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It’s kind of silly, now that he thinks about. Silly and absolutely stupid. Brain-dead kind of stupid. But it sounded fun at the time, and he’s anything but a quitter. And in his defense, he didn’t think the kids would manage to just—peel the seals off.
A gross oversight, in retrospect.
Yuji blinks at the sorcerer, doing his best impression of gullible-non-sorcerer, and says, “It’s all good, I’m still me!” With his hands up placatingly. Like he didn’t just slice a curse into neat little cubes because it annoyed him enough to consume one of his own fingers again.
Fushiguro grits his teeth, eyes darting all over his face like he’s trying to decide whether—
“Yuji Itadori, under jujutsu regulations I must hereby exorcise you!”
Yeah, he laid it on kinda thick with the whole possession thing. Maybe the faux struggle between him and “Sukuna” should have been more subtle? Less shirt ripping and proclaiming “well, it’s my body!” and more “urgh, no, stop, it hurts, blergh, death, vomit, yada-yada”.
“Please don’t,” Yuji sighs, because Fushiguro looks one stiff breeze away from keeling over, and he’s just not in the business of beating people when they’re down.
…not anymore.
The kid looks torn, clearly reluctant to make a decision with the life of an innocent high schooler on the line. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, damn.
“Yo,” a new voice suddenly says, "You look rough.”
Yuji blinks and there’s another sorcerer beside the first one, with obnoxiously styled hair and a black blind fold hiding half of his face. And curse energy that feels akin to a torrential ocean a few seconds away from drowning the world.
Like the night couldn’t get any worse.
“So, what’s the situation?”
“Gojo- what are you doing here?”
Gojo. The six eyes. Of bloody course. Yuji would ask what kind of crime he committed in a past life to deserve this, but the answer would be self-explanatory.
“I was wondering what’s taking you so look, and the higher ups are getting twitchy about their precious cursed object. So, where is it?”
Yuji lifts his hand up slowly, because there's no use trying to lie when the witness is right there, “Uh, I ate it.”
Gojo’s head snaps to him, something like incredulity in the slant of his mouth, “For real?”
He shrugs, sheepish, “Yup. Sorry.”
He’s not. That curse was seriously pissing him off. He actually liked the paranormal club and its members, so it sucks that throwing them a bone—or his finger, in this case—turned out to be a mess of catastrophic proportions.
Gojo tilts his head and walks closer until they’re face to face. Then closer still, until Yuji can practically feel the heavy weight of six eyes crawling all over him.
He bristles, equal parts annoyed and flustered by the intrusion of his personal space. He’s killed people for lesser offenses than this.
…A long time ago.
And then the man laughs and takes a step back, “Damn, it really did combine with you! That’s hilarious.”
Well, it’s his finger. No real surprise there.
“Anything feel off? Your body being weird?”
Yuji shakes his head, relieved that his identity is still relatively safe, “Nope, all good.”
Better than good. With the return of a fraction of his powers he can finally apply some much needed reverse cursed technique to the horrible kink in his neck. Small blessings, and all that.
“Nice, can you switch with Sukuna?”
Yuji blinks.
“What?”
Surely, he hadn’t heard that right. There’s no way any sane sorcerer would deliberately try to set him loose on the world just because of, what, curiosity? Mania? Stupidity?
“What!?” Fushiguro echoes, looking about as incredulous as Yuji feels.
“Switch,” Gojo repeats slowly, twirling his finger to accentuate the notion with that infuriating smile still firmly in place, “With Sukuna. You know, the curse whose finger you just swallowed.”
What the fuck?
“Are you crazy!?” Fushiguro echoes his exact same thoughts, looking quite a bit more murderous than he did since this whole fiasco started.
“Nah,” Gojo says. Like a totally not-crazy person. Like he didn’t just suggest Yuji let out the big bad King of Curses for playtime. Which… wouldn’t go as catastrophic as they probably expect, true. But also- he thought his reputation kind of preceded him enough to warrant a little more caution than that.
Not that Yuji can say as much, so he settles for a weak, “Sukuna…?”
“The curse the finger belongs to. Sukuna Ryomen. You know, the one who’s probably fuming inside your head right now?” Gojo raps his knuckles against his own head for emphasis.
More like internally-panicking-while-employing-the-new-age-euphemism-of-fake-it-til-you-make-it, but okay.
“Oh, uh, yeah. He’s kinda loud. Complaining about personal space and all that jazz. Got some mean insults. Definitely no fan.”
“Phew,” Gojo mimes a shot to the heart, “I’m devastated. But come on, let him tell me to my face!”
Yuji’s eye twitches.
“…are you sure?”
“No!”
“Absolutely!”
This is shaping up to be worse than the time he almost—by accident! —leveled the school. But Yuji wants to reiterate, he’s no quitter. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Okay, I guess.” A smidgen of collateral damage should suffice to drive the point home that they shouldn’t want “Sukuna” around, right? Totally doable. Maybe just a flick of his finger or something. A little bit of dismantleexpertly applied to the ugly roof to give the principal a good incentive to give it a makeover…
“Great! Ten seconds should be enough.” Gojo sing-songs, doing stretches that look more like he’s trying to fracture his spine. “And don’t worry, I’m the strongest.”
It physically hurts to refrain from rolling his eyes.
Sorcerers really don’t change no matter the day and age. Although this one might actually prove to be a challenge with his fancy techniques… hm, Yuji likes to try out new things. So, why not.
“After ten seconds you can come back, okay?”
Yuji closes his eyes, tapping into that small ember of power he’d regained and exhales deeply when he feels the marks spread over his body like a blanket, cursed energy lashing out in a corrosive pulse as his second set of eyes opens and throws everything into stark relief.
“Yo,” Gojo says, head cocked, a playful smile on his lips as he regards Yuji with practiced nonchalance.
