Chapter Text
In the aftermath, Yuuji stands and stares.
There's a body on the ground. There's a body on the ground, and it's not the body he was fighting thirty seconds ago. No, this body is smaller—skinnier—more familiar—more loved—
Yuuji breaks into a run.
The ground is uneven. The concrete's cracked and ripped up in chunks like an earthquake's just come through; Yuuji tears his sleeve on one jagged piece of ex-Shinjuku, then scratches his ankle on another. He barely notices. All that matters is getting to that body and seeing if the chest is still moving.
When Yuuji reaches the body, he drops to his knees. The body is shirtless. It's badly scraped-up. There's a pool of blood beneath the head, and fresh wounds beneath the arms, and half the stomach has been carved away like it was cut into with a giant spoon—
Yuuji reaches for the face and pushes the bloody hair aside. His hands are shaking. He hopes, for one stupid second, that it's not really him.
But it is. It is. It's Fushiguro—Fushiguro, not Sukuna. Fushiguro with his dark hair and long lashes and lean arms, Fushiguro with his killer jawline, Fushiguro with that one mole behind his ear that Yuuji never told him about because he was afraid Fushiguro would grow his hair out to cover it. It's Fushiguro, Fushiguro, Fushiguro—
"Fushiguro," Yuuji croaks out uselessly. The name burns his throat. Fushiguro doesn't stir. His eyes are half-lidded—there's the tiniest glimpse of green there, glassy and unseeing. Yuuji's been longing to see that shade of green for over a month, and now that it's back, he only gets a sliver of it. He wants Fushiguro to open his eyes. He wants Fushiguro to move. He wants Fushiguro to breathe—
Wait. Is he breathing?
Yuuji's body moves strangely. His movements are jerky and too sharp. He feels like there's a disconnect between his brain and the rest of him. When he leans down, he's acting on autopilot. He puts his ear to Fushiguro's mouth.
He waits three seconds. Then five, then ten, then fifteen.
He hears nothing. No puff of breath, no wheeze in Fushiguro's chest. Nothing. Nothing. The blood is starting to soak into the knees of Yuuji's pants.
"Ieiri-san," Yuuji mutters. It's almost to himself at first, and then he bolts upright, looking around wildly for Mei-Mei's crows. "Ieiri-san. Ieiri-san!"
If she can get here in time—if Ui-Ui can teleport her—if she can save him—
"Itadori-kun?"
The voice comes from behind him, and it's accompanied by a hacking cough. Yuuji's first instinct is to throw himself over Fushiguro to protect him. His second instinct is to turn around.
Fushiguro's killer—no. It's not his killer. It's not his killer, because Yuuji refuses to believe that he's dead. Fushiguro's attacker is standing there, just a few paces away. The person who put that huge, gaping hole through his stomach. The person who had pointed their fingers at Sukuna's gut, at Fushiguro's gut, and fired Hollow Purple point-blank.
Okkotsu Yuuta, Sukuna had said.
He doesn't look like Okkotsu. He looks like Gojo. It's the same face that Yuuji has grown to know so well over these last few months: white hair, blue eyes, proud nose. But Gojo has never called Yuuji Itadori-kun, and Gojo has never worn a line of stitches across his brow. And Gojo has never looked like this. Gojo has never looked unsure.
"Itadori-kun," Okkotsu-in-Gojo's-body says again. There's a strip of skin showing at his waist where his shirt was cut away, and Yuuji can see a line of stitches there too, still fresh and angry-looking. "Fushiguro-kun, is he—"
"You," Yuuji croaks out, and Okkotsu falls silent. He's swaying on his feet, Yuuji realises suddenly. He looks exhausted. "You—what did you do."
It's not a question. They both know what Okkotsu's done. The evidence is written across Okkotsu's forehead. The evidence is lying in front of Yuuji, his blood slowly staining Yuuji's clothes.
"Itadori-kun—"
"What did you do?"
Okkotsu opens his mouth to answer, but he coughs instead. Blood flecks the corners of his mouth. He's dying, Yuuji thinks. He killed Sukuna and now he's dying. He killed Fushiguro and now he's—
"Itadori, move!"
Yuuji whips his head around. A small, animal noise of relief catches in the back of his throat.
Ieiri. She's here, Ui-Ui letting go of her the second they touch the ground. Her hair is a mess. Her sleeves are soaked with blood all the way to the elbows. Her eyes are wide and fixed on Fushiguro.
Fushiguro.
Ieiri's here now, so he'll be okay, right? He has to be okay, right? Yuuji practically throws himself out of the way to give Ieiri space. She drops to her knees by Fushiguro's side, her hands outstretched, and then—
Yuuji had screamed for her. He'd looked up at the sky and begged her to come, to help, to save Fushiguro's life. Now, Ieiri kneels beside him, her hands resting on the wound in Fushiguro's abdomen. Her fingers sink into the exposed flesh. Yuuji sees a brief flicker of white light under her nails, and he waits for the familiar sight of flesh stitching itself back together, but—
But Ieiri goes still. She stares down at Fushiguro for a long handful of moments. The light flickers and dies. For a second—just a second—Ieiri's eyes flutter shut, and she lets out a tiny, shaky breath.
Then, abruptly, she turns around. Her hands leave Fushiguro, and she reaches for Okkotsu instead. "Rika's still got your body," she says, the words sharp and snappy. "If you get back to it in time, then—"
What?
"Wait," Yuuji blurts out. "Fushiguro—"
Ieiri's lips press together into a thin, thin line.
