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It was a calm, perfect day… for everyone else, but not for the King of Curses sitting inside his vessel.
Ever since his soul reincarnated from the crusted old finger on the rooftop that fateful night and exorcised the weak pathetic curse. He was ecstatic to gain a body, the freedom he longed for after a thousand years of solitude and isolation.
The blindfolded sorcerer was more of a nuisance than he thought, showing off and flaunting his form like Sukuna was an annoying pest in front of his… student.
What a pain.
And the body he found himself in wasn’t any better, a perfect cage to hold him and he couldn’t even take control of it!
Can I even get glasses here?
Sukuna squinted through the haze, wondering what did he ever do to deserve reincarnating in the world without a perfect vision.
And he was supposed to have four working EYES!
Then he heard it, the sound of something dropping into his domain with a loud splash of water. From the distance, Sukuna could vaguely see a figure standing and wobbling on his feet.
Yuuji froze on his feet and took a defensive step back. His eyes were wide and looking up at him, blinking at the curse that was sitting on the throne above.
'Is that... the brat?' Sukuna thought, as he tried desperately to focus his four eyes on the blurry blob. 'Why is his head so blurry? Is he a box? No, wait... is that a torso?'
"...Uh," Yuuji started hesitantly, his voice echoing in the vast bloody expanse. He slowly raised one hand in an awkward wave. "Gojo-sensei said you were going to slaughter me the second I came here... but... are you looking at me?"
Sukuna perked up and blinked before zero-ing in on the human that was standing on the surface of the water. "So you're my vessel. Figured, you'd look pathetic, but not this pathetic."
Refusing to break character or let this random teen know that couldn't even count his own fingers, and by the god he cannot even see what was even in front of his face, Sukuna made sure to look as undisturbed as possible.
Even though he couldn’t even see the slightest movements his vessel made. If there was a telegraph attack, he’d be too slow to counter either. Gah! What the hell?
Yuuji’s hand slowly lowered, his fingers twitching at his side. Every instinct in his body after being drilled in on by Gojo-sensei’s lectures shouted at him to stay on high alert. But the curse over there looked like… looked like a shrimp.
The sorcerer took half a step back, his shoulders tensing, but his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. He cupped a hand around his mouth, calling up toward the looming throne.
"I mean- I know I'm just a first-year, but 'pathetic'?" Yuuji yelled back, his voice echoing off the gigantic ribs arching over the domain. He squinted right back up at the throne, trying to figure out where Sukuna was actually looking, because the curse's gaze seemed to be locked in on Yuuji's vague location.
"Are you... talking to me, or to that pile of ribs over there?"
He pointed off to his side, then took a cautious step toward the center of the pool, raising a hand again so the blurry figure on the mountain might actually track him. Sukuna didn’t seem to notice he was waving his hand.
Yuuji pouted, ‘Is Sukuna ignoring him?’
"Look, if you're gonna slice me into pieces, shouldn't you at least look me in the eye first? …or, well, all four of them?" He placed his hands on his hips.
“You’re too boring for me to pay attention to,” Sukuna said with a relaxed wave of his hand, his eyes flickering to look at the figure down there. How far? He had no idea.
“I’m feeling merciful. Leave this place before I change my mind.”
Yuuji’s mouth twitched into an incredulous half-grin.
"Merciful?" Yuuji repeated, he was calling a bluff on that. "You're literally talking to a blank patch of wall, dude."
Sukuna was starting to hate his vessel more now.
He should just slice that head off of that brat’s body or throw him out like an unruly guest, but he wanted to know if it was something that he only had if his vessel also had a horrid vision.
“...” Sukuna just crossed his arms over his chest with an unimpressed frown.
Yuuji looked down at his feet, where thousands of ancient skulls were piled into jagged mounds submerged in the crimson water. A tiny mischievous idea clicked on in his head.
Gojo-sensei had warned him that Sukuna was an unfeeling, bloodthirsty demon who would butcher anyone in a split second, but right now, actually seeing and talking to the King of Curses. Now was his chance to mess around for all the annoying torment in his head.
