Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The moment Itadori swallows the finger and that emo kid, Fushiguro, starts yelling all muffled and skewed through the skin of the curse-thing that he’s gonna execute him by decree of “Jujutsu regulation” or whatever, he realizes he maybe… shouldn’t have eaten it. This feeling is doubled by the intense pressure in his gut and what feels like a sudden swelling of his heart.

The boy keels over in the curse’s maw, gasping for breath and desperately attempting not to be swallowed while his chest rips open from the inside out. Water leaks from his eyes and his mouth as his back hunches further until he loses his footing and slips onto the bumpy tongue of the curse. He tries and fails to hold back a gag at the wretched smell of its breath and throat before passing out entirely.

………

Yuuji wakes up in the mouth of a curse and lets out a scream he dearly hopes no one is around to hear. His hands practically move out of instinct, pressing his palms together as he wills his blood to congeal in the air around him. Yuuji stands and waits and huffs and puffs and nothing happens.

He pulls his hands apart from one another and stares at them, red eyes full of utter confusion. “What…?” he mutters, and the sound of his voice is just twangy enough–just as chipper and joyful as he remembers it being despite his confusion–to cause him great pause.

Yuuji hasn’t sounded this young before encountering the Cursed Womb.

He rubs his hands over his face, pulling and twisting his skin until it stings. Somewhere far away, he can make out the distant sounds of Megumi’s Divine Dog barking and growling. Yuuji covers his eyes with his hands and screams.

“I just,” he says, trailing off with a whine, trying desperately not to cry. “This is too much. What’s going on?”

After a few more seconds of scratching and growling, Yuuji decides he can’t just sit there and be digested because that would totally suck and Nobara would never let him live it down. He looks around and assumes, since his Blood Manipulation isn’t cooperating, none of his Cursed Techniques are. He climbs to the front of the curse’s mouth and pulls apart its sharp, grit teeth with his bare hands. The cuts heal themselves within seconds, and when its maw opens, he is greeted with a lot less light than he was expecting to be.

The Divine Dog–he pauses, does a double-take, and shakes his head from side-to-side just in case he’s seeing double–scratch that, the Divine Dogs bite into either side of the curse’s face to keep it in place as he exits the beast.

Yuuji falls to his butt on the ground and gapes at the shikigami battling the curse. “What…?” he whispers.

Suddenly, Megumi is beside him. Yuuji lifts his head to examine the other’s face, check if he’s been injured by the curse, and is met with an expression of total focus and turmoil.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Uh, what’s up?”

Megumi gets into some sort of fighting stance Yuuji is sure he hasn’t seen in over a year and the curse disintegrates beside them. The Divine Dogs flank the boy and growl at Yuuji, teeth snapping towards his hair and clothes.

Yuuji blinks slowly.

“You’re no longer human. Under jujutsu regulation, Yuuji Itadori, by law, I will now exorcise you as a curse!” Megumi announces, huffing from the exertion of his previous battle.

Yuuji blinks slowly. “...What?” he whispers. “Uh…”

Megumi crouches lower and black smoke swirls around him.

Yuuji takes a deep breath and steels himself. He makes himself grin, wider than he ever has before, and laughs that laugh he knows and loathes so much. “What a wonderful era to be reawakened!” he crows. “So now, where are all of the– oh, screw it.” His shoulders fall with his grin and Yuuji waves sheepishly. “Hi, Megumi. I’m Yuuji from a future where Actual-Sukuna kills basically everyone. Wanna bother Gojo-sensei to get us some Kikufuku from Kikusuian?”

Megumi tenses, shoulders hunching, and widens his stance. He doesn’t move for a moment, clearly puzzled beyond belief by what is occurring.

Yuuji sighs and lets himself fade into blackness. Unbeknownst to him, the black tattoos of Sukuna fade with him.

………

“What’s the situation?” A man appears behind Megumi, stance loose yet secluded, with a blindfold over both of his eyes.

Itadori shakes himself and smacks the heel of his hand against the side of his head a few times. “I wish I knew,” he says. “I think I passed out or something.”

Megumi furrows his brows as the Divine Dogs keep snapping at the boy on the ground in response to his wariness. “Gojo?” he says, not taking his eyes off of Itadori. “What are you doing here?”

Gojo grins and waves at the two, not that Megumi can see it from his angle. “Hey. I wasn’t planning on showing up, but geez, you got kind of roughed up, kid!” He pulls his phone from his pocket and snaps multiple pictures of his student’s bloodied and winded face. “I’ve gotta show the second-years,” he remarks cheekily.

Megumi tilts his chin down, but his eyes remain glued to Itadori and the weird slits beneath his eyes. Those… probably weren’t there before, right?

Gojo continues, completely unbothered, “I got chewed out by the higher-ups ‘cause that Special-Grade cursed object still hasn’t been located. ‘Thought it wouldn’t hurt to go sight-seeing and stop by while I’m searching for it.” He puts his phone in his pocket and grins. “So, have you found it yet?”

Megumi nods and releases his Dogs. “Yeah.”

Itadori laughs awkwardly and raises his hand, pointing to himself. “Sorry, but I ate that thing,” he says calmly.

