Chapter Text
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The late afternoon sun drags shadows from tall stadium lights into long, spidery lines on the ground. Too bright and too hot for the end of April, Megumi thinks, shading his eyes from glare. He isn’t much for heat. Of course, Sendai being northern, it’s cooler than Tokyo’s unrelenting heat. There are too many bodies writhing in the cloistered, slantwise buildings of the capital.
Megumi isn’t built for heat, or so Gojou likes to say, as though he has any right to poke at Megumi’s paleness with a complexion and hair that beats out copy paper.
Megumi’s grip tightens on his phone, still irritated by his teacher’s flippancy. Don’t come back ‘til you find it, hear?~ As if Megumi has any other leads besides skulking after remnant cursed energy around the school for hours on end. And what exactly is Gojou doing besides being oblique and typically unhelpful? Megumi doesn’t know, doesn’t care. He’s enjoying the brief reprieve from his teacher, as tedious as the stakeout is.
Having the entirety of Gojou’s (infinite) attention on him is exhausting. As the only first-year student (and Megumi suspects, the first guinea pig in Gojou’s science experiment he calls teaching), Gojou has been heaping attention on Megumi in between his other full-time job of being obnoxious to a fault and also whatever world-saving crap he gets up to as a sorcerer the rest of the time. He already can’t wait for the second first-year student to come, not because Megumi is lonely, but just to grant him some respite. He’s not sure he’ll make it to graduation after three years of Goujou-sensei otherwise…
He sighs, straightening from his crouch. Apparently, the year before them was a bumper crop with four whole students to boast of. Not unnatural that his year is slim pickings, but still.
Whatever. Megumi is here to do a job. Afterward, he will fade away from this place, like the lingering hatred from the cursed object.
Having already made a fairly wide circuit of the school, Megumi heads for the entrance to buy a cool barley tea before he plots his return to the hotel. Aside from the maybe-death on the rugby field, he hasn’t sensed more than the light tracings of the cursed object. The power is potent, to linger like it is, but there isn’t a strong indicator to tell him where to go next. No definite path forward.
He buys the tea, rolling the sweating bottle indulgently between his hands before he twists the cap and gulps. An old man’s drink Goujou usually teases him, or a dieting girl’s. Ugh. He really needs the second first year to come, before his brain is permanently filled with Goujou’s trash. Why did the other student have to have a family emergency and cause the delay? Is that selfish to say? Maybe not considering Gojou.
“That Itadori! I tell you, I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I see him next! He has some nerve not showing up today when the vice president came by like that.”
Two students, second or third years maybe, come by the vending machines. The girl punches in her coins. The boy behind her is consoling.
“At least Takagi-sensei cleared up the understanding about the club he joined. And it was kind of funny the way he barged in to challenge Itadori before he realized he wasn’t even here.”
The girl sighs. “I said it was okay to be a ghost member, but I didn’t think he’d take it so literally.”
“He might be sick, y’know?”
“With that kind of constitution? I doubt it!”
“Idiots don’t get sick or something?” They laugh.
Megumi’s phone vibrates. He checks it with trepidation. No, it wasn’t a useful tip or further information about the lead. Gojou Satoru updated his LINE story. A thumbnail shows Gojou mid-bite into a spongy plum desert at the hagi no tsuki souvenir stand. Megumi slams the dismiss button. Sure, his middle school homeroom teacher had his cell phone number for emergencies, but Gojou is too stylish to use the phone’s messaging app for useful texting and always buries stupid, important information in heaps of stickers and useless pictures of omiyage on his LINE. And Megumi needs that stupid information so he can’t block Gojou. He’s sure Gojou makes blocking him difficult as another power-play in his journey to annoy everyone to death as his part of the slow, heat death of the universe, but Megumi wishes his teacher, like, had another hobby. Maybe knitting, or something.
He pockets his phone. If someone did die at the Rugby field, he can check it out on the bus on the way back to the hotel. No reason to stick around here. Habit, or maybe instinct, has him flexing his cursed power once more, scanning the area.
He’s shocked when the girl and boy who are walking away from him light up in purple neon, hands glowing with the crime of touching the item. He doesn’t sense it on them, but it’s a lead at last.
“Hey!” He stumbles after them. They obligingly turn around, eyes curious.
Megumi shifts on his feet. He doesn’t really care for the interpersonal aspect of the job but bypasses his discomfort. He’s always found being direct is the best way.
