Chapter Text
“I’ll fucking kill you, you little rat!” the mugger screamed, straining against his bindings. They looked like they would hold, but Yuuji could see them ever-so-slightly loosening.
Yuuji sighed, ignoring the mugger’s enraged screams. “I think we need to workshop these DIY webs, Big S.”
If you call me ‘Big S’ once more, you will long for Hell after the calamity I put you through, the deep voice in his head said.
“Ever the charmer, Sukuna.”
The voice in his head fell silent, which was a blessing in any context. The only sounds that could be heard in the abandoned, and — eugh — wet alley were the mugger’s grumbling and Yuuji’s own footsteps as he padded away.
There were three things that most people knew about Itadori Yuuji.
- He was a totally normal, painfully average, run-of-the-mill high-school student.
- Okay, he lied a bit in number one. Lots of people knew him as the ‘Tiger of West Junior High’, the guy who beat up a shit ton of people (they were bad people, okay?) and also was decently athletic.
- He never stayed past five o’clock after school.
Which were normal. The second one got him into some kind of weird skirmish with the track coach, but otherwise — not very flashy.
You waste our collective potential on these meaningless pursuits, the voice in his head said again.
“Right, right,” Yuuji said distractedly, pulling down his hood as he clambered up the side of a building. In the dead of night, he wasn’t too worried about people spotting him, like this. In the daytime, however, he was much more careful.
That was because there was one thing that nobody, except for himself and the voice in his head, knew about Itadori Yuuji.
He was a superhero.
That’s idiotic, Sukuna sneered.
“Shut up!” Yuuji flushed, pulling himself onto the rooftop. He scanned the area for the telltale uniform of any police officers. “What do you want me to call myself?”
A moron, Sukuna said.
“Not a fan of that one,” Yuuji said, finally spotting a police officer. “We’ll circle back, or something.”
He jumped down, landing in a crouch that he very giddily figured out how to land gracefully a couple weeks ago (no, he wasn’t copying Spider-Man, who would even do that?) as he approached the woman. She was sitting in her patrol car, completely unaware of his presence. She seemed to be very peacefully scrolling on her phone.
Yuuji felt a bit bad when he, very lightly, tapped on her window. The officer jumped about a foot in the air.
With his hood very much obscuring his face, he couldn’t exactly send a sheepish smile her way. He motioned for her to roll down her window.
The police officer stared at him.
He stared back.
She kept staring.
Okay, this wasn’t going anywhere.
Yuuji sighed, trudging back over to where he’d caught the criminal. Seriously, this guy was really overstaying his welcome.
The mugger was still trying to escape when Yuuji made it back.
“Alright bud, you’re going to jail,” Yuuji said, heaving the mugger over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Um, I would tell you your rights, or whatever, but I’m not…into law. And stuff. Sorry.”
“What the hell are you — I’ll beat your fuckin’ ass!” the mugger struggled in his grip, clearly trying to wiggle out of Yuuji’s very clever tying-up system. “Fuckin’ loser!”
“Trying to rob an innocent woman, like, in the middle of the night is peak loser activity,” Yuuji said back, wrinkling his nose.
The man sputtered some more, but Yuuji paid little attention to his words as he soldiered on, back to the police car.
The police officer looked positively bewildered as he dumped the mugger onto the ground, right outside her car window.
Yuuji motioned her to roll down the window.
She blinked at him.
Then, very slowly, the window started to roll down.
“Sorry to bother you,” Yuuji said, tilting his head in a bit of a bow. “Um, this guy robbed someone. And, like, I didn’t want him getting away, or anything. The woman he robbed is okay! Like, I made sure she was fine. Got home safe, and everything.”
The police officer stared at him.
Yuuji sighed. This part was always so awkward.
I could strike down this pathetic woman with less than a flick of my finger, Sukuna suddenly butted into his thoughts.
Chill, trigger-happy, Yuuji thought back.
“So, like, I dunno. Can you take him to jail?” Yuuji said, rubbing his temples a bit.
He looked back up to see the police officer still staring at him.
“Okay…I’m…” Yuuji flicked a thumb over his shoulder. “...gonna go now. Have, um, a great night, ma’am!”
And with that, he was off.
The police would handle the criminal. They always did.
So Yuuji’s job was done.
