Yuji didn't move.
Every instinct in his body, ones he had spent centuries refining to a razor's edge, screamed at him to act, to move, and to fight. It was yelling at him to put distance between himself and the thing standing in front of him.
But he didn't.
Because the man standing before him wasn't the same creature he remembered, at least not fully.
He was tall, roughly the same height as Yuji, with a build that was leaner but no less imposing. His pink hair, styled similarly to Yuji's, swept back but slightly longer, with none of the grey streaks that time had marred Yuji's own. Black markings traced along his face and down his neck, the very same patterns that had been burned into Yuji's memory.
There were other differences to the man.
Two eyes, not four. Same with his arms, two instead of four. His face resembled Yuji's own but was distinctly different, with a sharper jaw and narrower eyes. Despite all this, the expression on his face was one Yuji was too familiar with.
He wore a dark kimono top, loosely tied over fitted pants and a pair of sandals.
He looked like a man, but Yuji knew deep down that there was something deeper.
"You're still as disgusting as the day you were born, Brat."
At those words, Yuji's jaw had tightened. The six souls inside him had gone completely silent.
A few seconds passed, with the morning street still being quiet, minus the handful of early risers passing by without paying the two any attention. The two pink-haired men having a staring contest wasn't the strangest thing in this city.
"Sukuna." Yuji finally said. His voice was level and controlled, but there was a layer of tension beneath it that he couldn't mask.
"Oh? No screaming? No tears? No righteous declaration about how you'll stop me?" Sukuna mocked, hands in his kimono's sleeves as he tilted his head, his smirk widening, "You really have gotten old."
Yuji ignored the pointed jabs, "What are you doing here?"
"Standing. Breathing. Enjoying the morning air." Sukuna spread his arms in a wide gesture, before putting them in his sleeves once again. "What does it look like?"
"It looks like you tracked me down to the exact street I'm staying on." Yuji's eyes didn't leave Sukuna's. He had other questions as well, such as how he was here in the first place, but since Yuji was also in this world, that was lower on his list of priorities. "So, I'll ask again. What are you doing here?"
The smirk didn't waver, but something behind Sukuna's eyes shifted. A flicker of something that wasn't just amusement.
"Walk with me." Sukuna said. It was a request, but it also wasn't a command. The tone sat in between.
Yuji stared at him for a long beat before stepping forward and falling into stride beside him.
The two walked in silence for several minutes, heading down the Northwest Main Street as the city slowly woke up around them.
Neither of them spoke. Yuji kept his hands in his pockets, his senses spreading outward and locking onto Sukuna's, keeping an eye out for anything that would stand out.
Sukuna himself walked with a casual, almost lazy gait, with eyes half closed as he took in the city around him.
To anyone watching, they might have been mistaken for relatives. The similar hair color, the comparable builds, even the way they moved shared a similar quality to them.
The very thought made Yuji's stomach turn.
Sukuna was the first to break the silence.
"This city is interesting, isn't it?" he said, his voice low enough that only Yuji could hear. "Gods walking the streets alongside mortals. The entire structure of civilization built around a hole in the ground that spits out monsters. And not a single person with the power to actually threaten anything of consequence."
"There are people stronger than you'd think." Yuji said, almost out of reflex.
Sukuna scoffed, "Stronger than they'd be without a God's blessing, maybe. But still fragile."
His tone was clinical and judgemental, like a butcher appraising livestock. But then he paused, and something shifted in him. "Then again, I've been wrong before."
Yuji glanced at him sharply. Sukuna acknowledging the possibility of being wrong was something he never expected.
They turned off the main street and onto a quieter road. There was a visible lack of people here, which Yuji assumed was deliberate on Sukuna's part.
"How long have you been down here?" Yuji asked him.
"I descended last night. Although, I'm guessing you probably sensed it, huh?" Sukuna shot Yuji a side glance, but the man stayed silent.
"So, you're a God now? The restriction?"
"Naturally. The moment I set foot in this realm, the seal locked into place." Sukuna flexed his hand, looking at it with an expression that mixed curiosity with irritation. "In the Upper Realm, I could have levelled a mountain range without effort. Down here, I'm reduced to the physical capabilities of an ordinary human, trash."
"And yet you descended anyway."
"I had my reasons."
The silence that followed was palpable.
"Why are you here, Sukuna?" Yuji asked, this time, the question carried a different weight.
Sukuna stopped walking. They ended up in a small plaza, empty except for a fountain at its centre that trickled water out into its basin.
He turned to face Yuji, no smirk present on his face, but his eyes were sharp.
"You defeated me."
Three simple words, spoken without fanfare or malice. Just a statement of face.
Yuji said nothing, his hands in his pockets as he stared back at Sukuna.
"For you, it must have been a few centuries ago, for me, it was millennia. You and the collection of ants you called allies, found a way to put me down. I won't pretend I wasn't impressed." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Or furious."
"You tried to consume the world."
