Jujutsu Society was going to scoff at her dream.

He might even help her out.

“That is,” Yuuji said with consideration, “an interesting idea. A really interesting idea.”

He wasn’t against it.

In fact, he sounded thoughtful?

“You think it’s possible?” she asked, needling for answers.

“Yeah,” he said before shrugging his shoulders, “Not that I have any clue how. If ‘Heavenly Restrictions’ exist, I can't see why the removal of cursed energy is an impossibility.”

Her excitement sparked again. “I know, right?! I was thinking the same thing! Problem with that though is not very many ‘Heavenly Restriction’ victims are willing to talk to me about their personal experience.”

Yuki pouted, understanding that ‘Heavenly Restriction’ was just an exclusive a club as ‘Vessel’ and thus it was presumptuous of her to try forming a connection. The Kokichi Clan, known for their Cursed Technique involving puppets and their abominable tradition of selecting one child per generation to carry a Heavenly Binding so powerful, three out of five times does it kill the baby in the mother’s womb. She tried reaching out to them but had heard their answer in silence. She even tried reaching out to the Heavenly Restricted person from the Zen`in Clan but-!

“I can set up a meeting,” Itadori Yuuji offered, looking unsure, “Between you and someone I know. You have to play it cool though cause if you piss him off, he may kill you for the audacity.”

“Would you?!” she shrieked with excitement, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! But who is it that you know with a Heavenly Restriction?”

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out when we go steal the Jujutsu College fingers,” he said, raising to his feet, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. I gotta go strike a deal with Satan.”

Ah, right, cause he’s got a Pact to make for having used the Technique of the King of Curses.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Not anymore,” Yuuji said with a shrug, “Dropped it when told I was being tracked by the thing. By the time we meet up again, I’ll have a phone to trade contact information.”

“When would that be?”

“This weekend? I want to strike while the iron is hot. Don’t want them prepared to face a Special Grade Curse User or to hide the fingers. That’d be annoying.”

It was already Thursday night.

“I’ll see you then!” Yuki waved Itadori off, “Don’t let him push you around!”

He offered a two fingered salute, turned, and walked off into the night, taking with him the shroud of bad juju sticking to his broad shoulders.

She turned her attention back to her sundae and pouted, “Ah, it’s melted.”

Yuki stuck her spoon into the swirl of chocolate, strawberry, and caramel, enthused to enjoy every last bite.

This place was familiar.

Yuuji looked around, seeing this place for the first time in over a decade.

Yet, despite the time and distance from such a place, he remembered every detail. The lake of poisonous blood at his feet. A carnivorous cathedral of bone. The pile of ox skulls, meat picked clean and bleached. And sitting astride the monument of hubris, sat Ryoumen Sukuna.

He lazed upon his throne, lazy and satisfied, knowing that with Yuuji here in his Innate Domain, he held the power of control and not the Vessel before him. He opened his mouth, his vile tongue echoing a familiar greeting,

“Hello, brat.”

A Pact was to be made.

Chapter 5 Notes:

I don't...like how this turned out. not dramatic enough. I finished this 2AM
Warning: Blood and gore. disfigurement. dismemberment? a bit? my personal gauge of what's f*cked up is skewed.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It was a shock to his system.

Like walking into every night terror that haunted you your whole life and realizing it’s just the Devil’s living room.

There was a familiarity here that stuck to Yuuji’s throat. A memory cherished, regardless of the pain and torment remembered. It’s been over a decade since last he’d been here and nothing’s changed.

Nothing’s changed except for him.

Yuuji had awoken already kneeling before the throne, poised for submission, to pledge eternal fealty to his King or beg for his mercy, he couldn’t tell. Probably for both reasons. Ryoumen Sukuna could be funny like that. Asshole.

“Hello, brat,” said the Curse with an unholy sense of glee. The Vessel was in his wheelhouse now. This should be interesting.

Yuuji said nothing. Did nothing. What was he supposed to do? Bluster like a kid again, put on some bravado and don confidence in ignorance? No. He wouldn’t. Not this time. Because In this scene, in every scenario, Itadori knew that he was in a losing fight.

He was going to lose.

“What a surprise,” the King of Curses mused as he watched Yuuji going from a kneel to folding his legs into lotus position, “it was to see you use ‘Dismantle’. I never taught you that. I never gave you the permission to use my cursed technique. Care to explain yourself?”

“That’s not what you really want to ask,” Yuuji said with a contemplative tilt to his head.

“Oh?” Sukuna tested. Despite his slouch, the passivity of his words, his presence started to prickle at the presumption. “You think to know me?”