Sendai was always quiet, at night. There had been times he’d visited big-shot cities, like Tokyo, or Kyoto. There, the high-rise buildings had twinkled, windows almost looking like another set of stars. The streets were always busy, even at the witching hour, bustling as if the position of hands on a clock were irrelevant. There, he knew, crime sprang up like bacteria in a culture.
The same couldn’t be said for Sendai. There were occasional muggings, maybe a delinquent or two every night. Which was good.
Because the countryside had other problems.
Yuuji stopped in his tracks, feeling a light pricking in the back of his neck.
In his peripheral vision, a lamp flickered, making the shadows of the small condos around him appear and disappear in short intervals. Moths floated around the light, scattering and reconvening with every little flash.
There was a dark alley in front of him.
Ever since he’d swallowed the finger, he’d had some kind of sixth sense. Not for ordinary things, but for…
“Sukuna,” he said under his breath. “There’s something there, right?”
And what difference would it make if I told you? Sukuna jeered, words dripping with contempt.
That was a confirmation if Yuuji had ever heard one. He steeled himself, pushing the slightest amount of energy into his fist. The warmth spread up his arm, into his hand. He knew if he looked at it, his fist would be emitting a crackling, electric red.
“Alright, here we go,” Yuuji breathed out, not waiting for a response. He tiptoed forward, following the wisps of other that he could just barely perceive. They were like raindrops that fell onto concrete, appearing briefly and dissipating into nothing as soon as one crouched down to look.
A low clicking noise sounded out in the alley.
Yuuji honed in on the area.
Creeping out from a shadow was a…one of those. Sukuna called them curses, but the word didn’t even begin to describe how unsettling they were.
The curse in front of him chittered again, long legs tapping along the walls. It looked almost like a stickbug, one that had flesh that stretched too tightly across some malformed version of bones.
In its maws, the mangled corpse of a cat was dripping crimson red liquid onto the ground.
With little fanfare, Yuuji punched through the curse, red light splitting through the air. There was a time, once, when he’d first gotten his ‘superpowers’, where he’d tried to show one of these creatures some mercy. It hadn’t done anything, right?
He had ended up very wrong.
The curse in front of him started to crumble, pieces of flesh and bone tumbling off its body and disintegrating into dust. As it did, Yuuji withdrew his fist from its body.
“Fuck,” Yuuji hissed, shaking out his hand. The recoil from the weird, red energy he could summon hurt like a bitch. Always leaving a burning sensation, the unsettling feeling of creaking bones and skin rubbed raw. But every time, without fail, the damage seemed to knit itself back together within seconds.
Your control is pitiful, brat, Sukuna observed, voice mocking like it always was. I would do a finer job in your stead.
“Don’t you have any books in there, Sukuna?” Yuuji said absent-mindedly, dusting off his hoodie from the remnants of the curse. White flakes of a substance he was mildly grossed out by floated gently towards the ground, blending into the general grime of the alley. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Podcasts? Anything? Just sayin’, because you’re gonna be super bored with the amount of not-letting-you-out I’m ‘boutta do.”
Do not jest, brat, Sukuna hissed.
But Yuuji ignored him, instead crouching down to where the bloody body of the cat lay.
It was a small thing, making Yuuji’s heart pang with sympathy when he saw where the bite marks were. It had probably been paralyzed immediately, hopefully avoiding the suffering of getting chunks of its flesh torn out by the curse.
His fingers curled around a small nametag, strung to its neck by a collar.
“Oh, man,” Yuuji sighed, picking up and cradling the cat. Its blood started to seep into his hoodie, but that could be washed. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
He peeked at the address written on the tag, accompanied by a messily-scrawled name.
“Let’s get you home, Mochi.”
────────
Some of the clubs at school had humongous member-bases, with full rooms and snacks and activities. They had multiple circles of conversation happening at once, planning for the hustle and bustle that came with the new school year.
The club that Yuuji joined had exactly one of those, and he was glad it was the snacks part.
“Itadori-kun!” Sasaki, the Occult Club’s president, said as she stood up. Her chair scraped behind her. “We’ve got some plans for tonight.”
“Oh, cool,” Yuuji said, feet swinging in his chair as he munched on a pizza slice. The Occult Club’s room was small, but it was enough for the three members. “What plans?”
“Aoba Castle,” Iguchi chimed. “At night, for some reason.”
