Chapter Text
Suguru had never consciously decided to care about Satoru. If anything, he’d tried to do the exact opposite, at first. The boy’s mocking arrogance and hedonistic nature made him nearly intolerable. Nearly. He was pompous, boastful, sarcastic, rude, and downright obnoxious, complete with that condescending grin and self-assured swagger. Suguru might have wanted to hate him, in the beginning. Came quite close to it after their first meeting. But there was always something stopping him from getting there, from hopping that fence. The feeling was never fully formed, and when he went to search it himself- it was nonexistent. It was his eyes. Something about his eyes. A window to something deep, deep down inside him. Something that turned his entire superficial persona completely on its head, made it all a lie.
Suguru had noticed it from the start, though maybe not so consciously. Like an alarm going off somewhere inside his head- bells ringing. He would wonder why no one else could see it. Why everyone else seemed to take the boy’s over-the-top arrogance at face value. He found it hard to believe people really thought that was all there was to their alleged strongest sorcerer.
No, there was something else there. Something crooked, something a little malformed. Hard to put his finger on, but so evident it was impossible to ignore. Maybe because he had the same thing inside himself. That crooked thing, that malformed thing. Looking into Satoru’s eyes was like looking into a mirror. Maybe that’s why he wanted to hate him so bad. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t. Could never.
Hating Satoru was impossible. But loving him- that was easy.
Their friendship had formed with the ease of two toddlers meeting each other on a playground. Attached at the hip. Stumbling over each other, stealing toys, pushing each other into the sand. Tangling like two necklaces, clicking together like magnets. Suguru would roll his eyes at Satoru’s bad jokes, and Satoru would throw his arm around his shoulders and call the both of them “The Strongest”.
“The Strongest”. The two of them, together. “The Strongest”. It was a moniker that had confused and exasperated Suguru from the start. A hand-made crown Satoru had placed upon his own head, childish and pointless. But when it belonged to both of them, it was a little less-so. It was a little more real.
Coming from non-sorcerer parents, it had taken Suguru a while to wrap his head around the jujutsu politics and social hierarchy. He had understood, at first, that not belonging to a clan immediately categorized him as a nobody- something he didn’t really care about anyways. But he quickly came to realize that it wasn’t actually the name that made you someone- it was strength. Power. And he realized even quicker- he had a lot of it.
This was apparently something Satoru had known since the moment he was born. With the Six Eyes and Limitless Technique, his entire childhood had been curated around his supposed role as The Strongest. It actually meant something; it wasn’t just something Satoru had thrown atop his head. And it wasn’t a crown. It was a shackle.
He wore it well. Balanced the responsibility on his shoulders with a lackadaisical shrug, like the swinging pendulum of his true role was anything but. He threw the title around like he was proud of it, like it was worth bragging about- told anyone that would listen exactly who he was and how far beneath him they were. The higher-ups gave him solo missions as a First Year and he accepted them like a trip to the convenience store, because it was just about that easy for him. He had no qualms about being The Strongest, despite the responsibility that came with it. Actually, he enjoyed it. Enjoyed being the only one who could do these things, who could fight so others didn’t have to. He liked having the power to defend and protect- liked it even more when he could do it with Suguru.
Satoru didn’t mind being a weapon- that had been true from the beginning. Suguru could see it within him, could understand it better than anyone else. He’d happily shoot wherever he was pointed, as long as he approved of who was doing the pointing. The weight of it didn’t matter. Even if his shoulders sagged, if his back hunched. Even if he crumpled under it entirely. Even if no one else in the world saw what Suguru saw in those blistering blue eyes. Better it be him than anyone else. And if he was allowing Suguru to share that burden with him, even just a little, then who was he to refuse?
So fine. Satoru would be the sun to his moon. The day to his night. The Yang to his Yin. His mirror, his opposite. And together, they would be “The Strongest”.
Standing by Satoru’s side was easy. Comfortable. Natural. They fit together like two puzzle pieces made just for each other. It was nothing like standing by your side.
You were a different matter entirely. Satoru’s counterpart. His tail. Held at a distance even as he pulled you so close. In the earliest days, you’d follow the boy around like a lost puppy. Hand hooked in his elbow, letting him lead you around like it was all you could do.
You were quiet back then. Almost shy. Head downturned and hands fidgeting. You had been the most perfect picture of a well-trained clan kid the first time Suguru ever met you. Demure and soft-spoken. An air of elegance wrapped around you like a blanket. Polite, even to your peers. Even to Satoru. A spoiled rich girl with a coy smile on her lips and a noose around her neck. Raised traditional. Strict. At first glance you were placid, but your true personality peeked through the cracks in your virtuous mask. Something a little sharper around the edges, a little more stubborn. You were so beautiful it made Suguru’s chest hurt.
“She’s not just any girl,” Satoru had confirmed, though Suguru could already tell. Arm hung around your shoulders, held a careful distance away from him. Held tighter when Suguru’s gaze lingered too long. “She’s a princess.”
That’s what he called you, instead of your given name. Suguru never actually once heard your first name uttered from Satoru’s lips, where he was so quick to use everyone else’s given names right off the introduction. He’d watched your eyebrow twitch at the nickname, just barely holding back a scowl. Couldn’t tell how much of it was a simple term of endearment or… something else. The lines were blurred between you two. Always were.
It wasn’t as easy to love you. It was something forbidden. It was betrayal.
