Nanako and Mimiko stood side by side in the dim, ruined corridor of Shibuya Station, their attention fixed entirely on the unconscious body lying before them.
Yuji Itadori, Sukuna's vessel, wasn't moving, his chest rising only faintly, his clothes torn and stained from the fight he had barely survived. The air around him still carried remnants of violence.
There were more holes on the boy's body than the two girls combined. Blood pooled beneath him, and the boy's entire right shoulder was gone, completely dislocated and injured to the degree that he might think if he even so much as moved it, the entire arm was going to come falling off of him.
They waited.
At first, they had expected something immediate—some violent transformation, some overwhelming surge of cursed energy that would tear the silence apart and announce the return of the King of Curses.
And to their credit, it did happen. The moment they fed the unconscious boy the one Sukuna finger in their possession, the cursed energy erupted out of him like a flood. It was malicious and overwhelming to the point they wished to just bolt out from there.
However, they stayed, after all there was a reason they were betting with their lives here.
But after that surge, there was nothing. Instead, what they received was a brief, suffocating pulse of malicious energy that sent a chill crawling down their spines, sharp and unmistakable in its presence.
Leading to dying down into nothingness.
The energy faded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind only the same heavy quiet.
Nanako frowned, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Yuji's unmoving form. "That's it?" she muttered, the irritation in her voice barely concealed. "We fed him the finger. Why isn't anything happening?"
Mimiko tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable but her grip tightening around the rope in her hands. "Maybe it takes time," she replied, though there was little confidence in her tone. "Or maybe… he's resisting."
Nanako clicked her tongue, clearly dissatisfied with that answer. "Resisting? It's Sukuna. How is he still in control after that?" She kicked lightly at a piece of debris near her foot, her frustration growing with every passing second of silence. "This is pointless. We should have seen something by now."
Mimiko didn't respond immediately, her gaze still fixed on Yuji as if expecting him to suddenly sit up at any moment, like a big bad villain ready to tear them apart on first sight.
That didn't sound like something she wished to face, but unfortunately for both of them, that was exactly what they needed currently.
But the boy remained stubbornly, almost painfully human. No change in him.
Inside Yuji's body though, the situation was much different.
Sukuna sat upon his throne of bone and shadow, one hand resting lazily against his cheek as he observed the girls with an expression of complete disinterest.
"Pathetic fools. Do they really think one finger is enough... if it was that easy to get control over this damn brat's body, then I would long have done so." He scowled.
A low, almost inaudible scoff escaped him as his fingers tapped idly against the arm of his throne. For a fleeting moment, the thought crossed his mind to simply lash out, to send a dismantle tearing through the body from within and carve those two nuisances apart where they stood.
Not like he can, but the thought was all that counted, right?
The brat had to go ahead and lose against that curse spirit and now he lay dying. It was infuriating.
Part of him wished to heal the brat, because that would be saving himself, at least part of him. But the satisfaction of seeing the brat dying was also enticing.
So he waited. Just as he always did. There wasn't much to do inside the brat anyway.
If only Yuji Itadori weren't someone who could have suppressed him, or better yet the brat wasn't his vessel to begin with. It was clear that curses weren't very affectionate towards his vessel.
Time passed, he waited for those girls to give up or finally kill the brat, when suddenly a surge of cursed energy rippled through Shibuya, distant yet unmistakable.
He, of course, instantly sensed it and his blood boiled. He knew that cursed energy.
"Fushiguro Megumi." He grumbled, earlier irritation of being kept like a prisoner inside this brat's body turning into anger.
Clearly, he wished to go there and see what that was about.
He had sensed many things tonight—curses, sorcerers, fragments of chaos scattered across the city—but this was different. One of Fushiguro Megumi's shikigami, surely, but this was different. He could tell.
There was a weight to it, a presence that stood apart from the rest. And that intrigued Sukuna.
"…Tch...useless brat!" he once again cursed the annoying human who was currently his vessel. The first thing he was going to do when he got control over this body was to find a better vessel.