Yuuji's heart feels like it's been hanging by a single fraying thread ever since the smoke cleared and he saw Fushiguro's body. Now, as he meets Ieiri's exhausted gaze, he feels that thread snap.
"No," he says. His voice feels like it's being dragged out of him, a long red string that's being unspooled from somewhere deep within his gut. "No. No, Ieiri-san—Ieiri-san—"
"He's already dead, Itadori," Ieiri says softly. "There's nothing I can do. Okkotsu is my priority now."
With that, she turns away. She gets up—away from Fushiguro—and moves towards Okkotsu, who crumples to his knees the second she reaches him. Yuuji watches them, watches how Ieiri lets out a long string of swears and presses her hand to Okkotsu's chest. Yuuji realises, for the first time, that there's a wound there: a deep slash, from armpit to waist.
When Ieiri uses her Reverse Cursed Technique, Okkotsu's body starts to mend itself in the way that Fushiguro's didn't. Yuuji turns back to the body in front of him.
If he doesn't look at the stomach wound, then maybe it won't exist. If he doesn't look at it—if he just focuses on Fushiguro's face—if he leans down, cradles Fushiguro's jaw in his hands, rests his forehead on Fushiguro's brow—
"Fushiguro," he says again. His breath stirs Fushiguro's hair. "Come on. Get up. You can get up, right? You can still hear me, right?"
He stares into that tiny, tiny glint of green under Fushiguro's eyelids. He waits for Fushiguro to blink, to focus on him, to groan and complain that Yuuji's suffocating him. This can't be how it ends. This can't be it. Yuuji refuses. He won't allow it. Fushiguro has to live.
But Fushiguro's eyes don't move. His lips, slightly ajar, don't twitch with an exhale. His chest is so very still.
"Fushiguro," Yuuji says again, and the world is starting to go blurry at the edges. Something hot is pricking his eyes—tears. "Fushiguro, come on. Fushiguro. Fushiguro."
If he says it enough times, then he might be able to call Fushiguro back. Maybe it's like waking someone up from a deep sleep. Maybe Fushiguro will open his eyes properly just so he can tell Yuuji to shut up. Maybe, after this last month from hell, after all these weeks of Yuuji hoping and wishing and praying, Fushiguro will finally come back.
The first tear that falls from Yuuji's eye feels like a surrender.
He shouldn't be crying. He shouldn't be, because Fushiguro's not dead, but—but he keeps crying. He can't stop. The tears come fast, and every time Yuuji blinks there's more. Then there's the sound, the noise in his throat, strange and primal-sounding. When Yuuji starts to sob, he doesn't recognise his own voice. It sounds raw and awful and fucking pathetic. It sounds like an animal. It sounds like someone's died.
"Please," he gasps out. Somewhere nearby, Ieiri is still working on Okkotsu, but Yuuji can't bear to look away from Fushiguro for long enough to see if Okkotsu's still alive. "Please, Fushiguro—come on, please, please—"
Time starts to move strangely after that. It's somehow both too slow and too fast. Every second is both an eternity and a fraction of what it's supposed to be. Yuuji has been here for too long. Yuuji will never be here for long enough.
Yuuji's carried Fushiguro before. It's been necessary when they're on missions and Fushiguro is either too injured or too slow. Yuuji's never had an issue with carrying him—he weighs twenty kilos less than Yuuji himself. With Yuuji's enhanced strength, it's like carrying a backpack.
But now, as Yuuji tries to heft Fushiguro's body into his arms, he finds himself bowing under the weight. He can't even get Fushiguro's legs off the ground. He can only struggle to wrap his arms around Fushiguro's torso, his hands slipping on his abdomen where the blood is warm and wet. He lowers his head into the crook of Fushiguro's shoulder, his ear pressed against Fushiguro's neck, and he prays that by some miracle he'll hear a heartbeat. He gets nothing but silence.
At first, the pain is familiar.
Yuuji's felt it before: this crawling, scratching ache behind his sternum, in the space between his lungs. It's the kind of pain that feels like it's alive. It grabs him by the throat and refuses to let go. It hollows him out, makes him feel like a pot in the kiln with too much air left inside him.
He felt this pain when Kugisaki's head exploded in Shibuya. He felt it when Nanami died. He's been feeling it for the last month and a half, ever since he opened his eyes and saw Fushiguro standing in front of him with Sukuna's smile on his face. By now, Yuuji knows what grief feels like, and this—this is grief.
But, as he gathers Fushiguro's body into his arms, it starts to get worse.
The pain spreads. It stretches out past his chest, to his head, his hands, his feet. It travels down his spine and out through his nerves. And, suddenly, it's not just an ache anymore—it's a prickling, stinging feeling, like Yuuji's blood is suddenly filled with a thousand tiny glass shards.
He clings to Fushiguro like that will help ward it off. He curls himself over Fushiguro's head, wraps his arms around Fushiguro's shoulders, buries his face in Fushiguro's hair. The copper tang of blood fills his nose and throat, and he chokes on it. But the pain just grows worse—and worse, and worse, until Yuuji's breath is coming through gritted teeth.
Then the burning starts.
It's almost unnoticeable, at first. A warmth in Yuuji's stomach, beneath his ribs, to the side of his abdomen. But then it starts growing hotter, and it starts hurting—Yuuji has to let go of Fushiguro to press the heel of his palm against it, but that doesn't do anything. God, it—it feels like he's being branded, what the fuck—
"Itadori-kun?" Okkotsu says, and he sounds very far away. So he's alive, then. Yuuji makes a stupid little pained groan in response, and it's only then that he realises he's been making sounds this entire time. "Ieiri-san, look—look at him, he's—"
"Itadori?" That's Ieiri. "Itadori. Itadori!"