It was clear to Suguru immediately that you were strictly off limits. If Satoru’s steamrolling of every conversation he might have tried to start with you wasn’t enough, then the fact that you were literally engaged definitely sealed the deal, even if it took him a while to fully understand it. Clan politics. Things even he as one of “The Strongest” had no stake in. That was fine. He was Satoru’s friend. Satoru’s best friend. He didn’t want to be the type of guy that would go after his best friend’s girl- wanted to think he was better than that, even as his feelings began to grow and transform, unbidden. He also wanted to think that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least be your friend, but Satoru made sure even that wasn’t an option the entire first year.
He was a little obsessive about you back then. Overwhelmingly possessive. Suguru couldn’t help but feel a little vindicated when Shoko finally snatched you out of his claws, taught you how to be a normal girl. It had made the second year much easier, when Satoru finally learned to ease up and the four of you could finally be friends. That second year… he would have lived it over and over again if he could. That lingering Spring. Hanging out with the First Years. Shoko trying and failing to teach him how to cook. Reading to you under the shade of a tree. Listen to Satoru complain about how you were ignoring him for the umpteenth time. It had become a routine with you two.
Like an on-again, off-again high school couple, he would mess up and you would ignore him for days until he bothered you enough to get you to talk to him again, or made it up to you somehow. Suguru tried hard not to care, tried to brush it off as teenage drama like Shoko did, but something about the way Satoru treated you sometimes always got under his skin. The way he’d trail you, belittle you, treat you like a pet or something, knowing you had no choice in your relationship with him. Knowing it didn’t matter how he treated you at all, that you’d always be…
It was none of his business. Not even a little, and yet…
“You don’t deserve her.” The words were meant to be accompanied by a soft chuckle, the exasperated shake of his head. But the air required caught in his throat, his neck suddenly stiff.
They met their mark like a heat-seeking missile, erupting in the air like a bomb. He’d regretted them immediately, wanted to take them back the second he’d spat them. Reverse time so he’d have never said anything at all. Clear his throat, shift in his chair, plaster a crooked grin on his face and say, “My bad, didn’t mean it like that,” even if he kind of did. Instead, silence had hung in the air like a cloud of smoke- suffocating, deafening.
Satoru played it off. Leaned back against the wall where he’d been sat on Suguru’s bed, rolled his eyes with a shrug. “What, and you do?”
He actually thought about it for a moment. Then, honestly, “No. Maybe no one does.”
“Maybe.” And the tension was gone. Air cleared. Breathable enough to roll into another conversation, pointedly not about you, even though Satoru had been the one to bring you up in the first place. Complaining, as usual, about how you’re ignoring him, as usual, because of something stupid he said or did. The reason for this specific time is lost in Suguru’s memory, though there’s a lingering certainty that it was over something pointless. Inconsequential. It always was. Everything was, back then.
Inconsequential. So many sentimental things are. Completely meaningless to anyone other than the select few on Earth that choose to hold these stupid things dear to them. People. Places. Objects. Memories. But in reality, none of it means anything. They’re better left shoved in a box and tucked away under a bed- or better yet, burned to ash and thrown into the sea. Never to be cared about again, willingly or not. Easier said than done.
If he could, Suguru would have liked to be nestled between the two of you for the rest of his life. Your third wheel, though you’d never make him feel that way. He would have been a part of you. Intertwined. Your equal. If things had been different, maybe it could have been that way. He could have deserved it. Deserved the two of you.
But in reality, there is no “deserving” or “undeserving”. There is no fate or karma. No “worthy” or “unworthy”. There is only action and consequence. A past, a present, and a future. Circumstances shaping outcomes like running water shapes a riverbed.
Ownership belongs only to those willing to take, not those waiting around for treasure to fall into their hands. Like how Gojo Satoru took you from Zenin Naoya. How The Mind took The Body from Suguru. How The Mind took you. Took a mother from her child. Candy from a baby.
It takes four days for you to rouse, hanging limply from a tree on the edge of the sunny beach of Dagon’s domain. The restraints- a thick, rough rope wrapped tightly around your wrists- might be overkill, considering the Binding Vow keeping you from using your cursed energy against them, but The Mind knows better than to underestimate you. The view is better this way, anyways.
Mahito is the first to find you awake, excitedly asking you questions about your Cursed Technique that don’t stop or slow when you refuse to respond. He talks loudly in your ear, leaned in close but never touching. The Mind had made it expressly clear that touching you was prohibited. So instead, he gets as close as physically possible without doing so, seeming to think if he asks enough questions repeatedly you were bound to answer at least one.
“Hey, hey, can’t you hear me? Isn’t it rude to ignore someone when they’re talking to you? Hello? Come on, just tell me how your Cursed Technique works, really quick. How were you able to grab me without touching me back there, huh? Can you see souls too? Or well, not see obviously, but-”
“Give it a rest, Mahito,” Jogo groans from his chair, reclined under the sun. He crosses his arms with a huff, irritated about not being able to kill you after you killed Hanami. “She won’t answer. Just let her hang there and bleed out or starve to death or something.”
“Well, I don’t think we can just let her die, right Geto? ‘Cause we’ll need her help to seal Gojo Satoru?” That gets a reaction out of you, if just barely. The twitch of your furrowed eyebrows, your head turning slightly. “Ah, so you can hear me. What, you don’t like me, is that why you’re not answering? Hey, Choso, you’re half-human, right? Why don’t you try talking to her, maybe you two can relate.”
Choso doesn’t move, leaned against a palm tree. “I refuse.”
The Mind stands from its seat, slowly making its way over to you and Mahito. “She won’t die before we enact the next step of our plan. Humans can be quite resilient. Mahito, Jogo, Choso, would you give us a moment?”