“It’s inevitable,” he said, seemingly ignoring the thickening miasma that threatened to choke him on the fumes, “that I would use your power and end up here. It’s not even a possibility. You want me here so that a Pact can be forged. So even if I don’t have permission, for this single instance you had to allow me to use your power, even if it was a Technique, because you had to secure this meeting.”

“So the boy can be clever,” the Cursed chortled to himself, “but not clever enough. Not clever enough to have a back-up plan should that sorcerer have you trapped. You used my Technique after exhausting your own skills because you lack a weapon to fight against Domain Expansion.”

Yuuji shrugged and said, “A tool is a tool. Nothing stopped me from using your tool.”

The impudence.

It was infuriating to Ryoumen Sukuna. His Curse Technique likened to a tool? The expression of malice perfected, his dominant claim against sorcerer’s past and present, his divine right to exercise death and destruction, cheapened to that of a tool to be picked up by some feral brat with no reverence to the might of gods he wields. The arrogance was staggering. If it hadn’t been against himself, Sukuna would have applauded his Vessel’s gaul for such disrespect.

“Nothing stopped you,” he agreed, admitting also to wanting Yuuji to use his ability to force the other into his Innate Domain, “but you are not forgiven.”

And with that Yuuji’s face fell off.

Yuuji’s face fell off.

The skin of his face, from his hairline, around his temples, over the delicate skin of his eyes, his cheeks, lips, chin, jaw, it fell off. Landed in his lap with a wet -splat!-

It…didn’t look real at first. Like a soft leather face mask, with the inside a bright pink with globulous whites and creamy yellows from fat. Red droplets dripped and Yuuji could feel warm liquid streaming down his neck to soak into his shirt.

Sukuna chuckled.

It was so…amusing to him. The joke of causing bodily harm. Look, see how Yuuji’s eyeballs bulged out of his skull without skin to hold them back. Look at his naked teeth, the jut of his cheekbones, the bleeding muscles that clenched and twitched like writhing worms. It was hilarious!

“Ah,” the Curse said, watching Yuuji scoop up the skin of his face to put it back on. “You’re no fun.”

The Vessel pressed the skin of his face back onto the open wound of flesh, held it there, and when he looked back up, Yuuji’s face was back to normal, if still a little bloody.

“Are you satisfied?” he said, feigning boredom before the King of Curses.

“Not nearly enough,” Sukuna said, the smile stretching across his face catastrophic, promising an eternity of pain if the Curse so wished.

Yuuji’s fingers were gone.

Sliced off with a single twitch of Sukuna’s fingers, the digits dropped onto the lake of blood and sank beneath the darkness.

He cackled, enjoying himself after a thousand years of being dormant, finally being able to cause pain! His victim was rather poor, not to his taste. Didn’t even scream in shock or agony which was a shame. But…his Vessel showed some promise to be an enjoyable toy to play with.

Already, his fingers were growing back.

This was not an expression of Reverse Curse Technique. In the realm of the soul, it’s not Yuuji’s body being sliced to ribbons, but his self-image. If Yuuji’s concept of self had been stronger, he would have been able to resist Sukuna’s cutting technique but no one was stronger than Sukuna.

Being wounded within the soul realm was easy. People all the time were wounded within their dreams. To heal themselves showed a level of awareness and control that interested Sukuna very much in learning where the boy got his experience from.

“You bore me,” he said, deciding that he needed information more than he needed delight, “If you had whimpered I would have thought of nice torments for me to enjoy. Now I have to get creative for you to scream.”

“Sorry for being inconsiderate,” Yuuji drolled without sincerity.

His Vessel’s queer character was curious. A study in brusque disdain, of casual disregard, and disbelief.

“Explain to me this,” Ryoumen Sukuna asked of his Vessel, “How are you so steeped with me, before you swallowed my first finger?”

It’d bothered him.

It bothered him to find his Vessel already scorched from within. That when Sukuna showed up to dwell within the hollow of Yuuji’s soul, he hardly had to decorate, the lingering remains of his own cursed energy having already seared the boy’s existence, a nye impossible mark to replicate or remove. Somehow and someway, Sukuna had been here before the first finger had been swallowed and he hated not knowing how it was possible.

“You don’t know?” Yuuji asked right back.

Sukuna was tempted to gouge out those golden eyes for the audacity. Except…his Vessel wasn’t asking to gloat. It was so easy to read his face, the hints of curious wonder, but most of all, the disinterest in this very topic. Ryoumen Sukuna was struggling to find answers that Itadori Yuuji had already moved past.

Asking the Vessel would prove a useless endeavor. He said, “I will find out how. You cannot keep secrets from me for long.”