Yuuji doesn't realise he's collapsed onto his side until he opens his eyes and finds himself eye-to-eye with Fushiguro. The pain is excruciating. He's never felt like this before, not even when he was fighting Choso's brothers and his flesh was literally rotting. Distantly, he hears footsteps, and then there are hands on his shoulders, turning him over. Yuuji's vision switches from Fushiguro to the sky, and he makes a wordless sound of complaint.
Ieiri's face appears in front of him. She looks even paler than normal. "Shit," she mutters. "What—Itadori, what happened?"
Yuuji can't answer her. He blinks, and his vision swims. He realises, suddenly, that there are crisscrossing lines of pain all over him—did Sukuna get him when he wasn't looking? Is this the delayed result of an attack? Is Yuuji going to turn into mincemeat, just like that one girl in Shibuya with the phone and the blonde hair?
Ieiri rips at Yuuji's clothes. There's a brief flash of chill as she opens up his shirt, but Yuuji barely registers it. Ieiri's voice sounds like it's coming from underwater as she swears again.
"What is that?" Okkotsu again. He's limped over, it seems, recovered enough that he's no longer on the very brink of dying. "Ieiri-san, those lines—and his stomach—"
"I've only ever seen it in drawings," Ieiri says grimly. "I think he broke a Binding Vow."
"What?"
"Itadori, can you hear me? Itadori. Did you make a Binding Vow?"
Yuuji's tongue lies heavy in his mouth. His body is no longer his own. When he starts to twitch, his body spasming erratically, he can hardly feel it. Ieiri's hands are on his shoulders and she's trying to pin him down, but Yuuji can't hear the words she's shouting at him. His jaw hinges open, and a long, terrible scream rips itself out of his throat—
He blinks, and suddenly the sky is gone. Ieiri is gone. Okkotsu is gone. The pain is gone. Everything is gone, but—
But, most importantly, Fushiguro is here.
He's here. He's standing right in front of Yuuji, and he's alive. He's okay. He's dressed in his school uniform, and the fabric is clean and unripped. His hair's not matted with blood. His stomach is perfectly whole. And his eyes are open, looking right at Yuuji, just as bright and green as Yuuji remembers.
Yuuji takes in the scene much quicker than he usually would. He's no longer in Shinjuku—he's sitting on the ground, somewhere dark. There's a fire in front of him. Okkotsu sits on the other side of it, in his own body. Fushiguro stands before him, alive and unharmed.
"We just have to save people," Fushiguro says, his eyes boring into Yuuji's. Yuuji stares back at him. "I believe that was the original idea behind your actions."
The air rushes out of Yuuji's chest in one blow.
Ah. He's been here before.
This is a memory. And not just that—this is a memory that Yuuji will never forget. He'll never forget this moment, this heartbeat, the look on Fushiguro's face as he opens his mouth and—
"So start by saving me, Itadori," Fushiguro says, and Yuuji feels the words strike him like a knife to the chest. They split him apart, cleave him in two. The memory freezes around him, a moment paused in time—he stares at Fushiguro's face, open and pleading, and he thinks: I can't. I'm sorry.
In front of him, the fire flickers and goes out. Fushiguro is swallowed up by the dark. Yuuji, as always, follows soon after.
Someone's snapping their fingers at him.
"Oi, Yuuji-kun. Now's not the time to be sleeping!"
Yuuji's eyes fly open. He jerks upright and immediately slams his forehead into something solid.
Pain bursts across his brow. "Ow!" he yelps, grabbing his forehead. The person standing in front of him clicks their tongue.
"Well, that's not going to help us take down Sukuna," they say, and Yuuji freezes.
He looks up.
Gojo is standing there. He's dressed as he was just a few hours ago, before he left to go and fight. Black shirt, white pants, white haori thrown over his shoulder, and...
No stitches on his head. No stitches on his stomach. Yuuji stares at him for so long that Gojo's smile falters.
"Yuuji-kun?" he asks.
Yuuji. Not Itadori. This is—this really is—
"What day is it?" Yuuji blurts out. Gojo's brow furrows even more.
"You didn't give yourself a concussion just now when you hit yourself on Infinity, did you?" he asks. "It's Christmas Eve, Yuuji-kun. I'm about to go kick Sukuna's ass."
About to. He's about to. Yuuji looks around wildly and sees the other students there, all looking at him questioningly. They're—they're not in Shinjuku anymore. This is the building that they were using as a base before the fight with Sukuna. Yuuji twists around, scanning the room. Higuruma's here too, and Choso, and—
Yuuji's eyes land on Okkotsu. He's still in his own body, white shirt and droopy black hair and eye bags and everything. He meets Yuuji's eyes, looking vaguely concerned, and tilts his head questioningly.
A dream? Was it all just an awful dream?
But it had felt so real. And—and things had unfolded just like this, right before Gojo went off to fight. Everyone had been in this room, just like they are now, and Yuuji had laughed and told Gojo that his technique was getting in the way. The room had looked exactly as it does now. Nothing's changed other than the fact that Yuuji is sitting on the floor instead of standing—presumably because he was sleeping, like Gojo said.
Think, Yuuji. Think. Think.
Did he see the future? Is that a cursed technique that he didn't know about?
What happened right before Yuuji woke up here? He was—he'd been holding Fushiguro. He'd had Fushiguro's body in his arms, and it had been the worst moment of his entire life. He'd curled over him, buried his face in Fushiguro's hair, gagged on the smell of blood. He'd felt that strange burning pain in his belly, and then he'd fallen to the ground. Ieiri had called his name. And then...and then...