“Can I ask you something kinda strange? I’m looking for a cursed object.”
He’s hardly expecting them to step closer, faces all eagerness. It’s kind of off-putting honestly.
“A cursed object?!” the girl asks, shoving her glasses up her nose.
“We’re members of the occult club,” the boy explains. He gives Megumi their names, but Megumi is more intent on scrolling through Gojou’s sticker/picture/omiyage spam to find the one actual useful picture.
He turns his screen and his skin prickles in anticipation as they gasp.
“Oh, that!”
“You’ve seen it before?” he demands. “It should have been in the temperature box by the rugby field. Do you know where it is now?”
They exchange knowing looks. Can it really be this easy to find a special-grade item like this?
The girl pouts of all things. “We were planning on doing a ritual to open that thing today actually.”
Megumi’s heart thuds. Civilians, he reminds himself, trying to swallow the dryness at his throat at how much death they were talking about casually unpenning.
“Where is it then?”
“Itadori took it. He’s our kouhai. Yesterday he had a whole episode in class apparently and then came barreling by my room during lunch and took it without even explaining why.”
“Sasaki, he was the one who found it,” the boy reminds her. “I guess he had a right to take it if he wanted to.”
“Are we his senpai or aren’t we?” Her expression releases though, something fond breaking through. “Well, whatever. Itadori is just that kind of guy, always doing whatever the hell he wants.”
Megumi’s heart is still thudding. “Do you know where he is? It’s important. It’s really, really important.”
They exchange looks, the boy shrugging before he rattles off the neighborhood name and street numbers.
Megumi finds himself breezing through the automatic doors of a hospital, the sterile smell rushing past to blot out the humid night air. The sun is just going down.
Late as it is, he knows his odds of finding Itadori are low, but that’s assuming that Megumi gives a damn about social norms. He doesn’t. Not in a job where curses spawn with ease any and everywhere. If he cared about propriety, he wouldn’t have shoved his hand through the Itadori letter slot when he found the home empty of humans and special-grade cursed items. He definitely wouldn’t have opened the mail that met his fingers and found nothing but notices about insurance and coverage from the hospital. If he cared one whit for society's views, he wouldn't be here, approaching a gangly, pink-haired boy with red-rubbed eyes as he signs forms at the nurses’ desk.
“Itadori?”
Light brown eyes turn to him, a mouth falling open.
“Ah. AH!”
The pointing was not quite the reaction Megumi was expecting. He bypasses it, like he does most things he doesn’t care for, and goes for being direct.
“We need to talk.”
Itadori follows him after stamping a few more papers with his seal. After exchanging a brief introduction, Itadori collapses onto the cushions of the sitting room chair, running a hand through his pink hair with a groan.
“What?” Megumi asks, and then promptly regrets it.
“Man, oh man. I should not have cut him off before. I thought Gramps was trying to be cool and all before he died, talking about my parent, but holy shit.” Itadori shakes his head. The movement turns into more of a shudder that jolts into a full-body movement. “I never knew he knew so much. That’s freaky.”
Did someone die? Megumi feels his lips thinning. “Sorry for your loss.”
“No, I’m sorry! I’m acting really weird, I know.” He smiles at Megumi. Even red-eyed as he is, there’s a sparkle to it, something earnest in the easy cant of brightness, even with the shadows under his eyes. Birthmark? Scars? “I guess you never realize how many secrets adults keep from you.”
Megumi shifts, his worthless father coming to mind and even his ever-present ever-annoying teacher/guardian. Megumi knows a thing or ten about shitty, secretive adults.
“I need your help to find something.” Megumi still has the picture pulled up on his LINE app. He taps out of the map that took him here and raises it to show Itadori, who scratches the side of his face. “Have you seen this? If we’re going to prevent more deaths tonight, I need you to tell me everything you know.”
“Oh, uh. I think it’s probably fine.”
“So you know where it is?” Megumi presses.
Itadori mumbles something. Megumi almost doesn’t catch it, momentarily distracted by the faint redness taking his cheeks.
“Sorry what?”
“I… kind of ate the finger.”
Megumi’s mind is blank. Blank of words, reason, or logic to explain this bizarre turn of events.
“You what?” Then, “why?!”
Itadori laughs. “Maaa, that’s a good question I guess.”
Megumi is still staring.
“I have the box though if you want that!”