“For atmosphere!” Sasaki shot back, placing an affronted hand on her chest. Then, she deflated a bit. “And also, because it’s easier to sneak in at night. No sight-seers.”
“That seems kinda dangerous, guys,” Yuuji said, dubiously. “I don’t know…”
Sasaki whirled on him, her expression passionate. It was honestly admirable, how fired up she got about Occult Club activities. “Danger is part of the job! We’re investigative journalists. Risking our lives to uncover the truth.”
“Alright, chill,” Iguchi put up placating hands. “Well, I guess it could be fun.”
As it turns out, their first ever outing as the Occult Club hadn’t gone…well. That was one way to put it.
Yuuji hadn’t been down to the rugby field since. And honestly, he preferred to keep it that way.
But the outing had given him his superpowers, so — silver lining, or whatever people say.
“I can’t, tonight,” he said, sheepishly. “Sorry, guys.”
Twin groans sounded out from his classmates, and he felt just a little bit bad.
But they didn’t know about his night job.
A quick glance to his watch told him it was nearing five-o-clock. He pushed himself out of his chair.
“Okay, I’m gonna head out now,” he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “You guys probably shouldn’t go to the castle. There could be, like, those monsters again.”
“Sure,” Sasaki waved him off, seeming slightly disappointed.
As the club room’s door closed behind him, Yuuji glanced outside the school window. The shadows slanted, long in the early afternoon. The light wasn’t quite golden, the sun not dipping below the horizon yet.
Outside, across the school’s field, he could see a small black cat padding along the grass. It bore no collar, seemingly content to amble around.
Yuuji watched, and wondered if Mochi’s owners had buried him yet.
────────
“I’m telling you, you need to keep up with your academics. What is this, about no physical report card?” his grandfather grumbled, crossing his arms in his bed. The sunlight peeked through the hospital’s blinds, creating golden lines on the wall of the ward.
“They don’t do that, anymore, ojiichan. Our report cards are all digital,” Yuuji said as he busied himself with arranging the flowers he’d bought. He scrunched his face in displeasure. The baby’s breath was way too clumped together.
Those are rice flowers, idiot, Sukuna said. If you’re going to purchase them, at the very least remember their proper names.
“Nothing wrong with the old system,” his grandfather said, seeming annoyed. “Every new change they make in schools is so convoluted…”
“Sorry,” Yuuji said, both to his grandfather for the inconvenience and to Sukuna for getting the flowers’ names wrong. But the next part was only to his grandfather. “Um, I can show you them, on a computer. If you want.”
But his grandfather waved him off. “No need. I know you’re doing well.”
Yuuji beamed. “Thanks!”
“But you better keep doing well!” his grandfather barked.
“Right, ojiichan,” Yuuji said, already used to his grandfather’s gruff nature. He eyed the setting sun, mentally cataloguing how the rest of his night was going to go. “Do you want me to bring back dinner? I can make some curry.”
“No, no,” his grandfather said. “Don’t cook for me, use the time to study.”
Yuuji smiled. “Of course.”
Being deceitful with your elders is unbecoming of a so-called ‘superhero’, Sukuna jeered.
Like you can judge, Yuuji mentally rolled his eyes.
Outwardly, though, he gave a wave of goodbye to his grandfather, and headed back to the apartment.
His hoodie should’ve been done drying, by now.
────────
“Okay!” Yuuji clapped his hands together. “Here’s the plan for tonight.”
From his perch on a condo roof, he could see the lights of the city start to flicker on.
The sun had fully set by now, blanketing Sendai in a night that was permeated by warmth. Summer was approaching, evidenced by fruit that overtook flowers on the trees that dotted his neighborhood, by how the wind was significantly less biting as it flew through his clothes.
His disguise was simple. A red hoodie, one that had a collar to cover the lower half of his face. Nothing to disguise his eyes, though — he was hoping that the shadows and the night would do that job for him. Really, the most ‘superhero’ thing about his getup was the utility belt that clipped securely around his waist.
He fished out one of his makeshift ‘web-shooters’. Completely original, by the way. In reality, it was more of an automatically-wrapping grappling hook, than anything. Point at the target, shoot, and a rope would fling out and wrap around the perp.
Thank goodness for eBay.
“I say we do some light patrol, maybe swing by the festival, just to check in on things,” he said, throwing the web-shooter into the air with one hand and catching it with the other. “Then we finish up downtown. That’s solid, right?”
