Chapter Text
A thicket holds him close, thorns entangled with his entire body as a whole rather than clinging to each limb as a separate entity. Each sharp little point stabs into the gaps between his fabric, clawing at every individual tight-knit strand of his Jujutsu High uniform like a wolf's claws through flesh — easy to slide in, hard to slide out.
His eyes are blurry with the film coating them, something mucus-like and thick that he tries to blink away. What he remembers, exactly — not much, to be fair. But strands of peach fall over his forehead, the pink — so out of place, yet so familiar — bright and blaring to his now-cleared eyes, and he tries to detangle himself from the conflagration of thorns without stabbing himself in the eye, arm, or anywhere vital, really.
After what seems like an eternity but was probably five minutes, he slides from the little nook carved out in the brush, wincing when claws and teeth scrape at his skin, leaving it bloody and raw. It pulls at skin, peeling it back to let soft, exposed flesh take the brunt of the blow, biting and dragging until it burns harder than shampoo in his eyes.
Yuuji concentrates on his breath. The motion of his lungs soothing, soft, familiar — like a heartbeat his doctors never could quite place, even with the stethoscope pressed against his chest, listening to every beat of the song engraved into his lungs, etched into his ribs.
He's in a forest, he manages to jot down, even with the clearly overgrown thicket of thorns protruding from the ground in front of him. It looks at him balefully, like it's gasping at the sheer audacity of him escaping from it brambly clutches, and the little circles of thorns it creates suddenly look uncomfortably like eyes.
He shakes his head. There's no use in hallucinating things; for now, he needs to make sure of where he is, where this is, and where everything is. The land becomes bruised with his footsteps, marking a familiar path all the way down to a path cutting through the forest.
Grass rustles under his footsteps, bending to the now scrappy red shoes that'd worn so well through so many fights. They lead him all the way to the path coming through, all the lessons taken with Sasaki and Iguchi on how to properly trek through a forest (for more questionable reasonings) back in West Middle helping immensely all the way through.
He reaches the path, hesitating on his next choice of action. It's an unfamiliar place, with the scent of curses heavy on his tongue. The iron is less of a smell and more of a weight, pressing down onto him moreso than gravity does, moreso than the weight of his body imposes upon him. If this were a question on a science exam, it would be bogus, because gravity seems to almost be less heavy than the iron accompanying blood in its serenade.
The moment his foot touches sanded ground, something happens — something that makes blue-tinged flames flicker around his figure and something that makes everything wobble in front of his eyes. Yuuji's eyes flit here and there, trying to pinpoint the source, something he can punch and make the wavering sight go away, but it disappears as easily as it'd popped into existence.
A barrier? crosses his mind, becoming more and more likely the longer he considers it. He continues on the path, turning left and out of the thorned forest he'd been in previously. The cheeps of birds are only interrupted by their frantic shrieking when a curse pounces on them, snacking on their fragile little bones easier than human flesh — but still just as insatiable.
He tries to recall something more than Iguchi and Sasaki and barriers. A black-haired figure pops into his mind, along with an unforgettable head of silvery-white — but they disappear when he tries to grab them, slipping through his fingertips like a balloon floating from his futile grasp through the skies and clouds of Sendai.
Gojo's unforgettable, of course. He could never forget that lilting tone, that smile, that reassurance. But any memories associated with the figure other than a 'teacher', punctuated by 'strong? question mark?' are foggy, loose, like that one relative you're supposed to know at a family get-together but never can recall any details other than their name and the fact they like horses.
Something stalks the earth in front of him, jolting him out of his thoughts as Yuuji locks eyes with something vaguely resembling if a beheaded centaur and a Frankenstein decided to spend the night at a cheap motel with only one bed, and then visited the doctor's clinic with news of a deformation.
"Good…food," it gurgles, sentient, capable of speech, and would be a tad ridiculous had blood and feathers not been dripping and fluttering from its wide-toothed maw, every supposed-to-be flat tooth gleaming with sharpness and precision made for tearing into human flesh and enjoying every bite of it. "Riight?"
A curse, fills Yuuji's mind without him even knowing, the knowledge itself confusing to his mind, like some obscure word you faintly know because you see it everywhere but never bother to check the definition of. High-level, if it can speak. Better to punch, gather information, then punch some more.