"Yuuji."
Yuuji jumps. Choso is crouching in front of him, his eyes dark and worried, and god—Yuuji very nearly bursts into tears. This is his big brother, alive and well in front of him, and if Yuuji really did see the future, then by the time the sun sets tonight he'll be dead. Burnt to a crisp. Yuuji had watched it happen with his own two eyes.
"Yuuji," Choso says again. He puts his hand on Yuuji's shoulder, and the weight grounds Yuuji a little. "Are you alright? Do you need to step out for a moment?"
Yuuji opens his mouth and finds that no words come out. He's just—he doesn't know what's going on. Was he dreaming? Did he have a vision? Or did he actually, literally, travel back in time?
Nothing makes sense. I think he broke a Binding Vow, Ieiri had said to Okkotsu as she knelt over Yuuji's malfunctioning body, but that doesn't make sense at all. Yuuji's only made one Binding Vow in his entire life, and it became null and void the second Sukuna left Yuuji's body. Besides, Yuuji never even broke the conditions of that Vow. So why...?
Wait.
Right before Yuuji passed out, he'd remembered Fushiguro. It only makes sense, since his entire world was Fushiguro and Fushiguro was dead, but—
So start by saving me, Itadori.
Yuuji feels his entire body go cold.
That memory. That one specific memory. It had flashed in his mind so quickly, so vividly, that it felt like he was reliving the moment for real. Yuuji can still remember the spark that lit up in his chest when Fushiguro said that. He still remembers the sudden burning determination that had filled him: yes, he'd thought to himself back then, as he looked into Fushiguro's eyes. I'll save you. I swear it. That's my purpose now.
He never said it aloud, but...
Can Binding Vows be made with yourself? If Yuuji swore it to himself—swore it so fervently, so intensely that he felt it in his soul—would it still count? And, if he broke that Vow, would it have an effect?
He didn't save Fushiguro. He broke his promise. He—
"Yuuji-kuuuun," Gojo sings, snapping his fingers again. "You look like you're thinking very hard. I'm taking offense, you know. It's a big day for me! You're not allowed to be distracted!"
"Sorry, sensei," Yuuji says automatically. He looks up at Gojo, and for a second he can only see the dead body: cut at the waist, blood leaking from his mouth, eyes staring up at the sky. So, before he can second-guess himself, he adds: "Can I talk to you? Alone?"
Gojo's brows climb up his forehead. "...How long will it take?"
"Not long." Just long enough for Yuuji to warn him. To tell him. To save him.
"Then of course! Anything for a precious student." Gojo claps a hand on Yuuji's shoulder and tugs him to his feet. "Come on, Yuuji-kun. This way."
He steers Yuuji into the adjacent room, ignoring the stares of everyone else. Yuuji's hands are trembling at his sides. His head feels fuzzy, like it's stuffed full with cotton.
"So," Gojo says, once they're out of earshot of the others. "Your cursed energy is going a little haywire there, Yuuji-kun. Care to tell me what—"
"IthinkIsawthefuture," Yuuji blurts out. Gojo blinks at him.
"You think you saw the future?" he repeats slowly. Yuuji nods. Gojo's eyes bore into him, like he's searching for a lie and coming up empty.
"Ah," Gojo finally says. "I see. Really?"
"Really," Yuuji says.
Gojo scratches his chin thoughtfully. "Well," he says, eyeing Yuuji. "That's certainly a surprise. Did things work out?"
Yuuji swallows. His eyes burn. He looks down and away.
"I suppose not," Gojo says softly. "I lost?"
Yuuji can't say it. Even now, even after seeing the body for himself, he can't believe it. Gojo Satoru lost feels like an oxymoron, and yet—it's true. He nods again.
"He's going to use Fushiguro's big shikigami," he says. His voice comes out wobbly. "The one with the big wheel on its head. I think you called it Mahoraga. It's going to adapt to your Infinity, and he's going to learn how to cut through it, and he'll—he'll—"
His breath starts to stutter. Gojo reaches out and grips Yuuji by the shoulders. Yuuji looks up at him and nearly flinches—Gojo is staring at him, blue eyes burning so intensely that Yuuji feels like he needs to look away.
"Yuuji-kun," Gojo says, his voice low. "As quickly as you can, tell me everything you remember."
Yuuji does.
As Gojo fights Sukuna for the second time, Yuuji sits with the others and waits.
He fidgets with his fingers. Keeps rubbing his thumb over the stub of his left pinky, the one that Sukuna ripped off. Keeps glancing at Okkotsu, too—at how his eyes are fixed on the screen showing the fight, how his mouth tightens every time Gojo is injured. Yuuji didn't notice it the first time around, but there's a certain desperation in Okkotsu's eyes.
This whole time, was Okkotsu planning to take over if Gojo died? Was it some kind of back-up plan that they never told Yuuji about? Right now, is Okkotsu praying that Gojo makes it out so that he won't have to resort to stealing his skin?
At the same time, Yuuji's mind drifts. He turns over those last few moments in his head again and again: Ieiri's words, the unexplained blinding pain, the vivid memory of Fushiguro asking Yuuji to save him. Yuuji glances at Ieiri, standing silently in the corner, and decides to brave it.
He shifts, getting up from the couch and walking over to her. Barely anyone pays him any mind. They're all too focused on the fight.
"Ieiri-san," Yuuji says, and her eyes flicker to him. "What do you know about Binding Vows?"
Her brow scrunches. "Binding Vows? Why?"