What’s solid is your head, from how dense you are, Sukuna replied.
“Sounds like you agree,” Yuuji chirped, pocketing the web-shooters again. Then he bent into a crouch. “Alright, game time.”
With just the tiniest spark of energy sent to his legs, Yuuji launched off the rooftop.
He’d always had pretty crazy physicals. Jumping from building to building, however, was something that only came after the whole finger incident.
He felt the wind against his face, the force of it making his hoodie flap in the air as he sailed across the rooftops. Up here, he could see the entirety of Sendai — not that it was a big city, to begin with, but still. There were people ambling around the streets in the early night, kids who stayed out just a bit past their curfew, twenty-somethings whose nights were just beginning.
He let out a light laugh as he cleared a particularly wide precipice. God, how had he lived without being able to do this, before?
“And our final stop,” he said, slightly out of breath from traveling across town. He crouched on the edge of a high-rise, hidden in the shadows. Waving a hand in the air, he mimed ringing a bell. “Ding ding ding! We’ve arrived at the cherry blossom festival. Thank you, Sukuna, for riding. That’ll be two hundred yen.”
The area was absolutely packed. Kids and adults alike pushed past each other, the huge crowd like a sea of people laughing, chattering, and everything in between.
He felt his lips quirk up in a smile, when he saw an older man, grey speckling his hair, hoist what looked to be his grandson onto his shoulders.
Women and children, Sukuna said in his mind, seeming the most gleeful he’d been all week. Crawling around, like maggots.
“Okay, that’s enough out of you,” Yuuji rolled his eyes, pulling his hood lower over his head. He couldn’t risk his hair poking out, since that would spell disaster for his secret identity. “Let’s go patrol.”
He hopped across the rooftops, trying for silent but landing more on a slightly-less-loud-than-the-crowd-below-him. There was a persistent issue with large crowds. Pickpocketing, the potential for fights to break out, all the hazards that came with people. These were things that most people knew.
But something that only Yuuji knew, was that where there were crowds…
…there were curses.
“Keep your eyes peeled, S-man, yeah?” he said, scanning over any particularly shadowed areas or run-down spots. “And before you comment on the nickname, all you said was to drop the Big S. So we’re compromising.”
The voice inside his head didn’t respond, but Yuuji could sense his irritation.
Oh well.
There was a lull in people, where the food stalls petered out and only scattered groups of people convened. Some guys, taking a smoke break where they wouldn’t disturb the crowd. Another was a family, sitting and trying to console a crying baby.
Yuuji’s eyes glanced over the area, looking for any signs of trouble. But there were none, just people relaxing.
It would do you well to investigate the alley, Sukuna suddenly said.
“Huh?” Yuuji responded, standing up straight. “What alley? What’d you see?”
Sukuna didn’t respond, but there was a slight tug in Yuuji’s gut. Like something was directing his eyes that wasn’t him.
His gaze fell onto a particularly secluded spot, where it seemed nobody was.
But, if he looked closer—
His eyes widened. “Is that…?”
Small fry, for me, Sukuna said haughtily.
“Sure it is,” Yuuji said distractedly, pumping more energy into his legs in preparation for a bigger jump. With a push, he launched himself off of the roof.
He took care to soften his landing on the other building, keeping quiet.
He winced at the sight below him.
Cornered in a dark, damp alley was a kid.
And in front of it was a huge, looming curse. Its body was grotesque, mangled in the way that curses always were, yet significantly…humanoid. It wasn’t something he could just punch through, that much he could tell.
“Shit,” he said below his breath. “Alright, we’re not rawdogging this thing. Any ideas?”
Your reserves are excruciatingly low, Sukuna seemed to agree. A reckless act would be humiliating. Unbecoming of the vessel of Sukuna.
“None of this vessel shit right now, man!” Yuuji whispered. “Um…”
He watched as the curse drew closer to the kid, its claws twitching like it was itching to grab something.
His hand ghosted over his web-shooters. Grapple-shooters. Whatever.
But as he looked down at the scene unfolding below him, he had an idea.
“Alright,” he said, mostly to himself, as he whipped out a web-shooter. He, very carefully, lined it up in as good an aim as he could manage. “Please stay still for a sec, little guy.”
And he fired.
