Work Text:
During the battle against the special-grade cursed spirit, the vial containing one of Fushiguro Megumi’s shadow relics shatters. Small, black beads fall from the gaps between loosened paper seals and shards of broken, clouded glass, but instead of scattering, they melt into each other on contact, like water. When that fluid black hits the ground, it does not seep into the soil or flow away; it fills in a shape, a volume and form, poured into a mold invisible. Dark and completely unreflective of light, simply pitch and tar and void punched in the fabric of the universe, the viscous shadow sloshes uneasily within its self-imposed limits, circles and clings to nonexistent walls with desperate hands, a miniature globe swallowed and conquered by the dark of space. As the last of the black beads joins its brethren, the surface stills into a final guise of smooth, black ball akin to a scrap of nothingness, save for the inverted red triangle inscribed into its surface, circular nodes marking the corners. Scooped up in the palm of Sukuna’s hand, the cursed object is absolutely unremarkable, unassuming. Larger than the marbles that rattle forlornly in the necks of ramune bottles, smaller than the bitter balls of curse spun by Getou on the regular, choking and bitter. The most unnatural thing about it, is its faulty relationship to the presence of light, on its surface, in its reaction to the environment. It draws no shadow on Sukuna’s hand, a completely singular entity; it absorbs everything and gives nothing back, no highlights. There is no sense of weight in his hand at all, like the relic’s very existence is a sham, an illusion.
“Sukuna,” Getou says, dragon still curling restlessly behind him. He smiles, but his eyes are pitiless and cold. “You don’t have to. We can just go back to the College. We have the relic. There’s time.”
The thing about Getou is that he’s not an awful teacher, but he is a shitty adult. A bit overbearing, a bit too righteous, pretends like he knows what’s right and has the ability to enforce that when he’s barely holding himself together, for all that Mimiko and Nanako think the sun shines out of his ass. He can’t decide if he wants to protect the weak or kill them, can’t admit to himself that his power puts him on a trip, tells him he can conquer other people’s feelings. And he’s slick, he’s got a gift for being charming, for persuading, a consummate snake oil salesman, but Sukuna hadn’t needed to see him staring resentfully, desperately, hopefully, at the disgraced Six Eyes during his usual weekend visit, hand clenched tight around the wooden cell bars, flashing his intolerable cow eyes in every direction, to know that what Getou really wants, is to be convinced. To be guided, with firm hand, with steady heart, pointed in a direction and let loose. Even after the jujutsu world turned its back on Gojou Satoru for murdering a church full of civilians, Getou still acts like Gojou will swoop in and change the world, will pull the carpet out from his feet, will prove to him what the worth of strength is. And like that, he’s already lost, because he’s placed the center of himself somewhere else, let it out of his control, has bet his morals because he’s got to cover up the fact that the feelings that drive him aren’t all rational, aren’t all elaborate, meaningful high ground, and there’s meaning in that too, just feeling, just understanding the base drivers – to do things because they make you feel good, make you feel meaningful and significant, worth something other than just dumb flesh and blood, the weight of pointless existence. Getou doesn’t know how to live without a meaning, and maybe he’s not even realized that yet.
“If not me, then who?” Sukuna asks, slightly mocking. He is the only choice and they both know it. A vessel with the will and mastery to know when to stifle and when to wield, aware of the intentional borders of their own domain, their own soul. Someone wily enough to match wits, selfish and prideful enough to know how to negotiate for more than their fair share. Someone ruthless and cruel, someone who can bully down, forceful and immovable. The Kenjaku Brain Trust, Yuuji joked about the three of them, but Yuuji is also the exception, the one that stands out among them. Getou, at his core, is full of spite, a seething hate, an indignation, that his power is not what it was promised to be, that this world is not what was promised to be, convinced that there is something he was owed and now cannot obtain. He feels cheated and robbed, like something precious to him was stolen under his nose. But to Sukuna, the creation of the world comes down to power, and if one does not become strong, does not grow and cultivate, sink roots and anchor, does not strengthen trunk and drink deep, enrich with experience, one becomes unmoored, unsure. Power comes in certainty, confidence and assurance. And there is a type of power in choosing to become a vessel for one’s own reasons.
