Chapter Text
Every memory he has of the man feels like sacrilege.
His mind was not powerful enough to adequately capture the beauty - the light caught in his eyes, the sway of his hair when it was let down. The flavor of his love. If he’d had any talent for art, maybe he’d try and paint those memories. Even if they were forever inferior, someone had to record his existence.
He tells his much to the bartender who eyes him.
”Have you had too much to drink?” She asks, polishing a crystal cup with a stained rag.
”no.” He sighs. “Too little.” He buys another drink.
”did you love this… man?” She asks.
he snorts.
“Something like that.”
Itadori Yuuji wanted to be forgotten. If he was remembered, he would be sought out. People would find him, speak to him and ask for his assistance. He was sick of it.
But Todo had told him in no uncertain terms he was needed. Aliens or something. It sounded like something a child would’ve made up.
The Fermi paradox finally had an answer, and Yuuji wasn’t sure if it was good or bad quite yet.
so he goes.
Once Yuuji realized he’d stopped aging, he broke. Not in any dramatic way. He shrank back, hid. Looking at Nobara and seeing the gray hairs come in, the film come over her eyes and knowing he’d have to feel the pain of her death- he spent fifty years in the mountains.
He was a hermit. He didn’t do much of anything. Killed the stray cursed spirits that came near, sighed knowing he couldn’t face a death against them, and returned to the cave he called home. Honestly it was pathetic, all he did was think and try not think.
Mostly he remembered things. Though even now his most vivid memories were gone.
It was a quiet tragedy.
He thinks about Fushiguro and Gojo a lot.
His chest aches whenever he remembers he can’t just call either of them. That he won't get any messages anymore, won’t have any surprise visits. It’s probably for the best this way, that they are gone and he takes up the mantle of the strongest.
Oddly enough he wishes sukuna were here. At least he’d have one permanent thing- a cavity in his soul.
The mountains were an easier place to be than Japan. Seeing people’s faces made his chest ache uncomfortably. He wonders if he spends enough time up here, he’ll forget what people look like entirely, and he won't remember the pain.
He stares out over his mountain view and thinks about the family of birds living in the spruce tree several feet away. There have been one hundred and two generations living in that tree.
He thinks about his mother, what she did to him, and feels grateful.
He thinks about his grandfather.
Wasuke never liked it when he visited- he wanted Yuuji out and about. Going to clubs, meeting girls and living life. That old man would be so disappointed in him. Yuuji should look like him now, face spotted and wrinkly- yet here he was, cursed with a youth that wouldn’t vanish with any amount of growing up. Maybe a cruel, twisted sort of commentary on how he hadn’t really gotten a childhood.
The cold wind races through his hair and the sun sets again. 300 more years to go, by his rough estimation. He’d spent this new year alone.
Whatever innate domain this was, it looked and felt exactly like Shibuya, Mahito’s grave. So the scrap wanted a rematch. The cold gray buildings, his barrier surrounding the scorch mark in the middle of the city. He ignores the heartache, he’s been here enough in his dreams, watching his mother disappear with that man trapped in some horrible cube.
Yuuji destroys everything that comes his way, pale fleshy bits joining a growing lake of purple, and walks right up to the groveling creature.
every step seems to be another shot through the ribbons that were mahito.
He could almost pity the wretch. He looks down at the cursed spirit, expression passive.
”were you always this weak-“
there’s a hand on his ankle.
Mahito's technique has no effect on him, but it does the surroundings. Shibuya expands, warps like a droplet on a still pond. He can see now the outline of a curtain far above his head, watches buildings dissolve and reshape. His body is moving too, hurled faster than any speed he’d ever experienced into-
Yuuji had taken up drinking lately. Now that Todo and Nobara wanted him back in town, he couldn’t exactly tune out his past memories. He drank a lot. It didn’t help at all, but sometimes he could make himself pretend it did and then everything was a little okay.
Luckily, Nobara was rich now, and gave him a fat stack of cash and some new clothes to take care of himself because apparently he was too gross to house.
The first thing he bought was the chance to feel drunk. Stepped into a bar and kept going until he tricked his mind into going numb.
