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“Kirara-senpai, wait. Let me go instead.” Two pairs of eyes snap to Yuuji, making him uncomfortably aware of the hot ache of his own and the dried tears under them. He blinks hard, adding, “Please.”
Ui Ui and Kirara look at each other and then back at Yuuji. Ui Ui is just frowning, but there’s a lot more than that on Kirara’s face, mostly around the eyes. Her star-shaped pupils make it hard, sometimes, to read the expression there, and right now, Yuuji’s grateful.
“Are you sure, Yuu-chan?” she asks. “He’ll sense you.”
For a split second, Yuuji thinks she’s talking about Gojou, and there’s the wild urge to snap back that his teacher won’t be sensing anything ever again, but then he realizes what she’s actually saying.
“I think Kashimo will keep him occupied for a bit. But we should hurry. I’m supposed to head out with Higuruma after this.”
“You shouldn’t—” Kirara bites her lip, making her piercings bulge out a little. “Never mind. Just go. Be careful.”
She backs away, and Yuuji steps forward to take her place beside Ui Ui, who mutters something about how this wasn’t what they told his sister but raises the white sheet he’s holding, whipping it high in the air. The fabric hides Kirara’s frowning face and the people behind her too. Okkotsu has already vanished, but Maki’s still there, staring straight at Yuuji. Their eyes meet for a moment before the whole room vanishes.
Yuuji’s teleported a lot, most of it condensed into that two-month span he spent with mostly just Gojou for company. Gojou didn’t use it a lot during spars. Why would he need to? Yuuji wasn’t a challenge for him even without it. But he used it all the time outside of it. Taking Yuuji from that dank basement to some far-off corner of the forests around the campus and then back again, sometimes to the basement but mostly to the sprawling, isolated house at the edge of campus that Gojou called home. By the time he was done playing dead, the closet of Gojou’s first-floor guest room was full of Yuuji’s clothes.
He never packed them up and took them to the dorms. Gojou never asked him to.
Last month, when he followed Gojou back there after a training session, he found the guest room like he’d left it, just cleaner. His clothes were all still there. Guess they’ll stay there now, until whoever Gojou’s got for family goes there to pick it clean. If they even bother. Maybe it’ll all just rot.
There’s a lot, after this, that will rot.
Like the body lying in two pieces in front of Yuuji, splattered in its own mess.
He’s smiling.
Why the hell is he—
“Oi,” Ui Ui hisses, driving a pointy elbow into Yuuji’s thigh. “Hurry up. I knew this was a bad idea.”
Yuuji says nothing, only steps closer to the body. His limbs feel like lead. This isn’t meant to be his role; Ui Ui and Kirara are the ones on retrieval duty. And Yuuji knew that, was there for the planning, but he didn’t realize what it’d mean for Gojou’s corpse until he saw them prepare to leave.
He just never thought Gojou would be a corpse. He thought they’d get him out before—
He freezes, his hands an inch away from Gojou’s head.
His eyes are open, as blue as they were in life. Every blue in the world, all there all at once.
And it’s moving.
“Ui Ui,” he gasps, “get back. Something’s not—”
Cursed energy explodes from the corpse.
Yuuji’s thrown violently back, and he sees Ui Ui in his periphery, flung through the air in another direction. He hits the ground hard but rolls to all fours in the same motion, raising his head just in time to see the wet red mass of meat at the end of Gojou’s severed torso start to writhe.
He thinks it’s the spine, at first—that gleam of white jutting out of the flesh.
Then more of them emerge, coalescing into the distinct shape of a hand.
Another follows.
A pale, terrible thing pulls itself out of his teacher’s broken body.
Yuuji’s ribs threaten to break off and lodge themselves in his heart.
“Gojou-sensei,” he breathes.
Somewhere, in his memory, a voice answers, Sorcerers not killed with cursed energy tend to come back—but you don’t need to worry about that just yet, Yuuji.
But Sukuna did use cursed energy. Yuuji could feel it, somewhere deep in the corrupted core of his soul.
The pale thing rises, higher and higher and higher—
“What’s this now?”
Yuuji tenses, forcing himself to tear his eyes off the cursed spirit that’s crawled out of Gojou’s body to focus on the greater threat at hand, and it’s not Fushiguro’s stolen and battered body that greets him but a taller, broader form with too many arms and mouths. Eyes, too, and even that’s made unfamiliar by how two are bulging out of a mass of bark-like skin.
He knows this body. He’s never seen it, but he’s worn it in the worst of his dreams.
