Archive of Our Own

Itadori Yuji was dead.

Megumi stared, incomprehending, at the body on the pavement. Rain poured down, dragging his black hair over his eyes, and mingling with Itadori's blood. 

He wasn't sure where it had gone wrong. What lead him to this. Where along the way he had doomed Itadori. 

The day rewound in his mind, searching for that turning point as he tried to make sense of it all. 

It wasn't raining yet, when the car rolled to a stop in front of the detention center. The sky was dark with it, threatening to break open at any moment, and it thickened the air with tension. Three students climbed out of the car, staring up at the bleak concrete building. Their supervisor remained inside the vehicle.

Kugisaki broke the silence first. "Gah! What a dreary place…"

Megumi's jaw clenched. "What did you expect?" he bit out. "It's a penitentiary. There's a curse womb inside." Curses weren't exactly born from happy circumstances, he couldn't see what Kugisaki was complaining about. They both should've known how these things worked. 

"Yeah, but they could at least… I dunno, spruce it up a bit? I swear, the creepiness of this place is going to rub off on me just from being here, and then what'll I do? Huh, Fushiguro? I'll be ruined!" Kugisaki gestured wildly as she spoke, waving a disdainful hand up and down at the structure like she could magically change Megumi's mind with force of will and theatrics alone. Megumi sighed. He'd barely known the girl for a few days, and already he could tell Kugisaki Nobara would be the cause of half his headaches for the rest of his time at Jujutsu Tech. 

"Kugisaki's right, this place is giving me the creeps too!" Piped up the source of the other half of Megumi's future headaches: Itadori Yuji. If he knew him well enough, Megumi might call his nonchalant tone strained. Itadori's hand found the back of his head, brushing against the buzzed undercut there, a nervous tick Megumi had picked up on in the first hours he met him. 

"I don't know why you two are so surprised, they told us what was in there already," Megumi repeated.

"Ugh. Don't remind me!" Kugisaki groaned. "This curse womb is going to be a pain in the ass. We can't even fight it!" Her hammer hit against her palm. Megumi wasn't quite sure when she had brought it out, but it was in her hands now. 

"I uh— I have a question actually, Fushiguro?" Itadori had half-raised a hand, like they were in a classroom. It'd be endearing if Megumi wasn't mostly just irritated by it. "What is a curse womb?" 

Megumi blinked. "You don't—" he started, then cut himself off. Fucking Gojo, of course he skipped half the important explanations. Another sigh tore itself from his lungs. "A curse womb is the beginnings of a curse. A convergence of fear, that draws more into itself until there's enough for something to be made out of it." Megumi thought of it like watching raindrops roll down a window, picking up speed as more static droplets were drawn into it until it finally hit the bottom.

Itadori looked like he was thinking very hard. He even brought a hand to his chin. Without warning, he practically jumped on the spot and snapped his fingers. "Oh, so like when you're making cookies, and you have to press all the scraps of dough together to roll it out and make a whole thing again. There's enough around, just it can't be anything really until it's all together. But with fear. Got it!" Or that worked, sure. Close enough. 

"Wait, you can bake?" Kugisaki said.

"Why are you so surprised? It's a useful skill! Plus, it's fun, and you get to eat whatever you make after." 

Itadori had mentioned that he didn't have anyone else around except his grandfather in those first few days Megumi had known him, it was why he stepped so easily into the life of a sorcerer. It wasn't so far off from what lead Megumi to it all— except in most of the ways that mattered. That wasn't important right now, focus. 

But, it wasn't that much of a surprise that Itadori knew how to fend for himself. Not that Kugisaki knew any of that. The newest addition to their little group had yet to break the ice that far. It wasn't her fault Megumi was there from the start.

"Just— didn't expect it of you, that's all." She tossed her hair over her shoulder. 

"Eh? I'm not all muscle you know!" Itadori's whining was surely exaggerated. He placed a hand to his forehead, eyes closed in mock despair. Kugisaki's dramatics must be contagious. "You're so mean to me, Kugisaki…" 

His exaggerated swooning lead him to leaning against— no, practically throwing himself against Megumi's side. He stiffened at the contact. "Fushiguro, you'd never betray me like that, right? You'd believe that I'm a baker?" Innocent, honey-gold eyes blinked up at him.

"From what Kugisaki knows of you, it was a fair assumption to make—" he started, leaning away slightly from Itadori. But Itadori jumped back at his words, nearly making Megumi overbalance.

"Fushiguro! Not you too!" he gasped, stumbling back with his hands over his chest, like Megumi had shot him. 

"But if you let me finish," Megumi continued, "I'd say that it does sound believable to me." 

"Good enough for me!" Itadori cheered, false injury forgotten. 

"You know what this means!" Kugisaki crowed. "You owe us some cookies once we're done with this, Itadori. I'll believe these supposed baking skills when I see them for myself." Itadori nodded along easily. 

