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Yuuji opens his eyes to the maw of a beast. It’s a curse that stands menacingly around him, and that fact is as true as the Summer sky being blue. It’s a testament he can feel etched into his very bones, all the way through his skin and down to the marrow. The curse around him is purple and ugly and its breath smells worse than a rotting corpse.
Yuuji waves his hand and fire encompasses the cursed spirit wholly. He leaps backwards out from beneath the beast’s teeth, sighing softly now that he’s out of proximal danger. Swiping away the ashes of a cursed spirit isn’t the most elegant manner of utilizing this weaker version of Divine Flame, nor is it his preferred method of a bow and arrow, but it gets the job done when theatrics have no place in frantic survival.
Ryomen Sukuna was nothing but a thorough teacher, and although Yuuji is sure his lackluster performance would have passed for any other instructor, Sukuna surely would have smacked him around for a while in retribution for his utter lack of elegance. The inherited power feels more like a jagged knife that he runs across than a gift from his irritating lineage, but Yuuji has learned how to work around its flaws with the help of its parent-technique’s wielder.
He brushes off his pants with eyes lidded in a bone-deep exhaustion that lags behind his every movement. Yuuji pauses in his movements the second he sees the hands on his legs. He straightens his back and pulls his hands up towards himself in a motion not unforgotten by the echoing past he left behind in the Heian Era.
These hands aren’t his own. They aren’t the ones he’s used to wielding, and although the sentiment is a strange one, it isn’t the first time he’s awoken in a new world with skin and bones and blood that don’t rightly belong to him.
Yuuji looks to his left, looks to his right, and dread curls in his gut. He hasn’t been in Tokyo for a very, very long time. He takes in a shaky breath before releasing it in a sigh. Brown eyes flick from side to side, searching for more familiarity than he’s due, before catching onto the sight of a cafe he’s sure he’s been inside a time or two before.
Yuuji steps forward to approach the building and brushes his hand against the door handle when he reaches it. He tugs, but there’s no give. The sign on the door still reads “open”, but the building has been locked from the outside.
He redirects himself, glancing towards a glass window beside the wooden door. The sight there forcibly presses all the air out of his lungs. The face that he sees, that he wears, isn’t one he’s ever seen before. The man whose skin he wears has bags below his eyes, dark hair an unruly mess, with rectangular rims resting on the bridge of his nose.
Yuuji nearly huffs out a laugh. He looks like a more-tired, less-muscular, black-haired version of Nanamin.
A glint of silver from the man’s breast pocket catches his attention, and Yuuji fishes around until he pulls out the suspect. He retrieves a tag with a metal clip at the top. Apparently, his vessel was a doctor. Yuuji’s chest grows heavy all of a sudden. This man had so much life ahead of him, so much more left to do and so much left to see… presumably. He has the faintest idea that this guy was a bit of a loner when his skin still belonged to him, aside from his pitbull back at home.
Yuuji grits his teeth and does his best to clear his mind. When all of this (whatever this is) is over, this man will be getting a funeral, and his dog will be getting a long, extended chance to walk and prance and play and poop wherever he wants. Yuuji twists the badge between his fingers and squints through dust-coated frames at the name on the tag.
He makes out the first name Jin and bursts out laughing.
Of course, he thinks, wiping tears from his eyes as he replaces the nametag in his pocket. Irony is in love with me.
Yuuji’s chuckles die down as he gasps for breath, stabilizing himself on the window; his reflection laughs along with him, and the sight of this stranger’s face mimicking his actions nearly makes him throw up. The second he regains his composure, Yuuji feels a sudden influx of cursed energy a few blocks away and gasps at the sudden pressure in the air. The sky past the overhang looks darker than it had when he first arrived here, the atmospheric pressure like a bullet train against his lungs.
Far off, high in the air, he hears someone screaming. Yuuji’s heart flips anxiously in his chest.
Get there, he tells himself, pumping his arms, pumping his legs, taking in deep and measured breaths as he pushes Jin’s body to its limits, sprinting down the street. Get there.
Yuuji skids to a halt and his brain catches up to him just a second later. He scowls at the air, at himself, really, and huffs. There you go again, he scolds, running towards danger just because someone screams. Idiot. Think before you act.
Smoke fills the air and Yuuji faintly recalls where exactly the familiar-looking cafe had resided the last time he visited it. Shibuya.
It becomes all too clear, now, just how and why he’s been dragged here. Kenjaku must have just used Mahito’s technique to unseal all of the ancient sorcerers he’d placed around Japan.