The grappling-hook-esque device shot out, whipping through the air. The ropes spread out, kind of like a fishing net, as it shot straight down.
Both the kid and the curse looked up at the noise, but Yuuji was already moving.
With a snap, the ropes grappled around the child, earning a surprised yelp from him. Yuuji held fast on them from his perch on the rooftop, yanking with a grunt. With his superhuman strength, he was able to essentially fish the kid up onto the roof.
The child landed with an oomf, and Yuuji could see that he had been crying, just now. Which made sense.
“Sorry!” he said, waving his hands as he walked backwards towards the edge. “Um, stay there, real quick.”
He looked over his shoulder, hearing the angry screech of the curse below him, in the alley. It was trying to claw its way up the wall, no doubt to continue pursuing its meal.
“C’mon, Sukuna, gimme a little juice,” he pleaded, punching out his fist. A flare of his familiar red energy crackled around his hand, darkening the air around it with power.
Gladly, if I can take control, Sukuna said, sounding smug.
“Still not there yet, alright,” Yuuji muttered, cowed. “We’re rawdogging it, then.”
With a tug, he pulled all the energy he could muster from his fist into his feet. It was electric, a burning sensation in his legs that felt just on the cusp of dangerous. But in the month since he’d started his nightly activities, he’d like to believe that he had some semblance of control over it.
Looking down, he saw that the curse was still clawing at the wall.
So he jumped.
Pointing his legs firmly under him, he let gravity run its course. The air wooshed around his face, his stomach dropping as he rapidly fell—
His feet made contact, and the curse exploded into a shower of purple blood.
It splattered all over the walls of the alley. Showered the floor. Some splattered on his face, making it past his hoodie.
“Blegh!” Yuuji gagged, landing in a crouch. He very quickly removed his hands from the ground, grimacing when he saw they were covered in curse blood. “Ew, ew, ew, ew! Dude, you couldn’t use your cool powers this one time?”
No.
“Ugh,” Yuuji lamented, looking down over his clothes. “Great. Now I have a shit ton of laundry to do. Happy, Sukuna?”
He was not dignified with a response. But he didn’t have the time to be irritated, because the sound of sobbing from his vacated rooftop drew a thread of panic in him.
With another push of his cursed energy, he jumped back on top of the building.
The kid he’d saved had (thankfully) wriggled out of the ropes, sitting on the ground. He was still crying, wet and messy, with snot running down his face.
“Hey, hey, hey, you’re okay,” Yuuji said, going for placating as he crouched down. He winced when the kid flinced. “The, um, the monster’s gone now. You’re all good.”
The kid’s crying slowed, as big, wobbly eyes looked up at Yuuji. Oh man, this was going to kill him. The kid was so freakin’ cute, but also probably traumatized in a way that was not good for childhood development. He was pretty sure.
“Um, sorry, I’m pretty gross right now,” Yuuji said, peering down at his own bloodsoaked clothes. He looked back to the child, scanning for injuries. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
Slowly, the kid shook his head. His eyes were still wide, locked on Yuuji.
“Okay, that’s good. Um…” he scratched his head, trying to figure out what to do next. “Where are your parents? Actually, wait, scratch that. Lemme bring you downstairs, first.”
He turned around, splaying his arms out behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he tried to give a small smile to the kid. “Want a piggyback ride? It’s super fun, promise.”
The kid didn’t move.
“Or I can be, like, a unicorn, if you want?” Yuuji tried, his hands making a beckoning motion to hop on his back. “That would be super cool. You could be, like, a knight in shining armor. Type shit,” he blurted, before realizing what he’d said. “Oh, wait, don’t repeat that. Um, shit is a bad word. You shouldn’t cuss—”
A giggle punctuated the air, breaking Yuuji out of his rambling. He refocused on the kid, to see his pudgy face laughing.
The sight made Yuuji feel warm, and before he knew it, he let out a chuckle of his own.
“You said shit,” the kid giggled, pointing at him. “That’s not allowed!”
“Aye, you said it, too!” Yuuji squawked, playing offended. “Let’s keep the cussing between us, okay?” he put a finger to his lips. “Otherwise I’ll get in trouble.”
“O-okay,” the kid said, his voice slightly raspy and wet from the previous crying. But now, even with a face flushed with tears, Yuuji could see that the kid was smiling.