He laughed and cried and fucked a woman and washed the blood off his hands afterwards because he’d forgotten to hold back and watched the advertisements and avoided Nobara’s penthouse and disintegrated the body with furnace and went to the woman’s house and left a stack of cash and-
He woke up groggy in an alley. He wasn’t hungover, but his body felt like shit. He rolled out of the dumpster and looked up at Nobara. He could feel garbage juice running through his hair and down his forehead.
“never thought i'd see you shirtless in a dumpster.” She comments. “Come on.”
Apparently he was now filthy enough to elicit pity.
Yuuji doesn't make eye contact and steadies his breath. He stands up on unsure legs. Looks at the sky, and slowly, ever so slowly, lets her take him to a car. To some house. He’s getting washed. He hasn’t done that in a while actually. A real bath, not a dip in the river.
There’s a handle bar near the toilet now, to support yourself as you stand up.
He stands uselessly in the shower and stares at the nozzles. Too hot, too cold, too lukewarm-
he settles on too hot.
The water runs down his back as he sits down in the shower, absently rubbing the soap across his legs.
Gojo would be laughing at him right now. Unable to handle the sight of people and losing his shit over it. Yuuji needed to get a grip, fast. Because apparently Todo wasn’t joking about the aliens. He’d seen them himself, laughing with Okkotsu’s grandchildren.
He felt a bit like a creepy uncle, watching them from afar.
He washes every inch of his body. There’s a lot of dirt and grime that the river couldn’t wash off, and the shower head, on max pressure, was trying its hardest to. It burned up and down his skin and he savored it. He didn’t exactly want to remember what he’d done last night. In fact, he was now going to tell himself that it was a dream.
he couldn’t possibly be slipping this much.
He thinks about Gojo, his manic smiles and borderline psychotic fighting style when he was in a mood. It’s surprisingly relatable to him nowadays- attainable too.
Sometimes he hates Gojo. Hates him so hard it hurts his soul. His chest tightens up, vicious and unrelenting. He already had so much, and then he had to love? Love a body that aged in dog years and left too soon? He’d attended the funeral, fingers itching and curling, mouth dry as a body that should be animated, strong, is lowered limp into the devouring earth.
At the time, he thought he could just love another. Megumi and Nobara were here. That girl Ozawa wanted to date him- but he’d turned her down. Too fragile, too fleeting. She was probably dead now.
Love had hurt so bad. Gojo had wanted it, that ache and bite. He craved it so much he let Yuuji take pieces of him, him, the strongest sorcerer. Gojo took pieces of Yuuji too. It started after Junepi’s death, when Gojo had caught him keeled over and sobbing.
“How much do you hate him right now?” That kind of tone was dangerous, hungry.
“So much. Sensei, I can’t…” Yuuji had caught on a sob. Even the memory of that night has him wincing.
Then Gojo had taken him. Pushed him down in the sheets and taught him how to hunger.
“You’re a good boy, Yuuji.” Gojo, now covered in gorey joy, had crooned; bloody chunks of his neck resting in Yuuji’s stomach.
Then another time, after the exchange event.
“You’re so mad you lost again.” Gojo had whispered. He knew it, and yet still he greedily provoked Yuuji. Selfish, selfish bastard.
“I can’t take it.” He’d rasped. “You always do everything for me, sensei.”
A hand had traced down his torso, leaving a burning trail in its wake. Yuuji’s been fine tuned to respond to this kind of touch through hours of conditioning from these cruel, gentle hands.
“Anything Yuuji, anything at all.”
Then before shinjuku, when-
He should stop- his timer of forgetting faces is already reset. He knows it’s especially bad if he’s thinking this much about Gojo.
The hot water burns as it slides over his closed eyes.
Nobara knocks on the door.
“It’s been three hours.” She says sharply. That’s the only thing that hasn’t faded with age. ”You’ll turn into a disgusting prune at this rate.” She adds helpfully.
Yuuji had admittedly spaced out a bit. A lot.
”Okay. Yeah, give me a second.” He replies. He hates the difference in their voices- one growing gravelly and his- his is just fine.
The steam rushes out the shower and clogs up the windows, and he inhales a lungful of moisture.