Their supervisor, a pale and tired man named Ijichi, finally exited the car. Ijichi served the Hidden, if Megumi remembered right. Kugisaki stilled, likely feeling the brush of Ijichi's small, extremely faint, amount of power. Megumi felt nothing himself, Ijichi's patron adjacent enough to Shadows and connection weak enough that he didn't really register as much of anything to him, threat or ally, and by Itadori's non-reaction Ijichi's supernatural presence was likely drowned out by what resided inside of Itadori himself. Most civiliains wouldn't even notice anything off about him without looking, Kugisaki's reaction was only merited by her own attunement to such things and not of any real fear of him.

"There's been an update," Ijichi said grimly. Megumi winced, this couldn't be good. "The curse womb has been confirmed to be at minimum a high First Grade, but most likely a Special Grade Apparition." His voice wavered, as if he were scared to even be in the proximity of something with that much potential. Megumi cursed under his breath.

"We're going ahead with the mission. Locate the survivors. You three must avoid the curse womb at all costs, especially Itadori. Any sort of agitation has the potential to trigger it's realization right now." And Itadori would be the proverbial bull in the china shop, a goddamn beacon of power and fear. All raw strength, and no control or understanding of how to refine it. Megumi wasn't sure if it was safe to even let Itadori into the building at all. 

Megumi could tell himself that a choice was made there, to allow Itadori to get involved, but really there hadn't ever been a question of entering the building. They had their mission, and they still had to carry it out, just now with heightened stakes.

Itadori's face was turned to the side. Megumi couldn't see his expression, but his eyes were wide. Only two of them, the others shut tight and making his face look almost completely human, save the two thin slits that could almost be passed off as scars. Almost. 

His body was cooling quickly under Megumi's hands. 

As soon as they were inside, Megumi realized they were in far greater danger than anyone anticipated. 

The building itself seemed to warp around them, the air so thick with the stale scent of iron and mildew Megumi nearly choked. Even Itadori tensed up, and there was no way he could have understood how truly, absolutely, completely fucked they were. 

"Woah…" Itadori muttered, looking up to where the mass of concrete and rusted pipes vanished into a murky distance somewhere above them. Something dripped down from what was, hopefully, just a leaking pipe. It landed with a splat at Megumi's feet.

"Shit." Megumi pulled the shadows tight around him, baring his teeth and calling Shiro out of the dark on instinct. 

"The door!" Kugisaki cried, having already tried to check their escape route. Megumi could appreciate that she was on top of things, if nothing else. 

Kugisaki, he'd been informed, at least had a decent amount of experience with her own power and using it, which gave Megumi a small shred of hope. He hadn't really gotten to see her in action in Roppongi, aside from watching a curse be torn apart from the inside-out by nails that he presumed were her doing. Maybe, their combined competence would scrape together enough to get them all out of this, if Megumi were for once in his life astronomically lucky. But so far, it didn't look like he was.

"Shit." Megumi repeated, with a little more feeling this time. He felt a pressure at his elbow, Shiro's shadow brushing up against his, and then a tug among the greater darkness that she guided him to. Shadows, ones outside. There was still a way out. His shoulders hitched down slightly. 

Meanwhile, Kugisaki and Itadori had worked themselves into a panic over the missing door. Idiots, their fear would only grab the curse's attention, and fuel it's strength. They could at least try to keep it together. 

"Oi!" Megumi called. "We're not trapped, you two, calm down. I can still feel the shadows outside, so Shiro can guide us out." He jerked his head to the silhouette of the wolf on the wall, which had perked up when he said her name. 

Kugisaki practically fainted in relief. Itadori cheered, so loud Megumi nearly gave into the urge to shh him would it not have made him look just as ridiculous. "Yes! Thank you Shiro!! Who's a good boy! You are, you are!" 

Itadori was… talking to his shadows. It stunned Megumi slightly, because no one had ever done that. Not since Tsumiki, not since they had been shadows and only shadows, nothing more. It took a moment for him to even process how to respond. Though Shiro, with a half a mind of her own, showed as much pleasure at Itadori's praise as a silhouette was capable of, tail whipping back and forth like she was more than just a famiscille of a dog in shape alone.

He was about to give into his pettier side and tell Itadori that Shiro isn't even a boy, so if he could shut up and focus— when Itadori did something he didn't expect. He reached out a hand, watching it's movements on the wall, and lined it up with Shiro's head as if to pet her, grin widening when he realized it felt like meeting solid air. 

Megumi nearly jumped a foot in the air. He was used to feeling his shadows like an extension of himself, blood on their fangs and claws one and the same as his own teeth and hands. He was not used to this. It was as though Itadori's fingers carded through his own hair, brushing against the tips of his ears. He shivered, involuntarily.

