(A/N: Grammarly keeps trying to correct 'owl' to 'bowl')
"Joesph Joestar?" Matteo replied.
"The trickiest sorcerer I've ever met. Now!" Sukuna called out, quickly putting his hand in his chest, "This is what you wanted to avoid, right?" he said, pulling out his heart with a grunt of pain.
'Yeah, yeah, it was.' Matteo thought, looking at Itadori's heart in Sukuna's hand.
Sukuna had just taken Itadori's life hostage, things just got much more complicated.
Seeing that Sukuna had taken his four eyes off of him, Fushiguro put his hands together.
"Nue," he called out.
From his shadow emerged a large orange owl with electricity arcing around its wings. As Nue flew towards Sukuna, Fushiguro raised his hands and ran towards him as well.
"Oh, the Shinigami user wants to fight?" Sukuna said, turning to Fushiguro, "Come on! Let's use all this open space!" he yelled.
Fushiguro closed in before Nue, and he threw multiple punches at Sukuna, which he easily dodged with his hands in his pockets. Fushiguro then kicked Sukuna; the kick hit Sukuna, but it had no effect.
How interesting, you can use your Shinigami, but you still come at me yourself," Sukuna commented as Fushiguro and Nue began to pincer Sukuna.
Sukuna backed up, dogging each of Nue's swipes and blocking each of Fushiguro's punches. Seeing this, Matteo ran towards Sukuna.
Even with two different people and a Shinigami attacking Sukuna, he effortlessly dodged and blocked. But there was something wrong.
"I didn't know you were this weak!" Sukuna commented while blocking Matteo's punches with his a few of his fingers.
It was very odd. When Matteo attacked Sukuna, he felt some odd resistance. It felt as if something was pushing him away, or as if something was pulling him back.
'What is this?' Matteo wondered.
Matteo moved back; he noticed that it was easier than normal to do so. It felt strangely familiar. He needed to figure out what was happening and fast.
Testing something, Matteo dashed to Fushiguro while he was fighting Sukuna. As Matteo got closer, he noticed that he was slowing down.
"Get Nue to throw me above!" Matteo asked.
Quickly, Nue swooped around before grabbing Matteo and pulling him above Fushiguro and Sukuna.
"Oh? I thought the Shinigami was the only one who flies?" Sukuna taunted while putting his hand out to grab Matteo as he fell.
But Matteo didn't fall; he floated above Sukuna and Fushiguro. The gravity pulling him down was equal to the force pulling him up.
And as Matteo floated there, he realized what the mysterious force was.
'Gravity, fate itself is fighting to have what's supposed to happen play out, and gravity it it's weapon!' Matteo thought while smiling.
'Another cursed technique? Is it similar to what JoJo did?' Sukuna wondered while blocking Fushiguro's attacks.
However, as Sukuna and Fushiguro fought, they moved around, causing Matteo to fall onto the ground.
Sukuna quickly attacked Matteo, seeing that he stopped whatever weird thing he was doing. He didn't want to risk Matteo doing more weird things and slipping out of his grasp.
Unable to dodge, Matteo was forced to take Sukuna's punch dead on, sending him flying once more.
With a raised eyebrow, Sukuna held his fist up. Surrounding his fist were bubbles, bubbles that were filled with Sukuna's own cursed energy.
'He took the cursed energy of my attack through his bubbles.' Sukuna realized.
But that wasn't all, Sukuna also noticed that as he punched Matteo, there was some force pulling him back.
Standing up from Sukuna's punch, Matteo began to understand more and more.
The force of gravity is applied to all who try to go against fate. It pulls them either away or towards their fate. Matteo was obviously not supposed to be there, and since the fight was so important, fate tried to pry Matteo away from it.
But Sukuna was only supposed to attack Fushiguro, which caused Fushiguro to impress Sukuna. And so, Sukuna wasting time by attacking Matteo was also going against fate, and so Sukuna was subject to the same forces that affected Matteo.
Sukuna, however, was unable to know the true scope of the gravity. After all, everything that was happening was due to cause and effect, not due to some overarching story.
"An interesting trick," Sukuna said, looking at the cursed energy-filled bubbles.
The bubbles began to lose their form; the cursed energy held within the bubbles was pushing to get out.
"Hmm?" Sukuna wondered.
The cursed energy caused a single tear in one of the bubbles, causing a chain reaction of the other cursed energy-filled bubbles also popping, which caused what can best be described as a cursed energy explosion.
'I can do that? Nice' Matteo thought, looking up.
But the King of Curses was left without a scratch. And as Matteo looked closer at Sukuna, he noticed that he wasn't even infusing his body with cursed energy.
He was literally just built different.
