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Toji considers himself a strong man. Not just physically, and not just because of the situations he’s been in and come out victor (or even a loser and better for it) from—no, he just thinks himself a strong man. To him, strong men are capable, are able to handle themselves (and, should they have one, their family), and able to withstand many a storm.
For all his strength, though, Toji was nearly brought to his knees when his three kids—Megumi, his only biological son; Yuuji, Megumi’s age and his step-son; and Tsumiki, the eldest and his step-daughter—came home one day and said, out of nowhere, that Yuuji was now vessel to the worst Cursed Spirit in the world of Jujutsu.
Luckily, he settles for simply spitting out his coffee all over the kitchen counter, which is gross but not the worst thing ever, but still; How in the hell had this happened?!
“I want an explanation and I want it now.” He instructs of his kids as he moves off to find a paper towel—his voice isn’t unkind, but it is firm, and he knows that his kids know he means business because they immediately begin to explain, all at the same time.
“It was an accident—” Tsumiki, ever the one to try and keep situations calm, starts off for her brothers.
“Ji-Ji and I were out of class, and we felt an odd surge of Cursed Energy—” Megumi, ever the one to speak for their “twin” brother, picks up after her.
“We found this super weird box just laying outside of the school, so we picked it up, and—” Yuuji, ever the one to be curious over everything, takes up last.
“—before we knew it, Yuuji/I had swallowed it!” They finish together, varying levels of emotion—concern, fear, and nonchalance—within their voices.
“Swallowed what?” Toji asks them in his own surprise, raising an eyebrow at them. What the hell had even possessed him to do so?
“A Cursed Object.” Megs supplies. It isn’t as helpful as he thinks.
“One which just so happened to belong to the King of all Curses, which was just at your school randomly?” Toji again asks, looking up at them as he finishes cleaning the coffee. “Do you realize how outrageous that sounds? What even made you swallow a fucking finger that you just found? None of you thought that was a little suspicious?”
“Er, well, we kinda did,” Yuuji says sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. Beside him, at his left, Tsumiki looks like she’s trying to resist the urge to sigh heavily.
“I told the two of them,” she begins rather sharply, “that messing around with it would be a bad idea! Unfortunately, I have a different lunch shift from them, so by the time I’d seen Megs’ message about it, Yuuji had already consumed it.”
“And what, tell me, made you swallow it?” Toji questions once again, looking very pointedly at his son.
“A friend of ours dared him.” Megs answers in lieu of him, not looking overly concerned in expression. Their voice doesn’t precisely express it, either, though it does sound exasperated, thankfully; seems he knew the dangers that the finger could bring forth a bit better than their brother did.
“What the hell is the matter with your friends?” Despite his asking, Toji knows it’s almost pointless to do so; Megumi and Yuuji may have grown up learning about Curses and Cursed Spirits from a young age, thanks to Toji himself, but they were still teenagers, and teenagers made some dumb decisions. It was likely that, once the dare was made, the both of them hadn’t thought much about the dangers of the decision.
“We didn’t know it was a Sukuna finger at first!” Yuuji defends his brother—and technically his friends—eagerly, placing a hand on the now-clean counter. Which, fair, Toji can give them that; it’s not like he knew what the hell the damn things looked like, and he wouldn’t expect non-Sorcerer kids to know, either.
But that didn’t make eating it any better!
“That’s no reason to eat the damn thing! That’s the one thing you don’t do, son! You realize you could’ve died, eating that damn thing?”
“I do now!”
“I told you, too, that it could be that dangerous!” Tsumiki interjects strongly, her own hand slamming down on the counter. “You shouldn’t have swallowed something like that over a dare! Dad’s right, you seriously could’ve gotten hurt!”
“I said somethin’ a little bit harsher than that,” Toji mumbles, but neither of the kids seems to hear him as Megs cuts in with, “Hey, he obviously didn’t, so there’s no need to keep pointing it out! Besides, Ji-Ji’s fine; he didn’t even really struggle against Sukuna.”
“Which, let’s get to that, too,” Toji says before Miki can argue with Megs, leaning forward a bit to look his now-Cursed son in the eye. “How the fuck did you get the King of Curses to submit to you?”
“I don’t know! It was like, I knew he was suddenly with me, and he tried to take over my body, but I just kinda pushed his influence aside and that seemed to work out. He’s just kinda laying around now, I think.” Yuuji explains to him, again rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I know it was a pretty stupid decision, but I don’t think it’s bad. I mean, what’s Sukuna done, really?”