Got it, brain, he decides to tell the person living in his mind who also happens to be a truly spectacular yapper when the situation calls for it, hands curling into a fist, fingers clenched tight, thumb out as to not accidentally break it from force. His body remembers it well enough, so why doesn't his mind—?
Footsteps rock the earth as the curse surges forward, jaws snapping hungrily as its bog-yellow eyes fixate upon his figure. Nerves suspiciously not alight and sparking with fear, his fist follows some preset motion before his mind can fully catch up, thrusting forward with all the force in the world, something dark yet warm sliding forward with the motion.
It's dark, yet warm. The only proper way to describe it. Like being huddled in his blanket wrapped tight and flung over his head with just his phone and a game, hugging him like what books and the one Korean chicken place says is a mother's touch.
And the curse explodes.
Explodes, in a glorious shower of violet, iron, and wet hotness that splashes onto his figure, still mid-punch, fist instantly warmed by the excessive bodily fluid suddenly sprayed upon it. The skeletal structure of it unravels before his eyes, turning into nothing more than a fine black powder that withers away along with the sudden gust of wind that sweeps through the air, cooling the hotness and subsequently causing the blood to also fade to nothing.
Yuuji's hand falls to his side. He shakes it. Unclenches it. Clenches it again.
"Wow," escapes his lips, whispered, quiet. It doesn't pass through his mind, just from his lips to the earth soaked with now bygone blood in front of him.
No one answers him but the continued shriek of birds and the continued gurgle of curses.
But then, there's someone.
"Who might you be?"
And frost creeps across his feet, binding him to the ground he'd relied on for safety, for guidance, for something of a foothold while protecting himself. Footsteps follow, silencing Yuuji's attempt to cry, attempt to grunt as he tries to break free of the spiraling cold steadily encasing him within their grasp.
White robes fall around a thin figure, held tight with purple velvet and a black overlay Yuuji's not seen on anyone but the cosplayers and old men at the temples he visits with his grandfather on New Year's. Dark mauve meets his own sorrel, same snow-white framing them as crimson blots creep across the sides, fading into light red where it meets blanche.
A pair of lips part below an elegantly carved nose, twisting in curiosity; indifference, perhaps nothing more or everything at all. "You exorcised that curse," it says, they say, pointed at Yuuji sharp and cold as the ice currently holding him down. "With one punch," they add.
Yuuji offers a nervous smile, mauve eyes narrowing at his demeanor. "I did," he admits easily. Hadn't this stranger seen it just a moment before? "But, I'm not really sure myself that I did it," he adds with a sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous motion.
"But you did," they press, sweeping forward in an elegant motion of fluttering robes, velvet, and satin, surveying Yuuji with an uncomfortable stiffness in the way they speak and move. "You're not a commoner. But I do not remember you from any of the meetings attended by Sukuna-sama. You do not bear the crest of the Fujiwara. Are you one of those up-and-coming onmyouji groups? But you did not possess, or use, a technique during the fight. So then—"
"Slow down," Yuuji tries to placate their speech and deductions, feeling ice creep up to the palm of his hands with every word they speak, pinching into his skin and solidifying into solid claws. He offers yet another nervous smile that only serves to make them more agitated, if anything. "I dunno about anything you're saying, man. Fujiwara? Onmyōji? You okay?"
Sukuna-sama.
It rings something in his mind, something that grabs his gut and twists it into a pretzel. But it doesn't surface any memories, at least nothing worth mentioning to this person. Also, who are they? Is Yuuji currently trying to tell his life story to a complete and utter stranger? Perhaps. He seems to be more than a tad amnesiac as of now.
"You possess a greater understanding of sorcery than the average shaman," the person continues after regarding Yuuji's figure for five seconds more, ice numbing his fingers in the time it takes. "And your cursed energy. It surges, not flows. What clan are you associated with, boy?"
Another nervous smile, this time a little twitchier at the ends. "Itadori?" he tries, only to see a cross look flit across the person's face, mauve tightening in the slightest hints of frustration at his words, and back tracks. "Er—Are there choices I can take in this, or…"
"Clan, boy," the person presses, tone shifting to one of impatience, lines of ice crackling across his muscle, wracking his spine with chills like someone'd taken an entire bucket of ice water and dumped it into solidified mass across his skin. "The Fujiwara? Kamo? Sugawara?" they list off, trying to gauge his reaction to each. Their eyes narrow. "Abe?"
