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Itadori’s been losing time.
Or at least: he thinks he is. There are missing seconds, these moments where he checks out, going through the motions till he comes to, in a new spot with a new person, and he just has to smile through his confusion. No one’s noticed, yet. It could be nothing, just him not paying attention until something jolts him back.
It could be Sukuna, taking control quietly and efficiently, testing their respective limits, proving no one would notice if Itadori disappeared.
He wants to ask somebody: He wants Nobara to knock some sense into him, for Fushiguro to hear him out and offer quiet advice, for Gojo to laugh and promise to protect him. He wants to feel okay.
He knows most sorcerers don’t trust him; have already written him off as a lost cause. He doesn’t want to start asking questions that will make it worse. He doesn’t want to prove his friends wrong after they went out on a limb to extend his life as long as they could.
But he’s losing time and he comes to with a deep discontent pooling in his chest, fragile and angry and tight.
---
Things are simple, until they’re not.
To some degree, Itadori is very aware that he’s losing control- but he doesn’t know that for sure. None of his friends have said anything, and surely, Sukuna would be making use of this time somehow? At the very least, one of his friends would’ve noticed if it wasn’t him, anymore?
Besides, he’s always been a little scatterbrained, prone to spacing off or losing track of a conversation. So this? This is nothing.
And he repeats that to himself, whenever he leaves his friends or wakes up in a strange location or hears an inside joke that he doesn’t remember. It doesn’t mean anything; he doesn’t know that anything’s going on.
Except one day, he’s out with Nobara, and they run into a cursed spirit. They start fighting it – in sync, because they’ve done this a hundred times before – and Itadori’s rushing to punch through it when he wakes up, half-covered in rubble and with half his arm missing.
He stares at it, shocked and horrified and hyperventilating, unable to even move with the pressure covering him, and he looks up to see the mall utterly destroyed. His chest is squeezing tight and he can’t catch his breath and there’s so many people dead.
He hears movement and looks over, finally seeing Nobara, battered, and Gojo standing next to her. Her hammers broken and her dress is torn and his stomach sinks because this, this is absolutely proof that something is wrong. That it wasn’t all in his head.
His arm grows back with an excruciating pop and Sukuna’s mouth manifests to twist smugly before disappearing again. Nobara starts at the noise, looking over to him, and Itadori feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him when he sees how scared she looks.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but Nobara looks away and Gojo steps between them, protecting her from him. “I-” he starts, but the words taper into nothing.
He sinks lower into the ground, limbs protesting against the rubble, and he wishes he’d said something earlier, that he could go back, that Gojo would’ve finished him now.
This is the beginning of the end, and there’s nowhere to go but down.
---
He’s angry.
After the incident, Itadori undergoes a long, drawn-out interrogation and when he admits that he’s been vaguely aware of Sukuna’s growing influence, he’s forced to watch both his mentors lose whatever trust they had left in him.
Nanami looks disappointed and Gojo seems annoyed and Itadori wants to get the hell out of there- but he can’t.
Because at the end of the whole ordeal, after he’s been forced to dredge up every time he’s blanked out, once they’ve spent hours trying to force Sukuna out with no success, they don’t let him go.
Instead, he’s abruptly moved out of the student dorms and forced to live in Nanami’s apartment, with Gojo stopping by at frequent and random intervals. All they seem to do is watch and wait for Sukuna to come back out- but Itadori knows that won’t happen as long as he’s being hurt by this.
It just keeps boiling up till one night, he asks the two of them whether they genuinely think he’s a threat. They exchange a long look before answering, and he’s hurt that they hesitated.
Nanami states bluntly that they following orders, being cautious, and then Gojo chimes in with a saccharine smile, telling Itadori that he has to understand.
Itadori doesn’t- he can’t. Because he wouldn’t hurt them, but Sukuna already has, and there’s no way to communicate that in a way they’d believe. Everything is just so fucked up now; he can’t see a way out.