Yuuji is no simpleton when it counts, but he is the idealist to Sukuna’s realist. Sukuna’s sure he would have agreed just the same, had Getou fed him his lines – that collecting the shadow relics of Fushiguro Megumi, Commander of Curses, Master of Wraiths, the Executioner, is an effort to restore balance to the world, counter whatever plot is brewing between the insight of Six Eyes and the impossibility of Limitless, and offset the power that cycles between Kenjaku, Tengen, Six Eyes, and the Star Plasma Vessel. There is a practical kernel of truth to that; the revival of Ten Shadows after a thousand years removed from the technique pool will check Six Eyes, and possibly Kenjaku for that matter. They will see less insidious techniques like second-year Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration, an ability that had the higher-ups rushing to strike his head from his shoulders as soon as possible, only to be warned off by Yaga, by Getou, and surprisingly, steadfast Jougo. Better to have him using the souls of curse users, they had argued, than to have him coming after fellow jujutsushi, especially when Mahito, according to Jougo, is much like a child, and can still be influenced.
Six Eyes is not so childlike, not so whimsical, even if he appears to be. He allows himself to be kept in his prison because he’s playing the long game, too powerful to kill, too valuable to seal, boasting a combination of rare techniques and strength that only rolls around every couple thousand years. His enclosure is completely plastered with paper charms and seals, his wrists and ankles cuffed and chained with shackles that suppress his cursed energy, secured to the stake anchored near the back of the cell, so he can move but not escape. An overbright, manic smile always follows after Getou, tracing unerringly after him, and Six Eyes still talks to Getou like they’re old friends, like they’re catching up at a trendy cafe at Omotesando, sometimes drops vital hints of information, always with slippery pink mouth and teasing eyes, lined with sleepless circles, which only widen, excited, as Getou flares up and begins to yell in frustration. Then he says, “Aw, I didn’t know you still cared, Suguru!” with a charming grin on his handsome face, uncovered so he can’t hide, can’t get a break, is forced to see at all times. He loathes the higher ups, Getou had told Sukuna, on the second visit he’d brought him on, with an ugly grimace marring his face. He loathes them because Getou and Ieiri are his sole leverage, and the higher ups have made sure that neither of them can leave, to keep him in check. And in turn, the two of them stay willingly, not wanting to let go.
How fickle the human heart, how pathetic and how strong. How Sukuna loves this, the curiosity and entertainment of testing a so-called unwavering mind, the unpredictability of emotion, the discipline and steel of a spine. Jujutsushi can be so interesting and yet so many are locked into boring, inflexible mindsets. He only needs to look to Yuuji and Getou for two nearby examples, so rigid, so stagnant. His parent perhaps, another – what Kenjaku desires to see from the optimization of cursed energy Sukuna doesn’t know, a new world, a new possibility, but regardless of motive it’s all due to Kenjaku’s own personal desire and nothing else, and that’s not a world Sukuna finds interesting, living and competing against others on someone else’s whims. An irresponsible parent gets no say in the life of their child anyway; these powers and abilities are Sukuna’s, regardless of how he came to have them, and he will use them how he likes. He will pursue his own desires, his own pleasures, and he will create the world that he wants to see. Not Kenjaku’s, not Six Eyes’ or Getou’s.