"Oh!" His eyes light up in recognition; he knows one of those names, at least. "I know the Kamo! That one Kyoto kid's the heir for it, right? Fushiguro told me!"
"So you're Kamo," the person sounds out, sounding quite relieved to have placed a name to his face.
"No," refutes Yuuji kindly, "Kamo's the one with slit-eyes and those long side-bangs. I'm Itadori."
"There is no powerful family that goes by the name 'Itadori'," the person reiterates, frustration returning to their voice, high atop their position of towering dudgeon. "Either you are Kamo, you know them, or you do not. Answer me, boy. The only reason I paused you hither is because you presented such a showing of jujutsu. No untrained one could have exorcised such a curse so cleanly. Who trained you?"
And that's the thing.
Gojo? Gojo Satoru? Is that an acceptable answer?
Ah, damn it all. Nothing to lose from answering honestly. Other than his life, right? Heh. Pleasant thoughts. Think positive.
"Gojo Satoru," Yuuji attempts once more, preparing for the icy tendrils to leaf across him once more as the words leave his lips. "Gojo-sensei trained me in the ways of jujutsu."
His eyes nearly squeeze shut in apprehension; looking for the icy waves to crash over him once more before they slowly open a bit wider, taking in the now-knowing look crossing the person's face.
"That young onmyōji troupe?" the person murmurs to themself, frowning in what Yuuji thinks might be a mixture of confusion and cautiousness. They glance up at Yuuji, eyes surveying him curiously before flitting back to the ground. "They would have no such records of jujutsu. They rely on Sugawara to even survive in the world, there's no way—"
Sorrel eyes narrow just slightly at that. "They're super powerful!" Yuuji points out rather indignantly, bristling now that he's no longer in imminent danger of permafrosting along with the soil in winter. "Especially with Gojo-sensei on their side! Aren't they, like, one of the big families? The super big ones in jujutsu?"
He chooses to forget that the one he's arguing passionately with is some mysterious monk-dressed ambiguous-looking person who speaks so formally, dismissing it with the now shaky assumption that they'd been a Culling Games participant all this time.
Better to wait it out and run when there's an opportunity. Then he can find Fushiguro and—
And what?
"The Gojo are nothing in this world," scoffs the person with a shake of silken white. "I hardly know their name, only at the knowledge of Sukuna-sama and his correspondences with the Fujiwara of their up-and-coming. Their technique is nothing to behold, and their political standing is all but nonexistent. Would you not know that, Gojo spawn?"
Yuuji scoffs right back, icy tendrils retracting from his body and receding into the ground, still leaving a layer of frost as the argument heats up in comparison to the icy cold other. "First, I'm not any kind of Gojo at all, and second, Gojo-sensei's technique is super cool! How could you ever think it isn't? Have you even ever seen it in action?"
"I've seen enough to know how ridiculous it is, especially in comparison to Sukuna-sama's," the person says in a much more subdued tone, quieter but just as ardent as before. "And your technique, uncommoner?"
He flexes his muscles. "Punch, kick," he grins faintly, poking the arm as fabric ripples over to reveal the outline of such, bulky but still thin to appear like nothing under uniform. "Maybe a combo if I'm feeling it that day. Mash it up with some cursed energy, and I'm pretty good on the physical side."
Yuuji gestures to the steadily withdrawing thin sheets of ice stretching across once sun-kissed land. "And you're good with ice, I guess?" he hazards a guess, trying to be somewhat reminiscent of a cordial conversation rather than the normal 'hi, hi, punch, kick, die' conversation the sometimes goes on with him. "Like that one movie. Frozen?"
When nothing happens but the person raising one utterly unimpressed and frankly bewildered eyebrow, Yuuji sighs lightly before gesticulating to the ice around them. "You know, that one girl with the braid. You're like her, just less…monologuing, heavier on the icy side of stuff than fancy castles."
"Fancy..castles?" says the person, bewildered. They tilt their head just slightly, considering him. "Sukuna-sama has a compound. Might that be what you are referring to?"
"Maybe?"
He considers his options in the time it takes for the person to formulate their next words. He could run, but ice could catch him and he'd be breaking down all the excellent first impressions made with this mysterious monk-dressed person. He could also stay, and face the wrath of this 'Sukuna-sama' and their apparently very big castle. Or he could just wait around and see what this person has to say.