"Cut that out," Megumi growled. He cuffed the back of Itadori's head with his hand for good measure. What the hell had that just done to him? It felt like his scalp was full of TV static.

"Ah! Sorry, Fushiguro!" He rubbed the back of his head over where Megumi had hit him.

"Focus, we still have a mission, you idiot." His words were hissed half to himself. Subtly, he hoped, he ran a hand through his hair, trying to shake off the phantom sensation of Itadori's hands. Itadori probably didn't even realize just what he'd done, which was the only solace Megumi could find in it. Otherwise he might have disintegrated on the spot from sheer embarrassment. Get it together, Fushiguro. 

Kugisaki was already down the hallway. "You boys coming?" she called. Her hammer swung loosely from her fingers. It was probably pointless trying to figure out wherever she kept the thing, it just seemed to appear in her hands when she felt like it. Bitterly, he thought that Kugisaki probably didn't have to suffer feeling everything that happened to the hammer. 

They continued on in silence, the tension of their situation had settled in properly now. Shiro scouted ahead of the group, followed by Kugisaki with a nail poised between her fingers. Itadori, unsteady in his abilities, and really, why was he in here with them in the first place, walked between her and Megumi, who brought up the rear with one eye over his shoulder and all his focus trained into the shadows around them. 

The ceiling and walls unfolded around them, as they found themselves in a new room. The architecture of it made no discernable sense, the purpose of the space unclear. Which sections were concrete, brick, or tile had no pattern or logic to them, stopping and starting along odd lines on floors and walls. Ports of pipes with nothing spilling out of them sat open like gaping maws in the walls, the ceiling was just high enough to be uncomfortable but not enough to seem intentionally intimidating.

At Megumi's back, Itadori drew a sharp breath. He turned, and saw what it was that rattled him: three mutilated bodies slumped against the tile. Two were barely recognizable as humans— Megumi assumed they were two. It was too much flesh to be from just one torn in two, probably. The third had a visible face at least, though the lower half of his torso was missing.

Just the sheer amount of blood made Megumi a little ill. He could only imagine how Itadori felt. At least Megumi was no stranger to violence, just— not this degree of gore. For someone who thrived in the unseen, this parading of the aftermath was a whole other field of horror. Poor Itadori was almost completely green in terms of the supernatural, and was likely taking it worse than Megumi.

Kugisaki barely stuttered. It didn't really surprise him. He doubted much could shake her, and certainly not blood. She was a bit more… involved with what she wrought than Megumi thought he could ever bring himself to be.

Unexpectedly, Itadori was the one to make the first move. He stumbled slightly towards the most intact of the bodies, until his hands found the fabric of the jumpsuit that still clung to the remaining frame. Tears in wide eyes, he turned back towards them, and for some unfathomable reason he looked right to Megumi. 

"This was that woman's son…" 

Had that been it? Itadori's obstinate determination to return that boy's corpse to his mother. The cause of the argument that had let them all be blindsided by the awakened Special Grade, instead of running like they should have the moment they entered that room.

Megumi's memory was a blur from there. Kugisaki falling through the floor. The curse appearing between two blinks of an eye. Itadori's hand. Itadori's eyes. Itadori's last words to him.

Then, running. Megumi had run, heart in his throat, and left Itadori to die.

He coughed, the sound coming out more like a sob. He could have sworn he was choking, on shadows in his lungs, or just his own guilt. The sight of Itadori's body swam through his eyes, overlaid with another one sprawled out across the hallway of his childhood home. 

The corpse seemed to have a gravity of its own, so strong it warped space around it. Megumi fell to his knees, drawn in by that pull. So close now, his hands reached out, and brushed across Itadori's face. His thumb slid over those vacant golden eyes, drawing them shut. Almost as though he was sleeping…

Another sob broke free of his chest, and like a crumbling tower, more followed. A single hand went to Itadori's hair, now damp with rain, the same rain that washed away the blood on the pavement that still continued to flow sluggishly from the hole in Itadori's chest. 

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What might have been a few hours later, if time had any meaning at all, Itadori Yuji woke up. 

The very first thing he did was run his hands over his chest with a frantic desperation. There was nothing. No mark, no scarring, and certainly no space torn between his ribs. Not even an echo of that pain, when he thought about it. 

His fingers curled in on themselves, and would be tugging at his jacket if he still wore one. He seemed to still be wearing, sans the blood, what he was in when he… died?

Was Yuji dead?

He shot to his feet. The ground rippled like a liquid beneath his sneakers, though he wasn't wet where he had been laying in it moments before. The sky above was consumed by haze, through which there was a dim red glow that concentrated in no discernable direction. As far as he could see, there was nothing but this flat, black plain. 

This was terrible. The afterlife, if this was it, totally sucked. 0/10. He wanted a refund.

How did he even get here? Running an anxious hand over his shorter hair, Yuji tried to think back. Hindsight wasn't exactly his specialty, so this was a bit of a tall ask for him. 