Sukuna’s eyes flit to him, and both of his mouths twist into a sneer. “Oh, you’re here. And what exactly do you think you can accomplish, brat? It’s too late to save your precious teacher. This abomination would just as soon devour you. You’re both so disgustingly alike—never had the sense to know your place.”
Yuuji opens his mouth—
A low, rumbling noise fills the air. Yuuji’s bones seem to tremble with it, and off to the side, a building already gutted by the earlier fighting gives up the ghost and crumbles to the ground.
It’s standing now. White hair, too long. A body that’s too tall.
A hand that is—
Yuuji takes an instinctive step back, but there’s no need. The domain only swallows Sukuna.
-
When the dark barrier shatters, Gojou is still swallowing Sukuna.
The head is gone. So are half the arms and most of a leg. A bone-white hand is buried in the ruined mass of flesh that was Sukuna’s chest, and as Yuuji watches, it emerges with a fistful of red meat, raising to a maw Yuuji can’t see from this angle.
What he can see is the gaping red hole where Sukuna’s heart must have been.
Fushiguro’s heart.
Life floods back into his body, as violent as the ice that sunk into his bones when Gojou fell to the ground in two great pieces.
Yuuji rushes forward. “Sensei! What’re you doing?! That’s still Fushiguro’s—”
He slams into something solid and bounces back, except the motion’s arrested by the pair of hands that dig into his arms, tight enough to bruise.
Yuuji stares up—and up and up and up.
Gojou was tall. One of the tallest men Yuuji knew.
This one is at least a foot taller.
It’s easy to see why. Its body is almost human, dressed a lot like Gojou was when he went out to fight. Loose white pants pinched at the ankles, with a black belt at the waist. That’s all still there.
But the space above it is a stretch of nothing. Nearly. There’s blood—streaming from the two severed halves of this creature’s body.
It’s not bleeding, not really. The blood forms tendrils in the air, connecting the two halves. Yuuji can see it flowing, cyclical currents that twist and bulge in the air.
Above, there’s a muscular torso, familiar except in all the ways it’s not. There’s something wrong with the skin. Gojou was always pale, but now he’s deathly white, like there’s no blood in this body except what’s dancing in the void between its two halves. It’s not just that either, and it takes Yuuji a long, dazed second of staring at the solid lines of a six-pack to realize that there are no pores on the skin. It’s just smooth, like marble.
And even that’s nowhere near as unsettling as the large open eye set into the center of the chest. It’s open and blue—the same blue of his teacher’s eyes, which is every blue, swirling across the iris like a river of color. The size makes the shades stand out even more, and it’s only when his lungs start burning that Yuuji realizes he’s forgotten to breathe.
He doesn’t want to look up. He doesn’t want to see the face.
He does it anyway.
The hair is all he sees, at first. A long curtain of it, nearly reaching the ground. Thick, shaggy strands cover the face, but in between, Yuuji can see five points of radioactive blue.
“Yuuji,” says the curse, “I’m back.”
Yuuji, said his teacher, freshly unsealed and brimming with manic energy, his eyes and his lips both gleaming like knives—except his arms were so gentle as they held Yuuji close to his warm, solid body.
Yuuji, Gojou told him that day, I’m back.
Yuuji reaches up with a trembling hand, pushing the overgrown hair to the side.
Gojou’s face peers down at him, studded with five eyes and smiling with sharp teeth. It’s the same face. There’s a single eye in the center of his forehead. One each above his cheekbones, a lot like how Sukuna’s eyes looked on Yuuji’s and then Fushiguro’s bodies. But the other two—they’re the exact same shape, in the exact same position.
And the arms holding Yuuji aren’t gentle anymore—but they’re holding him.
“Gojou-sensei,” he chokes out, the tears he thought he couldn’t afford to shed any time soon spilling out again, “welcome back.”
.
.
.
.
.
“If he’s not killing people or causing any trouble…what’s the problem?”
Maki pins him with a flat look. “Gojou Satoru has risen as a vengeful spirit.”
“I know, but…”
She sighs, rolling her shoulders irritably. “Doesn’t really matter to me. Not much has changed anyway. That guy was barely human to start with.”
“That’s not—”
“Neither am I,” she cuts in brutally. “Neither are you. It’s not an insult, just fact. But everyone else is antsy, especially the older folks. I guess I get it. You can feel it too—like there’s a nuke out there ’bout to drop on us all.”
Yuuta winces. But he can’t disagree.
The volume of Gojou’s cursed energy has increased, outstripping Yuuta’s own to nearly match what Sukuna was putting out earlier. That alone wouldn’t have been so bad. But the way it feels…
Like space expanding, endless and inevitable—the eater of worlds, there in their backyard.