"I just..." Yuuji shrugs. "Figured it's better to know than not, right?"
Ieiri sighs. Her arms are crossed, and she's tapping the nails of one hand against the elbow of the other. "I suppose," she says. "I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject, though. What do you want to know?"
Yuuji hesitates. What does he want to know? Well, for starters—
"What happens when you break one?"
Ieiri raises her brows. "Well, it depends," she says. "Usually you die. I've only ever seen drawings in old journals, though." She purses her lips. "Generally, to an onlooker, you'd look like you're getting sliced to bits. I imagine it probably feels like that, too. I think it's meant to be some kind of punishment from the universe, like it's taking you apart or something. But most people aren't dumb enough to break a Binding Vow, so it's rare." She looks at him again, her eyes sharp. "Why do you need to know, Itadori-kun?"
Should Yuuji tell her? Does it matter? Something in him tells him that he should hold back, so he just shrugs again.
"I'm new to jujutsu," he says. "I guess I'm just curious. And, uh, one more thing—is it possible to make a Binding Vow with yourself?"
"Well, yes." Ieiri nods at Miwa, the blue-haired girl from Kyoto. "She made a Vow to never draw her sword again, remember? If you believe something with enough conviction, then of course it'll become a Binding Vow."
"Ah," Yuuji says. His voice sounds dull, even to his own ears. Ieiri's eyes bore into the side of his head, clearly suspicious. "Right. Okay. Thanks, Ieiri-san."
He goes to sit back on the couch.
If you believe something with enough conviction, then of course it'll become a Binding Vow. Yuuji has never believed anything more than when he told himself he would save Fushiguro. In the days after Shibuya, when Yuuji felt like everything he knew about himself had been shattered, it was Fushiguro who made him realise that he could still help people. It was Fushiguro's request that had Yuuji picking the pieces of himself off the ground.
Everything that Yuuji is now is built around that sole purpose of saving Fushiguro. If Yuuji looks inside himself, really looks, then he thinks he'll find his love for Fushiguro right at his very core.
So: is it possible that he made a Binding Vow to save Fushiguro? Yes, of course. He'd even say it's likely. No—it's almost certain. He swore he would save him, and then he didn't. He failed. He broke the Vow, and he'd...
Did Yuuji die? He's not sure. Ieiri said that the universe would take him apart for breaking his Vow, and it had definitely felt like he was getting diced up back there in Shinjuku. Then there was the matter of that burning in his stomach, too, and—
His stomach.
His stomach. Ieiri didn't say anything about a burning pain, only the slicing part. Is that burning feeling why Yuuji got sent back in time instead of just dying? If Yuuji checks his stomach now, then maybe...
He excuses himself to go to the bathroom, then pulls up his shirt to look in the mirror. His breath catches in his throat.
There's a huge mark on his stomach that wasn't there before. It looks like a scar, reddish-brown, but when Yuuji touches it he feels nothing but regular smooth skin. No scar tissue, no gnarly bits. It's like a birthmark, if Yuuji had been born with a giant circle on the left side of his stomach.
...Wait.
The left side of his stomach. Yuuji traces the mark again, trying to recall the feeling of holding Fushiguro's body in his arms, and...and...
Oh.
It lines up perfectly: the mark on his stomach corresponds to Fushiguro's death wound.
The realisation makes bile rise up Yuuji's throat. He braces himself on the sink and forces himself to breathe.
So he's definitely travelled back in time. Or, at least, that first timeline—the one where Gojo died and Okkotsu took his body and Fushiguro was killed by a Hollow Purple to the gut—definitely existed. The proof of it exists as this mark on Yuuji's stomach. He wonders if this is the universe's way of reminding him that he failed: he's branded, permanently, with the mark of how Fushiguro died.
He takes a few minutes to compose himself, then slips back to rejoin the others. Already, he can see that the fight between Gojo and Sukuna is going differently to how it happened the first time round. Gojo has taken the information Yuuji gave him and used it to his full advantage—he's more prepared for Sukuna's attacks, especially now that he knows that Sukuna has a barrierless domain. Yuuji tracks each attack with his eyes. This could be the one. This could be the one that kills Gojo, this could be the one that kills Sukuna, this—
Somehow, when Gojo fires his last Hollow Purple, Yuuji is still caught off-guard.
It's dead silent. In Shinjuku: silence. In the room where the rest of them watch through Mei-Mei's crows like it's some crazy TV show: silence. Yuuji's eyes are fixed on the screen, on that tiny figure that lays where Sukuna fell. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, waiting for Sukuna to get up and the fight to keep going, but...
He doesn't. It doesn't. Sukuna doesn't move. He's curled up with his back to the 'camera', and he shows no signs of getting back up. And the body looks far too small.
Gojo strides forward. He crouches down next to Sukuna, then freezes. He whips his head up, looking right at the closest crow with a terrified glint in his eye. It's almost an exact mirror to how Yuuji reacted, when he realised that Fushiguro...that Fushiguro was...
Oh, Yuuji thinks dully. It's happened again.
"Shoko," Gojo rasps out on the screen. Then, with a wild tinge to it: "Shoko!"
The silence breaks. Ui-Ui grabs Ieiri and they both disappear, while everyone else breaks out into worried murmurs. One of the crows must fly closer, because as Ieiri and Ui-Ui appear on screen, the 'camera' zooms in to show their faces. Ieiri's face is tight with tension as she kneels down next to Gojo and the body. Gojo's hands are flitting frantically, and he's babbling, the words almost too fast for Yuuji to catch.