His last lucid memories were with Fushiguro. The rain— but, before that…

"I didn't say we were coming back. I said we should leave it," Fushiguro hissed. Yuji didn't understand how Fushiguro could be so callous about that boy's body. 

"It's the only way that woman will be able to get any closure!" he shouted. Fushiguro winced, eyes darting to the ceiling. Oh yeah, the super-murder-curse-thing, Yuji almost forgot. Well, it hadn't found them yet, and Yuji got loud when he was emotional, sue him. In the moment, he couldn't care less about what Fushiguro thought of him. 

Weren't they trying to stay human, in spirit if not literally? And what was human if not kindness at the expense of yourself? Yuji couldn't just let go of this. 

You're a strong kid, so try to help others.

Somewhere inside him, he felt something laughing. He ignored it. He'd gotten very good at that lately. 

"Oi! You two!" Kugisaki snapped. "Quit arguing and—" Her voice cut off with a shout. Yuji and Fushiguro both whipped around, to see… nothing?

"... where's… Kugisaki?" Yuji said. Fushiguro moved to hush him—

It was there. 

They both froze, rooted to the spot. Yuji could barely see it in his peripherals, but the awareness of its presence felt so overwhelming he nearly collapsed under the pressure. His eyes remained locked onto Fushiguro's, who's pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. 

Something boiled in the pit of Yuji's stomach. Every single cell in his body screamed for some sort of reaction, but Yuji couldn't discern between fight or flight. 

He needed to move. He felt like he was going to explode if he didn't. 

Every twitch of his hand took a monumental amount of effort, but slowly, he closed his fingers around the handle of the short blade he'd been given. He felt the power imbued in the blade course through his veins like a fresh shot of adrenaline, and before he could think, he swung.

For a moment, he thought he might have even made contact. 

The beginnings of a triumphant smile died on his lips as he looked at the stump of his hand. It took a moment to connect what had just happened. 

There was a single, blissful moment of shock.

The pain hit him like nothing else he'd ever imagined. Yuji grit his teeth against the scream that tried to tear its way out of his throat. 

The curse just laughed. 

Snapping back into motion, Yuji tied a strip of his own sweater around his— his arm, to slow the bleeding. His gut kept burning away, reminding him that he wasn't out of options yet. That voice roared, harder to ignore now, begging to be let off its leash. 

Yuji, contrary to popular belief, was not stupid. He knew that doing so would put Fushiguro in danger and— he couldn't allow that. 

The curse raised a single, gnarled hand. Yuji and Fushiguro were blown apart and backwards, between them the full force of the blast shattered bricks and concrete. That could have killed them. 

Luckily enough though, it had given them a few feet of space from the monster.

"Fushiguro, go!" Yuji shouted, keeping half an eye on the curse. It was mostly pointless, because it could move faster than he could see, but it made him feel just a bit more on top of things. 

"Are you fucking insane?" Fushiguro snapped. Yuji blinked. "I'm not leaving you to fight that alone! You'll die!" Wow, honestly, Yuji hadn't thought Fushiguro would care that much. He seemed like a way more practical type than Yuji was.

He tore his eyes away from the curse to look back at Fushiguro. His expression looked pained— had he been hurt? He really did need to get him out of here. "I've got it, trust me." He smiled. It was probably obvious he didn't feel it but— it was the thought that counted, right? "Go find Kugisaki, and get away from the building." 

Fushiguro's eyes wided as he realized what Yuji was trying to do. "You're sure about this?"

"Completely." Yuji did a great job keeping his voice level, considering he was, actually, very unsure and panicking a lot about it. Fushiguro clearly didn't buy it, so maybe Yuji didn't do as well as he thought. "Don't worry about me, Fushiguro. I'll be fine!" 

Reluctantly, Fushiguro nodded. He seemed to have reached the same conclusion as Yuji: they didn't have any better options. 

"Don't loose yourself, Itadori." There was something… very charged in those words that Yuji couldn't quite pick out. "I'll be waiting for you." 

And then Fushiguro ran. The curse's head snapped to follow him. 

Not on my watch. 

"OI!" Without thinking, Yuji charged the curse, unsure what his plan was beyond not letting it get to Fushiguro. He was, of course, immediately thrown back, but the last thing he saw before hitting, and going through the wall, was Fushiguro disappearing around the corner.

His relief was short lived, as the curse emerged from the Yuji-shaped hole in the wall. This new room was darker— though, come to think of it, he wasn't sure where any of the light was coming from anyways. He stood on some sort of concrete catwalk, beyond the railing-less edges it just dropped off into inky nothingness. Yuji gulped. Better not fall, then. 

It got… blurrier from there. Mostly, Yuji just remembered that it hurt. A lot. He might have lost part of his other hand?