Yuuji doesn’t answer.

If it weren’t for those intent, savage eyes, Sukuna would have thought his Vessel witless. But no, despite the fact that he was dull of wit, did not mean there was no thought behind those eyes. The Curse had noticed when Yuuji declined to hear that woman sorcerer’s Curse Technique explained, but learning of Heavenly Restriction from the Zen`in mercenary and seeing its application had resulted in some interesting conclusions.

“You don’t expect to keep secrets from me,” Sukuna realized.

“It’d be pointless to keep secrets from you,” Yuuji points out, “I’m told to be a sh*t liar and you’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“Who,” the King of Curses grins, “among your many friends are you referring to?”

Because this Itadori Yuuji had no friends or family. He’d been watching.

“I once knew a man who gained Special Grade status in less than a month,” Yuuji said with hardly any inflection in his voice. Was that person a friend? An enemy? A lover? “A man who could use his curse energy and technique to effectively become immortal. And a man who disregarded the laws of physics for the sake of being the strongest.”

“All dead,” Sukuna said and was satisfied to hear no denial, “Then they must’ve not been very smart.”

The hatred in Yuuji’s glare, the vicious hunger in his eyes to drink the King of Curses’ blood, was invigorating. Finally, finally, something more lively from his Vessel!

“Do stop that,” he said with a sleazy grin, “if you don’t mean for us to forge a Pact the old way.”

“Are you done playing with your food?” Yuuji asked with a frown. Jolly fellow, wasn’t he? The Vessel rose to his feet, the blood sliding off his pants like oil and water. “Cause I’d like to discuss a Pact right now.”

“In a minute,” Sukuna needlessly indulged. In this space where he is king, it would do some good to remind the boy who was in charge here. “That Penalty cost really took a chunk out of you.”

Helpfully (and also because Yuuji wanted to see too) the Vessel pulled at the arm opening of his purple keikogi vest, opening up the garment further and with a little maneuvering, pulled up the more modern hoodie underneath to show his chest and ribs. Right along his side was the cost of Penalty, a wound exacted upon Yuuji’s soul for using a Cursed Technique with no permissions in place. It was a wide, gaping thing, bright red muscle and sinew on display and already there was connective tissue trying to close the gap. This same wound would be seen on his physical body as well, and just as hard to heal as the Penalty to his soul.

How fascinating. Sukuna had expected more bite of a Penalty for a Vessel-Sorcerer to abuse the sacred Curse Technique of the King of Curses. But it was evident that Yuuji had somehow mitigated most of the Penalty. He theorized it was because the residue of his own cursed energy, embedded into the very DNA of his Vessel had acted as a barrier against the full weight of punishment. That, and also the brat’s ridiculous control over his own body and soul. Despite himself, he grew excited at the prospect of finding out more from his rebellious Vessel.

“Let’s make a deal,” Sukuna offered, extending a clawed hand out, fingers uncurling, beckoning, tempting the sorcerer, “All I want is sixty seconds of complete control of your body, upon the utterance of the spell ‘Enchain’. I’ll even throw in a little handicap; I won’t harm or kill anyone within that minute. But of course, for that handicap, I also want your Vow that you’ll forget this Pact was made.”

“Absolutely not,” Yuuji suddenly snapped, a dark shadow of animosity falling over his grotesque face.

“I’m being generous,” the Curse said with a warning in his tone. ‘Take the damn offer or you will regret the next.’

“You’re looking for an advantage,” the Vessel corrected with unnerving eyes, “a key that gives you choice and power.”

How utterly vexing his Vessel turned out to be. On one hand, Sukuna disliked the notion that his intentions could be read so clearly. On the other, he was enraptured by this gift he’d been given; a dichotomic puzzle slow to unravel.

“You claim to know this one so well,” he tested.

“Not at all,” Yuuji dismissed, “I’m stupid. But I can learn.”

“Then what Pact would you offer to use my Curse Technique?” Sukuna questioned, “What could you possibly tempt me with that’s not out of my own volition?”

The answer was simply thus: nothing. There was not a single condition or allowance Ryoumen Sukuna would want beyond the deal he already offered. But let his vessel try. Let him whimper and squirm, beg and offer tithes beseeching the King of Curses’ agreement. All for naught. For Sukuna desire his prize and won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. In fact, because the boy had refused him once, he was going to make his next offer painful.

“To use your Curse Technique?” Yuuji clarified, calm as he already had an answer for him, “nothing.”

What?

“You dare-” Ryoumen Sukuna started, gnashing his teeth in fury, but was interrupted by his despicable Vessel.