Ieiri shoves him out of the way. "Let me work," she says curtly, turning the body over so she can view the face. What little colour was left in her cheeks disappears. Gojo makes a choked sound.
"Shoko, please—I tried to avoid his head—god, fuck, Megumi—"
Yuuji was right: it's happened again.
It's a different place this time. The chest, not the stomach, but the wound looks the same. It's still that perfect circle shape, a cookie-cutter chunk of flesh taken out of Fushiguro's body. Yuuji supposes that's just what Hollow Purple looks like when it kills someone. He stares at the screen, at how Ieiri's hands tremble until she just bows her head in defeat, and he knows: he's going to have to do this again.
Sure enough, he's beginning to feel lines of pain tracing over his body. This is the part where he feels like he's being cut up on a chopping board. The burning will start soon, and then—will Yuuji just relive this day, over and over? Until he finds a way to fulfill his promise and save Fushiguro?
The pain grows worse. Yuuji leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. Someone asks him if he's alright—Maki, he thinks. He doesn't know. He lets out a long, strained wheeze of a breath.
Now that he's looking for it, Yuuji can feel it: the words are etched into him, woven into his muscles and carved into his bones. Start by saving me, Itadori. Yuuji promised he would, so now he must.
The burning pain is starting to come back again. It begins in his chest this time, slightly to the right. Yuuji swallows, reaching up to press his hand against it.
So, he thinks dazedly, as the universe begins to take him apart. This is what happens when you break a Binding Vow.
Yuuji wakes up on Christmas Eve. It's morning—early enough that he's still in bed. The first thing he does is press the heels of his hands to his eyes and breathe.
He wasn't even with Fushiguro, that time. He wasn't there. He couldn't hold him as he died, couldn't press their foreheads together, couldn't get one last glimpse of his eyes—
He allows himself sixty seconds to grieve.
Then, after that, he rips off his shirt and inspects his chest. Sure enough, the huge mark on his stomach from Fushiguro's first death is still there, but there's a second one now too: a matching circle on Yuuji's right pectoral. Both are left over from Hollow Purples. It's clear as day that, if Gojo—or someone in Gojo's body—plans to kill Sukuna with that attack, then Fushiguro will not survive.
So, once Yuuji feels like he can face the world again, he sets out to find Gojo. He does the exact same thing as before—he tells Gojo what's happened. He shows him the marks, and something twitches in Gojo's face when he sees the circle on Yuuji's stomach. Then Yuuji puts his hands together, bows as deep as he can without getting on the floor, and begs Gojo to not use Hollow Purple.
"Please," he says, his voice ragged. "Please, Gojo-sensei. It'll kill him. There's no way it won't kill him."
Gojo sighs. "Yuuji-kun—"
"Please."
Gojo looks up to the ceiling. There's a long moment of silence.
"I'll try my best," Gojo says grimly. "Believe me, I don't want to kill Megumi either."
Yuuji still remembers the wild look in Gojo's eyes when he saw Fushiguro's body. He remembers the devastation on his face, the terror. If Gojo kills Fushiguro, then he must kill some part of himself, too; if Yuuji tells him now that Hollow Purple is sure to kill Fushiguro, then Gojo will avoid using it unless he has to.
Yuuji spends the next few hours rehashing everything he remembers from both of Gojo's fights with Sukuna. Mahoraga, the barrierless domain, healing their brains with Reverse Cursed Technique to offset the damage of so many Domain Expansions. That other huge shikigami, the one called Agito. Yuuji tells Gojo anything and everything that might help him defeat Sukuna while sparing Fushiguro's life.
Gojo stays true to his word: in this fight, he doesn't use Hollow Purple. He evades Sukuna's attacks instead with the information that Yuuji gave him, and he holds out for long enough that Yuuji starts to gain hope. But then—
Sukuna grins, and it's a grin that Yuuji recognises. His heart drops right to the bottom of his stomach.
Gojo's dragged the fight out for too long. He's given Mahoraga enough time to adapt. Yuuji can do nothing but watch, dread sitting heavy in his chest, as Gojo's Infinity is sliced in two.
It's just like Yuuji remembers: a neat cut right across the waist, severing Gojo into his torso and legs. The shock of it is somehow even worse than the first time. Yuuji stares at Gojo's bloody face, and he realises:
He did that.
He begged Gojo not to use Hollow Purple. He asked Gojo to take his most powerful weapon out of his arsenal. This time, it's Yuuji's fault that his teacher is dead.
When Yuuji arrives in Shinjuku, it's with a cold, cold feeling in his chest.
His memory of the first fight is hazy, but he still remembers where things went wrong. They go wrong the same way in this timeline, too. Yuuji tries to warn Higuruma that his Domain will confiscate the wrong thing, but he's too late. Then Okkotsu comes in, fresh from killing Kenjaku, and he opens his Domain.
This, of all things, is what blindsides Yuuji. Because—well, he just didn't expect it. It didn't happen like this the first time around. Okkotsu's Domain had only managed to hold Sukuna off long enough for Yuuji to get a glimpse of Fushiguro's soul.
This time, though, it's different. Yuuji doesn't know if it's because Gojo weakened Sukuna more this time, or if something's simply changed in this timeline, but—
But it works. It works too well. When Okkotsu charges Sukuna, the attack lands, and it works.
Yuuji never even gets the chance to speak to Fushiguro. Sukuna dies with Okkotsu's blade buried in his throat, and he brings Fushiguro down with him.
Yuuji wakes up on Christmas Eve with marks on his stomach, chest and throat. At the very least, the one on his throat isn't as obvious—it's a starburst wound in the dip of his collarbone, easily hidden by his clothes.