He dries off with a towel which is the softest thing he’s touched in a while. In the mountain, he slept on a pile of pine boughs or just on the cold ground if he felt particularly bad. There was nothing soft about nature. He got by eating as little as possible, cursed spirits or the occasional life. He tried his hardest not to take anything at all. Mostly his cursed energy kept him going.
Kugisaki left him a gray hoodie and some sweats- plus boxers. He’d have to face her truly soon, look at her face, at the sagging folds of skin clinging to a skeleton once vibrant.
She’s waiting for him at the dining table.
“You know, you haven’t visited me in forever. Am I that bad to look at?” She jabs a fork into her food.
”I’ve been busy.” He says, eating the steak her assistants had prepared.
“Moping around?” She snorts. “you were a pain in the ass to find. I had to use resonance on an old pair of your shoes.” It looks like she’s wincing as she chews. She is nearing the age of dental issues- no, she’s in it.
“Why would you still have those?” He gulps down a fatty bit of meat. It slides thickly down his throat and joins the growing knot in his stomach.
Kugisaki’s gaze shifts. She looks at her hands, then at him.
“You didn’t go to Gojo’s memorial.”
Yuuji doesn't look at her. He eats some peas. He’d already been to Gojo’s burial. Couldn’t that have been enough?
“You didn’t go to Megumi's funeral.”
He winces.
”Will you come to mine when I die?” She’s shockingly soft here. It’s disconcerting to Yuuji, who’s most recent memories of her until now were her in her late thirties, experiencing perimenopause of all things and threatening to decapitate him and Megumi when they offered her any sort of assistance.
Megumi gave up pretty fast, raising his hands in defeat.
Yuuji had tried for about three more weeks until he offered to drive her to an appointment with Ieri and she kicked him right in the family jewels.
he clears his throat and shifts in his chair.
”Tell me about these… Smoothie lands.”
”Simulians.” Kugisaki corrects, sipping her wine. “They’re aliens. They use cursed energy a lot like us- right now, they’re searching for a new homeland. Earth was the best option for them. But unfortunately cursed spirits are very similar to what their brethren feel like- aura wise. You can imagine how that went when they entered Shibuya.
“The aliens are going to declare war on us if we can’t figure out a way to have a truce, or prevent cursed spirits from being born.”
Yuuji remembers that rhetoric.
He’d been on a training mission with Gojo, shortly before shinjuku.
They were sitting on top of a crushed car, and he finally worked up the courage to ask. The question burned thick on his tongue, as he stared at his teacher- who was now looking at him funny.
“So who was Kenjaku?” He’d asked awkwardly.
Gojo had frowned behind an easy, carefree smile.
“An ancient evil sorcerer! Like Sauron. Weren’t you paying attention to that guy’s monologues?”
“No, like, before he was Kenjaku. Suguru Geto, who was he to you?” It had felt so hard to ask.
Gojo paused, blinked slow at him and then looked out at the horizon. It felt forbidden to see his teacher sentimental. Gojo hadn’t seemed the type to think about his emotions very deeply.
But Gojo had told him a short, clipped story about arrogance and growing pains. A dream that went too far. Yuuji knew his sensei had left things out. Probably a lot of things actually, but he didn’t feel quite bold enough to press.
Now, Kugisaki was saying the same thing. She didn’t look exactly thrilled about it though, and from what Yuuji could gather, this was more the idea of the officials in charge of negotiations.
”That’s a dangerous path.” He replied blandly. “Imposssible too.”
”Well, Mahito is back.”
That catches his attention. A spark of purpose returned. An old, sacred duty he’d promised a lifetime ago.
“Yuuji. See if you can track that cursed spirit down. Use him- we need you.” Kugisaki doesn't beat around the bush.
Yuuji stares past her out the darkened windows, at the bright city, and takes in a deep breath.
”yeah, ill do it.”
Whatever this domain was, it wasn’t like anything Yuuji had experienced. Maybe his own was similar- a collection of memories, but nothing so vivid. Nothing that brought cursed energy back from the dead. Nothing that returned a voice to his head that was raging.