Yuji cracks his neck, rotating his shoulder with exaggerated movements, “What do you want, sorcerer?” He cringes at his own voice, resisting the urge to gag at the rough feeling it leaves in his throat. This body is sonot made for the whole King of Curses thing. He was perfectly content being a regular human for a lifetime. Maybe even two. Yuji likes being a regular human. He likes being liked. Likes getting invited to karaoke nights and watching stupid movies, and having people not run screaming at the sight of him; likes not being feared.
He likes simply existing more than he ever liked the carnage.
Well, no. Not exactly. He loved the carnage. Being young and full of anger is a scary combination when all you know are shades of violence, but still, it’s the principle of things. He’s changed.
“You’re surprisingly civil,” Gojo muses, “And rude. Not even a hello, how are you? Or maybe some death threats?”
This time, Yuji doesn’t refrain from rolling his eyes. All four of them. “I know what you are. The power of one of my fingers isn’t nearly enough to defeat you. Never mind doing it in ten seconds. I’d rather save my energy.”
Gojo seems almost disappointed by that, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his uniform. “Oh? Is the big bad King of Curses scared of little old me? Sheesh, you’re gonna make me blush.”
The snort is involuntary but no less amused.
Audacious, this one.
“Sure.” He leans sideways, eyes finding the tense line of Fushiguro’s silhouette behind the white haired man—strategically placed to divert any potential attacks. Protective.
Interesting.
Fushiguro grits his teeth when Yuji’s eyes meet his, instinctual fear warring with innate stubbornness as he keeps his hands poised, ready to call upon his cursed technique like he isn’t wobbling precariously. Like he isn’t pale. Worryingly so. Enough to make a sliver of unease curl through Yuji’s gut. Humans are fragile, and he really doesn’t want this one to die. Who knows if that curse caused some sort of internal trauma? What if he’s bleeding out on the inside or something?
“I think-” he starts, stops, remembers he’s supposed to be evil, and says, “Your little friend doesn’t need any more death threats. He already looks like he’s half there.”
Gojo’s mouth opens without a sound as he wastes a few precious seconds to simply face in Yuji’s direction with tangible bewilderment before he turns and points over his shoulder, stage whispering, “You sure that’s Sukuna?”
Fushiguro makes a sound strangely reminiscent of an angry swan, “How the hell should I know!? You’re the teacher!”
“…right.”
Yuji watches them bicker for a short moment, counting down the seconds while wondering whether he can get away with using reverse cursed technique on Fushiguro…. But probably not. He’s already pushing it about fifty yards too far with the whole non-murder thing he’s doing.
“-elling me you could have mixed them up?!”
Three seconds.
“Well, he’s a lot less homicidal than anticipated. Hey, Sukuna!”
Two.
Yuji blinks, “Huh?”
“See? He’s Sukuna. He reacted to his name.”
One.
“Gojo, I swear to all things-”
Finally.
Smothering his cursed energy feels like wrestling a hurricane into a tiny box. Like folding a part of himself over and over and over until the roaring fire of it could fit under a microscope, and then shoving it to a place deep inside his chest where it settles uncomfortably along his rib cage, threatening to burst. And then his second pair of eyes slip shut and reduce the world to dull shades of color.
Yuji staggers momentarily blindsided by the partial loss of vision he’s learned to ignore in his day-to-day life but now makes the difference all the more jarring.
“Itadori…?” Fushiguro asks carefully.
“Yeah,” he groans, covering his eyes with one hand until the sudden darkness sends odd starburst shapes across his eyelids, “Just- gimme a second. Kinda hurts.”
This is why he hates this sort of thing. This is why he went all out with sealing his powers and leaving them to be locked up somewhere safe. Shit, weren’t sorcerers meant to have this stuff handled? Why’s it suddenly come full circle again to being his problem?
“Huh,” Gojo mumbles thoughtfully, “That really is interesting.”
What’s interesting? Is what Yuji wants to snap irritably—because that tone of voice absolutely does not bode well—but when he forces his hand away from his face he’s met with a flash of white and black and the strange sensation of fingers tapping gently against his forehead, a small burst of cursed energy, and-
I should have thrown a building at him, Yuji thinks mournfully right before sleep pulls him under.
Life is strange, and Yuji wants to have a refund on his life insurance policy.
He fully expected to wake up— dead. Or as a curse. A real curse. Calamity made flesh, maybe. Or thrown all the way back into the Heian era. Instead, he’s greeted with a room warded to kingdom come, a frankly ridiculous amount of talisamns, and a face that’s entirely too cheerful to be talking about “delayed executions” like it’s an early Birthday present.
“Once you’ve consumed all of Sukuna’s fingers…” Gojo mimes a cut across his neck, smiling brightly, “It’ll be over. But, hey! Until then I might know a way for you to help a lot of people, make it worthwhile. Sweet deal, if you ask me.”
It’s a horrible deal. Yuji isn’t quite as adept at social norms as he’d like, but he’s pretty sure that condemning a perceived fifteen-year-old to certain death is ethically questionable, regardless of whose soul he’s supposedly harboring. But Jujutsu society has always worked a little different than the general populace, and Yuji knows firsthand that they wouldn’t shy away from killing an entire group of teenagers in cold blood if it served “the greater good”.
And yet, Satoru Gojo had apparently gone out of his way to keep the sword of Damocles over Yuji’s neck from swinging down. Why?
The prospect of being on the other side of the story for once, though, of working with sorcerers instead of against them, is kind of exhilarating. Novel. Fun. Perhaps the why isn’t so important when faced with the opportunity of a lifetime.
Perhaps like this he can use his powers for something other than blood shed.
“So, what do you say?”
Yuji grins, all teeth.
“Yes!”