If not Sukuna, let the vessel be no one else. Let him be the one who drinks of this forbidden knowledge, let him be the one to be consumed, let him be the one to gamble his own life instead of letting it fall to someone else’s hand – he will be the one to bring in this new player, this old blood, the first to say hello, and make an impression. The first, perhaps, to make a binding. So he does not wait for Getou to speak any further before bringing the cursed object towards his lips, watching the shadow mold its edges to pool obediently in the heart of his palms, lining every crease and wrinkle, warm and pulsing there, like a heartbeat, like a sentient being that can read his intentions, his desires, the slowly rising rumble of his own blood. Eyes open, he drinks, and the shadow rushes eagerly into his body, flooding every single space and crevice until he drowns there, gasping, waters rising at his eyeline, blinking dazedly up at the increasing vividness of sunset, warm oranges and yellows streaking brilliantly through soothing, darkening purples and blues, the evening star beginning to twinkle, distantly, on the horizon.
He blinks, loses a second, maybe two, and his next breath comes in a darkness he does not recognize, pressing in on all sides. Instinctively, he struggles, his arms and legs straining against something like heavy water, and he propels himself up, swimming, struggling, his lungs beginning to burn. When he breaks through the surface his desperate fingers and clambering forearms land on something solid, and he lurches forward as the shadow that’s burrowed inside him pushes itself out, splatters over his lips and chin in a mess as he coughs, hacks it up. Slowly, steadily, it oozes back down into the black that he leans on, readily reabsorbed. Wary of his surroundings, Sukuna wipes hurriedly at his wet eyes and mouth, and realizes he is in the middle of a small lake, one of the nodes of a pond system winding through an elaborate traditional garden, varied tiers of planting, special weathered boulders, stone steps, pavilions and bridges all, the likes of which he’s only ever seen in online photos of national landmarks, former imperial gardens, the summer house of some influential, long-dead noble. Everything is a solid, impenetrable black, outlined only by the eerie white light of a full moon shining overhead, no stars, no clouds, just the cold, ghostly glow that settles over all, shape and form defined by negative space. The light traces the churning, swirling movement of whatever substance fills the lake and once filled Sukuna’s throat, highlighting the flow of gentle rivers and bubbling streams, following gleaming ripples and spiraling eddies, but where Sukuna’s legs and hips are still submerged, there is no movement, and though the current whirls away under his arms, the surface still feels solid, singular, like he’s resting on a shelf of wood or plastic, rather than a liquid.
Something warm constricts around his ankles, and he yells as he’s hoisted high into the air, swung around as thin strands of not water, but shadow, wrap around his wrists and neck and squeeze warningly. He’s thrown, then caught and flung again, the shadows making use of the borrowed momentum to quickly launch him down to another part of the garden. It all happens so fast, he doesn’t even have a chance to gather his bearings or use Dismantle, not that he thinks it would really be effective in what could possibly be an innate domain. Secured by the wrists, a thick shadow whips him around a bend in the river to another node, a large lake full of blooming, black lotus, its surface almost completely obscured by the broad, curling leaves, all layered on top of one another. He’s promptly thrown to the floor of the viewing pavilion, knees jarring harshly against thick hardwood, and as he catches and steadies himself with a hiss and a swear, pain radiating up his limbs, stinging palms follow.
“I trust no introductions are needed,” Fushiguro Megumi says with arched brow. Aside from Sukuna, he is the only color in this place, somber in dark blue samue, peering at him with intense green eyes, cold as the high-quality jade it imitates. His long, unruly black hair spikes in every direction, even when plaited into a messy braid, dark as his shadows. Paired with his unhealthily pale skin, if it weren’t for the color of his eyes and clothes, he would blend right into the rest of this motionless garden, washed out and uncanny. Every centimeter of this place is disquieting, packed with a preternatural stillness, the pause before a lunge or pounce, full of a human’s primitive apprehension towards the dark. It’s a quality that must have been helpful when Fushiguro was stalking down jujutsushi to slaughter; if his cursed energy, his innate domain, is so subtly menacing at rest, Sukuna can only imagine how it feels when Fushiguro is purposely exerting himself and imposing his will on the world, brush on canvas.