The Mind stops directly in front of you, doesn’t speak until the three fully exit the domain. You’re quite a sight, even like this. Hair disheveled, clothes dirty and torn, an arm sleeve missing. It hooks a finger under your chin to lift your head, get a better look. Your face is scrunched in pain, possibly from the wounds left unhealed in your leg from Hanami’s buds. Whatever Cursed Technique you unleashed before they took you away had left you completely drained, and you apparently hadn’t thought to heal yourself beforehand. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but the lacerations were still wide open, healing slowly and painfully. At this point, they’d leave nasty scars even after being healed- a well deserved reward for exorcising Hanami, The Mind thinks.
You flinch away the second The Mind touches you, though your body is so weak your head hardly moves. You’re sluggish- groggy even after four days of unconsciousness. Chest heaving from exhaustion and your skin slick with a layer of sweat. Your cursed energy had been slow to replenish while you were under, and isn’t much faster now that you’re awake. Unable to siphon any from your captors, it’d be a while before you were back to full capacity.
It lets you go easily, if only because the feeling of your skin in its fingers had left an unbearable tingling sensation that threatened to spread up the arm and to unacceptable places. Dealing with you would be possibly its greatest exercise in control. Restraint. The Body isn’t so willing to cooperate in such close proximity to you- slow to respond to commands, almost resistant. It would be worrisome if The Mind wasn’t certain that the soul of its previous owner was wholly extinguished. It was nothing but an empty husk when The Mind found it. It belongs to The Mind, now- has fully and utterly been conquered by it. It will be nothing but an empty husk when The Mind leaves it.
“Don’t touch me.” The words crack and splinter in the desert of your throat, interrupted by gulping breaths. A sour feeling settles in The Body’s stomach.
The Mind raises its arms in surrender, a humored smile playing on its lips. It speaks to you in the soft tone The Body used to speak to you so long ago. “That was a long nap you took, Sleeping Beauty. You really do live up to your namesake.”
Your mouth twitches, the frown it’s forming deep and trembling. Your eyebrows furrow in something like confusion, or maybe distress. You don’t answer.
“I understand you’re not very happy with me. Would it help at all to know that Satoru recovered Riko-chan safe and unharmed?”
“Don’t-” you grind out. “Don’t say their names.”
You swallow a knot in your throat, and it drops like a rock in your stomach. The world around you is fuzzy- hard to make sense of. You’re suspended in an empty void, the ground somewhere between an inch and thousands of kilometers beneath your feet. Something tight and chafing is wrapped around your wrists, cutting your hands off from the rest of your body. They tingle like a thousand needles piercing your skin, but when you try to move them, they’re unresponsive.
Your cursed energy is a lethargic bundle of static, simmering just out of reach. It slips out of your grasp like smoke over and over, apathetic and fickle. Without it, you’re left completely cut off from your surroundings. All around you is a wavering haze of energy, the smell of a saltwater ocean, but off, somehow. Then, there’s him. His cursed energy, that forceful pressure you know like the back of your hand. So familiar, and yet… Your senses flicker around his presence, unable to get a proper grasp. He’s in front of you, then he’s yards away. His voice- his voice… When he talks, you can barely hear him over the beating of your own heart. The pain in your leg is nauseating, throbbing and unyielding. Vertigo overtakes you in waves, saliva pooling in your mouth and head pounding. Are you dying? Are you even alive right now? It doesn’t feel possible if you’re hearing his voice.
Satoru. His name echoes in your mind like church bells, clearing a path in your foggy thoughts. Focus is a boulder you struggle fruitlessly to push up a mountain. Satoru. They were talking about him before. “I won't let you hurt him. I won’t let you use me.”
You hear him chuckle. The sound is a knife in your side. “Unfortunately, your participation isn’t optional. Though it’s not like we can actually hurt him, is it? Not physically at least.”
“I’ll kill you,” is about all you can decide on.
“So defensive. Don’t you think you should be a little more concerned for yourself?”
Concerned for yourself? What would be the point in that? You’re already dying. But Satoru… Riko… Megumi…
Megumi. You were supposed to meet him. For ramen.
Another wave of vertigo hits you like a truck, your chin hitting your chest with a weak exhale. This time, he grabs your face with his whole hand, fingers digging into your jaw. He doesn’t budge when you struggle. The ringing in your ears doesn’t go away until he’s halfway through speaking.
“…really took a toll on you. What was that, anyways? It felt like one of your locating pulses, but didn’t seem to have the same effect.”
When he talks like that, it makes your stomach churn. “Where am I?”
“A little reckless of you to leave yourself completely defenseless in the hands of your captors, isn’t it?” The hand tightens.
“Why am I here?”
The hand falls away, and your head drops again without its support. Irritation ignites in The Mind’s neural pathways, both at you and The Body, the way it reacts to your pain. The very sight of your face. The name “Satoru” on its tongue. At the feelings swirling in the chest and stomach. The tingling in the arms and legs. A simmering in the blood vessels. It struggles to focus, to push past it. It’s worse than last time. This curse-like thing that has flooded The Body, completely infested it. So strong, so deep, it’s written into the very DNA.
“You’re at the beach,” The Mind finally supplies. Soft in a way it doesn’t intend to be. “It’s your favorite place, isn’t it?”
You cringe, wincing like you’d been struck. Your face curls into something like disgust. Something like grief. “Stop it.”
The Mind hums in confusion.
“Stop- stop pretending…” you choke on the words like they physically pain you. And they do- slicing their way up your throat to coat your tongue in acid. The Mind waits, stomach dropping and dropping and dropping as it watches your face crack and crumble. You weakly shake your head, tears squeezed out from under shuttered eyelids. Slipping down your cheeks in salty rivers.