And in a flash, the kid had clambered on his back. A small pair of small arms wound around his neck, hands gripping tightly into his hoodie. Carefully, Yuuji slid his arms under the kid’s legs, securing him firmly to his own body.
“Alright, on three. Ready?” he said, walking towards the ledge. It wasn’t high, by any means, but the child looked nervous enough that he felt it was necessary.
“Ready,” the boy said, hiding his face behind Yuuji's back.
“One,” Yuuji said, bending his legs. “Two…”
He pushed off. “Three!”
His stomach dropped again, but this time it was a familiar drop, one that accompanied his more controlled jumps. He could feel the kid gasp behind him, small arms tightening their hold.
He landed on the ground in a crouch, knees bending to cushion the fall as much as possible for the kid.
“You good?” he asked, as he helped the child onto solid ground. “That was pretty extreme, my bad.”
“Yeah!” the kid said, the pure happiness in their voice causing Yuuji to falter. He looked at the kid, who was beaming at him. “That was so cool! You’re, like — you’re like Spider-Man!”
Yuuji was going to freakin’ cry. “Seriously?” he gasped, clutching his chest.
“Super seriously!” the kid nodded fervently. “With, like, a much worse outfit! You’re so cool!”
“Ah,” Yuuji said, deflating. “Um, thanks?”
The squealing midget is right about your garments. They are distasteful, Sukuna snickered in his mindscape. He did not think this guy was capable of snickering.
Yuuji did not dignify the guy with a response. But his eye twitched. Just a bit.
“Hey, Spider-Man, can I ask you something?” the kid said, leaning forward. He seemed more scared, suddenly.
“What’s up?” Yuuji asked, leaning forward to match.
What the kid said next made his heart skip a beat. “Can you kill the rest of them?”
Yuuji froze, blinking. “The…rest?”
The child nodded, timid. “There were more, a-and the one you just beat up chased me here. Please, please can you get them?”
Ohhhhh shit. “Okay, um,” Yuuji furrowed his brows. “Can you tell me where they were?”
“The mountain,” the kid whispered, like it was a secret.
“Which mountain?” Yuuji pushed.
“Aoba.”
Aoba.
“Itadori-kun!” Sasaki, the Occult Club’s president, said as she stood up. Her chair scraped behind her. “We’ve got some plans for tonight.”
“Oh, cool,” Yuuji said, feet swinging in his chair as he munched on a pizza slice. The Occult Club’s room was small, but it was enough for the three members. “What plans?”
“Aoba Castle,” Iguchi chimed. “At night, for some reason.”
Yuuji reeled back, jumping into a standing position. “Oh shit.”
The kid raised an eyebrow at him. “You just said shit, again.”
“Don’t use me as a role model,” Yuuji said distractedly, backing up and pushing energy into his legs. “Um, go find your parents!”
And with an only slightly wobbly burst of energy, he pushed off again.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!” Yuuji blurted as he jumped between rooftops. “Dude, Sukuna, there’s no way. There’s actually no way.”
How idiotic of you to not anticipate this outcome, Sukuna sneered.
“Not. Helping!” Yuuji gritted, pivoting towards Sendai Station. There were a lot of underground trains that blitzed across the city — but if he wanted to hitch a ride, he couldn’t exactly go through the tunnels.
He landed on a rooftop near the station, watching from his perch for the next futsuu train to appear. They were slower than bullet trains, much easier for him to just hop on.
“Gotcha,” he whispered to himself, seeing one emerge out of the station. With a push, he launched himself towards the train. It was moving decently fast, not nearly fast enough to outrun him.
Landing deftly onto the top of it, he gripped onto a metal bar that jutted out of the top. In the pitch black of night, he wasn’t worried about any bypassers spotting his not-exactly-legal form of transport. With the help of the train’s movement, he could basically use it as one of those moving sidewalks. Like, the type that were at airports.
Careful to keep his footsteps light, he started to run in the direction of Aoba Castle.
The grounds of the castle were eerily quiet.
To most people, at least.
“Jeez,” Yuuji hissed, squinting his eyes. A headache was building up, from the sheer foreboding that seemed to fill the air. It was thick, almost suffocating — like smog that permeated every sense except his vision. “How many curses are there?”
The number is irrelevant, Sukuna said flippantly. But an undercurrent of something sinister ran through his voice. I shall very much enjoy this.