He flexed his fingers. All still there. Both hands were, and what was really unnerving was that he was actually fairly certain they had healed before his maybe-death and not just been restored in this dreamscape. The overflow of power at its release had forced his body back into shape like it was nothing more than clay to be molded. Yuji shuddered at the thought. Were the extra eyes and occasional mouth not enough? 

He tried to trace back the memory, but it felt like grasping at smoke. Or trying to carry water in cupped hands; by the time he brought them to his lips only a few drops remained.

There were snatches— an unearthly howl, a sense of release cut with a savage sort of joy in tearing apart the curse, another finger, the startlingly vivid sensation of plunging his own hands into his chest and ripping out what rested there (Yuji was going to be sick)— and then Fushiguro.

Fushiguro's face, looking at him in mute horror, not quite hidden by the strained smile he wore for Yuji's sake, Fushiguro with shadows spilling out behind him, Fushiguro stock-still while he tilted with the rest of the world around Yuji, Fushiguro with the first few drops of rain sliding down his cheek as the sky finally broke open.

And then nothing. Oblivion.

"Wowwww. We sure do get hung up on Megumi a lot, huh?"

Yuji didn't jump, but he did whip around and practically snarled at his double, "Don't you dare say his name. And there is no we, you monster!"

"Mmm, nope!" it tutted. "I am you, and you are me. Always have been. I keep telling you, the quicker you accept that, the easier this all will be."

"Fuck you," Yuji spat. "I'm me, and only me."

"Keep telling yourself that, man." It tried to pat his shoulder, and he ripped himself away before it got the chance. "Suit yourself. Not a lot of self love, but when have we ever had that really, right?"

"Stop talking like you know me!" Yuji regretted even responding to its first comment, but it was harder to ignore now that it wasn't just a voice in his head. Unfortunately, it was also the only break in the landscape. Hey, maybe at least it was stuck here with Yuji? He could call that a silver lining. He was great at optimism.

"Woah, just trying to help, chill out!" It threw up its hands in surrender. Yuji wished it wouldn't act so goddamn human. Not that it was hard to forget the fact that it wasn't, just it pissed him off even more. 

"Help? This is your fault in the first place!" Yuji swept a hand at the empty expanse around them to drive home his point. 

"Nuh-uh!"

"The fuck you mean nuh-uh???" 

"This is your fault, dude." It jabbed a hand at Yuji's chest, and he swatted it away on instinct. He refused to give the thing the satisfaction of cringing, but just the sensation of touching it had sent his skin crawling. The texture, the give of it was all wrong, too smooth, too dry, it was artificial.

"How the hell is it my fault! You— you—" Didn't stop at killing the curse, went after Fushiguro just because it could, tore Yuji's still-beating heart out of his chest— the accusations crowded his mouth and blended into one frustrated scream. 

"Well then you lost control!" it countered. "So it's all your fault for letting me do that in the first place, right?" 

"Wh— what? That's bullshit!" he denied. 

"You really think I'll buy that?" It slung an arm around Yuji's shoulder before he had time to dodge, though it was hastily shoved off. "We know ourselves too well to really believe its not all our fault. Your fault, if you insist on being so individual. But come on." 

Yuji said nothing. He had no counter argument. The silence felt loud, and disgustingly satisfied. His mirror continued staring at him, grin split wide and lax. 

"Do you even remember what happened, or did you just let go the second you could?" it prodded. Had he? He had. Yuji had always been one to trust his instincts, especially in a fight, and they had never lead him wrong. 

In desperation, he had tapped into the power he had swallowed. He had done it without thinking, with nothing but frantic desire to survive. 

And after the initial breaking of the dam, there had been something right about it, something that slotted into place. He had let the flow of the fight carry him, moving into the next motion without thinking, then the next action, and the next and next. The closest thing describing the feeling was was habit, or perhaps muscle memory. 

It was a harrowing thing for Yuji to realize. His instincts weren't human anymore, and couldn't be trusted. 

"We enjoyed it ~," it sing-songed. 

"No, I didn't." His teeth clacked shut. 

That was a lie. For a brief moment, for those few minutes of vindication in which the monster he had become was turned on the cursed spirit, he had enjoyed it. That enjoyment had vanished when the crosshairs shifted to Fushiguro. It was replaced by something else Yuji couldn't name, muffled as he was within himself.

"And we want to do it again!" 

"No I don't!" Yuji roared. He couldn't. He couldn't even dare to want to chase that feeling. Not if that was what it had lead to. This whole conversation made him feel like a cornered animal, despite the lack of anything to be backed into in the void. Maybe it was the exposure instead that made Yuji snap so easily like this.

"That's a shame." It shrugged. "Guess you die then."

Yuji blinked. "What?"