You can sense it, even like this. Could sense it before, just didn’t want to believe it. It was too painful a reality to even begin to conceive, but here it is in front of you. Even as you're dying, even as your senses fail you, his cursed energy is more familiar to you than your own name. A needle you could pick out in a haystack. His voice, deep and velvety and comfortable like a warm bed… you’d missed it more than you could ever admit. Even his touch had felt like home. So much it hurt.
But it’s not him. Even admitting it in the confines of your own mind has your throat tightening and burning. It’s not him. There’s something off about him, something missing. An edge to his voice that had never been there before. Something curdled in his cursed energy. If you were any more lucid, able to get control of your cursed energy and properly investigate, you know you would find something terrible, deep inside. Something that’s not supposed to be there. Whatever this is- a poor copy or something worse- if Satoru knew about this... If Satoru knew about this, it would kill him. Absolutely destroy him.
He huffs out a dry laugh, cruel and mirthless. “So you have figured it out. Can’t get anything past you, huh?”
Your jaw clenches, throat completely closed as you struggle to still your trembling lip. Despite his words, you’re still afraid to acknowledge it out loud. As if it would somehow make it real. As if it’d just go away if you ignored it. But it is real. The longer you’re awake, the realer it gets.
“Don’t cry. It’s such a useless endeavor.” His touch is searing, cupping your cheek and wiping away the tears falling carelessly from your traitorous eyes. The familiarity of his voice and hands are so hard to reconcile with what you know is the truth. After all, the last time you heard his voice, he was drawing his last breaths.
Yet his breath fans your face now, alive and hot.
“That curse from before- Mahito. I had a conversation with him earlier, where he asked an interesting question. What comes first, the body or the soul?” He asks, tone lowered and steady. You swallow hard, trying to move your head out of his grasp but the hand stays, hot like an iron against your skin. “He insists it’s the soul, and the body is formed around it. It would explain why he’s able to alter his physical form by manipulating his own soul, but if that’s the case, then how can the body exist without the soul? Though at the same time, I’m not completely convinced it’s the other way around, either.”
You’re determined not to pay any mind to his existential musings, focused more on trying to figure out how you’re going to replenish your cursed energy and kill this crime against nature, when the hand cupping your cheek finally moves. Though instead of retreating, the tips of his fingers graze the line of your jaw, dip into the curve of your neck to feel the hummingbird-fast beat of your pulse. You jolt, but without the energy or leverage to so much as squirm against his touch, there’s nothing you can do. The frustration at your own helplessness burns like acid in your throat.
The touch skirts lower- light points of pressure tracing a line down your heaving chest to your abdomen, where the palm flattens against the flesh of your stomach. Scalding through the thin fabric of your sweater. Then, as if that wasn’t torturous enough, the hand travels lower still, dipping under the raised hem of your top to press against your lower belly. Fear lights like a match inside you, torches your insides like wildfire.
“I used to believe that the body was formed first. Starting out as nothing but a bundle of cells, the embryo would grow as an empty vessel for the soul to be placed in. Nursed inside the womb as the two grew together. But the process of creation could never be so black and white. Where does the soul come from? When exactly is the soul inserted? Who decides which soul goes in what vessel? Perhaps it’s the mother that bestows a part of her own soul inside her child, for it to then grow and transform into its own independent existence. But for a curse, who has no mother and is never born, that couldn’t possibly be the answer.
“I’ll admit that back then, I hadn’t been concerned about this particular dilemma. But during my experiments with that woman, I believe I learned something very valuable that would turn the entire argument on its head. Would you like to know what that was?” he asks, seemingly unaffected by your discomfort.
The Mind finds it interesting, the way The Body seems to take little issue with touching you this way, despite your aversion. Your skin is cool against the palm, and The Body does not resist. A flash of regret mixed with disgust might strike through the chest, something mournful and grief-stricken. A memory soured, curdled. The Body knew touch was important to you- one of the only ways you could interact with and understand the world. It was something sacred to you, shared only with those you loved most. His touch in particular, being one of them. His touch, but not this one. This was something different. The Mind considers it something as a punishment, for both you and The Body. A reminder of who exactly is in control. Who the ownership belongs to.
It continues, half mesmerized by the confliction on your face at a once comforting, familiar touch being bastardized by the demon possessing your old friend’s body. Half satisfied by the conflicting feelings within The Body itself, equally wanting to shirk away and press closer. Its thumb swipes along your flesh, soft like the cashmere of your sweater.
“What exactly is a Cursed Spirit, do we think? The accumulation of negative human emotions- that’s what we’re taught. But through what vehicle do those emotions travel? Cursed energy, isn’t it? Flowing freely from non-sorcerers who are none the wiser. Cursed energy, which forms the Cursed Spirits. Mahito believes that this cursed energy is a kind of bridge that connects the body and soul, but I don’t think so.” The Mind embraces The Body’s unconscious urge to comfort you, its other hand coming up to brush a stray lock of hair out of your face. The action only serves to strike shame and anguish in both parties, and The Mind revels in it. “If both humans and Cursed Spirits can have souls, then what is it that makes them different? Nine cursed embryos, never born or amalgamized through negative human emotion. Did they have souls? At that point, I hadn’t thought it possible, but the incarnation of those three had suggested otherwise. Why else would they have memories of their time as wombs? In that case, were they the souls of humans, or curses?”
The Mind watches the gears turn in your head, the story familiar to you as it hoped it’d be. Your frown deepens, your lip curling in disgust. A smirk splits the face. Such a smart princess you are.
“All this to say- a body, a soul, cursed energy; I don’t think they’re really as separate as we think. Or at least, the relationship between the three isn't so clean-cut. And when Mahito said he sensed three souls in your body, I was sure.”
“Sure of what?” you bristle, now following closely after the discovery of The Mind’s true identity. Or at least, what you believe it to be.