Without taking his eyes off the throne, Yuuji crouched down, his fingers splashing into the shallow blood-water as he scooped up a heavy smooth bovine skull. He weighed it in his hand, feeling the solid, solid bone.
Gojo-sensei said don't drop my guard... but he didn't say anything about a reality check.
Yuuji wound his arm back like he was standing on the pitcher's mound in middle school, took aim right at the center of the dark shadow on the throne and let it fly. The skull whistled through the air, cutting a sharp path straight toward Sukuna's head.
"Heads up, Sukuna!" Yuuji shouted, folding his arms over his chest with a bright grin.
Sukuna squinted through the weird movements his vessel was making with his arm…? And then a blur of something white that got bigger and more noticeable as they flew closer.
“What-” he said just as he barely caught the offending item, but the last second reflex from years of fighting couldn’t even save him from losing himself to the momentum of the throw, coupled by placing his hand on the wrong skull to balance himself.
Sukuna accidentally tumbled down his own mountain of bones with a startled yelp, followed by a splash as he dropped near the bottom.
"Holy shit..." Yuuji breathed out, his eyes wide as saucers. His arms froze on his chest. He just hit the King of Curses with his own decoration and it landed.
The curse let out a quiet groan and bleerily tried to blink through the blobs of colors in his vision.
"Are you- pfft… are you okay down there, man?!" Yuuji called out, taking a few hasty splashes forward through the shallow red pool. He bent over, resting his hands on his knees as he peered into the misty water where Sukuna had crash-landed. "I didn't think you'd actually catch it with your face!"
Sukuna blinked a couple of times as Yuuji got near, laying on his back. He could actually see his vessel’s face now, a little. His amused expression and the beaming smile on his face while everything else blurred into the background.
So it was just him who had a bad vision.
“...I don’t need your pity,” Sukuna scowled, his face pulled into a frown before his clawed hand slashed through the air to swipe at Yuuji’s face near him.
Or at least where Yuuji’s nose had been a millisecond prior.
Yuuji’s reflexes kicked in and he instinctively threw his head back, taking a quick step backward through the red water. The sharp wind from the swipe rushed past his face, missing him by a mere centimeters.
"Whoa! Hey!" Yuuji barked out, his laughter instantly dying as he held his hands up in a defensive guard, his eyes wide. He stared down at Sukuna sprawled in the pool, still processing the split-second death swipe. "I'm not pitying you! You're the one who just took a dive off a mountain of bones!"
He took another cautious step back, keeping his distance now that Sukuna was close enough to actually aim. Yet, even from six feet away, Yuuji noticed the curse's four eyes squinting again, struggling to pin down Yuuji's precise silhouette against the dim crimson lighting of the shrine.
Yuuji tilted his head, his tone shifting from being defensive of an upcoming attack to bewilderment.
"Wait... can you literally only see me when I'm right in your face?" Yuuji asked, pointing a finger at his own chest, then slowly raising a second finger to test the theory.
"How many fingers am I holding up right now? Serious question."
Sukuna pushed himself up from the water and shoved his dripping pink hair back off his forehead. He blinked, trying to pinpoint the distinct outline of Yuuji’s raised hand. Yeah, no, he was not answering that. He pulled a face.
A snort escaped Yuuji's nose. He couldn't help it.
"You can't even tell, can you?!" Yuuji exclaimed, lowering his hand with a disbelief that completely and totally threw away his initial terror. "Oh man, Gojo-sensei made you sound like this unstoppable, all-seeing nightmare God! He said you were a force of nature! But you're just... super blind!"
He took two deliberate, noisy steps backward into the deeper part of the flooded shrine, letting the splash of the crimson water announce his new position.
"Alright, guess what number I'm holding up now," Yuuji taunted playfully, waving a hand in a broad arc from ten feet away, a wide grin spreading across his face as he waited to see how the legendary King of Curses would react to the obvious teasing.
What in the ever-loving flying Kenjaku was his vessel doing?
“What. A four?” Sukuna picked a random number just to get Yuuji to stop sprouting nonsense. It looked like a four.