He decides on the last one just as the person's lips part.
"You've still not answered my question, uncommoner," says the person, stern and still frigid like the ice now fully absorbed into the ground, sand rippling with the movement. "You must have some connection to sorcery. You do not deny this, yes?"
"I don't deny it," says Yuuji firmly. He won't lie, at least. "But I told you. Gojo-sensei's the one who taught me everything I know about jujutsu. The only thing I know about the Fuji—Fujiwara is the stuff in history books and all that, I think. Maybe."
"What else do you have knowledge of?" the person continues, still sharp and keen.
"I know there's someone named Gojo, there's a Sukuna, and there's a Fushiguro," Yuuji contemplates carefully, drawing every name from the recesses of his mind to dredge into the conversation. He watches the person's eyes only shift to the glassiest of reactions at Sukuna's name, and he tries to file it away. "Oh! And there's an Okkotsu somewhere in my mind, I think. And a Tengen-sama, and a Kenjaku—"
There's an ejaculation of surprise flung from the person's mouth. "Kenjaku?!" they hiss, almost scandalized before they calm themselves just slightly, expression smoothing over. "Kenjaku," they repeat in stunned disbelief. "You know Kenjaku."
"Not like, friends," Yuuji waves them off, frowning as he tries to discern the exact moments of their relationship. When he recalls the name, he feels first a rushing tide of anger, fierce coldness, then — then nothing really. "More like — mutual acquaintances, like an ant and a bee. Both the same thing, just fundamentally different."
He winces when the person's expression contorts to something even more confused, wishing he could take everything back. But 'Kenjaku' triggers nothing more than the aforementioned, even when he really does try to dig it up. It feels like a mosquito — bothersome, but unwilling to slap away although it saps at your strength.
"You do not have lodging," the person says, drawing his attention. Their tone is much slower now; almost contemplative as they eye Yuuji. The ice fully retracts, and they slowly lower their hand from its outstretched position. "Correct?"
Correct. An unfortunate situation. "That's right," he confirms, cautious but willing to divulge information considering this monk has the power to create sheets of ice. "No houses or anything. Unless you know the way to Jujutsu High, then maybe—"
"Jujutsu..High?"
"You know," he tries to explain, hands waving around in what's supposed to be a worldly gesticulation of directions and instead ends up being somewhat resemblant of Elsa's snow-waves, "the school for jujutsu. Where this uniform's from, the headquarters. Somewhere on the edge of Tokyo?"
"You're in Heian-Kyō," says the monk bemusedly, now a tad more cordial when Yuuji doesn't attempt to flee at the retraction of their technique. "Arashiyama Forest, to be precise. The noble's hunting ground, and currently, Sukuna-sama's preference for seasonings."
Heian-Kyō?
"I think you mean Kyoto," offers Yuuji kindly. Maybe the monk's a little amnesiac, needs a little catching-up on the modern era. "It's not been called the Heian-Kyō since, like, the Heian Era. It's 2018 right now, Common Era. Maybe it's different from where you came from?"
"It's 828, if you would like to call it by numbers rather than the chō," the monk corrects him. "By chō, it's the thirty-fourth year of tenchō. You are an odd one, uncommoner. Even the government does not do this. Do the Gojo you speak of count like this? What is this Common Era?"
They seem more cordial and easy to speak to, so Yuuji sees no harm in continuing. "The Common Era," he says, shifting on his feet, scuffing at the ground. "You know, like the thing they were using from somewhere in the 1800s. Dunno the exact date, but Kyoto hasn't been called Heian-Kyō for centuries now, monk-san."
A white eyebrow raises at the moniker. "My name," they begin, stopping for a moment before continuing, "Tell me yours first," they amend mid-way. "Tell me your name, and we shall tell each other. Good?"
"Sure," Yuuji shrugs, seeing no harm in it. "Itadori Yuuji," he tells them, the possibility of his name being some kind of voodoo conduit passing his mind all too late, sending some twitches of apprehension down his spine. "Now, tell me yours."
There's a pause, where Yuuji swears his heart falls from his chest and all the way to the core of the Earth. "Uraume," they say finally, a breath of wind blowing as they do so. "Itadori Yuuji. Not Gojo?"
"Gojo was my teacher, not my father," Yuuji replies, considering adopting the name for s split second, the image of his teacher springing into his mind and blowing away when he tries to grab it. "Nor my family member," he adds hastily before any ideas of a convoluted family tree take root in Uraume's mind. "Besides, I didn't know anything about jujutsu until he taught me."
