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The last thing Yuuji remembers is blacking out.
Feet giving up beneath him, Sukuna's punch on the side of his temple — Yuuji's fist simultaneously landing through Sukuna's gut in a spark of black.
Which one of them lost consciousness first? Yuuji could not tell.
Get up, get up, get up.
Get. Up.
He couldn't.
...
...
"...Who are you?!"
"Hey!"
Yuuji gasps like he has never before — as if he'd really been dead. Throat so dry he might as well have been.
"You don't get to act like the victim now!"
Who is talking? Yuuji can't open his eyes for the life of him. Everything is so bright; his head hurts worse than a migraine, and worst of all, he barely feels in control of his cursed energy. Something is wrong. Very wrong. It isn't until the person kicks Yuuji on his side that he's finally able to force his lids open, and the first thing in his vision is grass — green, lively, but trampled. He's on the ground beside a tree. And the person-
"Give it back, asshole!"
Of course.
Yuuji feels insurmountable rage resurfacing in the back of his head faster than any other instinct gets the chance.
Sukuna.
Where has he dragged him to?
"I need it!" Sukuna screams at him, but Yuuji is still in too much of a haze to do anything about it. What? What is he even talking about? Yuuji didn't steal anything. Is this real? Yuuji swears he will kill this abomination of a person even if it costs him absolutely everything. As long as Megumi-
"Ugh!" Sukuna interrupts his incoherent thoughts once more before snatching something from his lap. This... this arm is considerably slimmer. Yuuji would remember. Damn, he's been crawling him up like a parasite just to beat him. What the fuck. Just as Yuuji gazes up for a proper look, Sukuna starts yelling again.
And Yuuji still can't feel an inkling of cursed energy.
"You- You broke it!" Sukuna's voice cracks.
Unnervingly, the person in front of Yuuji is nearly devoid of any of Sukuna's characteristics.
"Why?!" Sukuna pleads to know, but by this point, Yuuji is entirely checked out — staring at a very malnourished, young Sukuna before his eyes. What is this technique? Mind manipulation? Something even more incomprehensible? What? As his eyes continue trailing up and down on this odd-looking Sukuna, holding some sort of object, a new voice makes him startle.
Sukuna reacts similarly, twitching hard enough to break whatever is in his hands all by himself.
"You brat!"
Trying to get up, Yuuji braces himself against the tree.
"You fucking useless-" the voice, a man, stomps into view with a furious look in his eye, "piece of shit!"
Before Yuuji knows it, Sukuna is down on the ground next to him.
Not by choice, but by a harsh, mean slap on his face that sends him stumbling several feet.
"I should kill you!"
"No!" Sukuna's voice cracks again, and Yuuji holds his breath. They're both ignoring him now. As if he isn't even there. "Master, I am sorry-"
"Bow down when you speak to me!" the man growls, and Yuuji sees Sukuna scrambling to get on his hands and knees. What the fuck is this? "Why are you here?!"
The answer doesn't come. Not for a long while. Yuuji isn't scared in the slightest, but seeing something so absurd — Sukuna bowing deeply, apologizing, nearly crying — is making his stomach turn. This isn't real, right?
"This- this kid stole t-the talisman."
The next thing Yuuji hears is a loud swoosh — something he can instinctively tell is a cursed technique — and Sukuna wails in pain. The 'Master' is eerily quiet.
"So you failed to do the one thing I asked you to do."
Another swoosh, and Sukuna's blood splatters on Yuuji. It's some sort of shikigami.
"You disgust everyone in the village."
Swoosh.
"You should be dead."
Swoosh.
"You-"
"Hey!" Yuuji tries to sound intimidating, but his voice comes across only as a weak whine. Against all of the rage, resentment, and hatred churning inside of him, it seems that injustice is something that he will never be capable of overlooking — no matter how much he hates himself for it. Damn you. "I was the one who did it!"
The man's eyes are on him now.
"I frankly don't care."
What?
Swoosh.
As Yuuji looks over to Sukuna, he grimaces. Deep, piercing cuts cover both of his arms. The rather scary shikigami seems to attack him in short bursts by command, slicing him with its sharp body on impact. Older scars cover the length of his left arm.
Why isn't Sukuna moving?
"Don't do that!" Yuuji tries again, and this time he manages to get up. Yet, the cursed energy he feels is barely there. Ungraspable at best. "He's already hurt!"
However, this earns Yuuji an attack of his own.
"Quiet," the man scoffs as Yuuji chokes back a groan, the shikigami's claws feeling like poison. "I congratulate you, Sukuna, someone actually feels bad for you."
From the corner of his eye, Yuuji sees that Sukuna has already given up. He's barely in a bow anymore — lying weakly on the ground, covered in his own blood. He looks pathetic. Where the fuck is Yuuji at right now?
"If I go back with this broken talisman," the man continues speaking in monotone, raising his hand. "They will kill me. Unless I kill you. Or should I bring you to my place?"
No.
"You know how to please a man, right?"
But as it appears, Sukuna doesn't even have fight in him anymore. He's not moving.
"Then do it."
Yuuji acts before he thinks. Of course he does. And maybe it's the rage, maybe it's Gojo, Choso — Megumi, Nobara — all this death, maybe it's all this that Yuuji can't stand seeing anymore — that finally catches up to him in the form of cursed energy again.
He punches the shit out of the man.
It hurts his wrist like hell, as if it's not used to it. Nevertheless, the punch landed clean underneath his chin, uppercutting him to the ground like a sack of shit. Any remnants of Shrine or Blood Manipulation are nowhere to be found, but Yuuji knows for damn sure that hit packed a bunch on its own.
Conveniently for them, the shikigami retreats to its owner on the ground.
Now, it's up to Yuuji to make a split-second decision.