The Mind isn’t so concerned with painting the picture for you as it is with studying the contortion of your features at this newfound information. It wants to see the realization dawn on your face as you connect the dots yourself. Thinks it’ll be so much more satisfying that way.
“I’ve taken quite an interest in your Cursed Technique. Or at least, one particular application of it.” It waves its hand and a curse appears in its peripheral. A simple Grade Two. Erratic and snappy, but easily digestible. “So similar to Geto Suguru’s Curse Manipulation, yet different in the most interesting ways. When he would absorb a curse, they would collect in a separate pocket than his own cursed energy storage. Then, when he would summon them, they would appear as their original form. The two are kept separate. The souls never touch. Not like when you absorb a curse.”
“I don’t absorb curses, I absorb their cursed energy,” you argue, tense under its palm with the presence of a curse so close. “And curses don’t have souls.”
“Ah, Mahito would disagree with you on that,” The Mind hums. “Though you might be on the right track. However- what then, is a curse, if not cursed energy? Just a body, a vessel? Then why do they disappear when they’re exorcized? And if they’re nothing but cursed energy, what gives them consciousness? Thoughts and feelings?”
You hesitate. Unwilling to entertain a conversation with this monster, and yet… “Curses don’t have thoughts or feelings.”
“Come on, Princess. I wouldn’t like to think of you as so shallow,” The Mind scoffs. It takes a step back, eyeing the shiver that racks your shoulders as it pulls away. Relaxing incrementally, though tensing again when it beckons the curse closer. “No need to be afraid. You’re hungry aren’t you? Go ahead.”
When you don’t bite, The Mind rouses the curse. Lets it get close, growling in your face as you try to lean away. Watches your breath quicken, attempting to stamp down your fear. “Either you eat it, or it eats you.”
“You can’t kill me.” The words are hissed through pursed lips.
“Ah yes, for our plan. Though technically, we don’t need you whole or even alive. You’re meant to be bait, you see, so any piece of you would do. I never said your participation would be particularly active. You’ll die either way- before or after we seal Gojo Satoru doesn’t matter in the long run. It’s your choice whether that happens right now, or after he gets to see his beloved princess one last time.”
The Mind expects you to cry harder. Expects your face to twist and contort in rage and sorrow, expects you to lob insults at it and threaten to kill it again. Expects you to realize the hopeless reality of your situation, and bend to its will. Play your part and give it some entertainment. Instead, the corners of your mouth twitch upwards into half a smirk, half a sneer. A huff of air shoves its way out your throat, and then you’re laughing. It’s a weak, grinding thing, choked through your lips, but laughter all the same.
“You aren’t as smart as you think you are,” you say, chest shaking with mocking giggles. “You can’t kill me, you idiot. Not unless you want to end up in hell right next to me. What exactly do you think a Binding Vow does?”
This time, it’s The Mind whose face falls into a deep frown. “I vowed that-”
“Neither you nor your comrades would harm any of my children,” you spit. “And according to your patchwork friend, I have two with me right now. What do you think happens to them if you let that curse eat me, moron?”
The Mind freezes- the Binding Vow had been made so quickly, so last minute, it had solely been focused on your side of the deal and preventing you from attacking them. That’s right, you had changed the wording to not only protect your daughters, but all of your children. The Mind hadn’t thought long or hard enough to consider that included more than just Fushiguro Megumi, but also the ones unborn inside of you. Of course. Clever Princess. Indignation claws at its chest, despite knowing that even this act of defiance would be meaningless in the end.
Regardless, a hand is on your throat before your senses can catch up, closed tight around your airway. This, The Body fights. The hand hesitates as The Mind orders it to squeeze and squeeze. The appendage twitches around your throat, fighting back. Another meaningless act of defiance it would be sure to punish.
“I’m happy you’ve recovered enough energy for full sentences. Hopefully now our conversation can be a little less one-sided,” The Mind growls in tandem with the curse at its side, growing restless as its master becomes irritable. You seem to find its aggravation amusing- your wry smile growing, instead of diminishing. Sharp around the edges, venom on your lips. The Mind will be sure to make you aware that there’s absolutely nothing for you to smile about.
“I can’t kill you, you’re right. But I can surely hurt you. So how is this as an alternative? This curse will chew off both your legs right now. When the time comes, we’ll dangle you in front of Gojo Satoru like a carrot, and maybe make him watch a curse take both your arms. Afterwards, he’ll be sealed for the rest of eternity, I’ll keep you alive until you give birth to your twin brats, and then I’ll have my way with you until you die of old age. I’m sure you’re aware of how much I enjoy my experiments, I bet there’s a lot I could learn from you and your Cursed Technique.”
The anger washes over The Mind like a tidal wave- a roaring surge of emotion overtaking it one second, then gone the next. Leaving a sweeping devastation in its wake. The fresh tears that roll down your cheeks are a welcome pivot from your earlier obstinance, even as the sight of them slashes through The Body’s insides like a red-hot blade. It allows the hand to loosen, satisfied, and raises the other to wipe away a tear with the steady stroke of its thumb. It’s hard to stay mad at you when you look like this. When The Body’s chest twists and squeezes and shudders at even the prospect of your suffering. When it speaks again, its voice is soft. Almost a whisper.
“I told you, these are a useless endeavor.”
“Get your hands off of me,” you hiss, jaw clenched and teeth bared.
It does. Pulls away fully and takes a few steps back. Rouses the curse again to crowd you once more, but then you’re speaking again.
“If you really think taking me and Satoru out of the picture is going to make any difference in whatever harebrained scheme you have cooked up, you’re not just stupid. You’re delusional,” you say, voice right and clipped.