"What did he teach you?" asks Uraume, faintly curious.
Absently, Yuuji wonders why they're so inquisitive as he formulates an answer. "I think the basics," he says, brow furrowed in concentration. "Like cursed energy, and imbuing it into attacks, I think. But there was someone else—"
He pauses, licking his lips and tasting a wash of saliva rehydrating his tongue as he continues on. "But I don't remember them at all," he mutters sheepishly before perking up. "Oh, but he taught me domains as well! Well, not exactly, but I remember he showed me one—"
"So he was trained," muses Uraume, staring at the ground before looking back up at him. "Trained fairly well, if he could take you within his domain, yes?"
"He was trained," says Yuuji confidently. "Really trained. He was the strongest, you know?"
A sharp ejaculation comes from Uraume's lips, sharp and harsh as Yuuji winces before looking up at their enraged countenance, shifting from placid pond to raging waves at one simple sentence. "Sukuna-sama is the strongest," they hiss fiercely, loyally. "This Gojo you speak of would not hold a candle to Sukuna-sama's strength. How dare you even insinuate—"
They inhale sharply before continuing, more emotion shown in their tirade of high dudgeon than in the entire conversation. "How dare you even insinuate this teacher of yours could ever be better than Sukuna-sama?" they finish, breathing heavier than ever by the end.
When they finish, Yuuji attempts to pause the situation, maybe turn it down a bit, preferably back to the chill, forest-lofi vibe it had been before. "I never said they were better than your Sukuna-sama," he treads carefully, trying to gauge every reaction. When Uraume doesn't start up again, he plows forward. "I just said he was a good teacher. Did Sukuna—Sukuna-sama teach you jujutsu, Uraume?"
Disarming the opponent. That's the word he's looking for. People like to talk about their backstory; and Yuuji loves to listen. It's a perfect pair for distracting teachers from homework.
"Why would I tell you, Itadori?" says Uraume nearly scornfully if they could inject some flame into their voice, scorn shifting to something biting and bitter to the ear. "Sukuna-sama's business is his own. The audacity to—"
They pause, shifting the conversation and their thoughts off of their beloved Sukuna-sama. "So, back to the discussion at hand," they hedge, swerving the car until it's back on the dutiful lane, perfectly fifty miles an hour rather than the hundred they'd been at before, "you do not have a place of lodging, and you intend to simply wander Arashiyama until you find a cave that fits your desires."
"I don't need much," Yuuji frowns, thinking of an ideal cave before it poofs into nothing. "Maybe some moss, but I'd like to live like a human being, you know? Not much in town here. The squirrels all say it's zero stars out of five, and I listen to nature."
Predictably, the pathetic attempts at lightening the mood does nothing to crack Uraume's stubbornly steadfast mask of ice. "Leave Arashiyama, Itadori," they tell him instead, solid and snappish. "This is Sukuna-sama's ground. I do not know how you came here, but—"
"We had such a nice talk, Uraume," Yuuji tries to plead his case, instantly going down a path his mind tells him is dangerous, but walks down anyways. Uraume's eyes stay emotionless. "Don't you have a place I can crash at, maybe, possibly?"
Uraume's lips part in what he knows is a turn-away phrased in the most archaic language Yuuji's every going to hear in his life before they stop, press together in a thinly disapproving line, then open again.
"Kenjaku," they say, the vestiges of considering dragging at their tone. "You know Kenjaku. Who he is. What he does."
His lips part in protest. He knows nothing of this name save for the swelling waves of something like distant hatred, but something pops into mind when he manages to dig it up.
"Stitches?" the word spills from his tongue, eliciting an eye-widening from Uraume in response, and somewhere in his gut, he knows he's said the right thing, pulled the right string, taken out the only Jenga block that won't send to whole tower tumbling down.
A pause.
"Fine," Uraume spins on their heel, ice following their every step like frost-bitten flowers blooming around a forest dryad's feet. "Come with me, Itadori. You may beg your case with Sukuna-sama. However, note that he is much, much more powerful than me, and ruthless. But you must know of this, having grown up with onmyōji."
"Thanks, Uraume!" Yuuji chirps, jogging lightly to catch up with them, conversation now much smoother and much, much better in comparison to the truly awkward, thick atmosphere from before. "Your ice is really cool, by the way."