Itadori fumbles through his backpack. Megumi pushes aside all the relevant but useless questions of why would you eat a finger ever let alone this one and instead watches him, eyes flickering with his cursed energy as he sees traces of the power all over Itadori, a purple taint. A flash of sickening power, four eyes, fire, death, then darkness like poison dripping. Megumi’s heart catches in his throat. Itadori’s telling the truth.
Megumi has to take a few breaths to ease the race of his blood, the panic tightening his chest. No, stop. Think about this. Focus. The power isn’t flowing out like an unsealed item should. It emanates from Itadori in gentle, menacing waves. Almost as if it’s being levied by Itadori somehow.
If the object was eaten and it didn’t kill Itadori, then… that means.
“Here’s the box back.” Itadori looks up from where he holds out the box, a guilty redness on his cheeks. As though he has any idea the kind of crime his body has become. “Fushiguro?”
On instinct, Megumi’s hands are slamming out to knock Itadori out. He needs time.
He isn’t ready for the deft dodge that tucks Itadori’s neck safely out of the way.
“Woah! Hey, come on.”
Megumi jabs again and Itadori blocks. There’s no cursed power in his movements, just the tendons of his body flexing, moving with strength that Megumi missed the first time he saw Itadori and his baggy clothes.
“He-hey you can’t just attack me in a hospital!” He splutters, irritated. “There’re sick people here!”
Megumi’s stomach drops. He’s right. The casualties alone will be through the roof, but how does he get him—
“Outside, come on you. If you’re gonna attack me, we can’t do it here!”
Megumi scans Itadori, wishing he had the six-eye curse instead of his shadows to help him see the truth of what is in front of him. He can’t see anything more than Itadori’s mild outrage. Behind him, the nurse at the desk cranes to see past the plastic barrier blocking her view.
He has to risk it.
“You first,” Megumi orders.
Itadori rolls his eyes.
They make it to the parking lot before Megumi pulls his hands together and summons his demon dogs. Better to strike fast—
“Please, please don’t attack me.”
Itadori turns around and has the gall to look wounded. Megumi tsks.
“You should have thought of that before you ate the cursed finger of Sukuna!”
His dogs strike, teeth flashing in the night as they go for his legs. No running if Megumi can help it.
Itadori dodges just as deftly as before, body twisting and ducking like he’s made of rubber bands instead of flesh and blood. He still hasn’t used any cursed energy and that just makes Megumi clench his teeth tighter. His strength and speed are almost on par with Maki.
“I swear, Sukuna’s totally not in control. It’s my body! He can’t take over if I don’t let him!” Itadori protests, even as he kicks up off the head of one dog, taking to the air to dodge the bite of the second.
“When you ate the finger, you became a curse. It’s my job as a sorcerer to end you.” Megumi clenches his hands together, forming a bird. “Nue.”
“Fuck.”
Nue strikes from above. A beak slices through the air, catching Itadori in the arm. Blood spills from the sky in wet splats onto the concrete.
The dogs wait, hungry below.
Megumi’s going to beat him, he’s actually going to do it.
There’s a flash in the sky, a bright black light. Is that black flash? The power isn’t Sukuna’s poison dripped blade. Instead, it feels emotional, half-human like something from another sorcerer. Megumi staggers back as he feels all three of his creatures getting maimed. Damnit, the dogs have lost too many limbs to fight.
He clenches his teeth, releasing them before they can die. He darts forward, his palm shooting out to knock the bones from Itadori’s nose into his brain and hopefully kill him.
“Hey! You bastard!” Itadori sounds miffed. Sounds, because he’s vanished from Megumi’s sight. Above— NO, below—
A kick sends Megumi flying back. Megumi puts the pieces together fragmented and dizzy as he sails through the air. Itadori dropped his hips, body spinning out with the momentum to launch Megumi into the air. He’s trained, skilled.
Megumi’s head aches from where it cracked against the concrete. Still, he pulls himself up, wiping the blood from his chin.
“Oh shit, are you okay?”
“You should worry about yourself.” Megumi puts his guard up.
“Agh, stop trying to kill me! I swear, that bastard’s locked up tight. He’s just chilling on his skull throne like a fucking creep. You don’t need to attack me!”
“Is that true, I wonder?” a third voice says.
Megumi’s head snaps to the side in time to catch the flashing light of a camera.
“A souvenir for the second years!” Goujou crows. Such a jerk. “So, where is the cursed item? Did you find it?”
Megumi sighs.