"You," it repeated slower. "Die!" The words were acompanied with finger guns. Yuji regretted ever understanding what the gesture meant. Why couldn't he be some sort of cultural outcast like Fushiguro? Fushiguro wouldn't have this problem with Shadows if it ever manifested as a twisted version of himself in his own mind, Yuji was sure. It wouldn't have nearly enough ammunition to be so truly irritating. 

Then again, Fushiguro would probably find a way to avoid this sort of situation altogether. Unlike Yuji, he was smart like that. He probably wouldn't have even died in the first place.

"I understand the words," Yuji ground out. "But what do you mean!" 

It cocked its head. "Surely you remember that?" It reached forwards quick as lightning, and nails scraped against his chest in a mock grab. Yuji flinched back, hard. 

The feel of his own, still weakly beating heart in his hands became a phantom sensation. He grasped his pant leg to try and clear it away, but there was still nonexistent blood flowing through the cracks of his fingers. 

"I know that you fucking killed me!" he snapped. "Why are you talking like I have a way out that I'm not taking?" 

"Because you do!" It stuck out a hand. "We can go back together!" 

Yuji recoiled. 

"Like hell I will! If I die, at least I take this piece of you with me!" 

It just laughed in his face. "You think that'll matter?"

"What?" 

"We've barely got a fraction of the fingers in here. Besides, you think I can be killed that easily? I am. A concept. Destroy the figurehead all you want, people still fear it, so I'm still alive in every way that matters!" It grinned. "Yuji, even if you manage to kill yourself, you can't kill me."

Yuji slumped in defeat. "That's still bullshit," he repeated. Unforntuately, it made sense. And… he didn't want to just die if it would mean nothing. If it was pointless. He wasn't afraid of death itself— he'd already fulfilled his grandfather's wishes: he'd saved Fushiguro, and Fushiguro was there for him at his final moments on Earth. It wasn't "surrounded by people", but had he died there, he would have thought Fushiguro would be enough for him. At least one person that he had saved.

"If I take your deal, will I still be me?" he asked slowly. "This better not let you just steal my body again."

"More or less." It gave him a cheshire grin. "And what did I say about lying to ourselves? I stole nothing, you gave it over willingly, all to win that fight." Not this again.

What option did Yuji have, really? An avoidable death, or a chance to continue helping others?

He didn't want to die. Standing at the precipice, body drained of the adrenaline needed for snap decisions, Yuji couldn't bring himself to make the active choice to die. 

Apotheosis smiled. It knew this. After all, it was him, in a way. 

But Yuji wasn't giving in either. Those few sporadic, rusted gears of strategy turned in his mind. If it was here, it was physical, then Yuji could probably fight it. This was an opportunity. Take it by the wrist, twist, drive his other hand home, probably to its nose, then don't let up. Yuji could be relentless if he wanted to be. And he had to be, to make this work.

Four eyes wrinkled in a grin. Its hand beckoned Yuji to take it. Before he could second-guess himself, he moved. Reaching out to shake on it and seal his fate, he used the feint to jab forwards and grasp it's arm instead. 

His fingers passed right into Apotheosis' flesh, and sunk. 

Panic spiked through Yuji. This was a mistake. He should have let them both die—

It's other hand sunk itself into Yuji's upper arm, and pulled. Yuji fell forward, passing through Apotheosis, and ceasing to exist on the other side.

Four eyes snapped open. Itadori Yuji woke up on a coroner's table, dragging a harsh gasp through a mouth that was still twisted in half a grin.

Under taught fingers, his heart beat a steady staccato drone. 

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Megumi woke up to nothing but sheer dark for the fourth time in as many days. The shadows spilled from his bed, crawled up walls and windows and tried their best to keep the room a comforting pitch blackness. 

He sighed, and tore a hand through inky hair. Itadori's phantom presence was still felt over his shoulder. It had barely been a few weeks that he knew him, how the hell was Megumi so affected by this?

He should have been better than this. He was supposed to be inhuman, he was supposed to be a monster, he didn't even deserve to get to mourn someone like Itadori. Itadori deserved better than that. Megumi thought of Gojo, and wondered when the shadows would bother to muffle his own emotions the same way Infinity distanced Gojo from his own. 

Itadori's face flashed once more before his eyes. He whimpered, hand tightening in his hair enough that the pain distracted him. He was pathetic. 

In a bout of desperation, he stood and ripped the curtains open, desperate for a bit of moonlight to place a barrier between himself and his thoughts, the dark suddenly feeling far too empty and the opposite of comforting. It wasn't enough. For the first time in years, he wanted light. He cracked open the window, then tumbled out graclessly onto the grass at the base of the dorm building. The fall jarred the injuries he'd recieved that day, still yet to heal, and the reminder sent him spiralling.

A shadow loomed over the bench where Megumi was waiting for Itadori. 

It was not Itadori.

It wore his face like a puppet, second eyes split open on his cheekbones and smile stretched under the skin. There was blood smeared across his face, some even staining his teeth.