“It’s delusional of me to believe taking out the two strongest jujutsu sorcerers alive will ensure my plan’s success?” The Mind deadpans, irritation flickering back like a trick candle.
Another sardonic laugh. “You have no idea who it is you’re actually up against.”
“If you’re referring to your precious students, I’m afraid to say none of them are nearly as interesting as you think they are. They may be powerful, but at the end of the day, they’re just children. And like children, they’re helpless without the guidance of their parents.”
“If you truly believe that, then your plan has already failed,” you counter, stubborn.
The Mind sighs. “You don’t even know what my plan is, and yet here you are, selling me short. You’re hurting my feelings, Hime-sama.”
You tense. “Don’t call me that.”
The Mind doesn’t answer, a smirk curling on its lips as it orders the curse to attack. And it does- coils and pounces in a swift strike of its head. Sharp teeth set in a large mouth that stretches wide open and aims for your legs. But instead of clamping down on your defenseless appendages, the curse pauses. Not by The Mind’s doing. By yours.
Your hold is unsteady, wavering as you keep it in place and suck the cursed energy from the Grade Two like a butterfly sucks nectar from a flower. It thrashes aggressively, and you pull harder. The energy is a thick slush you drink in from every pore, letting it churn and fester inside you like an infection. Your body shivers uncontrollably as you do, a chill seizing your muscles and breaking you out into a cold sweat. You’ve never siphoned energy from a curse when you were this low on your own cursed energy. You’ve never even been this low on your own cursed energy in the first place- or maybe once before. A long, long time ago. Similarly to now, you’d been sure you were about to die. The difference was, Satoru had been there.
“All of it,” he says when you pause to catch your breath. Nausea churning in your stomach at the feeling of the curse’s energy coasting through you.
“I can’t- I’ve never-” You’ve never taken the full amount of a curse’s energy. You’re not even sure if you can. You always stop when you’ve had enough. You have enough. Enough to heal. Enough to properly survey your surroundings. Any more would-
“All of it.”
Now, it’s only you and a curse and this monster. Kamo Noritoshi. The creator of the Death Painting Wombs. The most evil jujutsu sorcerer in history. You don’t understand how he managed to live this long, how he somehow seems to have shapeshifted, or something of the sort. You don’t understand why he’s here now, why he’s working with curses, why he wants to seal Satoru. You don’t understand much of anything. But all things considered, you don’t have to understand. There’s only one thing you need to be sure of.
“I’m going to kill you,” you say when the curse is finished. Disintegrating at your feet.
“Don’t forget your end of our bargain, now,” The Mind finds some amusement in this. Your fury is steadfast. Unbreakable, where the woman he previously used was so easily crushed. As expected of a princess. It steps forward again, unable to resist the draw of pressing the tips of its fingers against the exposed skin of your stomach where your shirt rides up. The Body aches to comfort, to soothe. But its touch will never be anything of the sort to you again.
It circles you slowly, tracing its fingers lightly from the front of your stomach, to your side, to the small of your back, and around to the front again. Admiring the way the stolen cursed energy stirs and froths within you. It watches in real time as you tug and toss it like putty, molding it into something usable. Converting it into your own. It’s not such a seamless process as The Mind had once thought. Perhaps because you’ve never taken in as much as this before, but you had never appeared to struggle when siphoning cursed energy in Geto Suguru’s memories. Though you had divulged to him once, how it feels. Not too different from how it felt for him to swallow curses whole.
“It always feels so awful. Like I’m swimming in a river of sludge, and soaking it in through every pore. It makes me feel sick, makes my stomach hurt. I hate it,” you’d whispered into the dark room, laid across from The Body’s previous host in his dorm room. The Mind can remember the feeling of your breath on the face, the heat of your body pressed against it. The exhaustion The Body had felt from lack of sleep, the grating of his voice when he replied to your question of how it was for him.
“It’s like swallowing a dirty rag that’s been used to clean up shit and vomit.” The Mind doesn’t think it’s that bad.
“Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to fight curses at all.” All things considered, the world that The Mind plans to create would allow that to become a reality, wouldn’t it? You should be grateful.
Goosebumps follow where the fingers touch. When it completes its evolution around you, you’ve finished converting the energy. It nods in approval. “Well done.”
You immediately use the newfound energy to heal yourself, sending it bounding down to the tips of your toes and then up your arms to your fingers in a warm flush that washes away all your pain. You can’t hold back the relieved sigh that leaves your lips at the feeling, nausea and brain fog diminishing like dark clouds after a storm. You’re quick to send out a pulse right after, pushing it with a forceful thrust to send it out as far as possible. To your dismay, it bounces back just as fast- hitting the walls of your enclosure within a mere few meters. You’re inside a domain. That explains why the smell of the saltwater was so strange. Why the air held no humidity. It’s not a true beach. It’s a facade.
“Dissapointed?” he asks when your face falls. Voice soft and placating. “Of course we couldn’t just have you out and exposed somewhere. Satoru would find you in no time, wouldn’t he?”
“Stop talking like that,” you demand.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re him. Just because you’ve somehow figured out how to replicate him, or whatever you’ve done. You’re not him and you could never hope to be.”
So you’re finally ready to face it, it seems. “Oh? Then who am I?” The Mind would like to hear you say it out loud. “Go on.”
Your jaw clenches so hard something clicks. Lip trembling as you form the name, acid on your tongue. “Kamo. Noritoshi.”
A smile, slow and sordid, spreads across its face. “Yes. But also, not quite.”
Confusion flashes through the scowl on your face, eyebrows twitching. The Mind moves in. No longer touching, but so close your breath spills over its lips. So close the heat from your body radiates against its chest. Just like old times.
