Chapter Text
Itadori Yuuji.
Find Itadori Yuuji.
Itadori Yuuji, Yuuji...
Monster, who is he?
Legends such as Gojo Satoru and Itadori Yuuji...
Nimble fingers, worked raw with callouses marring the pale flesh, scribbling frantically on a dusty whiteboard, the blood red ink of the marker shimmering in the golden candlelight.
The trembling hands cease all movement as the lean figure, silhouetted unnervingly in the moonlight, abruptly stumbles several steps back.
It looks, for a fraction of a second, like blood splattered haphazardly over a canvas of snow.
Locks of raven hair, velvet soft and glossy before, now fall limply against sunken cheeks. Hollow, wounded eyes stare off blankly into the space, wide with a manic glint that would send lesser men running for cover.
For a long time, he remains still as a statue, and then–
"I did it, Itadori-sensei."
A hoarse whisper, dissolving like wisps of smoke into the air.
"I did what you asked of me, I did everything I could, I..."
Abruptly choking on his own words, the man falls to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut.
"...I..."
A hysterical, grief stricken laugh bursts out of him as he buries his gaunt face in his ink stained hands.
"...I will be the one who waits for you, sensei."
A gruesome squelch suddenly follows, and when the man looks down, a blade glints eerily in the moonlight entering in silvery strands from the open window.
And yet, instead of panicking, the man closes his eyes in solitary acceptance, eyes fluttering shut to never open again.
"Even if an eternity passes, even if everyone else moves on..."
His voice gets fainter and fainter, life fading rapidly from his broken self as he falls limp.
"I will never, ever forget you..."
Blood pools thickly onto the floor, nary a shade darker than the ink painting the walls.
"...Itadori Yuuji."
A laboured breath, and then he is no more.
_
_
"...What the hell is he saying?"
Itadori Yuuji opened his eyes, taking in the unpleasant feeling of viscous blood-water soaking into his clothes, as familiar as it had been, once upon a time. A long, long time.
...We succeeded? Well, of course we did. Now, to see if I'm dreaming up an illusion or not...
He looked up at the unreasonably tall heap of white bones, his gaze climbing higher and higher, until–
The sight that greeted him was a face he thought he'd outgrown, a face that haunted him several decades after he'd last seen it. The cursed energy just as terrifying as before, a calamity given form.
"You have a few moments to explain yourself before I wipe you out of existence, worm."
That voice was just as he remembered it, arrogant and cruel and cold, every bit malevolent as the name of his domain.
He could never forget Sukuna. Not even if he wanted to.
(He did not want to.)
Of course, Sukuna was likely just as unsettled as he was, but that was more along the lines of being offended at Yuuji, who he probably thought was his 15-year old vessel that was a bit too weak to be accidentally stepping into his innate domain without his permission.
Instead of scrambling to follow the command, he blinked lazily and let a lopsided smile spread across his face.
"...Hello, Sukuna."
It came out a bit too nostalgic for his liking. Ah, but he'd been alone for so long that the bitterness tinged with longing that he always felt when reminiscing over Sukuna was dulled down to a flicker of detached amusement.
Ruby red eyes narrowed with cold rage, the glare promising a death so horrific that it would make anyone else drop to their knees and beg for mercy.
"You dare speak to me in such a flippant tone?"
Sukuna then sighed, anger fading abruptly as if he couldn't be bothered to hold onto it. He'd always been like that, hadn't he? Too self assured to truly care to be angered over perceived disrespect.
Yuuji personally thought it was because he'd convinced himself that others' perception of him held no value.
Being treated like subhuman trash, a wretched creature from birth, tended to do that to a man.
(Itadori Yuuji could never, ever forget Sukuna.)
"Very well. You've outlived my interest, boy. I've no need for your continued survival any longer."
Always so quick to brush off the value of life. Yuuji felt slight irritation, and then it was followed by more amusement.
I wonder what he would have to say if I told him that I was his executioner...
As always, the thought brought him both pride and grief. He could never forget that he had been the one to kill Sukuna, either. Whether it made him feel vicious joy or wretched shame depended on the day.
Regardless, he couldn't just let Sukuna do as he pleased now, could he?
As Sukuna raised his hand in a casual gesture, meant to slice him to microscopic bits, his hand got cut off clean from his wrist and flopped to the ground, blood immediately dripping from his stump.
Sukuna stared silently at his missing arm for a few moments, as if he couldn't comprehend what he was seeing, and realisation seemed to hit him just as Yuuji raised his hand in a mirror of his gesture, the action every bit as mocking as he intended it to be.
Blood spurted out in a violent fountain as Sukuna was slashed diagonally from his shoulder down to his thigh.
As he looked into the curse's widened eyes, he smiled genially and dropped his hand just as Sukuna fell to the ground from his throne. Red liquid splashed everywhere as he lay in a crumpled heap.
"I have no need for your continued existence either, but then again, I've always been more benevolent than you've ever been."