"Hey, Megumi!" It did not speak like Itadori, though it was something close to it. The cadence was wrong, in a way that Megumi couldn't pin down beyond being off. And the clearest tell: Itadori had only called him 'Megumi' once, before meeting his use of surnames in kind when he realized Megumi was neither inclined to be friendly, nor particularly fond of his given name. Yet, his name rolled off its tongue without a drop of hesitation.

Megumi jumped to his feet. The current in the air was electric, oppressive, thick with fear and death. Not Megumi's, at least, not yet. His heart jackrabbitted in his chest as he fought to shove all his emotions down. Give curses no fear to feed off of was the first rule to being a sorcerer. One had to be suicidally determined, because a strong opponent could widen the slightest crack of fear into a fatal hole in one's armour. 

Megumi pulled his shadow up around him, and braced for a fight. 

The thing that was not Itadori— Apotheosis, it must have gotten out properly now, but Megumi couldn't worry about that, and what it meant for Itadori, because he couldn't afford to feel anything— it stood casually. It didn't even bother shifting it's stance, tall and straight and easy to theoretically unbalance. The non-combativeness was at odds with the blood on the clothes, the smile on the face, and the eyes. The second set, which Megumi had never seen open again since that fateful day at the highschool, were larger and practically glowing a radioactive yellow, forcing the higher pair into barely-open slits to make room on Itadori's face for Apotheosis's gaze.

And it just stood there. Looked Megumi in the eyes. Silently dared him to make the first move.

He swallowed. Something instinctive reared up. His shadow shied back of his own accord. This was not a fight Megumi could win. He was a mouse, and this was a wolf. He bared his fangs like the cornered animal he was. 

"Cute," it hummed. It's voice pitched deeper than Itadori's usually did. "No self-preservation instincts, huh? You should be running by now."

One moment, it stood in front of him.

Megumi blinked. And it wasn't there.

Apotheosis leaned over his shoulder, barely a hair's breadth from his ear. "D' you think you'd just always be like that? Or that dealing with this spooky stuff made you lose it?" 

Megumi flinched back, but refused to give it the satisfaction of seeing him move further. His instincts screamed: rabbit and hawk— if you don't move, it might not see you.

"You know, it might actually be the first one! You care soooo much about your humanity, Megumi, we've barely known you for long and it's obvious, so that might even make you feel a bit better!" It waved a finger, pushing it's way back into the small buffer Megumi had created. 

"The drive to live tends to be the last thing to go. If it ever goes at all. It's a really good question— do things like me and your shadows give, or take?" Megumi wondered, distantly, if this thing had a whole separate set of memories from Itadori entirely as well as its conciousness. He wasn't sure the capacity for this sort of conversation existed anywhere in the boy, filtered as it were through Itadori's vernacular.

It looked at him, expectant. It wanted Megumi to answer. He weighed the value of playing along, and decided stalling on the off chance that Itadori could recover was his best option. Fighting certainly wasn't one. 

"What do you mean?" His mind ticked a mile a minute. Was this a test? Or just a game? 

"Come onnnn, Megumi! You're supposed to be the smart one!" For that brief moment, it sounded jarringly like Itadori himself, before it continued, "does becoming a 'monster' mean adding new instincts, changing, like, the character of a person— or is it just stripping away all the expectations and human moral junk, and giving someone's real nature a way to be expressed to the fullest?"

"You're saying that people are meant to be like this?" Megumi hissed. 

"Maybe! Maybe not." It tilted its chin, and tossed Megumi a wry smile. "A lot of what you all call 'monsterhood' comes down to instincts that are perfectly human when you think about it. Eat when you're hungry, hit back when you're hurt, do anything to survive. That sort of thing. On their own, you would call anyone who would willingly die, or let themselves sit in pain when it would be perfectly easy to stop it— you'd think that's crazy, right? That you'd have to help them stop doing that, somehow?" 

Like a fool, Megumi took the bait. "But if you really are inhuman, then its different!" 

"Oh? How?" Its eyes pinched in poorly hidden laughter.

The same spiel that rattled around his head at all hours began to spill from his lips. "Our actions have consequences, as sorcerers we have to consider them whenever we—" Megumi started.

"BOO! Boring!" It stuck out it's tongue, and closed it's top set of eyes as it gagged in mock-disgust. The lower pair remained trained on Megumi as it did so. "Animals don't worry about silly things like consequences, Megumi! And humans, when the chips are down, we are still animals." 

It grinned, flashing Megumi bloodstained teeth.

"Which is why this is going to work." 

Before Megumi could react, before Megumi could process, it tore off Itadori's jacket with one hand, and the other

plunged

straight into Itadori's ribcage.

With a grimace, it wrenched its hand free again. Between curled digits was a still-pulsing red mass. Megumi fought the urge to gag. His own heart was stuck somewhere between his throat and the pit of his stomach.