"I tried to live on my own terms. The world simply happened to be in the way." Sukuna waved a hand dismissively, though even the gesture carried a weight to it. "But that's not the point. After you… dispatched of me, I found myself somewhere… else."
He paused, looking up at the sky above Orario.
"Here, the Upper Realm. Tenkai, they call it. I woke up as I usually am, not in this pathetic form, among other Gods and Goddessed, with memories of a life I don't fully remember living. A God of the Far East, born from the same myths and stories, but carrying the weight of everything I was before."
"You remember Earth."
"Of course I do, Brat." Sukuna met his eyes again, and for the first time, there wasn't any hunger, contempt or malice in his eyes. It was more akin to fatigue. "Every kill. Every fight. Every second of being trapped in that finger, and inside of you. Every person you held dear that I killed."
Yuji's fists clenched inside his pockets.
"I spent an even longer time in the Tenkai, doing nothing. Sitting on a throne built from the remnants of what I used to be, surrounded by blood and bone, stuck waiting. The Gods and Goddesses up there are a miserable bunch." Sukuna's voice had traces of scorn in them. "And then I felt you. Not here, not on this world, but the resonance of you arriving. I couldn't confirm it at first, but the more you used cursed energy, the more familiar and nostalgic it all was. What's worse is familial ties I can feel connecting us, it makes me want to hurl."
"The feeling is mutual."
Sukuna scoffed at Yuji's reply as they descended into silence again, only accompanied by the sound of water trickling out from the fountain.
"I descended because I wanted to see what you'd become, if you still held the same disgusting values you once did. And because…" He paused, a smirk returning to his face but it was thinner and more controlled, "I got bored."
'There it is'
Yuji thought to himself. Those last words resembled the Sukuna he knew. He might have been dressed in new clothes and speaking with more restraint than Yuji has ever known him for, but the core was the same. Boredom was the only thing that had ever truly moved Ryomen Sukuna.
"I'm not going to fight you." Yuji said, flat and final.
Sukuna scoffed, "I'm not asking you. Not yet, anyway." He reached into his Kimono and produced a folded piece of parchment, holding it between two fingers.
Yuji looked at it but didn't take it.
"I registered with the Guild this morning. Sukuna Familia, newly established." His smirk widened at the absurdity of his own words. "A God needs followers. I need at least one to make it official."
This was the first time Yuji's expression changed, as his face scrunched up in disgust at the very idea. "You want me to join your Familia?"
"I want to offer you my Falna." Sukuna corrected, with the distinction being deliberate. "I know what you are. I know what you carry better than anyone in this world or any other. A God's blessing, applied to a body brimming with Cursed Energy? The results would be…" Sukuna didn't finish his words, but the smirk on his face was palpable as well as the look in his eyes.
"And you'd have a connection to me. Through the Falna."
"Naturally."
"And you'd be able to read my status. See my growth. Potentially influence my development." Yuji said in a measured tone.
Sukuna's eyes gleamed, "You've done your research."
"I paid attention." Yuji said frankly. He looked down at the piece of parchment then back to Sukuna's face.
"No."
Sukuna didn't look surprised. If anything, the smirk settled into something more genuine.
"Is this the part where you tell me you'll never trust me?"
"This is the part where I tell you I've spent over four hundred years learning to live without you attached to me. I'm not going backwards." Yuji met his gaze evenly. "Whatever you're doing here, whether it's genuine or another game, I'm not your piece ot play."
The silence that followed lasted longer than usual, with the two staring at each other, before it was broken apart by Sukuna's laughter.
It wasn't the cruel, mocking laughter he remembered from Shibuya, or from the final battle between them. It was quiet but carried an emotion he couldn't name, or perhaps he didn't want to.
"You really have changed." Sukuna said, folding the parchment and tucking it back into his Kimono. "The Yuji Itadori I knew would have been trembling right now."
"The Sukuna I knew wouldn't have asked."
Sukuna let out a breath through his nose before turning away. "The offer still stands. I'm staying at an inn near the Southern District. When you change your mind, and you will, come find me."
"I won't."
"We'll see, Brat. You should understand the burden he carried by now."
Sukuna walked away, his figure blending into the slowly growing crowd on the main street. His posture was relaxed, almost leisurely, like a man taking a morning walk with nothing on his mind.
Yuji watched his back until his pink hair disappeared around a corner.
He stood in the plaza for a long time after that, the fountain trickling beside him and the morning sun climbing higher.
His hands were still in his pockets, clenched into fists.
'He's different.'
Were the first thoughts that came to him, and that was a dangerous one. If Sukuna had truly changed, then Yuji couldn't rely on predicting his behaviour. The fact that Sukuna didn't break his restriction to throw down with him right away was already telling enough. For a moment, Yuji even considered breaking the taboo of killing a God right then and there, but he restrained himself.
He unclenched his fists, flexed his fingers and slowly breathed out through his nose.
Then he turned and walked opposite of Sukuna's direction.
For now, he needed to think.