Fushiguro lounges here easy as anything, curled up on the bench built into the pavilion’s perimeter, a scroll spilling over his lap, bare feet tucked up to one side. The short sleeves of his samue only serve to highlight the uneven stumps of his wrists, encircled by thick, black bands, the shapes of magatama threaded through, marking the place where he’d fed his own hands to his shikigami, let them devour each finger and gnaw on the bones, opted to let his most loyal partners take that part of him instead of giving anything at all to the jujutsushi who could not defeat him, not even a scrap. From the loss of ten fingers spilled ten remnants to symbolize the complete reabsorption, the complete reassimilation of Ten Shadows Technique, the moment where Fushiguro Megumi had shed all attachment to humanity and allowed his own cursed energy to consume him, take his form, forever sealing himself into those ten remnants, his shadow relics, where his evil nature would persist, preserved through the expanse of time as powerful cursed objects, or so the story goes.
“For you to be a willing vessel, there must be something you want,” Fushiguro says, tendrils and spindly limbs creeping out of his shadow to roll up the scroll as he rises to his feet, the personal servants of a king, anticipating his every move. Against smooth wood, his feet are whisper soft as he walks to where Sukuna remains on his knees, teeth gritted. It eats at Sukuna’s pride to kneel, but Fushiguro Megumi is undoubtedly more powerful than him, and this is a moment where he needs to be humble, needs to show respect and modesty, acknowledge the difference in experience and the fact that he is the one who has come with a request. He is the one who wants Fushiguro’s cooperation, he is the one who wants to strike a deal for his own sake. He may be the vessel, but he is at a disadvantage.
They say Fushiguro began his rampage out of resentment, bastard son, bastard heir of the Zenin clan, taken in as a small child and treated poorly, fomenting years-long plans as he quietly waited for his time to strike, to take revenge on the jujutsu world that had toyed with him so, proving his worth and his strength. Eventually, he would decimate the Zenin clan so completely that even in the modern age, the Zenin remain a vassal clan, one branch partially assimilated into the Gojou, the other clinging to power as an independent jujutsu task force with a more neutral, mercenary reputation, taking the lion’s share of freelance missions and playing a large part in the administration of the Jujutsu Technical Colleges. However, the Zenin were only the first and easiest targets, and though the Gojou liked to say they’d taken advantage of the slowly recovering, dwindling Zenin clan to push them off the playing board entirely, one of Fushiguro Megumi’s most infamous acts was the killing of his generation’s Six Eyes, Limitless user, a jujutsushi not unlike Gojou Satoru, and that bloody battle had resulted in plenty of collateral damage, not even considering the ripple effects. Fushiguro had been smart, meticulous, systematically hunting down reversed cursed energy users and members of the Kamo clan to reduce the jujutsu world’s ability to recover and heal as a whole. Entire lineages of techniques had been returned to the pool during the height of Fushiguro’s rampage, as he’d strategically run down specific techniques that would be more of a threat to him. Even so, few direct sources stated, specifically, what Fushiguro Megumi’s motives had been. Many described his attacks and raids, the fear and pall he’d cast over the so-called golden age, the immensity of his actions and their lasting impact on the jujutsu world, but his true purpose remained elusive. Some historical accounts were not even certain that he’d still been human by the end, perhaps himself become a calamitous cursed spirit. Thanks to the Zenin, little documentation remained on his origins and his life, and he’d largely remained a mystery, until now.
“Your power and influence during the Heian era cannot be overstated,” Sukuna begins, deliberately tempering his voice to be low and even, calming, “You carved a new path through the jujutsushi of your time. I want to see that. I want to see you show us the way, Fushiguro Megumi.”