Yuuji crept across a small outdoor pavilion, eyes sweeping the area. “Care to elaborate on that, bud?”
But for once, the voice in his head was quiet, and Yuuji was left with the churn of unease in his chest.
“Alright,” he pushed out a breath, hyping himself up with a hop. “Let’s Spider-Man this shit.”
Sukuna was still quiet. But Yuuji soldiered ahead.
The inside of the castle wasn’t quite the ruins one would expect, well — a castle to be composed of. It was a decently well-kept area, almost museum-like.
But there were wisps of other that permeated it, vastly more potent than what had been in the alley.
He scanned the area, looking for Sasaki and Iguchi. But they were nowhere to be found.
“Sukuna, can you find them?” Yuuji whispered.
He was met with silence. He paused his steps, waiting for the voice to start talking, like it always did.
“Seriously, you’re giving me the silent treatment?” he pouted. “What’d I even do?”
More silence. He sighed, walking further into the castle. As he walked, he started exiting out of the strictly touristy spots and moreso into the areas that only people really into history would venture towards. The walls started getting noticeably less pristine, pieces of it crumbling or missing.
“Creepy,” Yuuji said absent-mindedly as he walked. “Hey, S-man—”
A loud crash sounded out.
Somewhere in the building.
“Oh shit,” he breathed, before he took off running.
The sounds were loud, constant, like there was an active battle going on. He turned on his heel around the corner, following where the crashes slowly got louder.
The sight that greeted him could only be described as shit hitting the fan.
Both of his classmates were being cornered by a curse, one that was bigger and considerably more mangled than the one he’d taken down in the alley. It looked humanoid, with black lines that ran across its body and the top of its bald head.
“Sa—” he started to yell Sasaki’s name, before remembering he was in his disguise. “Hey!”
His classmate’s head snapped over, her eyes terrified. “Help!”
And Yuuji had no choice but to charge in.
With an energy-reinforced kick, he tried to knock the curse out with a single blow, cursing when it only caused the creature to stumble.
“You two!” he barked, turning to his trembling friends. “Run!”
“Who are you?” Iguchi gasped, staring up at Yuuji.
“Doesn’t matter, just go!” Yuuji said, frantically waving his hands.
“B-but,” Iguchi stammered. “My friend, she—”
Yuuji looked down to where his classmate was gesturing, down at Sasaki’s ankle. It was swollen, bruised — likely a sprain or a break.
“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Okay, you,” he pointed at Iguchi. “Get out of here. We’ll follow you.”
His classmate nodded, and took off into the hallway.
Behind you, a voice sounded out.
“Oh, so now you wanna come back?” Yuuji growled, slinging Sasaki over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. “You know what—”
Something seemed to grip his legs, and Yuuji’s eyes widened as he jumped to the side. A claw swiped just shy of his torso, a proximity that made Yuuji slightly nauseous with how close it was.
He looked down at his own body, perplexed. Because what just happened hadn’t been instinct, or some kind of muscle memory. It was almost like…
“Get out of here!” a voice sounded out. Oh shit. Were there more people—?
Yuuji whipped his head around, frantically trying to spot how someone else had gotten caught up in the fray.
There.
A guy, looking to be around in high school, had hopped through the window and was charging towards them. He had dark hair that stuck up everywhere, which would’ve been funny to Yuuji under less dire circumstances.
The fabric of the guy’s black uniform stretched as he ran, his hands clasping in a weird sign. Out of nowhere, two large wolves seemed to appear out of thin air.
Ah, Sukuna said, sounding supremely annoyed. They’re here.
“Who?” Yuuji stressed, probably feeling the second most confused he’d ever felt. “Fuck, actually, fill me in later.”
He ran towards the exit, casting a worried glance over his shoulder towards the teen who was now engaged in a fight against the curse. One glance, and Yuuji already could tell it looked like a losing battle.
“Okay, um,” he stressed, placing Sasaki down in a safe corner. “D’you think you can find your friend? Call him, something like that?”
Sasaki looked up at him, with watery eyes. She hiccuped, looking like she was blinking away tears.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you so much.”
Yuuji blinked, feeling blindsided for a bit. “You’re—” he swallowed. “You’re welcome.”
He saw Sasaku pull out her phone, seemingly dialing Iguchi, and knew that he was now free to act.
He looked back towards the other guy, and sprinted towards him.