-x-
[MC POV]
My eyes were fixed at the non-existent stars up in the night sky, no doubt, city skies are the worst possible places for stargazing.
The tall buildings already obstructed much of the view, and the little sky I had in my blurry vision, I couldn't spot a single star there.
As for why stargaze?
Because my body wasn't capable of doing anything besides that. Once I won, my domain cracked open, I just let go. Fell back with a thud, my body giving out.
I just enjoyed the feeling of a hard-fought victory, the cold wind of Shibuya on my regenerating skin with relaxation.
Yeah, I was healing. Slow, but it was there. Winning in a death trade does that to me. Perhaps it was the added vitality from the opponent or something else, I couldn't care less until it fixed me enough to make my way back to Maki and the others.
"They have a healer with them, right? What was her name... hmm.
Shomo, Kosho, Shoko... something along those lines. Just gotta reach her and I will be fine. At least I hope so."
Now that I had time to think upon, I had realised how easy it was to recall memories after hitting a bunch of black flashes. Those punches were really blessed.
Unfortunately, I still couldn't remember my name, shame, since I now at least know in whose body I was reincarnated.
I was a nobody, honestly. No one I remembered from the show, though that can't be said with much confidence seeing I don't happen to have all the information about Jujutsu Kaisen.
Still, I would rather use my own name when I recall it instead of the person whose body I was occupying. When I recall it, that is.
The soothing feeling of my body slowly repairing was incredible. It didn't fix everything, of course, but at least my body was somewhat in working condition now. That was enough.
The knockout after having my life threatened on three different occasions after coming to this world, and that too just under half an hour, was more than enough to make me lie there till morning if I had a choice.
Unfortunately, I didn't.
A strong cursed energy signature, which I was getting rather good at spotting by now, broke my rest, bringing me back from dreamland to reality, reminding me that this place was still just as dangerous.
I slowly, with much effort, stood back up, every part of my body protesting, begging for more rest, but I pushed through nonetheless.
My eyes first fixed on the direction from which the energy signature came, bad luck, there was a huge building in the middle to see anything.
Good luck, because I don't intend to check whatever that was out anyway. If that were where trouble was, meaning it's the other way where I have to start walking.
Before my feet lifted, my eyes fell on a scroll on the ground.
My instincts told me it was trouble. That and my newly obtained senses about cursed energy, both.
Before I had a chance to find anything about this in my memory, which was much better now,
I heard something.
"Are those wolves howling?"
Then silence. The sound came from the exact place I sensed that cursed energy from earlier.
"F*ck it, I'm getting out of—"
Crash...
Before I could complete it, the said building shielding me from whatever the hell was going on on the other side of it tore open and something blasted out of it, flying past me, engraving itself into the building behind me.
Everything happened so fast that I couldn't even react.
Turning back, I saw a big crater and in the middle a bloodied figure. A blond boy with markings on his face passed out. I could especially see the last of the marks from his face withering away.
And then, a chill ran down my spine when I heard strong, heavy footsteps from behind.
Every fibre of my being told me not to look, don't look, but with shaky, robotic shifts of my neck, I turned.
And what I saw left me hollow to my soul.
A giant figure, with wings coming out of his face. Divine, almost. A big ass sword attached to his hand and a wheel.
Oh, that wheel.
And that grin on that monster's face.
My memories, for the first time, had to strain to know what I was facing. And knowing that just intensified the dread.
From my core, I just cursed.
"DAMN YOU, FUSHIGURO..!"
xXx
A/N : Man we are almost 2000 stones in. Almost, but damn.
I never hit that much. Like ever !
Feeling super blessed that you guys like this fic so much. Thank you very much for all this support, guys. Means a lot to me.
BTW, If you missed out, then allow me to put focus on the boy's marking which were fading away, and think why suddenly this Miraculous disaster could have taken place.
And of, I'm not letting MC catch a break. I'm downright bad.
Would appreciate stones if you can spare any. Thank you.
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