Fushiguro snorts almost dismissively, and from the stump of his left wrist come twining strands of shadow, coalescing into palm and fingers. The hand that touches his chin, tilts up his face so Fushiguro can peer into his eyes with a cold, cold stare, is warm, throbbing with the same energy as the not-water in the lake. Despite it all, Fushiguro’s fingers are gentle, the lightest of pressures against Sukuna’s skin, barely there, holding Sukuna’s throat high and bared, vulnerable. It’s enough to put a shudder in Sukuna’s spine, but he holds himself together. He’s no shoddy jujutsushi. He’s no needy sycophant, no powerless worshipper who needs to be saved. Sukuna has power, and still young, will continue to grow in power, but he just doesn’t have enough of it. Doesn’t have enough clout, the ability to pressure or sway decisions. But as Fushiguro’s vessel? As a creation of Kenjaku? As a student of Getou’s? Together, it will be enough. He will make it so.
“And what way do you expect to see, Itadori-kun?” Fushiguro murmurs. Sukuna’s feet begin to slip as solid gives way to liquid, the hardwood floors beginning to dissolve around them, lake waters rising to meet them both.
“Another one, different from what we have now. Something new,” Sukuna says, and it’s true, he is already seeing more possibilities than before, with Fushiguro this powerful, this unsettling. It gets his blood pumping, makes him excited and hopeful. He wills his limbs to stay relaxed, despite the way they wish to tremble. “Something different. Something with more potential than what we have now. More creativity, more imagination. Something bigger.”
It’s small, but Fushiguro smiles, dark and more than a little wicked. “Aren’t you ambitious,” he says, taps Sukuna’s nose almost playfully, condescendingly. “If you want to see a way like that, you better work hard, don’t you think? I’ll be watching.”
Alarmed and caught off guard Sukuna opens his mouth to ask what he means, but instead, Fushiguro summons a massive, fluffy black dog and laughs as it snarls and jumps straight for Sukuna’s throat, sinking in long canines and ripping it clean out.
With a gasp, Sukuna shoots upright, clutching at his unaffected jugular, free of any lethal bite or injury. Getou’s thick jacket falls into his lap from where it has been draped over him like a blanket, and his teacher waves at him from the vending machine across the street. The light breeze cools the sweat on his skin; Sukuna raises a slow hand and waves back, mind still racing over everything he saw in Fushiguro’s domain.
He looks down, and freezes when he sees his shadow twitch under his feet, swirling and morphing into a different, newly familiar silhouette. Within that dark, two vibrant green eyes open with a white slash for a mouth, grinning ghoulishly. The voice that rolls through Sukuna is low and commanding, resonant like the rumble of an earthquake, a tectonic force drawn from the center of the earth.
Make me fall for you, Itadori Sukuna, Fushiguro Megumi says into his ear. Show me the virtue of your way. The value of your want.
“If you show me yours,” Sukuna murmurs, skin goosepimpling, prickling with awareness, the challenge coming alive on his skin, sweeping up his spine, down his limbs, having him run tongue over teeth, testing.
No, Fushiguro hisses, darkly amused. Don’t you have power of your own? Show me what you intend to do with it, if not carve the way yourself, little vessel. Prove you aren’t just a container. Perhaps then, we can speak again.
Fushiguro seals himself off again, just like that, the thin surface between their souls becoming still and solid, a predator lurking quietly, patiently, under illusory currents. Sukuna hates to let anyone have the last word, but he hates to be underestimated more. Fact is: Fushiguro still at least let him speak. Gave him some time to persuade, to explain, before tearing his throat out. There is something about him, to Fushiguro, that must be enough. Enough to invest a minimum amount of interest. Enough to ask him to show more, be more, prove more. And Sukuna’s never given anything less than his best to the things he appreciates, to the things he wants.
This is for the pursuit of his own pleasure, the course of that chase, the realization of it, and a grin spreads across his face as he thinks of Fushiguro Megumi’s story, of all the fragments gone untold. Perhaps Sukuna is truly meant to be his vessel, truly meant to bring his own will into being. They all just want to rule their own worlds, their own desires, their own domains, and that, Sukuna thinks, is an easy enough thing to understand. Fushiguro Megumi has already drawn the blueprint. Now it’s Sukuna’s turn to improve upon it.