He knelt down gently, next to the injured man on the red lake, and cupped his cheek with a hand that was missing its ring and pinky fingers.
"Isn't that right... Sukuna?"
As Sukuna's consciousness faded, he couldn't help but feel a prickling discomfort at the genuine fondness in the other man's voice.
"–There's no need to worry! I'm the strongest, after all." The strange man with the blindfold was saying, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture, as if a thousand year old curse was not a big deal.
Yuji chose to trust him anyway. If he was Fushiguro's teacher, then that meant he was probably dependable, right?
Well, he didn't have a choice anyway. He chose to swallow that finger to save Fushiguro and he didn't have any regrets, but he had to face the consequences after all.
It was fine. Yuuji could focus on the consequences later. Let the man have what he wanted first.
As he reassured himself, he relinquished his iron clad control over his own body and felt the foreign, heavy presence take over.
The last thing he saw before receeding to the depths of his consciousness was the anxious expression on Fushiguro's bloodied face.
Gojo Satoru was not an arrogant man.
No, arrogance would imply that his hubris was built on a false sense of superiority. Any curse or curse-user who went up against him could testify that it was not, in fact, false.
Gojo Satoru had been born as the Strongest of his era, and yet–
When the dark, suffocating miasma of a presence filled his senses, he faltered for just a moment before recovering swiftly.
Goddamn.
He'd faced his fair share of stronger beings, cursed spirits and humans like, and yet, this creature was in a league of his own.
He had never encountered something so frightening, something so terrible that it should not exist, that it was fundamentally wrong–
Indeed, poor Megumi was shaking visibly next to him, staring in horror at the being that had taken over his cheerful friend. The difference between vessel and curse was like night and day.
Laying a comforting hand on his ward's shoulder, Satoru hummed cheerfully as he contemplated the fact that someone strong enough to give him a challenge had finally awakened.
It was probably inappropriate of him to feel as excited as he did at the rebirth of a demon, but Satoru knew that as long as he existed, he would keep Sukuna in check and not let him wreck havoc across the country.
So what if he had a bit of fun doing his job? That was the only respite he got, the only thing he could selfishly have for himself and himself alone.
As abruptly as the cursed energy had bloomed, it faded to a bearable amount rather than overwhelming amounts of malice seeping into the air. A flowing stream from a tap rather than a violently gushing waterfall.
Sukuna lifted his head to look Satoru dead in the eye.
Caught off guard, Satoru stared back into the piercing golden eyes that had taken over the warm amber of Itadori Yuji's eyes. There were two dark marks directly below his eyes, a thin line directly above his nose and two thin, black bands adorning his wrists, and a thin black band around his neck. His nails had turned dark, bloody red.
There was an indiscernable, heavy emotion in the curse's gaze. He held himself with easy, assured grace, the opposite of Yuji's energetic teenage mannerisms. Head held high, back straight as an arrow and shoulders taut, face chillingly blank and hands held casually inside his pockets.
His six eyes were going haywire. Looking at Sukuna's cursed energy was like looking directly into the sun, if the sun was a thick, cloying, burning red ball of pure evil.
Without a doubt, Ryoumen Sukuna was the strongest he'd ever faced.
Wasting not a single moment, Satoru chucked a rock at him, watching eagerly as he watched the rock reach Sukuna at a speed invisible to the human eye. He had no doubts that Sukuna would dodge, or maybe he'd even show him his infamous cutting technique –
Except, that was not at all what happened.
In the next moment, Satoru watched as the rock simply disappeared out of existence.
One second, it was speeding towards a statue still Sukuna, and the next, it was just not there.
Satoru's smile froze on his face, even as he maintained a composed demeanor.
Meanwhile, finally showing some semblance of an expression, Sukuna cracked a wry smile as he met Satoru's gaze again.
"Attacking someone on your first meeting is a bit rude, is it not?"
Satoru grinned, masking the surprise he felt at the curse's voice. It was very similar to Yuji's, obviously because he was his vessel and Sukuna was using his body, but there were notable differences.
While Yuji's voice held the brash, slightly loud pitch of a growing teenager, Sukuna's voice was soft and smooth as silk, a tad deeper and more mature, a haunting echo of the same voice in a different context. It was also utterly inflectionless, almost inhumanely so, as opposed to the budding emotion he'd heard in young, innocent Yuji-kun's voice.
What a good kid burdened with a horrifying entity. Satoru would not let anything happen to him. (Not that he would let anyone know that, of course.)
"Well, as far as meetings go, you've made quite the impression, your majesty~"
"I could say the same about you, Six Eyes."
Satoru's smile twitched once again. What was it with the curse? Why did he keep catching him off guard? There were several things wrong with the picture in front of him, and Satoru intended to make sense of every single one.
"Oh, how does the King of Curses know who I am? I'm flattered!~"
Sukuna looked vaguely amused. "You have a presence similar to a Six Eyes wielder that I fought back in the day."
