Chapter Text
I feel weird. A bit left of myself. More than those few times I’ve kind of felt off-center. Being squeezed like this doesn’t help. Are my blankets heavier than usual? I open my eyes to see something straight out of a nightmare holding me. The panic I feel seems downright tangible, surging out from my body and empowering me as I break out of the hold. A graceless tumble shifts into a practiced roll as I fall on the hard ground, and as I see the monster surging at me I can feel the power racing up my arm. As stupid as it seems, I did somehow break out of that hold. I let instinct guide me as I swipe at the thing, energy escaping eagerly and shredding it apart.
I look down at my arm. Yellow hoodie, two black bands around the wrist. My range of vision expands as two more eyes open under my main pair, and I throw a glance at the black haired child behind me before turning away again. I twist the body around as I get a feel for it, too different from my old one. This is messed up. Am I supposed to pretend to be Sukuna? The year’s 2018 or something, surely at least one of the people I’m about to be in regular contact with will know the concept of an isekai? Though knowing the concept and believing it are two different things. Even if it’s practically impossible that the actual Sukuna would know about it, it’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow.
Also, if I tell people I’m not Sukuna, I’ll be losing something with no hope of ever getting it back. My Aura. Even if I haven’t earned it, I want to be cool.
The moon’s pretty big. Ah, I don’t have time to get distracted, soon enough-
One of my hands smacks the side of my head. Rude.
“What do you think you’re doing with my body? Give it back,” the original owner announces his continued presence.
So, Nicekuna or Rudekuna? If I play nice, I get Yuuji’s trust but everyone else is gonna be really suspicious. My Vessel being too buddy-buddy with me might get people doubting his ability to suppress me. Then again, being mean isn’t exactly going to get me any brownie points. And while I can’t be consistently nice, I can be reliable. Well, provided I can stay on top of handling my cursed technique. The body- or maybe soul- of Sukuna seems to maintain some type of muscle memory, but any higher level jujutsu might need me to actually know what I’m doing. So-
Oh, oops, there goes my control of the body. And my chance of suggesting that I have an intelligence level above a rock. I need to lock the fuck in. Pay attention- why is that pile of bones so big. Is that the only thing other than blood in here? Wow, this is bleak. Even the shrine would make this a bit nicer.
I hear “my” name mentioned on the outside.
“What’s Sukuna?”
“That’s the curse you ate.”
“Hmm, maybe? He hasn’t really done anything, he didn’t even talk when he took over my body for a bit,” Itadori explains. At least my personhood isn’t in question.
“Ohh, is that so? Well give us thirty seconds, I’ll get him to talk for sure!” Thirty? I have to deal with thirty seconds with that guy? Get me the fuck out of here man, and not in the way of taking over the body. What if he starts throwing stuff at me? Like hardcore dodgeball? Ok ok it’s fine, I was decent at dodgeball in elementary school. Surely 10+ years have done nothing to dull my skills. Wait he wanted to get me to talk, right? So I’ll just say something right out the gate before he gets the chance to-
I get unceremoniously shoved into the driver’s seat and have to lock my muscles for a bit to stop myself from stumbling like an idiot. Be cool. Gojo is facing away from me, talking about mochi, as per foretold by the prophecy. The game is already afoot. I need to just tank this shit. No talking challenge. And also don’t start throwing hands because I will lose that matchup. Maybe he’ll just ignore me for like twenty seconds and I won’t need to deal with the whole time.
“So, what is it? Too scared to move? Too awed to speak?”
And so it begins. I blink my eyes one set at a time and shove my hands into the pocket of the hoodie. Bring it on, twink.
“Or maybe you’re feeling a bit sleepy? Getting tired in your old age, gramps?”
Brother you are working at a middleschooler’s level of insults. I wonder if going to middle school would’ve fixed him or just given him more material to work with. Probably the latter.
“Can you even hear me from down there? Should I crouch down?”