He tries again. The same strategy, again. He talks to Gojo. To Higuruma, too, since the Executioner's Sword is their best bet at ending the fight early.
This time, he doesn't have to worry about Higuruma. The man never even comes into play. Neither does Hollow Purple. In this timeline, Gojo—already fully armed with the knowledge of the three fights that came before—is too fast in countering Sukuna's Domain. In this timeline, Unlimited Void hits Sukuna full-force.
In this timeline, Sukuna falls quickly, quietly, bleeding from his eyes and nose and ears. Fushiguro doesn't stand a chance.
Yuuji wakes up on Christmas Eve with marks on his stomach, chest, throat and temple. He supposes that's the closest he can get to displaying a brain injury on the outside of his skin.
This time, Fushiguro's not the one who dies first. This time, Yuuji is too slow. He's still clumsy with all his more advanced techniques. His grasp on Reverse Cursed Technique is kind of like a kid trying to hold on to a large, wriggly fish, and he just—doesn't heal himself in time. He's still trying to reconcile what he thinks will happen and what's actually happening. There are just enough tiny changes to throw him off. Just enough tweaks in the timeline for Yuuji to stumble, for his focus to waver.
That waver is all the opportunity Sukuna needs.
Sukuna laughs when he kills him. He draws it out a little: cuts off Yuuji's hands first, so that he can't use any cursed techniques. Then he slices the muscles of Yuuji's ankles, so that he can't run. Then, finally, he reaches into Yuuji's chest and rips out his dying heart.
"Just like old times, brat," he says, tossing the heart aside with a smile.
Yuuji looks up at him and wonders if Fushiguro is watching. He hopes not. Fushiguro's already had to watch him die once; Yuuji would hate to make him go through it again.
Yuuji wakes up on Christmas Eve with marks on his stomach, chest, throat, temple, and a circle made of five crescent marks right over his heart. It takes Yuuji a few seconds to puzzle that one out, but then he puts his own hand over the mark and realises: it's Sukuna's fingernails.
He needs to be stronger. He needs to be better. He can't keep relying on everyone else to do the dirty work for him and miraculously finish off Sukuna without killing Fushiguro. Yuuji clenches his hands into fists and decides that, this time, he won't tell anyone anything at all. He'll bear the burden of knowledge alone.
So: Gojo dies. Kashimo dies. Higuruma dies. Yuuji attacks Sukuna with a fire burning in his chest, grief hardened into rock-solid rage. He puts every last bit of power he has into his punches, and it works. It works. He chips away at the barrier between Sukuna and Fushiguro's souls, and it's easier than it used to be. He pummels Sukuna with Black Flash after Black Flash. He hits six, then seven, then—
Right before Yuuji lands his eighth Black Flash, Sukuna's body melts away.
"Ita—"
Yuuji's fist lands directly in the centre of Fushiguro's chest.
Fushiguro goes flying. He slams into a nearby building so hard that he goes clean through the concrete. Yuuji stares, his fist still sizzling with black sparks of energy.
No. No. There's no way that Yuuji—that Yuuji was the one to—
He's running before he can think about it. He stumbles over the ground, and for a stomach-churning second he's right back in that first timeline, that first death. Yuuji tears into the building with his heart in his throat, and there—Fushiguro. It's really Fushiguro, not Sukuna, and he's—he's—
"Fushiguro," Yuuji gasps, scrambling over the debris to get to him. Oh, god, his spine—he hit the building back-first, and now his spine is all crooked and bent. Ieiri always says spinal injuries are some of the worst. "Fushiguro, please, no, please—"
He bundles Fushiguro up in his arms. Fushiguro's head lolls back limply, and his spine is a knobby line beneath Yuuji's hands, bent out of shape and misaligned. Yuuji feels like he's going to puke. He presses his ear to Fushiguro's chest and almost sobs when he hears a faint heartbeat.
Fushiguro's not dead. Yuuji hasn't killed him. And—and Sukuna is gone, so does that mean—?
Fushiguro stirs. Yuuji snaps his head up to stare at him.
His eyes are red.
Fushiguro smiles. He stretches, and his body fixes itself, vertebrae popping back into place. He reaches up and pats Yuuji's cheek.
"Thanks for that, brat," he says. Yuuji stares, horror unfurling in his chest, as Sukuna's tattoos begin to form on Fushiguro's face. "You've just made it ten times easier for me, destroying Fushiguro Megumi's soul like that. I don't think even I could put it back together after that kind of hit."
Oh god. Oh, god. Yuuji hit Fushiguro. Yuuji hit Fushiguro with a Black Flash, and he only hit Fushiguro. He as good as tore the last remnants of Fushiguro's soul apart with his own two hands.
Yuuji buries his face in his hands and screams.
He's barely aware of Sukuna, who untangles himself from Yuuji's hold and stands with a sigh. "You truly never cease to be annoying," the curse says. "Trust me, brat, I'm doing us all a favour by shutting you up."
He cuts out Yuuji's tongue first, then the rest of his vocal cords. To his shame, Yuuji doesn't even try to resist.
Yuuji wakes up on Christmas Eve—
"That's enough," Fushiguro says, after his seventh death.
Yuuji only sees him for a moment. It's the span of a breath, a heartbeat—a single second where Yuuji sees into Fushiguro's soul.
What he sees breaks his heart just as badly as it did the first time.
Fushiguro is folded forward on his knees. His face is to the ground. Here, in this dark, cold space, Yuuji wants nothing more than to go to him and pull him up, but he's rooted to the spot.