Itadori's heart was dripping syrupy blood onto the asphalt below.

"Wh— why," Megumi croaked. "You'll die." He'll die, it'll die, he wasn't sure which he meant. Same difference.

"Maybe, but maybe not," Apotheosis said, voice muffled by the blood Megumi saw bubble at the back of the throat. "That depends on Yuji, now. It's his choice."

Megumi knew Itadori well enough to see how this would end. His voice stung as he said it, "Then you will die."

"Oh, you're sure?" The first trickles of blood spilled over its lips.

"Itadori wouldn't choose to be a monster. He was never meant for this in the first place." Itadori was better than Megumi ever would have been, and Itadori was being offered a clear cut choice instead of a slippery slope to monsterhood. Not everyone got that golden a chance, though Megumi didn't envy it, he wasn't sure he could have made the right choice. He was glad Itadori had gotten to have it nonetheless. "Itadori, if you can hear me, you're good. You're so human it hurts to watch sometimes. I'm happy you get to hold onto that."

Apotheosis had begun to truly falter, the relaxed demeanor fell away as muscles seized in pain. Emboldened and desperate, Megumi stepped forwards and took Itadori's body by the shoulders. 

"I don't regret saving you from execution, even though it was selfish of me, but I'm glad you got this, Itadori. I'm glad you got the choice to die human, and avoid all of this." Tears pricked his eyes, but he smiled. This was a good thing, ultimately. He had to believe that.

The seconds set of eyes fluttered shut. Itadori's face, and it was Itadori now, pulled into a matching strained grimace to Megumi's. 

"Fushiguro…" he coughed, the sound followed by a pained whine. "Fushiguro."

Megumi froze. He had felt so confident talking to Apotheosis, tearing down the awful certainty in its success, but now looking into Itadori's pinprick-pupils, drawn tight in pain and panic— Megumi was the one to falter. 

How does one comfort a dying man when they will make no attempt to save him?

"Live a long life for me then, yeah Fushiguro?" Itadori wheezed. "I can be happy with that."

Numbly, he nodded. He had no plans of the sort. But in that moment, he was certain he could do it, just because Itadori had asked it of him.

Itadori's body swayed, and fell from Megumi's loose grip that did nothing to truly prop him up. 

He hit the asphalt with a heavy thud—

Megumi's hands scraped the stone of the courtyard. His knees ached.

Live a long life. What a joke. What a curse to level Megumi with in his final moments. Perhaps he hadn't meant to be so cruel, perhaps he hadn't thought through what exactly it meant, asking a thing like Megumi to live as long as he could. Maybe in those final moments he was just scrambling for anything to make sense of it all, to bring it to a conclusion instead of a hanging thread. Unaware, Itadori had tied it into a noose around Megumi's neck, but Megumi couldn't bear to pull it off.

The moon burned into his eyes overhead. Around him, the school was deserted at the hour. It was just him, alone. He felt the sudden urge to scream, to sob, to shout until something changed. 

He hadn't cried when Itadori died. He had just sat there, numb. At some point, he thinks someone must have had to pry his hands from the body. Through it all, he didn't remember making a single sound.

The space was silent, save his ragged breathing. Somewhere distant, he thought maybe he heard crickets chirp. 

His shadow had followed him, his constant companion. Kuro pushed his way up out of it. Not Shiro, not anymore, never again. That reminder hollowed him out once more. 

Just as his shadows were solid enough to hurt things, they were solid enough to be hurt. They were a trade— vulnerability for power and finesse. Megumi barely needed to "control" his shadows, because they acted as extensions of himself and his will, only fighting him as much as he fought himself. The downside was that that was exactly what they were: extensions of him. 

His hand traced his neck. It still burned where he felt Shiro's head tear off. The pain had been— indescribable. Too much to even react to. To do anything other than stare at Itadori, frozen in the same awful horror as Megumi had been even without feeling anything. 

He ran a hand over Kuro's head. It didn't feel the same as Itadori's did. He sighed, and buried his face in the dark as if it were a real dog before him. If he appreciated anything about the nature of his existence, it was being able to interact with his shadow puppets like they were real animals. Fate must have decided he deserved a consolation prize, and let him have an extra scrap of self-given comfort.

Itadori was the first person to truly show his shadows friendly touch, and he would likely be the last. 

A sob choked its way out of Megumi's throat. He once again considered screaming his lungs out until someone, anyone heard him. He decided against it. There'd be no real point— what if someone heard? What then? To see Megumi at his lowest, and for what— to help? Megumi didn't want to be helped. Pity would be worse. He didn't know what he did want, but just the thought of being seen by anyone like this was terrifying.

Megumi was, once more, from now on, alone. He let the embrace of shadows swallow him once again, blocking out the moon, and its pale, pale light. The light he was reaching for would never shine again.