Toji considers answering how Sukuna had caused many atrocities in the pique of his Jujutsu career, and even more so as a Cursed Spirit, but hesitates because his son might feel a bit bad knowing that while knowing he’s going to have to harbour the guy until he dies. He doesn’t like keeping things from the kids, though, so it’s likely better to just say it, he thinks. With the way Miki’s and Megs’ expressions darken, too, he thinks it’s better to just get it over with; for whatever reason Yuuji doesn’t know (maybe he just forgot that Toji briefly explained about Sukuna years ago, or maybe he was asleep and Toji doesn’t remember) about it now, it’s easier to just hear things from him.
At least… It would be easier, since he could be vague about it and simply encourage him to find out the rest in detail if he wanted, but, of-fucking-course, right as he’s about to speak about it, a mouth and eye manifest on Yuuji’s left cheek, a new, cold voice speaking out.
“I caused massacres the likes you’ve never even heard about, kid,” Ryoumen Sukuna, the King of all Curses, snaps at Yuuji in such a way that if he were to have a body, Toji imagines that he would be crossing his arms almost petulantly over his chest as he spoke. “I’ve done a lot more than your little mind can handle, more than likely.”
“Urgh, it’s like listening to a razor go down a blackboard,” Tsumiki groans as she clasps her hands over her ears; it’s enough to make her brothers and Toji look at her with concern. Each word of Sukuna’s drips with Cursed Energy, and while Miki has less of it in comparison to the boys (though it’s more than Toji has, because he has none), she was the one most sensitive to Cursed Energy. It was possible that the effect of his voice very much was painful for her to hear. “Make him go away, Yuuji.”
“I can try,” Yuuji says with a bit of confidence, though it’s obvious that he isn’t really expecting to actually be able to do so. Toji can’t find that he cares much about it, though, because the way in which he tries to rid himself of the Curse is by smacking the shit out of himself.
“Yuuji, dammit!” He can’t help but to snap at his son himself, though he does it more out of concern and shock than genuine anger with the kid. Megs, too, looks like he hadn’t expected that, because they reach out to hold Yuuji’s hand down, so as he won’t hit himself again.
Regrettably, the Curse’s presence wasn’t gone, for the mouth and eye are still on Yuuji’s cheek when his hand is pulled away.
“Crap, I thought that’d work!” Yuuji groans in defeat.
“Well, don’t do it again!” Megs all but orders him, shaking his wrist. “Find a different way next time!”
“Ha! You really think this slip of a kid is gonna be able to cause me to back down?” Sukuna laughs mockingly, the insult to his son’s ability lighting Toji’s chest up with anger. “You’d have a better chance at killing him to get rid of me; though it wouldn’t work, considering he’s only eaten one of my fingers.”
And Toji knows what implications come from that statement, knows that it would likely bring the Jujutsu world to peace, but he doesn’t give a damn about it; for one, the Jujutsu world, at large, could eat shit. For two, no one threatens his fucking kids.
(Unfortunately, his response to his kids being threatened was to kill the threat and be done with it. He couldn’t quite do that, since the threat was residing in one of his kids.
Fuck. What do I do here?)
“Says the guy who got subdued by a fourteen-year-old.” Megs, against all better judgment, tells the Curse rather easily. Miki looks at them, horrified, as Yuuji shoots him a worried glare. The Curse himself glares at them rather furiously.
“You insolent brat!” He snarls at his kid, venom dripping from his voice. “When I gain control of this body, you will be the first of whom I will—”
Toji can only imagine the vile promises the King of Curses would have hurled at Megumi, but he doesn’t want to imagine them, and he wants even less to hear it, so he instead interrupts the Curse by very forcefully slamming his hand onto the counter. He does it with so much strength that each of the kids jumps away from the counter, each of their heads immediately turning to him to try and look at him.
“In my house,” he begins with a deadly calm; the low register of his voice has his kids’ spines, collectively, straightening, as they know he only uses this tone when he’s well and truly angry.
“My kids do not get threatened.” He continues on just the same, glaring very balefully at the Curse’s one blood-red eye. The Curse bares his fangs at him, but Toji doesn’t back down; one King of Curses, even if he were at full-power, wouldn’t frighten him.
“Your kids ought to learn some respect.” The King throws back at him.
“They have it. None for you.”
With that ending note, and with a mental apology to his beloved son for what he does next, Toji reaches out and, with all his force, flicks Yuuji’s left cheek. The suddenness of the action has him flinching so hard he actually falls back a few feet.