“And Itadori-kun has been there with him this whole time?” he asks.
“Couldn’t pry him away if you tried,” Maki says, crossing one leg over the other. Her sword is on the floor beside her, and one of her hands lies on the flat of the blade, tapping absently. “We did try. We went there, all of us, to…exorcise Satoru. Heh. What a joke. Satoru didn’t even acknowledge us. Too busy cuddling Yuuji and eyeing up what was left of Sukuna. The fundamentals don’t change, when you go from human to curse—Naoya made that very clear. You just get worse. I don’t think we’ve found out what Satoru’s version of worse is. Yuuji didn’t let us.”
“Kusakabe-sensei said something like that,” Yuuta murmurs. “But he didn’t really elaborate.”
“Nothing much to it,” she says, shrugging again. “Yuuji just planted himself in front of Satoru like some human shield. Looked bloody ridiculous too. Satoru must be at least seven feet right now—he dwarfed the kid. But you know how that guy gets. Said it’s still ‘Gojou-sensei,’ that we can’t hurt him. Didn’t cave to coaxing or threats. Personally, I didn’t bother trying. I guess I get it—he’s lost both his teammates. Got no family. Satoru’s it for him, curse or not. If we make him choose, he won’t choose us.”
Yuuta stares down at his lap, mentally flipping through every time he’s seen them together this last month. Before, too. The time Gojou came to Africa to ask Yuuta to protect his students—and especially Itadori Yuuji. The few conversations he had with Itadori himself, before they all went their separate ways for the Culling Game.
“I understand him,” he confesses to Maki. “I can’t even say I wouldn’t do the same.”
“Makes you a good fit to talk to him—or them, if Satoru deigns to acknowledge anyone other than Yuuji. Hakari’s washed his hands off the whole mess. Tōdō keeps complaining about missing the fight and gushing over Yuuji—I tuned that out. Anyway, he’s no help. That weirdo who says he’s Yuuji’s brother is there with them to keep an eye on things—mostly just Yuuji. We know what his priorities are.”
“Chōsō-san probably isn’t bothered by what Gojou-sensei’s become,” Yuuta muses. “He’s half curse himself.”
“Lots of that going around these days,” she mutters. “You know what’s weird?”
“Um, what?”
“That asshole pulled this shit too. Naoya. But he took his time—Cursed Womb, evolution, the whole thing. Looked way less human on the other side. But Satoru’s just…crawled out of his corpse as a full-fledged special-grade curse. Sure, he got uglier, but it’s still the same face and the same body, mostly. And he was killed with cursed energy too. None of it makes any damn sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, but…” Yuuta flashes her a small smile, earning himself an arched eyebrow in response. “It’s Gojou Satoru.”
She blinks. Then she laughs, her whole body shaking with it.
“Yeah,” she rasps, the laughter still thick in her voice. “It’s Gojou fucking Satoru.”
-
He finds Itadori’s brother standing vigil atop a building. He doesn’t greet Yuuta when he lands beside him, but a slight shift in his body language indicates acknowledgment.
Off in the distance, down on the ground, there’s a black-clad figure seated against a very pale one. If Yuuta squints and pretends a little, he can almost fool himself that he’s just once again stumbled upon Gojou and Itadori being far more intimate than a teacher and his student should be.
Secretly, he used to like catching those moments. Gojou seemed happy—his smiles softer and realer than anything Yuuta had seen before, especially after the whole incident with Getou Suguru. And Itadori, too, seemed less like a suicide risk when he was wrapped up in their teacher’s arms.
He drags his eyes away from them, turning to Chōsō. “Anything to report?”
“Yuuji seems happy.”
“Ah. That’s…nice.” Yuuta casts about for a moment, but his eyes threaten to catch on those same huddled figures. He makes himself look at Chōsō instead. “Anything else?”
Chōsō’s eyes slide to him briefly, disinterested but not unfriendly. “They’ve mostly just been talking.”
“Mostly?”
Chōsō tilts his head in the direction of the duo. “That too, sometimes.”
“Wh—” The rest of the question withers on Yuuta’s tongue as he returns his gaze to Gojou and Itadori. They’re kissing now. It’s pretty unmistakable, even with Gojou’s new size and overabundance of hair. “Oh.”
Yuuta tries not to think about Rika.
…Or Kurourushi.
“You should stop sending the crows,” Chōsō says suddenly, his tone very mild. “Gojou Satoru doesn’t seem to like them much.”
Yuuta eyes the shredded feathers littering the ground. “I think Mei-san’s figured that out already. I’m going to go talk to them now. Please excuse me.”
“Okkotsu.”