Technically speaking, this is Fushiguro's innate Domain. So the reason why Yuuji can't approach is simply because Fushiguro doesn't want him to approach. Because what Fushiguro wants is to—
"I've had enough," Fushiguro whispers. His voice echoes around them. "Please."
What Fushiguro wants is to die.
Unfortunately for him, Yuuji can't accept that.
Yuuji releases a single shaky breath. He looks at Fushiguro, who he loves like the first falling of leaves in autumn, and he feels like he's holding his entire world in his hands and he's about to drop it. He feels like he's breaking something fragile and precious. He's failed Fushiguro, over and over—his body is littered with the scars of Fushiguro's deaths. He's killed the person he holds most dear.
"I'll come back for you, Fushiguro," Yuuji tells him quietly. "I won't give up on you."
There's no response. Please, look at me, Yuuji begs him silently. Please, please, let me see your eyes, let me see you as I remember you.
Fushiguro doesn't lift his head. When Okkotsu's Domain shatters, ending Yuuji's tiny window of time, the last thing Yuuji sees of him is his hair: dark and inky and shifting with an underwater current that doesn't really exist. Yuuji loves that hair. He's always found it cute, the way it sticks up every which way. He hopes this isn't the last time he ever sees it.
Maki's blade pierces a heavily-weakened Sukuna through the chest. Yuuji feels it like a strike to his own heart.
Death number eight, then. He'll try again.
There is no version of the fight where Gojo wins without killing Sukuna, and there is no version where Fushiguro lives without killing Gojo. Yuuji realised this early on, but he hadn't wanted to accept it. After all, Gojo's the strongest. If he can't do something, then that must mean it's impossible, and Yuuji—
Yuuji can't accept that saving Fushiguro might be impossible. He refuses. He'll tear the world down and rebuild it if he has to, but he'll save Fushiguro. He will.
He just has to stop Gojo from fighting Sukuna in the first place. That will never end well. At the very least, one of them will die. So Yuuji has to stop the fight. And to stop the fight, he has to go back further. He's been waking up on Christmas Eve ever since Fushiguro's first death, but maybe—?
This time, when Choso is too slow to save Yuuji from Sukuna's fire, Yuuji closes his eyes and thinks.
Go back to before this day. Go back further. Go back earlier, to before this all started—
The fire consumes him whole. Yuuji wonders, distantly, what mark this will leave.
Yuuji blinks himself back into consciousness and finds that he's wearing a bathrobe.
"...I'm talking to you, Itadori."
Oh.
Yuuji's heart leaps in his chest. His knees nearly buckle with relief. He turns around, hardly daring to believe it.
Fushiguro is sitting there in the hotel bed. He looks like himself, and he has no markings on his face. His eyes are green. Yuuji very nearly weeps at the sight of it. His hands shake, threatening to spill the water in the wine glass that he's holding.
Yuuji knows exactly when to place this night: November 14th, two days after he and Fushiguro joined the Culling Game. Two days before Sukuna carried out his plan to possess Fushiguro. They're in an abandoned hotel with Kurusu and Takaba. Kurusu is standing at the edge of Yuuji's vision, but he barely sees her. Everything he knows zeroes in on Fushiguro: alive, unpossessed, and mostly unhurt.
"Itadori?" Fushiguro says again, narrowing his eyes. "Are you...okay?"
Yuuji reaches up to touch his face, just to make sure that his scars from Sukuna are still there. And they are, they are—one scar beneath each eye, the telltale marks of his status as Sukuna's vessel. Those scars had disappeared after Sukuna moved to Fushiguro, which means...
It worked. It really worked. Yuuji went back to before Christmas Eve, before everything went to hell. He can save Fushiguro.
He realises, abruptly, that he's crying.
"Itadori?" Fushiguro looks alarmed now. He's throwing his covers back, even as Kurusu yelps and tells him to be careful. "What happened? Is everyone okay?"
Everyone will be okay, now that Yuuji's made it to this point in time. The wine glass slips from his fingers and shatters on the floor, but Yuuji doesn't care. Fushiguro's striding rapidly across the room towards him now—Fushiguro, alive, alive—
Yuuji sinks to his knees and sobs.
Fushiguro kneels in front of him. "Itadori—"
Yuuji grabs him and pulls him in for a hug, so tight that Fushiguro lets out a strangled wheeze of a breath. He'll never take this for granted again. He'll never go another second without admiring the miracle of having Fushiguro exist alongside him. He clings to Fushiguro and buries his face in his shoulder.
"Fushiguro," he gasps out, clutching Fushiguro's arms, his shoulders, every dear part of him that Yuuji's lost ten times over. "Fushiguro. You're okay."
"...Yes," Fushiguro says slowly. He reaches up and squeezes Yuuji back, tentative. "Was I out for that long?"
Yuuji nods his head, then shakes it, then gives up on answering that question properly and just holds Fushiguro tighter. They stay like that for a bit, until Yuuji's calmed down enough that he can breathe without hiccuping, though he doesn't let go of Fushiguro. He doesn't plan on ever letting go again.
When Yuuji draws back, he finds Fushiguro looking down at him with pure worry in his eyes. Of course—he probably thinks someone's dead. Yuuji stares at him and commits every line of his beautiful face to memory.
From here, he knows exactly how to proceed. He knows how to save Fushiguro. He can fulfill his Binding Vow.
"Fushiguro," he rasps out, taking Fushiguro's hand in his own and squeezing it so hard that Fushiguro winces. "Fushiguro, listen—you have to kill me. You have to kill me now."