"Is that so?" Satoru smirked as aggravatingly as he could. "That Gojo must've given you quite the fight for you to remember him a thousand years later."
He knew that his antics tended to drive even the most patient people crazy, and Sukuna was rumoured to be a bloodthirsty, raging monster. Satoru hoped to get a glimpse of even a fraction of the malice that made up his cursed energy.
For some reason, that made Sukuna's smile deepen. Warning bells started ringing at the back of Satoru's head.
"Sugawara." Sukuna said simply.
Satoru waited for an explanation, irked that he hadn't managed to shake the man's unflappable calm. It sent pinpricks of uneasiness rush down his spine to see the curse continue to act so differently than what he'd expected him to.
"They were called Sugawara, back in the day." Sukuna clarified. "And yes, he gave me quite the memorable fight."
The calm, matter-of-fact tone, holding not a single drop of emotion made Satoru's gut churn.
Satoru let a dark smile curl across his face.
"Well, I'll give you a better one."
In the blink of an eye, Satoru crossed the distance between them, arm outstretched to deliver a swift, shattering punch–
And promptly met empty air as the curse vanished from view, only to reappear behind Satoru.
Reeling at the fact that a single finger's worth of power was so fast, Satoru didn't let it affect him for long as he whipped his leg out behind him to swipe Sukuna off balance.
Sukuna sighed and then jumped away yet again, reappearing on the edge of the rooftop, looking slightly exasperated and holding the fucking bag of sweets that Satoru had just bought.
Not a fucking chance!
Satoru pulled his blindfold down.
He immediately used a low output Blue to break a chunk off of the side of the rooftop and then propelled it swiftly towards Sukuna with Red. He was past caring at this point, and he could cover any damages to the school with his pocket, and Megumi was secured right behind him.
The massive chunk of plaster vanished again. Now that Satoru had removed his blindfold, he could clearly see, in high definition, the truly impressive amount of invisible slashes that affected the target at such a high speed with such precision that it was completely broken down into mere atoms not visible to the human eye.
It was simply not normal, how strong Sukuna was for a single finger. Once again, those tendrils of unease curled around Satoru's heart.
He let exactly none of it show, as relaxed and casual as ever. He could not afford to look bad in front of his precious student, his blessing. He could not have Megumi feel like anything but the safest person on earth when in his sensei's presence.
"Please stop attempting to attack me." The incarnation of literal satan said blandly. "I will not fight you."
Satoru bared his teeth in an irritated smile. "Why, am I too strong for you, your majesty? Did that Sugawara of yours instill such fear in you that you refuse to fight someone like him a thousand years down the line?"
Words poured out of him one after another. He couldn't help it; he hadn't been this annoyed and wary in recent memory. Sukuna was so different from his expectations that Satoru felt deeply uncomfortable at the thought of an ancient sorcerer turned curse having such level of intelligence. He had to get Sukuna to slip– to get him to drop this harmless act.
He then gasped theatrically, "Don't tell me... The great Sukuna-sama was defeated by a mere Gojo?"
"I was."
Sukuna, with that infuriating, unnerving stoicism, responded as if he were talking about the weather.
Satoru, and Megumi off to his side, waited again in complete silence for the man to fucking elaborate on whatever the hell he was talking about.
"I was defeated by that Sugawara, yes. In fact, he was my first taste of defeat, and that fight has left a permanent mark on me ever since then."
Satoru's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Indeed," Sukuna drawled boredly, not even looking at him– as if he, Satoru Gojo, were nothing more than a casual bystander rather than a worthy opponent, a superior being, "your cursed energy is creepy, Gojo-san. Your glowing blue eyes are even creepier. I'm afraid for my life here. Please have some sympathy and allow me to recede back to the depths of my vessel's soul."
A fury so profound surged up from deep within Satoru's consciousness that Satoru barely held himself back from wiping the bastard out of existence with Purple after all. He had to protect Yuji. He could not, and would not, have the boy put in harm's way for no fault of his own.
Was this how others felt when Satoru baited them?
And then, to hammer the final nail in the coffin, Sukuna casually reached below him to take a mochi from the bag he'd stolen.
Satoru watched in tranquil rage as he took a bite of the mochi, taking his sweet time chewing. He swallowed and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin he'd procured from fuck knows where, and then–
He smiled serenely and committed his most unforgivable act of the night yet. "It's just my opinion, but sweets were better in the Heian Era."
Satoru mirrored his serene smile and brought his hand up in the sign for Purple.
But before he could let loose his frustrations, Sukuna raised his eyebrows in the most animated expression he'd seen from him yet.
"Ah, would you look at that? My cute little vessel is attempting to take back control."
Satoru stiffened. Wait, no, Yuji-kun, I'm not done yet–!
Sukuna chuckled. "Do as you wish, Itadori Yuji."
The last thing Satoru saw before Sukuna's control over his vessel was yanked back by Yuji, was the sight of those piercing golden eyes staring deep into his soul, as if he could see Satoru for everything that he was.