Yuuji furrows his brow. He definitely doesn’t remember making any sort of binding vow with the ancient sorcerer that would elicit him waking up here and now. Then again, there are other ways he could have made this happen, surely. Plus, it isn’t like Yuuji hasn’t made blunders in the past, but he’s accepted that part of him, that imperfect circle in his chest. Everybody makes mistakes, even when they don’t remember them until decades later.
Yuuji sighs and rushes towards the billowing smoke, dust, and debris on the skyline. If he’s here, he might as well pull his weight.
It would be pretty difficult to miss the battlefield where Chousou went absolutely feral against “Kamo Noritoshi”, and Yuuji is a lot smarter than he looks. He finds the ragtag group of sorcerers awkwardly standing together, chatting and glaring and breathing heavily as adrenaline slugs slowly, fading sluggishly from heavily pulsing veins.
Yuki notices him approaching first, because of course she does, she’s a Special Grade sorcerer for cripe’s sake, turning to appraise who could be their next contender. Garuda curls protectively around her shoulders and waist, coiling loosely like a planet in a figure eight orbit. She raises a hand like a salute to her forehead to block the grime and smoke that breezes past her, squinting towards him.
“Hey!” she shouts, and Yuuji runs towards the group faster. Her shout catches the attention of a few others who turn to face him. He watches as Chousou alights Convergence at his side silently. “You! I don’t recognize you.”
Yuuji rolls his eyes and slows to a jog. No crap, he thinks. Even if you did, I was too far away for you to see clearly anyway.
“Your cursed energy looks like it’s dead,” she says simply, letting her arm fall back down towards her side. She squints appraisingly. “You aren’t one of those reanimated sorcerers Getou was talking about, are you?”
Yuuji tilts his head, slowing to a stop a yard away from her. “I guess I am,” he concludes unsurely.
Yuki waits for him to continue, batting her eyelashes and everything. Yuuji nearly scrunches up his nose in distaste for the action.
“Well,” she says slowly, “I suppose that makes us enemies, then.”
When she sways her arm and her shikigami follows the motion, Yuuji waves his unfamiliar hands out in front of himself. “Wait, hold on! I’m not your enemy, I assure you. I just got pulled here against my will. I don’t know what’s going on,” he lies.
Yuki considers his words, humming in contemplation. “Okay,” she replies unsurely, like agreeing with him will make him feel any less anxious about being potentially blasted to bits by any of the countlessly talented modern sorcerers in their relative proximity. “I’m choosing to put my faith in you for now. One wrong move”–She jabs her finger at him–“and you’re gone. Am I clear?”
Yuuji swallows thickly. “...Crystal.”
She claps her hands together. “Great! Well, now that that’s over, you’re either gonna scram or help us without question!”
Yuuji blinks. “I–what?”
“Help us or die,” she amends, grinning brightly.
Yuuji nods tensely and joins her on the remnants of a battlefield he never thought he’d set foot onto again. He shuffles forward in Jin’s crinkled sneakers, fidgeting with the hems of his sleeves with anxious thumbs.
Chousou and the Yuuji of this universe herd near them, walking silently, as if in mourning. “Jin”-Yuuji has half a mind to turn around and reassure them that everything will be alright despite not knowing that for sure. Yuki must sense his consideration, because she stops in place and spins on her heel the second he accepts the fact that silence is a necessary evil.
“So, kid!” she says, addressing kid-Yuuji now, her hands clasped loosely behind her back. “You’re Sukuna’s vessel, huh?”
The pink-haired Yuuji groans woefully, pressing his palms into his eyes when tears gather on his bottom lids. “Don’t remind me,” he says pitifully. “I hate that guy.”
“Jin”-Yuuji huffs into his fist, grinning despite himself. “Me too, man.”
Yuuji looks up at the stranger, furrowing his young brow. The pitiful look in his eyes almost makes “Jin” want to walk over and give him a big ole hug. “Did I–did Sukuna kill somebody close to you?” He groans out his grief, choking back tears. “Who am I kidding? I’d be more surprised if he didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
“Jin” barks out a laugh, going to slap the back of Yuuji’s back good-heartedly before Chousou’s heated glare makes him think better of it. “Not quite,” he admits sheepishly, “but we do have a history.”
Sukuna takes that very moment to acknowledge his presence. “Ah,” breathes his mouth, manifesting itself upon the boy’s young cheek. “My training dummy has arrived.”