He’s making fun of my height now. Ok wise guy, let's incarnate you into a 15 year old's body and see how tall you come out. If I was in my original body, you'd look like a toddler. I might be calling it "my" original body a bit too soon. Let's not get too comfortable as the mass murderer now. Though then again, my life from now on is gonna be one big LARP. So maybe I should get into character. Man I miss having four arms. Did the original Sukuna like his weird physiology? I mean, I'd like monstrous features. The four eyes might be a bit weird on account of the new field of view, but I bet they look great. I know they look great, in fact. So, liking my monstrous features is going right into my character sheet. Ugh, and now Gojo's in my personal space. For a guy with a self-enforced personal bubble, he sure likes getting into other people's space. Perks of being The Annoying One, I guess.
“Hey,” he pesters, poking my forehead with a sliver of Infinity, “hey, hey, hey,” he continues, emphasizing each word with a poke. I am now fully glaring at him. In fact, I’m trying to blow him up with my mind.
My cursed energy does something. The air around Gojo’s head goes *swoosh*. I feel the edge of my mouth twitch in an aborted grimace. Please ignore that. His smirk is saying that he’s not ignoring that.
Yuuji’s rough shove into the driver’s seat is a gift from the heavens. Even if he was unnecessarily forceful about it, it got me out of there, so I’ll forgive it. I flop down into the blood and starfish to float on the surface. I manifest none of it staining my kimono. I ignore the smell of blood, though it’s thankfully nowhere as potent as it should be with this amount of blood.
Gojo’s voice echoes from the distance, and yet is clear to me.
“Wonder if a thousand years in those fingers made him braindead or something, haha.”
‘Listening to you made me wish I was braindead.’
“Whoa, he said something! It’s kind of freaky to hear him in my head…” Yuuji exclaims, and I feel a jolt of panic.
‘You heard that!?’ I think, projecting it towards him, ‘I was thinking, that doesn’t count! And don’t tell that bastard what I say to you or I’m giving you nightmares for a week, got it?’
Let’s hope he can’t hear all my thoughts.
“You can do that? I mean, sorry,” the kid responds, still out loud. I should direct him to keep our conversation inside the head. Inside voices or something. He continues, presumably at Gojo. I should figure out how to look outside. “Apparently I heard his thoughts. He didn’t say it out loud, so he thinks it doesn’t count.”
“Hah, you keep thinking that, Su-ku-na~. I win this round,” Gojo hums, way too self-satisfied. This guy. I don’t hate him, don’t really even dislike him, but I am not interested in being the target of constant ragebait. My blood pressure will rise so much that it’ll bleed over to Yuuji. I might also start actually wanting to act on my violent impulses and do something the kid’ll regret.
I need to figure out RCT. It’s just like, folding cursed energy into itself, right? Or maybe using pressure to make it denser? How do you multiply a substance? Can I even train it here, will it count?
The outside world shuts off. I suppose the child has been knocked out. I sit up in the shallow blood and look at my arm again, though this time I can call it mine a bit more confidently. Even if it still mirrors the Vessel.
I’ll have to know how to regenerate a hand eventually anyway.
I stare at the wound on my arm. It’s small, barely half a finger’s width deep, and not bleeding too rapidly due to my other hand’s iron tight grip under it. Cleave wouldn’t cut any deeper than this, my cursed energy backing off skittishly after barely starting to slash. I didn’t have the guts to cut my whole hand off, and really this is probably for the better. Good to have lower stakes to start off.
My thumb brushes the wound. It stings, but not as much as it should. Pain seems to be dulled here, as are all other senses, though it might just be something about me now, that I don’t experience pain as vividly. I’ve never… done something like this before. I should avoid hurting myself as much as possible. No point in getting used to it, it’s good that my cursed energy was unenthused to dig into my own flesh. So, better get used to reverse cursed technique quickly. Bring up my cursed energy twice over, let it push against itself until it folds and deepens. Remove the traces of my sin from my flesh. Let the only blood in my domain be the one that covers the ground.
The energy travels paths that are carved into my soul. The flesh knits together. Slow, too slow.
I can’t afford to be slow.