“What is this. Answer me, brat!” The ancient king demands.
“Quiet.” Yuuji speaks out loud, surveying the area. A dead bug cursed spirit, and Choso's approaching cursed energy.
“What have you done?” Sukuna snarls. “What are you?”
He doesn't give sukuna the response he craves.
The nagging part in the back of his head that called on his limited technical knowledge of jujutsu that said this was impossible was ignored. That the only thing that could copy things like this was Okkotsu Yuuta, and that he was long dead. That said cursed energy could never truly recreate something on this scale- a creation technique that didn’t disintegrate entirely when Yuuji fired a small cleave at the ground.
Piercing blood flies toward him and he destroys it before it touches him.
“Choso, it's been a while.” He turns to his older brother, who’s panting, his eyes wide with shock. Fear, too.
Yuuji frowned.
“You’re not very realistic.” He says. He should probably leave this domain fast if all it was was throwing badly rendered nostalgia at him. He didn’t want to linger in that case. In fact, thinking more deeply about this made him less and less eager to stay. The longer he stayed, the worse it would be when he returned.
“Flowing red scales-“ Choso starts. Yuuji knocks him out and carefully sets him down against a pillar. He needed to get out of here.
He fired a cleave at the ceiling above him and watched as cleave went up, and up, and up, and up- he could see the night sky through the barrier. What the fuck. How big was this domain?
“You shouldn’t be able to do that. What are you?” Sukuna repeats. His voice is clipped.
“I said quiet.”
He’s destroyed several domains with cleave. This should be no different- unless it was some ace from the aliens. Had they created this?
Yuuji puts his fingers together, forms a triangle and summons his own domain and-
nothing happens.
No clash, no receding barrier. This barrier felt like a curtain. His mind was reeling. Keep it together.
He promptly obliterates any cursed spirits that are inside it then cancels it out. This wasn’t a normal domain. He should try and find the edge of it.
Yuuji walks several paces into the tiled heart of Shibuya station, feeling around. He can sense something, something hungry and devouring. That shouldn’t exist, but then again, neither should any of this. His heart uncomfortably sits in his chest.
Yuuji staggers toward the source of radiant, electric energy. The prison realm, and- He can sense his mother somewhere near, but he doesn't bother.
He knows that if this is a trick, he might really break if he sees that man now. He shouldn’t see that man. If he does, he won’t recover, it’d taken so long already just to carefully forget his face. But his feet are moving against his will.
If it isn’t fake-
that thought spurs him on. The infinitesimal chance that maybe, just maybe, he was being given a second try. How or why, he didn’t know. But this was Shibuya, and Satoru Gojo was about to be sealed.
He finds his teacher bound. Teeth bared as he stares at a wet, fleshy brain sitting in the cavity of Suguru's head.
It was a confirmation that this wasn’t just built off his memories.
The parasite sees him and the ugly smile they’d been wearing drops.
He’s behind Gojo, who can’t turn to see him- probably better that way.
He annihilates his mother with a single word. The brain is left squelching on the ground, blindly groping tendrils every which way.
“Foolish boy.”
Yuta had taken the glory from him all those years ago. But now it was his.
“This is some fucked up shit Sukuna.” Gojo says, forced to stare at a blood splatter that used to be his friend.
Yuuji freezes. He still feels that hunger for a god.
Then closes his mouth. It’s honestly better if Gojo thinks it’s Sukuna who’s done this.
He feels sukuna surging helplessly, desperate to claim his kill.
He beckons wordlessly for the brain to come to him- his cursed energy tugging on what frail bond they shared.
Ever so slowly it inches towards him, out of Gojo’s sight. It leaves a trail of slime as it crawls to him, hoping for sympathy perhaps.
“At least let me go. It won't be fun to fight if I’m trapped like this.” Gojo says, his tone thin.
Yuuji picks up the brain.
It’s wet and fragile.
Then he eats it. This is easier than fighting all of sugurus cursed spirits at once.
“Hey. Sukuna. Face me.”
Yuuji leaves after dismantling the prison realm- Gojo won’t be able to move for about half a minute, which was as long as he had to escape.
He goes away. Again, for the better of others he tells himself.