Chapter Text
A special cursed spirit, by the name of Jogo, sprinted as fast as he could; footsteps tapping insistently against the tiles of Shibuya's station floors and rounding around the corner with a sharp slide. Coming to a halt and seeing Sukuna's vessel's body slumped on the wall, markings of the King thinning out – his focus met with two girls standing beside him. High schoolers, perhaps second-year students, startled by his sudden appearance.
Malicious aura stemmed from the unconscious boy.
With a scoff, the curse snapped at them. "Just how many fingers did you feed him?!"
The brown-haired girl with the stuffed toy in her arms talks first, "we won't tell you!"
The blonde never lets her eyes leave Jogo even as she holds a protective stance before the other.
"Is that so?" he outstretches his palm, a gyrating cursed energy of indigo flowing from his hand. "Die then."
He spares no mercy as both of the girls lights up in flames, their dying breath being terrified screams beneath the sound of flames crackling. Nor does he spare them any mind. Standing before the vessel, with blood-dried facial scars, he plants his foot at either side of the boy's legs. The markings hadn't faded, which was good. Jogo recalled an earlier discussion with Geto Suguru on the matter on the King while he dug into his inner pocket.
"Even if Itadori Yuuji swallowed all twenty fingers, his control would still reign over Sukuna. That is, if he took one finger a day for twenty consecutive days. Were he to swallow ten fingers at once, his body wouldn't adapt fast enough. Sukuna would take control, without a doubt."
The case so far had been that Itadori Yuuji was capable of controlling Sukuna. So far, he hadn't surfaced once since the vessel digested his fingers months prior.
Jogo took out the scroll from his inner pocket and unraveled it, revealing ten of Sukuna's dismembered fingers. Each one was placed in its on pocket.
"Wake up, Sukuna."
Itadori Yuuji said nothing.
Numbness tickled his forefingers, an unceasing motion of smoothing over the hairs on his legs. Wrinkles formed over the soft pads of his fingers, occasionally brushing against fabric. Resting against something firm, tuft of soft, short locks smoothed backwards from before, the man finally reached for the ends of his kosode; concealing his bare legs beneath the comfort of the attire.
If he had noticed the way his legs didn’t seem as they were supposed to, he didn’t note it. If he had noticed the way symmetrical, ebony hoops marked his wrists, upper thighs and ankles from when he was rubbing the soft skin, he didn’t note of it. If he noticed the double sight of his surroundings, no longer possessing two eyes like most but four (two lower ones under his upper ones), he didn't note of it, no matter how fucking strange and dizzying that was.
Everything was sluggish in his mind, time and concentration flying around him, beside him, over and under him, or right by him, but never at him. What was happening? Where even is he? Who is he? There were gaps in his memories where explanations to his strange phenomena would be.
With a resigned sigh, his head hit the tree trunk behind him with a soft thunk, a Silverwood tree in the middle of nowhere. Every now and then (or day, week, or some other time) he would be bone-tired, despite being idle at the time. Fatigue and complete exhaustion would slam into him like the weight of a mountain, and he would collapse and fade into lost time. Other times, he suspects, he would regain some lucidity of what was occurring to him — and only then — would that be taken from him.
It was driving him insane. What the fuck was going on?
Now, on a throne that he assumes belongs to him (given there are, and never has been, no one else in this… world, place, room?), right leg resting on top of the other, beneath him is a heap of carcass and blackened skeletons crushed together. Past that, and all around, is an undistributed sea of gore. Certainly, it gives off the scent of it, and something he's accustomed to.
He who is seated on the throne gazes absentmindedly at his fingernails, a deep shade of purple dipping into pure darkness. He doesn’t question why they are like that, nor why this room’s roof is an elongated rib cage—
A compelling sensation strikes his stomach cavity, raising his alarms.
His brows furrow, red eyes fluttering shut with an inaudible heave. It's nauseating, rumbling his empty gut from within. (When was the last he had eaten? Slept? Basked in sunlight from an open field or caught whiff of petrichor? He's …uncertain). He folds forward. Pang, the crawling sensation up his spine intensifies. Yet his muscles eases and his trachea gives way like a reflex — like it's familiar.
It strikes once more, and this time he feels a thick… something lodge itself in his mouth and force its way into his oesophagus, swallowing whatever it is.
It’s not food, and definitely not edible — pang, the feeling grows.
He hates that it’s familiar, for that means it’s another that his memory has forgotten. His Adam’s apple bobs, and keeps bobbing, faux swallowing whatever the pressure in the back of his throat is and–
He wants to gag.
And yet—
It continues.