“You’re already searching, aren’t you?” It can feel you digging around inside. Trying to make sense of its inner workings. If this is truly just a cruel trick or something worse. If the true Geto Suguru is somewhere still inside. “Go deeper.”
You do. You go as deep as physically possible. You search deeper than you’ve ever gone before. Beneath the hard outer shell, under the calm surface, past the surging undertow. All the way down to the deepest, darkest trench, down to the reflective bottom, and then further still. Tunneling through bedrock, you search and search, and yet…
A whisper. “What do you see?”
There’s no mistaking it. It’s his body, his flesh and blood. His cursed energy- even the inflection of it is the same, even if it does have that rougher edge to it now. But it’s his, it’s all his. It’s him. It’s Suguru, and yet in this hidden little place, deep, deep, deep inside- he’s nowhere to be found. Instead, it’s something else. Something foreign. Something cursed. An imposter hiding in an abandoned shell.
Upon your first meeting of this fake, you’d shattered into multiple splintering pieces. A piece that had firmly believed this was some kind of trick- a shapeshifter. A piece that had thought it was a Cursed Technique to bring back the dead. A piece that had thought his body was truly possessed by a demon. A piece that had thought this was all a dream. A piece that had thought this could be reversed somehow. That death could be overcome. That he could come back to you and Satoru. All at once, the shards collect themselves and fuse back together, sure of what you now know.
The only question now is, “How…?”
“It’s very simple really. I was a sorcerer, just like you, a long, long time ago. But I had a certain Cursed Technique. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of ability, much like you and Gojo Satoru. Maybe even once-in-eternity. ‘Brain Transplant’, it’s called.”
You’re shaking your head before it’s even finished. “No.”
“I’ll admit it wasn’t nearly so effective the first few times. It took a lot of practice. But eventually, I got it right. Hopping from vessel to vessel, using them as I pleased. Keeping their Cursed Techniques. Setting up my plan, a thousand years in the making. A ‘harebrained scheme’, that’s what you called it?” It itches to remove the cap of its skull- to really drill in the reality of what it's done to the body of your friend. But your face tells it you already understand more than enough. “At this point, I might be more curse than human.”
You’re crying again, head still shaking in disbelief. “That’s not possible…”
“You and I both know, nothing in this world is impossible.”
“He’s-“
“Gone. Long gone,” The Mind supplies. “And he’s not coming back. It’s only me in here. One soul. One mind. One body. Mine.”
Being this near to you is dizzying. Electrifying. Dulls the senses of The Mind until The Body’s wants are almost its own. It leans in further and you turn your face away with a jolt. Lips tingling, it says, “Kenjaku.” Breath hot against your ear. You shudder, teeth burrowed in your lip as you force your breathing to steady. Your heartbeat pitter-patters like showering rain, so hard it can nearly feel it against its own chest an inch away. An unfamiliar feeling prickles in its guts. Like stabbing knives, an unfamiliar kind of need bubbles up its chest. It wants you to, “Say it.”
“Go to hell,” you spit instead. Rage and pain and grief swirl inside you like a tornado.
One, two, three heartbeats, and the feeling passes. Kenjaku pulls away from you, looks you over and struggles to regain its chilled indifference towards you. It studies the cursed energy spasming inside you, erratic and turbulent. You make no effort to control it, to stamp it down and wrangle it into submission like you used to. Like you have your entire life.
A little unnecessarily, it grounds itself with a palm pressed to your stomach. The touch is no less distressing to you than it was before. “I mentioned before how I enjoy my little experiments. I have a theory I’d like to test now.” It latches. Pulls.
It’s so sudden, so intense, you don’t have time to scream. Breath trapped in your lungs as every cell of your body catches fire in an excruciating burst of flames. Like touching a livewire, your muscles tense and contract involuntarily. You feel the burn down to the tips of your hairstrands, no inch left uncharred. For a second, you’re sure you actually must be on fire from how intense the feeling is- a strange pulling sensation stemming from deep in your gut and spreading outwards.
Then, like a taut thread snapping, it’s gone. Breath is inhaled through your gaping mouth so fast it catches in your throat and is coughed out again. Your head falls like deadweight, chin hitting your chest so hard your teeth clack together. You hang limp and breathless, a new layer of sweat forming on your skin. Drool dripping from your lips.
“What- what-” You’ve never felt anything like that before. An agony so engulfing, so acute.
“Sorry, did that hurt?” The sound of his voice bounces from ear to ear, ringing as your senses fracture, your surroundings losing focus. “Do you think that’s what curses feel when you siphon their cursed energy? When I absorb them?”
You can’t answer, still struggling to catch your breath. It lifts your head with a gentle hand and you don’t have the energy to pull away.
“But it’s not just cursed energy, is it? Not for a curse. Maybe not for a human, either. It’s so hard to tell.”
You’re still panting when the feeling strikes again, and this time the hoarse scream is ripped out of you like the cursed energy he’s somehow taking from you. You can’t wrap your head around what's happening, not when the pain is so all encompassing. He stops, and you slump over again, head pounding and unconsciousness prickling at the edges of your mind.
A chuckle. “Sorry, it’s just so amazing. Do you have any idea what this means?”
“You- this isn’t- this can’t be-” you swallow, and it’s like shards of glass slicing down your throat.
“Possible? Didn’t I just say nothing is impossible? Nothing, not even this- though it probably should be. If you didn’t believe curses have souls before, then you have to now, don’t you? That’s what you’ve been absorbing this entire time! Cursed energy, it’s nothing but an extension of one’s soul.”