“I don’t want your Curse Technique,” said Yuuji with a shrug as if turning down the opportunity to wield the King of Curses’ Technique was an easy decision, “I want nothing having to do with you. Sorry for using your Dismantle, but it was a nifty tool to get out of a sh*tty corner. But I want nothing from you.”

The corner of his lip twitched. Itadori’s impudence was astounding. Impressive even. Sukuna would have been proud if that same hubris wasn’t pointing at him.

“You need my Technique,” he said, “You won’t live long gathering my fingers alone without a Cursed Technique to combat against the rabid dogs those sorcerers will send to hunt you down.”

“I think,” Yuuji said with a titillating smirk, “You already know I don’t need your Curse Technique to deal with these modern sorcerers. That no one in this era stands a real chance against me.”

So it is.

Ryoumen Sukuna had been watching. Had seen the superhuman strength and speed of his Vessel. Witnessed the honed abilities and skills of a vicious sorcerer the King of Curses would have loved to compete against in his prime. There was so much he still didn’t know about the vessel, but he already knew one thing for sure-

-no mortal could withstand against Itadori Yuuji.

“And,” the Vessel continued saying, “it’s not like I need to make a Pact. I suffered the penalty of having used your Technique once. A Pact is needed only if I had the intention of using your Cursed Technique again. But I don’t. I won’t. I would make a Vow of it but-” he shrugged carelessly once again, “-never know when I’ll need a knife in a gunfight.”

The boy grinned, pleased himself for such a witty retort whilst Sukuna-

“You think,” he carefully said, his words trembling with fury, “I will let you?”

The bones beneath him cracked, rattled, and clattered. Nervous teeth chattering against the full weight of his wrath. The lake of blood began to boil, spitting up acid and maimasic poison.

“It’s not a matter of, ‘will you,’” Yuuji said, his golden eyes damn near glittering with satisfaction, “You have to. Sure, it sucks that I won’t have a Cursed Technique, or Dismantle, Cleave, and Reverse Cursed Technique, but even if I’m losing this opportunity-” he dared to glare at the King of Curses, “-doesn’t mean you have to win. So now we’re both losers.”

“Projecting your own flaws is childish,” Sukuna retorted, “In this relationship between you and I, you are the loser of all battles between us.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, seemingly not noticing how hostile the realm around him had become, the walls near pulsating with bloodlust, “I’m most definitely the loser in this relationship. But you’re a failure.”

Failure?

“For that I’ll have your tongue.”

Reaching out to lay a hand on his vessel and dig out his tongue with his own fingers would be a gift undeserving. So Sukuna flicked his fingers and Yuuji’s bottom jaw was ripped off.

Blood gushed from the wound.

Heedless, Itadori stared up at the King of Curses, his golden eyes still glittering, knowing, seeing something he perhaps wasn’t supposed to see.

He put a hand up to his wound as if to catch the blood and when he pulled it away, Yuuji’s mouth was restored.

“I know what you did,” Yuuji said, gloating over the one advantage he had over this Ryoumen Sukuna, “I know how you failed. Not so high-and-mighty, aren’t ya?”

He was incensed.

“Dismantle,” he ordained, fingers closing into a seal before letting loose his fury. A thousand -tens of thousands- cuts lashing out at once. The bones began to bleed. The lake of blood began to bleed. The very darkness entrenched within was cleaved and in the midst, Itadori Yuuji stood with a smile on his face whilst being ripped to shreds.

Soon, there was no Itadori Yuuji standing before him anymore.

He’d gone.

Escaped from Ryoumen Sukuna’s Innate Domain -no- been excommunicated from his Domain. Without having formed a Pact with the King of Curses.

No Pact.

No advantage forged.

Sukuna seethed, finding himself completely entrapped within a Vessel completely unusable to him!

“FUUUUUCK YOU, ITADORI YUUJI!”

Notes:

Personally, I don't like Sukuna's portrayals in the beginning of JJK. First time we meet he, he goes manic over his newfound freedom and goes goblin mode. Then we meet him for the second time during the Cursed Womb arc and while there are *hints* of the majestic supreme we all know he is, he...really doesn't stand out. Then the third time we meet him id during Yuuji's fight with Mahito where we learn he's a bitch. A cool one with "you fool" dialogue but (personal opinion) it's kinda pathetic for the king to laugh so hard at the court jester's jokes.
Later on in Shibuya Arc and then later when he and Megumi dance the eternal tango, Sukuna is MUCH better in terms of what a "King of Curses" should emmulate. In this story, I'm trying my damn best to keep that *regalness* about him without him going psycho petty bitch.

Tyger, Tyger - Messier_47 - 呪術廻戦 (2024)

Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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References