Unfortunately, the teen saw him approaching, and looked increasingly incredulous at him as he ran. “What the fuck are you doing, idiot?! Didn’t I tell you to—”
The guy was cut off by the curse swiping at him, forcing him to step back.
“I couldn’t just leave!” Yuuji shouted back, drawing back his fist.
He let his energy crackle and fizz, red streaks of electricity filling the air. The curse looked towards him, its beady eyes blinking. It was weird — compared to the brainless monsters he’d been fighting, this one looked almost sentient.
His fist connected, sending sparks of his red energy flying. The curse screeched—
“Oomf!” he grunted as the curse flinged him back. His back hit a wall, leaving a dent in the concrete.
When his vision cleared, he could see the curse. Maybe he’d done some damage, maybe—
“That didn’t do shit?” Yuuji gaped, seeing that his punch hadn’t so much as left a dent in the freakin’ curse. “How?”
“You can’t defeat it!” the other guy called, sending the wolves again towards the curse. “It’s not just any creature, it’s a—”
“A curse, yes, I know that!” Yuuji interrupted. He pushed himself off the wall, falling into stance next to the teen. “I have superpowers too!”
“What?” the other guy said, sounding completely bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“I—” Yuuji started, before sighing and throwing his hands up. “I’ll explain later!”
He punched out his fist, letting the energy permeate it once again. It burned, but it felt good, like his veins were coursing with power. Normally, he kept it to a low thrum.
But this curse was clearly more durable than that.
He saw his ally(?)’s gaze land on his hand, eyes widening. “Wait, you’re—”
Without waiting for the guy to finish his sentence, Yuuji pushed off the wall, his jump sending him flying towards the curse.
But just as he readied his punch, an icy chill seemed to spread across his arm. He glanced, surprised, down at the limb. What—
I’ll take it from here, Sukuna suddenly said, smug.
“Sukuna, what—” Yuuji started, before his energy flickered into a black shade.
He didn’t have time to dwell on it before his fist connected.
The black hue of his energy sent a shockwave out, one that left Yuuji gaping at the sheer power he unleashed. Was this…Sukuna?
The curse in front of him exploded into a shower of blood and flesh, dying with a pained screech. It splattered across the walls, across the floor, in a very similar fashion to the previous one.
Yuuji hit the floor with a roll, landing in a crouch.
“Ugh,” he spat out some blood, from where he’d bitten his tongue on impact. “Hey, Big S, that would’ve been nice to use, y’know, earlier?”
Pay attention, brat, Sukuna snapped. Retrieve the object.
“The…?” Yuuji said, trailing off.
In front of him lay a finger.
It looked exactly like the one he’d swallowed on that day. The day when…
Almost in a trance, he crawled forward. Picked it up.
Turning it around in his hands, he could feel the energy coming off of it in waves. It mixed with his own, feeling like a sensation that weaved and intertwined through his soul.
“Put down the finger and step away,” came a growl from behind him. “Now.”
Yuuji, despite Sukuna’s very vocal protests, promptly dropped the finger. He looked at the other guy, whose body looked tense, hostile, like he was ready for a fight even though it’d already ended.
“Who are you?” the dark-haired teen demanded. His hands were drawn up in some kind of weird stance, two fists held out in front of him. His face was twisted in a snarl, looking at Yuuji like he was a threat.
“Hey, chill, man!” Yuuji put his hands up in surrender, stepping back. “We just defeated that curse together, right? I’m on your side.”
“Are you a curse user? Sorcerer?” the teen pressed. “I’ll give you one more chance. Who are you?”
“Jeez, okay,” Yuuji grumbled, crossing his arms. “Um, I’m none of those? I’m, like…” his face flushed slightly of proclaiming himself to be a vigilante out loud. “...just a guy who helps out. That’s all.”
“I need a name.”
“Oh!” Yuuji blinked, caught off guard. He brought up a hand to his chin, humming as he thought. “A name…gimme a sec.”
The other boy seemed very tense while Yuuji grappled for something conceivable to give him. This would be his vigilante debut, right?
He flashed a smile, sending the other boy a thumbs up. “You can call me Red.”
Something so heinously simplistic certainly fits your brainless nature, Sukuna said.
“Oh, shut up, it’s a good name,” he muttered under his breath.
Sukuna’s howling laughter echoed in his ears.