“Ah, I sort of ate it.” It would be easier to hate Itadori if he didn’t have that likable face, the hint of guilt tempered by a blush that never seems self-conscious somehow, just honest.
“Really?”
“Really.” They both speak in unison.
Gojou slips closer. Itadori doesn’t back away, just standing stock still as their teacher examines him closely.
“Wow, you’re totally combined, aren’t you?”
“Seems so.”
“Why did you do a thing like that, I wonder.” Gojou taps his chin.
“Listen, I have a good reason. I do, really. But, uh, can I tell you in private?”
In private? What the hell could he have to say to Gojou? Some kind of trap maybe? Megumi isn’t sure if the concussion has his head spinning or if it’s a casualty of the strange events.
“Unfortunately, I don’t discuss things with curses! That’s what you are now,” Gojou says, cheerful tone sounding anything but regretful.
“Come on! I’m human! Or, well…” Itadori huffs, and then mutters in irritation, “whatever.” In a fit of frustration, Itadori blurts, “if you had responded to my friend request on LINE we wouldn’t even be having this problem.”
It’s not quiet enough to escape Megumi’s hearing. A LINE request? How did he even find Gojou’s LINE? Should Itadori even want to be friends with this sticker spamming monster? No wait, what is he thinking. Gojou shouldn’t want to add Sukuna incarnate. …except that it sounds exactly like something his unhinged sensei would do. Megumi raises a shaking hand to rub at his face. Why is he thinking about this? What is going on?
Gojou whips out his phone, the lock screen picture of himself quickly dismissed as he opens the app.
“Oh, you sent it yesterday! Itadori Yuuji, huh? Added!” Goujou pockets his phone. “Now that we’re friends, I think we need to talk, Yuuji-kun.” The smile he levers at Yuuji is friendly enough to send shivers down Megumi’s spine. At least he’s done his part, Megumi thinks, washing his hands of the strange business as his vision blurs. He’s concussed, no doubt.
He leaves it in Gojou’s maniacal grasp now.
Satoru sweeps his way into the hotel suite, flicking on the lights as an afterthought. He tries to remember the little things that normal people without six visions need. While Itadori Yuuji doesn’t quite categorize neatly into normal, he does seem suspiciously average for being Sukuna incarnate.
Yuuji looks wide-eyed at the king-sized bed and the view. The council provides a healthy stipend for travel, but Satoru doesn’t mind padding it out with his own savings to afford a lusher experience. He goes on six times as many missions as the average sorcerer, so he can afford a luxury or ten. Speaking of, he stores the rest of his omiyage cache in the fridge for the shinkansen ride back, careful to keep the kikufuku mochi fresh and cold.
That accomplished, he turns around with a twirl. “Now! What’s all this about time travel?”
Yuuji turns from where he’s pasted himself against the window and frowns. “It’s just like I said in my messages, sensei. I can’t believe you didn’t read them!”
Satoru did get an alert that someone added him by his username and was trying to message him… but he’d assumed it was just a rabid fan, enemy, or a bot. He certainly didn’t know an Itadori Yuuji, posing with a wide smile in front of a Jennifer Lawrence poster. He hadn’t even read the messages until he accepted the request. Those were interesting.
The first interesting thing was calling him sensei. Most of Satoru’s enemies were prone to calling him that bastard and so were most of his friends and work associates, come to think. Well, anyway. Even if it was a title because he was a teacher, the way Yuuji was using it seemed suggestive that Satoru was his teacher. Which paired well with the time traveling complaint. Afterall, Yuuji was the right age to be his student, and the black flash he used showed he had cursed energy of his own aside from Sukuna’s. Also, the fact that upon realizing that he’d time traveled, the first thing he did was reach out to Satoru; being a sterling teacher, Satoru must have imparted some real sense to him. Because if Satoru time traveled, the first thing he would want to do is ask himself for advice too.
Now, an interesting question proposes itself to Satoru— why did his student travel in time, with all the possibilities that it offered, only to eat Sukuna’s finger on purpose?
“Is this your second timeline tasting Sukuna’s flesh?” Satoru posits.
“Ah, you’re so smart it’s scary sometimes.” Yuuji scratches his head. “Yeah. I took the finger. I was worried about my occult club senpai getting hurt. I wanted to ask you what to do about it, but you weren’t responding.”
“Why did you eat it? You know it means we have to kill you, don’t you? Surely we told you that last time.” Satoru keeps his voice soft, pleasant. Yuuji doesn’t shiver or panic, only meets his gaze head on.