“No, no, I-”
“I imagine that’s why you’ve refused to devour a curse fully. You know, subconsciously, you’d be devouring its soul in its entirety. Intertwining it with your own. It’s alright if you take a little, here and there. Easy enough to scrub off the curse and make it your own. But an entire Grade Two, while being completely depleted of your own? That would make you-”
“Stop,” you whimper, unable to accept it. “Stop it. You’re wrong.”
“Aw,” Kenjaku coos, cupping a wet cheek in his hand. “You hate curses so much, don’t you? But you have more in common with them- with me- than you think. What is a Cursed Spirit, if not cursed energy? It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Their cursed energy is their soul. That’s why they can’t exist without it, unlike how a human’s body remains even after the soul is removed. That’s why Mahito can alter his physical appearance by touching his ‘soul’. It’s all the same thing. Tell me, when you observe Sukuna’s vessel, what do you sense? Only Itadori Yuji? Or can you tell that both are in there? If you absorbed the King of Curses, I wonder what would happen?”
“No.”
“The woman I kept all those years ago- she’d had a similar dilemma. Did birthing curses make her a curse as well? Does absorbing curses make you a curse? If I can do this-” He pulls, just for a second, and you wail. The pain worsening, compounding the more he takes. “Then that’s a pretty substantial implication, isn’t it? But don’t worry, you’re still human in the ways that matter. I doubt I could absorb you fully, and I don’t want to try. Don’t want to risk killing you accidentally. But if I could…”
His (its, your mind tries to correct. This monster… this demon… this curse… you don’t even know how to refer to it. And now, were you even any different?) voice turns introspective. Musing, like he’s speaking to himself. Itself. Thumb smoothing over your cheekbone, across your lips. “Wouldn’t you be the prettiest curse in my repertoire?”
You jerk weakly, but his grip stays. Eyes raking over your face. “I’m glad to make this discovery with you. I’m sure with time, we could make so many more- you and I. We could get to the bottom of the exact relationship between the soul of a human and cursed energy. Understand the inner workings of a sorcerer like no one before us.
“Why can some humans, like Zenin Toji, be born entirely without cursed energy, yet still have a soul? What determines if a human can become a sorcerer or not? Tengen’s ability certainly has something to do with it, and I’m sure my plan will be instrumental in unlocking those secrets. Curses are easier to understand, aren’t they? So singular and fleeting. Humans are complicated. So many moving parts…”
Another hand clamps down on your hip, hot and heavy. You jostle, and the movement sends a tidal wave of vertigo crashing over you. You gag, your heart pounding in your chest, banging painfully against your ribcage. Whatever he did to you, it’d sent you right back to square one. A lingering stinging pain flashing through your body, the energy zapped from your limbs. Deadweight hanging in an infinite void. The physical pain isn't enough- he seems to enjoy watching you suffer in every capacity. Touching you with stolen hands, laughing with a stolen voice when you try to pull away. Saying such awful, awful things with that stolen voice. Desecrating Suguru’s body. He’d never be able to rest like this.
You can only blame yourself. Suguru’s body should have been ashes spread into the ocean. There’s no way this demon could have found it then. There’s no way it could have been used in this vile way- made a mockery of. Wielded as a weapon. It’s wrong, it’s all wrong. The way he talks, the way he says your name. The way his cursed energy fluctuates, the way he touches you. So familiar, and yet so, so wrong. Skirting the line between comforting and disgusting. Tearing you apart from the inside out as you fight between wanting to lean in and pull away. If you could move, if you could reach out, would the silky strands of his hair still be there, flowing down his back like water? Would his playful smirk still curl the same? Would his slanted eyes still crinkle when he smiled?
You don’t know. You feel like you don’t know anything any more, being toyed with by a stranger in your friend’s body. Being absorbed like a curse by the stranger in your friend’s body. It doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be possible. It turns everything you thought you knew about curses on its head. You’d always considered cursed energy to be something completely separate from both the body and soul. But if those two were really so intertwined, then was that what you had actually been sensing this entire time? Not just people’s cursed energy, but their soul. Which would also mean that’s what you’ve been manipulating this entire time, too. Your own soul, that you’d been balling up tight and holding down like a ferocious beast. You’d always just thought your cursed energy was a bit more volatile than others- harder to control. But that was just you. That was who you are.
Something cold and hard drops in your stomach. What does any of this even mean? What good does it do to try and figure it out? The chances of Satoru finding you like this are slim. The chances of you escaping on your own are slimmer. You’re as good as dead. You won’t ever get to touch him again, or submerge yourself into the depths of his rolling waves. His soul. You’ll never get to feel Riko’s cheek squished against yours or hear her twinkling laughter. In the moment, her safety had been your sole concern. You hadn’t even begun to consider that might be the last time you’d get to hold her. Megumi, Tsumiki, the students… you’d be leaving them all behind. And they’re strong- strong enough to make it on their own, to stop this monster and put an end to whatever plan he has- but… but you had at least wanted to be there. Picking them up when they fell down. Experiencing them growing up, growing old. Was that really no longer an option?
“Don’t look so down, Princess. This is a good thing,” Kenjaku says softly, in Suguru’s voice. You hate the way the sound soothes you, cuts you. “I’m honestly glad I can’t kill you, you’re much more valuable as an experiment.”
You bite down hard on your trembling lip, cursing your stupid eyes as more tears spill for him to wipe away.
“And don’t worry about your little twins. I’ll raise them like my own, give them good lives. At least until The Merger.”
You frown. “The Merger…?”
You can hear the smile in his voice, light and airy. He takes a step back, then another. Body heat rescinding and leaving you cold. He summons two curses this time. Both Grade One. “I’ll tell you all about it. But first, will you do something for me?”
“Eat up.”