Uraume side-eyes him. "Was that meant to be funny, Itadori?"
A nervous smile. "Perhaps?"
The journey out of what Uraume calls Arashiyama is quiet and subdued, much like the company keeping Yuuji there. Uraume answers none of his attempts to establish some kind of communication between the two, the path all the way down lasting about thirty minutes by his mental clock.
He spots no game other than one single doe trotting through the greenery, none of the seasonings mentioned by Uraume. When he points this out to his companion, they stay silent before shaking their head, sending the doe on their way as they continue plodding down the earthen road.
Yuuji hears the compound before he sees it; the babbling of a brook and the buzz of insects around in the spring-like weather. There is nothing indicative of human life save for the opening of gates, held by Uraume as they let him in — security awfully lax, but he supposes tales of a demon keeps people away. Like something people say at sleepovers, not really taking it seriously but something to still keep you up at night.
The compound is sort of what he expects it to be from the blurry pictures in textbooks — that one unit on the Heian Era back in Junior High never really stuck in his mind, but he remembers the basic layout of one — and this matches that word for word.
Main structures to the north, towering and brushing the skies with extravagant pillars. A large garden to the south — the source of water, and a single-storey wooden-frame construction forming a layout of engawa before him. It looks like the picture from all the textbooks in the world combined into one solid structure solely made to please the eye and not the inner interior designer debating where the sofas should go in curved corners.
He ponders if there's anything appropriate to say when walking into a compound straight out of a story starting with 'mukashi-banashi,' then decides to just go with the flow, as he always does. "Nice place," Yuuji starts conversationally, taking in the environment to ad-lib something on the spot. "Very old-timey, uh, classical? Is that the word?"
"It is only natural Sukuna-sama should have the most unmatched of places," Uraume says stiffly, gaze darting around like they expect said Sukuna to jump out of the shadows and ambush them. "It is kept pristine, of course, so I am not sure why you call it 'old-timey'."
Right, Uraume's stuck in the Heian-Kyō mindset. Maybe it's better to indulge them? Yuuji wouldn't like to see their thoughts crashing down, it would feel ugly and horrible, so—
"It's very cool," he settles on. "Fits the whole lord vibe Sukuna-sama has going on," he adds politely.
Uraume turns with what he'd like to imagine is a huff. "Of course."
He offers a smile, and Uraume turns, and the world goes black.
Velvet shifts under his fingers, soft and warm like flames are below, licking at the red fabric to provide some semblance of the outside. He wakes up slowly, memories flooding into his mind like a dam unleashed, slowly pouring a steady stream until it builds up and congregates into something slamming into his consciousness like a battering ram.
Fuck—Okkotsu, Fushiguro, Gojo—!
Sukuna—!
His thoughts are cut off by the clearing of a throat and the shift of muscle, an impatient rumble cutting through. "Sit up," it says, simple, harsh, unfeeling and growled lower than a tiger shifting through brush.
It's familiar in the worst way possible. In the sense that it sends shivers of cold wracking his spine, colder than the tendrils of Uraume's (fuck, how could he forget about Uraume, about those sweeping sheets of ice in Shibuya, the one who knelt in Tsukumo's words), in the sense that it brings back a cloying scent of blood and burning flesh, licking at the sky and smoky air of Shibuya and pools of blood clustered below a throne composed of pure human remains.
He sits up.
Four arms await him, rippled muscles crossed with jet below a simple garment of white luxury. A gaping maw sequestered right where flawless skin should be, pearlescent white drawing the lips closed as the matching one above twists to one of mild fascination, reflected in four eyes, two covered with a mask of bone.
His mind blurs; his vision fades. He doesn't remember this, not this monstrosity, Sukuna was a monster for sure, but not this—
Not the stuff of nightmares, not his own fear personified, the individual lines of every memory woven into one solid tapestry of what in the everlasting fuck—
"Boy," Sukuna rumbles, and Yuuji has enough time to think hysterically, why is Sukuna here, is this Sukuna, what happened to Gojo— before Sukuna's eyes shift to him, rolling grotesquely in their slots to peer at him like a scientist looking at a particularly dissected specimen. "Face me," he commands, and his presence alone commands Yuuji's body to move, shift to face him.