“Last time I ate it to save Fushiguro. He got hurt trying to help me. We learned that I was capable of being Sukuna’s vessel. You kept me outta the execution chair by letting me live so I could eat all the fingers. So, I ate this after my grandpa died so it wouldn’t bring too many curses to the hospital. Not like it’s gonna hurt me any.”
“That was silly.” A smile spreads. “You have no way of knowing if I’m going to save you this time.” Satoru shakes his head. “Why did you eat it if you went back to a time before Sukuna. You could’ve changed your fate completely. That’s probably what most people with any sense would have done.”
Yuuji’s expression, lively and vivacious, falls flat for the first time. He’s a calm kid, assured in ways a lot of his peers aren’t. Some stable stone sits beneath the waters of his character, hard to see from the top. Satoru can sense it all though with his perfect vision.
“Killing Sukuna’s a job only I can do. I can’t go through life brushing my teeth, taking a bath and all the rest while knowing people would be dying. That would just depress me. This is my purpose as a cog… That and killing curses.” Yuuji’s eyes, a pale brown, flash like the muted lights of the city outside, just cresting the darkness of the night.
Yuuji has seen a thing or three. Terrible things, Satoru suspects. He’s been beaten down by this pretty, wretched little world of theirs and it’s left marks on him, scars. Satoru has seen more than most, he sees a sameness in Yuuji’s eyes. Ara… it is interesting.
“What is your plan then?”
“I don’t have one,” Yuuji promptly says. Then pauses. “Or, well, there’s some stuff I want to change. I don’t know if it’s, like, a proper plan.”
“So you come to your teacher,” Satoru smiles, indulgent, pleased. “That’s awfully cute of you. I must be pretty good in the future for you to rely on me so much.”
“You are!” Yuuji says, all earnestness.
“You flatterer!” It never hurts to hear.
“But you’re… Ah, I shouldn’t say.”
“Something about the future?” Satoru tilts his head. “Why not?”
“Sukuna’s listening in now.” Yuuji crosses his arms. Ahh, so Sukuna can hear everything that Yuuji can. That complicates things. No point in asking him how he traveled back here either with the king of curses listening in.
“How am I supposed to give you advice if you can’t tell me everything that happens?” Satoru reasons.
“That’s why you should have replied to my line messages!” Yuuji replies hotly.
“Yuuji-kun,” Satoru says, tone all infinite patience. “How could I know that the teenage boy trying to friend me on social media was my time-traveling student?”
Yuuji rolls his eyes. “Because you’re Gojou-sensei.”
It’s hard not to be a little charmed.
“Well that ship has sailed! We have to work with the here and now, relatively speaking.” Satoru tilts his head at Yuuji. “Say, how tight a leash do you have on Sukuna anyway? Can you let him out?”
Yuuji’s head jerks to the side, arms crossing. “Eh, no. I don’t think so.”
A lie. The first lie that Satoru’s seen. “Come on, don’t tease your sensei.”
“I said I can’t,” Yuuji says fingers drumming on his biceps. Won’t Satoru reads into his tight posture. He wonders if that’s self-preservation at work, or if something that horrible has happened in the future. Yuuji certainly doesn’t seem to be trying to travel back to that future, so that tells Satoru a few things about the state of the world he left. Well, Satoru won’t push the matter for now. He knows perfectly well how powerful Sukuna is. He can sense it through the layers of Yuuji’s being like how sweets waft their sugary promise through their wrappers. Just enticing.
He’d love the thrill of battling even a twentieth of the demon’s power, but… ahhh, better not push it.
“We need to figure something out so you can tell me useful details about the future.”
Yuuji’s posture eases. “You’re not pretending you’re gonna execute me?”
“Maa, you know how powerful sensei is, don’t you?”
“The strongest!”
Yuuji really is a cute kid. Despite all the mystery ensnaring him, and the mild suspicion that he’s playing on Satoru’s historic fondness for kids, Satoru can’t help but be charmed. He’s not wrong to be. His eyes tell him that his perception of Yuuji— his claims of time travel, warm character, and his poisonous guest— all of it lines up with the mass and atoms of reality.
That means Satoru’s life has gotten a lot more interesting.
“Then you don’t need to worry, do you? Now, what can you tell me?”
“Well, there’s three things… yeah three things I need to change.”
Satoru listens, eyes glistening beneath his blindfold as the future gapes open even more.