After the first one, the man, by the name he had been oh so graciously been able to remember (the only thing of him to remember), Sukuna, shivers at the arid feeling. After the second, which came a minute later, his mouth waters as a biological mechanism to combat the dry swallowing, and by the fourth or sixth finger, it descends easier. By the ninth finger, whatever fog was clouding his mind, or whatever blur was coating his retinas vanish. Clarity, knowledge, and most of all, power surges throughout his arteries, cursed energy through his veins.
By the eleventh finger he’s fed, Sukuna stands up from the throne and gazes at his own feet. Intrigued, he parts the fold over his kosode and reveals his leg, a thin coating of malicious energy.
What ever he was smoothing over earlier was cursed energy, his own cursed energy. Something he couldn't sense nor see earlier–
How long had he been left in the dark like this for? How long since he had been reincarnated?
(Asking the wrong questions. How am I here? I'm not Sukuna. I have never been him.)
How dare they.
(No, that's not me– I am not Sukuna–)
How dare they—
(I AM NOT SU—)
His eyes snap open, four currant eyes hooking to the cursed spirit before him, holding a firm grip on his jaw. Crimson swirls around his pupils and enriches them, giving off a glow even in the darkest of nights. Sukuna’s right lower eye glances over to the two figures in the distance, two girls wheezing, smoke coming from their clothes.
Bringing his attention back on the one-eyed cursed spirit above him, he glares at the hand holding his jaw.
“So, you’re alive.” He says, kissing his black teeth with annoyance, before bringing his left hand (or what used to be his hand) to incinerate them. "I'll kill y–"
Splat
Jogo's singular eye widens at his immaculately sliced arm, midnight purple body fluid gushing from the open wound like a broken faucet. The scent of iron hits the air like the pop of a forgotten balloon, sudden and fast–
"Like hell you will."
–and Sukuna finally releases his presence.
Dread.
Extreme danger.
No escape.
Jogo stumbles back in horror and leaps back, finding himself standing among the girls. The scars and scruffs the vessel used to have seeps back into Ryoumen Sukuna's body as Reverse Cursed Technique gets used like an afterthought.
DEATH.
He… doesn't have foresight or anything like that, Jogo would know, but what he is certain of, without doubt, is that he is going to die.
He's going to– two sets of eyes fixates on him– to die– his body trembles from his stance.
The King of the Curses shifts his weight on his legs to rise from a crouch, taking a sharp intake of breath once he's on his feet. A puddle of purple blood stains the soles of Itadori Yuuji's shoes. While he stretches and looks at his clothes, dusting them off (a strange sight, adorned with such modern articles), Jogo struggles to keep still.
Evil. He's shaking. Every impulse and signal his brain gathers from what raw information his eye feeds him tells him to scram, run away, get the hell away from this place, and at the same time to keep still. For what if even a shift on his heels will end up with him sliced into flesh strips? His aura is overwhelmingly evil.
Breathe, Nanako reminds her sister. Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Breathe. Mimiko wonders if she'll die because she's breathing.
Alas, Ryoumen Sukuna looks straight at them. Unfiltered petrification seizes three hearts. Making his way to them with a stroll, the terror within them heightens with each easy step. Nanako and Jogo meets the man's crimson eyes, Mimiko too panic-stricken to do so. Before any word is exchanged or said, her knees gives out.
She hits the ground with a gasp, snapping the ominous, foreboding focus to her. "A-ah, aa!" she mumbles, the fear of death looming right above her.
Sukuna seems to not mind it, and whispers a simple order. "Prostrate."
In a second all three prostrates before him, legs tucked under their thighs, face lowered to the floor in complete submission. "Good. Very good," coos Sukuna, and lets himself think.
00:00:00:00:02
Sukuna, no, …whoever they are who is in his body now, is him.
00:00:00:00:09
How can that be? Trying to recall anything's useless, but not what he knows has happened, is happening and will happen in the near/far future. How is he here?
00:00:00:00:16
His pulse quickens, and he manually lowers it. How useful is that information anyway? He doesn't remember meeting Megumi or Gojo the first time he (supposedly) manifested, nor the detention center.
00:00:00:00:23
Does that mean he never was out? Goodness… canon divergence the second he wakes up… what else? Canonically dead folks walking around? What does that mean for him? For Yuuji?
00:00:00:00:37
… for what Sukuna had done to Yuuji in the animanga, you never really liked him. Comparing the two, you always adored and loved Yuuji more. The fight scenes with Sukuna were cool, you couldn't deny that, but the torture he brought out on the boy was awful. You can't possibly do that to Yuuji. No, not your favorite character!
00:00:00:00:49
A sickening feeling pooled in your gut. You were not do to the same things Sukuna did to Yuuji. You were going to protect him. Keep him the hell away from harm.