“Jin” reels backwards, chuckling nervously. “Ryomen Sukuna,” he greets, bowing at the neck somewhat kindly, as he was taught to never leave the house without his manners. “Good day.”
“Yes,” Sukuna remarks, humming darkly, “It has been quite a good day indeed.”
At the respectful manner of which “Jin” regards the King of Curses, Yuuji eyes him suspiciously. He balls his hands into fists at his sides and bites the side of his cheek that remains whole and just as it was when he left the Tokyo campus earlier that day.
“Are you two friends?” Yuuji asks, disgust evident in the way his voice curls and whips with every syllable.
“Jin” nearly trips over himself despite having remained rooted in place for the entire duration of their conversation. “Uh–no,” he says harshly. “Not even a little. I said I hate that guy, didn’t I?”
“Oh, you wound me so, mutt,” Sukuna replies playfully from Yuuji’s cheek. “What would you call the countless hours we spent training our cursed techniques if not a thing that friends would do? We helped each other grow in that age, did we not?” He smirks.
He pretends to think about it, even going so far as to stroke his chin like there’s a beard there. “Hm. No,” “Jin” replies. “I don’t think I would consider being beaten by you day after day a very friendly activity.”
“Well.” Sukuna chuckles. “Perhaps your definition of ‘friendly’ differs from mine.”
“Jin” glares at his one, beady red eye. “Yeah,” he agrees flatly. “It probably does.”
Chousou takes a calm step towards him, hands still pressed together in preparation near his midsection. “You have ties to Kamo Noritoshi,” he says suddenly, sharply, accusatoryly. “There is no other explanation to how you so easily located us here, mere moments after your reanimation.”
There is, actually, but saying ‘I’m actually Yuuji from another timeline’ might come across less believable than I mean it to. “Jin” accepts his position as a lowly stranger in the presence of greatness and raises his hands placatingly.
“I don’t know who that is,” he lies again. “I am simply a reluctant member of Ryomen Sukuna’s estate who happened to be alright enough at jujutsu to warrant my staying there. Nothing more.”
“He is my nephew,” Sukuna supplies from his vessel’s cheek, grinning sharply. “It would do you good to remember that.”
Jin cringes. “…Okay, so there’s that, too. I promise I wouldn’t be if I had any say in the matter.”
Yuki laughs sharply, slapping his back with an open palm. “Like anyone would choose to be related to that.”
Yuuji shrinks in on himself, as though being the King of Curses’ vessel lumps the two of them together unbridled. Jin stumbles under the Special Grade’s action forward before catching himself. Chousou steps to the side to place himself more or less between Jin and his unassuming, slightly younger counterpart.
Sukuna chuckles darkly from Yuuji’s cheek, his red eye squinting mirthfully. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that,” he remarks joyfully. “This mutt always seemed happy enough to carry out my every murderous whim.”
Yuki turns to eye him warily, and Jin averts his eyes.
“It isn’t like I had much of a choice,” he mutters, grabbing at the sleeve of his coat with his opposite hand. “It was nearly only kill-or-be-killed situations.”
“Dog-eat-dog,” Sukuna remarks tauntingly.
Jin winces.
“‘Nearly’,” Yuki echoes, squinting at him. “When wasn’t it under duress?”
Jin averts his eyes again. “Only when I had the chance to attack Ryomen Sukuna instead.”
Sukuna barks out a laugh. “You would not have dared to defy me,” he crows, “not with that spineless attitude of yours.”
Jin grows furious at his words. He releases his sleeve to curl his hands into tight fists. “Well, if you—!”
“Sit,” Sukuna commands suddenly, and Jin has half a mind to comply.
“Alright,” Yuuji says, slapping a hand over Sukuna’s mouth, “That’s enough outta you. Creep.”
“I’ll be back.” Sukuna whispers out the promise like a dying man in the back alley. “When I return, then you will see just how little regard this mutt holds for himself. It will assist in your novice understanding of his spineless reputation.”
Enchain, Jin thinks, shivering. The voice in his memory is hauntingly loose, dark like a midnight cave yet taunting as a glow of goblin’s gold in the night. If he didn’t have to experience the aftereffects of a binding vow that he never remembers making for another two-thousand years, it’ll still be too soon.
“Okay!” Yuki chirps, clapping her hands together. “Ready to save the world or die trying?”
Jin sighs. “Do I even have a choice?”
After Garuda wraps around her arm and glares at him protectively, Yuki grins and grabs his wrist. “Nope! Let’s go.”