He thinks he’s panicking – his chest feels tight, his breaths shallow – but then Gojo puts a hand on his arm, maybe to calm him, but it just feels condescending and Itadori sees red.
He’s so fucking pissed, at the situation and their inability to understand and Sukuna for doing this and his past self for eating that first, fucking finger.
(Worse yet- he’s never been angry like this. The feeling itself is unfamiliar and suffocating, and maybe part of him is afraid that it’s even more proof that Sukuna’s taking over.)
He brushes the hand off, slouching away to go to bed early and ditch the company, and misses the concerned, hushed whispers Gojo and Nanami immediately begin exchanging. He’s confirming their thoughts about him, that he’s out of control and needs to be watched, but literally anything would confirm their biases at this point.
He wants the fuck out.
---
He doesn’t trust them, but they don’t trust him.
Things feel almost normal, and he’s relaxing in Nobara and Fushiguro’s presence. He’s still stuck in Nanami’s apartment, but they’ve been enlisted to babysit him while his former mentor is off on some mission. If he takes off the word babysit, it feels just like old times.
They’re watching rom-coms together, sprawled all over each other, and it feels like he can go back to what things were.
Maybe, this will all be over one day. Maybe, he can rejoin his friends, can live his life and continue on.
Nobara’s been wary of him, ever since he lost control, but she nudges him and smiles bravely. “Maybe next week, we can convince Nanami and Gojo to let us take you shopping? Well, you both could take me shopping. I’ve been wanting these new shoes, and…”
And Itadori feels so good about it. He lights up, for the first time in ages, and plans out a whole day: they want to get ice cream, of course, and then hit that shoe place Nobara’s been dying to go to, and maybe they’ll pick up something for Fushiguro’s shikigami dogs.
He needs to get out of here, he needs his friends back, and maybe they’re willing to trust him again. It’ll be slow, but that’s okay, because he just cares so much.
But then: “—I thought last time we went out, you already bought yourself flowers to bring?”
It’s a harmless comment, really, but Itadori’s hands tremble minutely. He can almost hear Sukuna’s laugh, echoing and cavernous, deep inside, and it throws him.
Because Itadori might be scatter-brained, but he keeps track of the important shit: and he knows he’s hasn’t replaced the flowers on his grandfather’s grave since the last year’s anniversary.
Hoping his tone is casual, he interrupts, “When was that again?”
Fushiguro considers, then offers, “Maybe a week before you started living here.”
“Oh,” Itadori says softly, and they keep talking around him, easily filling in those spaces he once dominated. There’s no space for him anymore, is there?
Because that was before everything, and he doesn’t remember a moment of it. He knew Sukuna was stealing moments and logically, he had known this was an almost certain possibility. But he had thought they’d have known.
He’s lost their trust and there’s no getting that back, but what does it mean that they couldn’t even tell the difference between him and Sukuna, after a whole day spent together? What’s even left to fight for, if his closest friends never knew him?
Sukuna’s laugh gets louder, drowning out the conversation, and he mutters that he’s tired before stumbling out of there, towards his bedroom, ignoring the way they don’t call after him.
---
He just wants it to be over.
People don’t really check up on him anymore.
When they do, he smiles and brushes it off, and when they don’t, he doesn’t complain. It’s not like Sukuna cares to listen.
But he’s tired, and he’s pouring out into nothing: he’s emptied out, and there’s nothing to catch him, and he keeps trying to fill something that has no space left.
When did he stop believing things could get better for him?
He cries but he’s too tired for tears, and it’s just these broken, heaving sobs.
He remembers when his friends cared about him: he’s sure they still do, because he doesn’t want to think that badly of them, but maybe he just really, really needs them to show it right now.
(Don’t you need me? Don’t you care? I gave up everything to save you. I sacrificed everything. I’m begging you; can you hear me? Why am I still alone?)
Sometimes, he hurts himself, if only to feel something. In the moments after, he’s forced to watch as Sukuna regrows them, almost taunting.
It’s like he’s saying: I control you. You can’t even die, if I don’t say so. There’s no way out.