And the brat looked ridiculous standing that far. He looked like a singular pink bean!
"Not even close! It was a two!" Yuuji shouted back, his voice ringing across the innate domain. A burst of laughter came from Yuji as he doubled over with a wheeze. "A two, Sukuna! You missed by double!"
How was he supposed to know?!?
Sukuna’s hands twitched at his side. He was going to do it. He was going to kick his vessel out of here.
Yuuji threw his arms out wide, taking another splashing step backward with a happy grin. Oh, this was too good.
"Man, Gojo-sensei is gonna lose his mind when I tell him about this," Yuuji snorted, wiping a tear of amusement from the corner of his eye. He raised his hands again, this time holding up a completely different gesture, though from this distance he was nothing more than a blurry pink smudge in the dim red lighting of the domain. "Alright, double or nothing! How many fingers now, Oh Mighty Calamity?"
“Zero, because you’ll have none,” Sukuna said flatly before swiping his fingers at the teen in a wide arc of Dismantle, cutting the other off and kicking him right out of the domain.
The tiny pink blob was cut into two.
Yuuji bolted straight up in his dorm bed, the volume of manga sliding off his nose and tumbling into his lap. He clutched at his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs as he just experienced dying by Sukuna’s technique, his breathing heavy as he looked around the quiet, dimly lit bedroom.
Holy shit. He lasted longer than he thought with Sukuna.
Yuuji sat there for a few seconds, blinking slowly into the dark as he rubbed the back of his neck, a slow bewildered grin gradually returning to his face.
"Man..." Yuuji muttered aloud to the empty room, shaking his head as he let out a disbelieving laugh. "Gojo-sensei is never gonna believe this."
The high-pitched hum of the vending machine outside the dorms vibrated through the floorboards as Yuuji practically threw his bedroom door open, shoving his feet into his red sneakers without even bothering to tie the laces.
He bolted down the wooden hallway and headed straight for the main common area.
"Sensei! Gojo-sensei!" Yuuji yelled, sliding around the corner into the lounge where Gojo was sprawling lazily across a beanbag chair, a half-eaten bag of sweet snacks resting on his chest while Megumi sat nearby at the low table, quietly reading a book.
Gojo raised his head up, tilting his head towards his student with a slow grin. "Whoa, calm down, Yuuji. What got you so excited?"
"It’s Sukuna!" Yuuji gasped, skidding to a halt right in front of them before pointing dramatically at his own face. "I was just in his domain! He pulled me in!"
Megumi instantly closed his book shut, his shoulders tense as his eyes flickered onto Yuuji with a sharp look on his face. Gojo's grin softened just a little, leaning forward in his beanbag as the atmosphere in the room became serious.
Yuuji rapidly blinked at his friend and teacher’s expressions.
"Did he try to force a pact?" Megumi demanded, standing up from the table. "Are you hurt? Did he do something to your soul?"
"No, no, listen!" Yuuji bounced on his feet, unable to wipe the ridiculous grin off his face. "Gojo-sensei, you lied to me! You said he was this terrifying, evil curse who sees everything and slaughters people instantly!"
Gojo tilted his head, a faint smirk tugging at his lips despite the tension. "He is, Yuuji. He’s the King of Curses. What did he do?"
"Sensei..." Yuuji leaned in close, dropping his voice into a low whisper as if he’s trying to share a limited edition snack across the street and didn’t want anyone else to know. "He's legally blind. The guy couldn't even see my fingers from ten feet away! I threw a cow skull at his head and he literally fell off his own mountain of bones!"
Megumi froze, staring at Yuuji as if his friend had suddenly started speaking in alien language.
"I took aim and everything!" Yuuji cheered, beaming as he mimed a pitcher's wind-up, mimicking what he did a couple of hours earlier.
"He tried to catch it, lost his balance on a loose skull, and went thump-thump-thump right down the pile! He sounded like a sack of potatoes!"
Gojo blinked once behind his blindfold, the bag of sweets slowly slipping an inch off his chest. "He... what?"