00:00:00:00:55
You made up your mind.
Pulling himself from his internal thought train, Sukuna began his line of questioning. "You will answer me. Where am I?"
At first, no one talked. Then, the cursed spirit choked on his own breath trying to speak. "Y-you're in Sh-Shibuya, in Tokyo. Japan."
Already knowing that, Sukuna tapped his foot in front of it. Acknowledgement
"What's the situation?"
"I-if I… may," the blonde wheezed. "Many c-cursed spirits are roaming… hundreds, killing, eating people… a man in monk's robes along w-with other curses are w-working together…" Nanako glared at Jogo through Mimiko.
"So, it would be correct to assume they're behind the chaos?"
"Y-yes, you're right," both girls answer.
Sukuna's foot stepped away from Jogo, and from where their heads were still down, Sukuna (or whoever was him) rubbed his hand at his nape. Troublesome. Most of things has already went down, and given how things end – do I really want to fight Jogo?
(In the back of his mind, he laughed. He can see where Yuuji nicknamed him Mount Fuji came from.)
Can he even use Sukuna's power?
Well, will be nice to test it now. (He was never a fan of how Jogo got to not only touch Nanami, but get touched by Gojo, TWICE. Get rid of him now, save the trouble later.)
"Lift your heads."
All three did as ordered by them, yet only two were still breathing. In Sukuna's hand holds the remains of Jogo's mashed up, unrecognizable remains of his skull. Skinned and ensanguined. Enucleated, the gouged-out eye nowhere to be seen.
Guess he can use his power. How neat.
"O-oh my G-G-," Mimiko flinches at the view, sobbing. Nanako enters a state of shock.
He tosses the destroyed cranium aside, as it turns into dust along with the rest of the special grade spirit's body, leaving behind his clothes.
"Now, with that fool gone. What is it you two want from me."
Their terrified eyes bounces from him, to each other, to themselves, and back to him.
I won't kill them.
Sukuna squats in front of them, getting closer as their breathing ceases entirely. "Come on," he smiles. "I'm more lenient with kids."
"P…p-please… t-the man… i-in th–"
"Ah, right." Sukuna rises to his feet, "the man in the robes. What else?"
Nanako turns pale at her inability to breathe. "s-stitches across h-his forehnn…." her eyes flutter shut, irises roll to the back of her skull as she weakly collapses. Mimiko returns to her prostrate position and pleads to the King of Curses, begs for him to help. "W-we know of the locations of one of your fingers! Please help us, and we'll give you it!"
Mimiko's vision darkens dangerously as her heartbeat sounds like thunderclaps in her ears.
How long have I been here, Sukuna wonders. Two, maybe two and a half minutes in, and he's killed Jogo, made the blonde pass out, and about to make the brunette too. Damn, crazy aura this guy has.
He wants to play with her before she does so. "What is your name?"
Her shoulders falter. "Mi…M-Mimiko."
"Am I your king, Mimiko?"
"Y-yes! Y-you are…!"
Goodness, he can hear her blinking from panic.
"That is correct. I am your king, therefore you're my subject. Now," he places a hand on the crown of her head gently, ignoring the violent shudder of her body. "would a subject order their King around?"
"Noooo," she rasps, panting in desperation.
"Oh? You don't? Why order me to find this man in robes, stitches across his forehead then? I do not know you nor do you know me. You ought to be thankful with you and your friend's lives that I'm in a good mood." His hand leaves her head, and his footsteps trails into the darkness of the station.
Or else I would've killed you, goes unsaid. Mimiko doesn't move her head, nor her hands, nor any part of her till five minutes has passed.
She faints out from pure fright, saliva overflowing from her ajar mouth.
He estimates the actual fight he would've had with Jogo would've lasted a good three minutes and a lot of bloodshed and decimated corpses. And the fight with Mahoraga a good ten. Jogo never had a real chance anyway, and despite it being a really good fight (highly animated too, looking back on it), he didn't want to go through that trouble.
Sukuna strolls the empty corridors of the station in peace.
His viscous energy's rolling off his figure like an angry wave, so no low cursed spirits even dare to exist near him. He makes his way up through the flight of stairs, jumping six steps at a time until he remembers––
Megumi’s gonna die.
Sukuna halts, movements ceasing. He lands on the top of the stairs with agility; eyes flickered straight ahead at the reminder.
That’s right, that’s riiiight. Didn’t Megumi summon Mahoraga right after Toji killed himself? Then that blond bitch must be there… oh, oh fuck.
He has to fight Mahoraga if he wants Megumi to live (which he has to). Because he's an outsider or some bullshit.
Sukuna brings his hands to his face and leans his head backwards, groaning into it.
Hell no.