A pinpoint of scarlet narrows. "Uraume said you know of Kenjaku. He also said you know of the stitches that mark the bastard's presence," Sukuna — Sukuna—? — says, straight to the point, unfeeling. The mouth below shifts just slightly. "You. Boy. Who are you."
Yuuji wets his mouth, feeling a wave of nausea crash over him, head heavy and lolling before he works out an answer, every syllable heavy and scuttling and cumbersome, like taking a stack of boxes up stairs and watching them all tumble down in front of your very eyes. "Itadori," he manages to choke out, inhaling sharply, reminding himself of the pine-mint scent that always accompanied Fushiguro, the sharp scent of hyacinth of Gojo. "Yuuji."
Something sharp slices through the air, and something pink flutters from his head as Sukuna's eyes sharpen considerably in displeasure. Yuuji feels like a fish on the cutting board; awaiting the death that comes by flashing blade — drawing near his throat, yet not crossing the line.
Like needles pierce his skin, like flames lick at empty soles of feet. Like the single slice turned into the knife above a fish's throat, ready to skin and ready to chill. Wave after wave of cold and hot sweep through him, alternating his hell — from the fjords of ocean to the flames of Tartarus, every sweep bringing new blossoming, intangible pain.
"I did not ask for your name," Sukuna reverberates. His arm moves on the couch he's situated on, shifting an expanse of vermillion red with the movement. "I asked for who you are."
"And I said who I am," Yuuji manages, hardly daring to believe his own words. "Itadori Yuuji. You can't not recognize me, Sukuna. Don't you dare try to fake it. I've known you for five months, don't you dare to even try—"
"Boy," says Sukuna, commandeering an air of kingliness. Yuuji's lips seal themselves shut without him even knowing, bound tight at his words. "You speak when I ask you to. Do not assume camaraderie over a supposed shared acquaintance with Kenjaku."
The ambiance shifts to something of an interrogation room, only the interrogator is a thousand-year old demon and the interrogated is Yuuji, confused and also frankly terrified of this recent development in events. Sukuna always took the form of his vessel, he assumed — at least he did when Yuuji served as his — but why is Sukuna a separate entity, why does his voice not hammer at his head—?
"Uraume tells me you were within Arashiyama," states Sukuna. "That particular area is blocked with multiple barriers that are nigh impossible to break without the help of someone more skilled than Kenjaku, which would be."
He stops, gazing at Yuuji, something hungry in his eyes. The cascading waves of terror recede just the tiniest bit, and his mouth moves before he can even stop it, playing finish-the-sentence with Sukuna. "Tengen-sama."
Sukuna's countenance barely changes. "Tengen. So you know of her."
At the significant lack of Cleave-throwing, Yuuji musters enough courage to continue where this Sukuna leaves off. "They manage the barriers in Japan. Doesn't all of jujutsu run on their barriers?"
"They are the Harbinger of Jujutsu," lectures Sukuna in a heavily disapproving tone, like some disappointed schoolteacher. "Without them, jujutsu in Japan would have never progressed this far."
Sukuna pauses, as if he's switching from 'teacher' mindset to 'King of Curses' mindset before restarting. "Redundant," he declares before turning back to Yuuji. "So you claim you have no knowledge of what transpired before Uraume found you killing a curse in Arashiyama. You also claim to know of Tengen and Kenjaku on a higher level than most."
Yuuji offers a brittle expression in exchange for the rundown. "Whose body did you take over, Sukuna?" he grits out, eyes forced on the hulking mass of wrongness. "How did you transfer it out? When'd you get such a fancy palace, huh?"
A look of displeasure crosses Sukuna's face, and Yuuji thinks hectically about how it would feel to have muscle bursting from his bone when a cut inevitably slices it off before the man speaks. "This is my own body," he rumbles, malcontent. "Perhaps you do not understand the circumstances of the less fortunate, boy."
"Not brat?" Yuuji fires back, feeling particularly suicidal in the moment's heat.
Sukuna's face stays emotionless. "Not brat," he agrees surprisingly. "You are but a boy. A curious one to be sure, but a boy. A boy that I can kill with a wave of my hand."
"So why don't you?" Yuuji challenges, sorrel flecked with stupidly brave gold.
And perhaps this Sukuna, manifested of his nightmares, feels somewhat sentimental today, because instead of instantly murdering Yuuji on the spot, he says—
"Because you remind me, boy."