And he wants to die, he’s so tired of being alone and hated and having to prove himself, of having this evil presence looming inside of him. Is he still strong? Or is he just weak, broken and aching, splitting open at the seams, with a cracking plaster smile?
He goes through the motions, and counts the seconds. It has to be over soon.
---
Itadori carries a knife to his own execution.
It’s tucked away in his waistband, sharp and curved, and no one but him knows it’s there. They’re all too distracted, trying to save him.
The whole thing is oddly ceremonial. The higher ups are seated far, like that’d do anything if Sukuna really wanted at them, and the final finger is laid out in front of him. Gojo’s stationed close, on his left, and the other sorcerers are placed between them and the higher ups.
He looks at them, his friends, knowing this is the last time he’ll ever see them. He takes it all in slowly.
Panda’s crying, fat wet tears rolling down his fur. Maki’s stoic, propped against her favorite staff, but Itadori can see her white knuckles where she clutches the wood. Inumaki stares at him, mask down and lip trembling, holding back the words he knows he can’t say.
Nobara looks terribly guilty, trembling as she stares down at the finger- she can’t even seem to look Itadori in the eye. Fushiguro has his head down, defeated and resigned to the horrors of their world.
It seems students from the other school weren’t permitted to come: he’s not sure the higher ups wanted it to be a more private affair, or if they were worried about how Todo would react if he were here.
Gojo’s creeping closer, placing a steady hand on Itadori’s back.
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispers, too loudly to be truly secret. The student’s heads snap up, and he sees the hope creep in: he wishes Gojo would stop now. “Yuuji, we haven’t failed you yet. There are more things to try. Don’t rush to your death.”
Itadori looks up at him, and wonders when he lost all hope of being saved. Maybe when Sukuna first took over, fighting Fushiguro before killing himself. Perhaps when he lost control and massacred half of Tokyo. Or maybe it was slow, the loss of trust in himself and his ability to control his own body. He doesn’t answer Gojo, because he doesn’t know what to say.
He reaches for the final finger, grasping it, and, and – he’s losing time and it’s simple then it’s not and he’s angry and he doesn’t trust them but they don’t trust him and he just wants it to be over – and he grabs it, stuffing it in his mouth.
He bites. He swallows. He still feels like himself.
In fact, he feels more like himself than he has since he ate that first finger; surer of himself than he’s been in ages. Sukuna is completely and totally silent. He flexes his fingers, and turns to his sensei.
“Please,” he says with a smile. “Do it now. I know you’ll be quick.”
Gojo turns his head at this, frowning, and Itadori struggles to keep his smile. His sensei has done terrible things in the name of sorcery, but killing his own student must seem different. He wishes this wasn’t his teacher’s breaking point. Maybe it would’ve been easier if he pretended to be overtaken as soon as he ate the final finger.
Gojo turns back to Itadori, suddenly determined and lit up, filled with the kind of manic energy he gets when he rewrites every rule of their world to suit his own purposes. “You’re still in control- you’ll be able to maintain control, we’ll just need to keep training you. And, of course you can do it, my young student! I know you can-”
“Sensei, I’m so tired,” Itadori cuts him off, smiling sadly. “And I’ve already made my choice. I appreciate the effort, but it’s alright.” And it is.
He reaches into his waistband before anyone can react, flipping the blade in his hand till it’s angled towards himself, and plunges it deep in his stomach.
He coughs, wetly, and falls to his knees. Sukuna starts yelling, tearing at the boundaries placed between them and screaming for Itadori to open up their connection so he can be healed, but the pain grounds him and it’s never been easier to block the voice out. He’s finally in control again, and he’s thankful he’ll die like this. No part of him wants to be saved, and maybe that makes the difference. His hands shake and his vision goes blurry. He can barely hear his friends run to him, can barely feel Gojo’s hands on his stomach, trying to stop the flow.
His vision goes black. He can finally rest.
He’s been losing time. He’s finally run out.