Yuuta pauses. “Yes?”
“Do not try to hurt my little brother.”
It’s a threat, not a plea, but Yuuta can’t help smiling. He’s got a bit of a soft spot for people who love the way he does.
“Itadori-kun is my friend,” he tells Chōsō. “And I owe Gojou-sensei a lot. I’m not their enemy.”
With that, he leaps off the building, making a beeline for the uncanny lovebirds. It’s strangely nice to see a pair like him and Rika. He’s got Maki too, now. At least he thinks he does. There’s something there.
Rika doesn’t share well, though, and he doesn’t think Gojou does either. But he has a feeling that Itadori will find that a lot easier to navigate than Yuuta.
“Oh, hey, Okkotsu-senpai,” Itadori greets, his voice cheerful despite the guarded distance in his eyes. There’s blood around his mouth, but Yuuta can’t tell whether it belongs to Itadori himself.
The pale monster behind him is silent and still—and watchful, six literal eyes fixed on Yuuta. They’re both sitting on the ground, legs sprawled out. Itadori’s tucked against Gojou’s much larger body, and those deathly pale limbs are wrapped around him. There’s something wrong with the skin. It catches light in strange ways.
Itadori’s hands, draped over the ones holding him, look so startlingly human in comparison.
“Itadori-kun,” Yuuta greets back. “…Gojou-sensei. Hi. I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Some of the wariness melts off Itadori’s face, replaced by warmth. “That’s a relief. I thought you were also going to start scolding me.”
“I’m supposed to,” Yuuta says honestly. “But I’ve got a different perspective than the others.”
“Right, Rika-chan.” Itadori squints. “Is she here now?”
“No, I told her to stay behind.” Yuuta turns the ring around on his finger, feeling the metaphysical link that connects him to Rika. The tether is at its limit right now, but she can be here in a flash if he needs her. “I didn’t want to…aggravate anything.”
Itadori blinks, glances up at Gojou, and returns his eyes to Yuuta. “Yeah, that’s fair. Sensei’s been pretty chill overall, but he was really irritated when everyone else came and started yelling earlier. I was too. I mean, I get it. But we can’t kill Gojou-sensei. It’s Gojou-sensei!”
Yuuta laughs a little. “I think they agree with that. Just for very different reasons.”
Itadori’s smile becomes fixed for a moment. Yuuta’s sure he knows what he means. Itadori has a scary knack for people. And he’s had enough time to get to know all of them. Whatever blinders he’s had about Gojou and the way most people see him must have disintegrated by now.
“Senpai,” Itadori says, his voice quiet and almost grave, “what happens now?”
“I’m not sure,” Yuuta admits. “This situation is messy, you know that. But I killed Kenjaku and retrieved Tengen-sama’s remains. We should be able to do something about the Culling Game now. And Sukuna isn’t a problem anymore. If Gojou-sensei isn’t causing trouble—”
There’s a sound, eerily low, like he’s hearing it with his bones rather than his ears.
It takes him a moment to realize that it was Gojou laughing.
Itadori rolls his eyes and slaps a porcelain forearm. “Sensei. Not helping.”
“Ah,” Yuuta says intelligently, realizing way too late that he’s been talking this whole time like Gojou’s not here.
No—it’s not that. It’s more that it’s hard to imagine this behemoth of a cursed spirit talking and laughing and planning with him the way Gojou used to. But Itadori’s clearly not struggling to treat Gojou the same way he always has; it might be a problem how little he’s struggling. Gojou killed Sukuna, but he killed Fushiguro too in the process.
Then again, Gojou seemed to have embraced that possibility even before he turned into a vengeful spirit, and Itadori witnessed all that too.
Satoru’s it for him, Maki said.
The way Gojou’s holding Itadori, the sentiment is very mutual.
“Gojou-sensei,” Yuuta says, looking directly into the only two eyes on Gojou’s face that are still in their original alignment, “you haven’t said anything. What do you think we should do?”
Gojou grins widely. The expression is familiar. But the teeth it reveals are inhumanly sharp, like knifepoints. There’s blood smeared on them, and Yuuta tries not to think about whether it’s Sukuna’s or Itadori’s.
“Curses have no say in the matter of sorcerers,” Gojou says, his voice a writhing mass of echoes that threatens to burrow under Yuuta’s flesh and hollow out his bones. He fails to suppress a shiver, and Gojou’s grin widens, while Itadori seems unaffected—or just accustomed to it. “But you’re a smart boy, Yuuta. You’ll figure it out.”
Yuuta chuckles weakly, anything but reassured.
He agrees anyway. He’ll have to. It seems they’ll all have to.