“Ow!” Yuuji cries out just as Megumi reaches out to catch him; afraid he would fall all the way backwards and onto the floor, most likely.
“Dad, what was that for?!” Tsumiki, too, cries out as she rushes to Yuuji’s side to inspect his injury.
“He could have fallen down, what the hell’s your problem?!” Megumi snaps at him, eyes alight with rage as they glare over at him. Geez, he may as well have smacked Yuuji, with the reactions they’re giving him.
…Though, then again, he would never smack Yuuji—never had smacked any of the kids, had only roughed them up in training a little bit—and it wasn’t as if he’d ever flicked any of them so hard they’d nearly fallen back before. Their anger and shock was understandable.
“I can’t very well just hit the shit out of Yuuji, and definitely not in the face, so flicking him had to do,” Toji says rather plainly as he moves off to the freezer, looking for one of the many icepacks he knows are in there. “I mean, I got rid of the little bastard, right?”
Locating the ice, Toji elbows the freezer door shut and turns around to his kids, who are now warily eyeing Yuuji’s left cheek; true to their father’s word, Sukuna’s eye and mouth are gone, replaced with the single, yet large, red mark that had been caused by the flick. It was likely it would be a bruise by night, but Toji could live with that for the moment, even with as much as he truly did dislike having flicked his kid himself. He just hadn’t known any other way to get rid of the Curse quickly.
“Was that a smart thing to even do?” Miki asks worriedly as Yuuji straightens up, rubbing at his cheek with one hand.
“Well, he’s not happy, but it seems like he was stunned into silence over it,” he says with a small frown, the frown turning into a pout as he looks at Toji and adds, “That really hurt, Dad!”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Is all he responds back with, giving his son an apologetic look as he nudges aside his hand so he can press the icepack (now safely wrapped in a few paper towels as well, putting ice straight onto his face wouldn’t have been good) to his face for him. “We’ll find another way to get rid of him so I don’t do that again. Luckily, at least we know of one way, if we’re ever in extreme circumstances.”
“And they’d better be extreme,” Megumi still snaps at him, smacking his hand away so he’s now the one holding the ice to Yuuji’s face. Toji isn’t all that angered by it; Yuuji was the most important person to Megumi. Even if it had benefited him, seeing their brother in pain was the one thing Megs forgave no one over. “Don’t ever do that again!”
And to that, they all fall silent, none of them knowing what to do besides make sure Yuuji was truly alright and that Toji hadn’t done more damage than he’d expected. Luckily it seemed that this wasn’t the case—Megumi may well and truly have not forgiven him, knowing there was little other option and choice, were it so—but even after realizing this, neither one of the four knew how to react, or how to respond, to the situation that had just happened. All Toji could even think about was how this would affect their home-life; it wasn’t like he’d planned on the King of Curses being in their lives, after all…
“Hey,” Yuuji finally musters up words to say, after what feels like an eternity of Toji and his siblings just hovering around him. “Can we… Talk about something?”
Blinking in nervousness—for what he feels so about, he isn’t sure—Toji answers through what feels like a cotton-filled mouth, “Sure, son. What is it?”
Wide-eyed, so much so that guilt really settles in Toji’s gut over what he’d done—gods, he’s never laid a hand on his kids outside of training, and even if it was just a flick and if it was just to get rid of the annoying Curse stuck inside of him, he shouldn’t have done that to Yuuji—Yuuji looks up, meets Toji’s eyes head-on, and says with unexpected excitement, “Can we talk about how you just flicked away the King of freaking Curses?!”
…Huh. That…certainly hadn’t been what he’d expected. It’s evident that Tsumiki and Megumi, too, hadn’t expected that to come out of his mouth, because they both look at Yuuji quizzically.
But, then, it settles in—he, Toji, of all the people on the planet, had flicked away the King of fucking Curses. He didn’t even possess Cursed Energy! He’d been cast aside by his own family, by countless Sorcerers and people he didn’t even know, for his inability to produce Cursed Energy, yet his physical strength alone had caused the King of Curses to disappear into the recesses of his own son’s consciousness!
This was so not the ego boost he ever expected, and he still felt guilty over the way he’d achieved it, but Toji couldn’t deny: It felt damn good to know he was capable of such a thing.
So, with a sigh and a small, proud smirk (and to the exasperated sigh of his daughter and the groan of his other son, who knew full-well how he was feeling right then), Toji responds to his son with, “Well, I certainly will talk about it.”
And he does; well into the damn night, to the mixed, yet collectively positive for the most part, responses from his kids.
Not at all that night does Ryoumen Sukuna bother them again.