As Sukuna looked at Matteo with a smile, Matteo realized that he wasn't sure how many options he had left.
While the explosion was something, it was a more spur-of-the-moment action on Matteo's part. Along with that, his cursed energy level had yet to recover. The gravity thing was nice, but it wasn't consistent.
And if Matteo failed, Sukuna would then be interested in Fushiguro, starting a large chain of events.
'Think, what do I know?' Matteo thought.
It was then that Matteo got an idea. It was a stupid idea. A dumb, stupid idea. But Matteo thought that it just may work.
"Fushiguro!" Matteo called out while trying to beckon him over.
Seeing that Matteo was trying to tell him something, Fushiguro maneuvered around Sukuna the best he could to end up near Matteo.
"You have a plan?" Fushiguro wondered.
"Run," Matteo said, putting a hand on Fushiguro, "We just need time for Itadori to come back, and if we're far away from each other, the longer Sukuna will take to attack both of us," he explained.
"That's a horrible plan," Fushiguro responded.
"Just run, and if you feel something pulling you back, jump on Nue and fly," Matteo replied.
Luckily for Matteo, Fushiguro was tired enough not to argue.
Fushiguro then dashed towards Sukuna, throwing a punch.
Sukuna simply tilted his head, dodging the punch. Fushiguro then took the momentum from the punch and kept running.
"You're giving up already?" Sukuna said, turning around.
"Ryomen Sukuna!" Matteo called out.
Sukuna turned around, looking at Matteo with each of his four eyes.
They sat in silence, Matteo dared not to move an inch, and Sukuna couldn't be bothered to move his pinky.
"I think your friend is far enough, or was that not your plan?" Sukuna asked, a smile spreading across his face.
"A part of it," Matteo admitted.
As quickly as he could, Matteo made two normal bubbles and threw them at Sukuna.
The bubbles were made of such little cursed energy that Sukuna didn't even bother to dodge them. However, as the bubbles reached Sukuna, they faded into him.
"Interesting, so you used my lack of cursed energy infused in my body to put your bubbles into me," Sukuna noted, "Now what are you going to do? Pierce my lungs? Attack my spine? Or maybe stop my heart," he said as he put a hand to the hole where his heart should be.
Matteo simply pointed a finger down.
"Now what are you-"
Damage to Sukuna was temporary at best. With reverse cursed technique, he could heal anything that Matteo could do to him.
But, for all of Sukuna's regeneration, the King of Curses still felt pain.
"Soft and Wet!" Matteo called out, "Twist his balls!"
Sukuna collapsed on the ground, his hands shooting straight to his lower abdomen.
"You stupid lower life insignificant-" Sukuna began to say while standing up.
"Again!"
Once more, Sukuna crumbled on the ground.
Time was not on Sukuna's side; all Matteo had to do was wait and hope Sukuna didn't pull out anything stupid.
"Enough," Sukuna said.
Sukuna didn't even move his hand; with a flick of his finger, two of Matteo's fingers were severed.
"Shit!" Matteo said, immediately falling to the ground.
It was the worst pain that Matteo had ever felt. The only thing that comforted him was that if he could hold on to his fingers, he could probably get them reattached by Shoko's reversed cursed technique.
"For all the pain you inflicted on me, you collapsed quite fast," Sukuna said while walking to Matteo.
"Shut up," Matteo said, grabbing his fingers.
"Are those your final words? Well, I've heard much worse," Sukuna said with a laugh.
Sukuna brought his hand up, but before he could finish off Matteo, a giant white snake grabbed Sukuna and dragged him into the air.
"You were supposed to run," Matteo said.
"I'm not letting you sacrifice your life for nothing," Fushiguro said while Nue began to attack Sukuna with electricity.
"Harsh," Matteo said while smiling despite the pain.
But Matteo wasn't the only one smiling, up in the air, Sukuna was smiling. With a flex of his muscles, Sukuna burst the snake into several pieces.
Seeing this, Fushiguro prepared to summon another Shinigami.
"What did I say again?" Sukuna asked, grabbing Fushiguro by his shirt, "Let's use all this open space!" he yelled out while throwing Fushiguro away.
Sukuna then quickly jumped to where he threw Fushiguro.
In response, Matteo simply fell on his back.
Sukuna had just launched Fushiguro; even if Matteo got up then and ran towards them, there was no way he would make it in time.
Fushiguro will probably try to summon Mahoraga, and Sukuna would become interested in Fushiguro.
'God dammit, I failed' Matteo thought to himself while lying in the grass.
But, even with his current failure, it wasn't over. There was still more to do, and no one's going to die permanently from this.
A car then pulled up, Matteo recognized it as the car that brought him to the dentation center.
"You okay!" the assistant asked.
"No, but I'll get better."