Gojo stares at him, face cheerful in that Is-this-idiot-being-for-real?! sort of way his grandpa used to look at him with. “...Really?” he asks, but it sounds more like a statement.

Itadori nods with a hum when Megumi says, “He did.”

Gojo hums, but the over-the-top tilt he does with his torso just makes it look like he’s trying to conceal the fact that he’s about to start laughing at the absurdity of the situation. He approaches the pink-haired boy and sticks his face way too close to his and hums questioningly.

Itadori resists the urge to take a few steps backwards in order to let the guy figure out what he needs to figure out.

Gojo laughs after a while, somehow moving closer. Itadori does lean back this time.

“Dang, it really did combine with you!” he concludes mirthfully. “That’s hilarious.” He steps back and continues, “Anything weird about your body?”

Itadori scrunches up his nose. “Nah? ‘Seems okay, anyway.”

“Can you swap with Sukuna at will?”

Itadori feels the gears in his brain stop turning. “What? Who’s Sukuna?”

Megumi sighs when Gojo almost starts laughing again. “Uh, yeah. The curse you ate?”

Itadori puts his hand on his hip and says, “Oh,” like he knows what that Gojo guy is talking about. “Uh huh. I think I can do that.”

Gojo takes a few steps away from him and bends his knees before doing some stretches Itadori is sure he’s seen athletes do before martial arts tournaments on T.V. “Okay,” Gojo says, “Give us ten seconds; then change back to yourself.”

“Uh,” Itadori says. “But…”

“Don’t worry,” Gojo says with what is probably the slyest smirk Itadori has ever seen in real life. “I’m way too strong for him.” He tosses a bag Itadori didn’t pay much attention to upon the man’s arrival to Megumi. “Hang onto this, will you?”

Megumi catches the bag with a grunt. “So, what is this?”

Itadori looks at the bag a little closer now, noticing that “Kikusuian” is written on the front of the bag. “Ooh, that place is good,” he says.

“It’s kikufuku from Kikusuian,” Gojo tells Megumi. “It’s Sendai’s specialty and uber good. The zunda and cream flavor is my favorite.”

Megumi blinks. “Hold on, didn’t Sukuna say–”

As though being summoned by the name being spoken aloud, black tattoos swirl down Itadori’s back, chest, and arms, and climb up his neck.

Megumi tenses, nearly crushing the bag, while Gojo grins.

“Kikufuku is just the best.”

………

Yuuji blinks rapidly upon the new-old sight of the night sky and Megumi sitting on the roof. 

“I think it’s the cream inside that really makes the difference,” Gojo says, continuing his lament to kikufuku.

Yuuji’s direction is torn to the side, where his dead sensei stands, smirking and smug as all get-out. He lets his mouth fall open and his shoulders droop. “Gojo-sensei?”

“Hm?” Gojo hums. “I’m not surprised you can recognize the Six Eyes, given who you are and all, but isn’t it too soon to be calling me sensei, Sukuna?” he teases.

Yuuji is suddenly unable to see. Everything is blurry and he feels like he’s dreaming. Nothing feels real, and the sudden urge to sink to the bottom of the ocean suddenly encompasses his every thought.

“Wh… I’m Yuuji,” he says, begs, pleads. “My name is Yuuji Itadori. I’m not Sukuna.”

Gojo hums questioningly again and tilts his head to the side. “You’re not? Could’ve fooled me, since you’re possessing that kid and all, and he ate one of your fingers.”

Yuuji crosses his arms instinctually. “One of my… oh.” he says “Oh” again, but with extra oomph, before falling to his knees.

He sees Gojo step forward and Megumi tense across the roof from him out of the corner of his eyes, but can’t bring himself to care what they plan on doing to him.

“I’m not Sukuna,” he says again. “I’m not.”

“I’ve never heard of a curse having identity issues,” Gojo says.

Yuuji sniffles and buries his face in his hands. The marks of Sukuna stare back at him, on his wrists, arms, hands, chest, everywhere he can see. “I’m not a curse,” he says, even though he’s not really sure that’s true anymore.

“Why aren’t you up and fighting me, Sukuna?” Gojo jumps from side to side, his fists up in a ready position. He taunts, “I thought you were called the ‘King of Curses’ for a reason!”

Yuuji clenches his teeth and his eyes shut and shifts his position so that his face can be buried in his knees. His arms tuck his legs closer to himself, but still he refuses to respond.

“Geez,” Gojo breathes out. “Who knew the King of Curses was so moody?”

He sighs and Yuuji pulls his legs even closer to his chest.

“Whatever,” Gojo mutters. He takes in a deep breath and then sighs it out heavily. Then, in a bored, almost-monotone, he says, “Didn’t you call me your ‘sensei’ or something? What’s that all about anyway?”

“I’m Itadori Yuuji,” Yuuji says, voice muffled by his arms. “I was the vessel of Sukuna once, but we”–he pauses to take in a shaky breath–”managed to kill him. In Shinjuku. You died. Nobara and Megumi and I died of old age decades later. Aliens appeared, but I died before that all ended. Now I’m here. I hate this and want to die.”

Gojo hums. “Well, that can certainly be arranged.”

Yuuji lets out a sigh he didn’t know he had been holding. His arms relax around him and reveal his head for the taking. “Go on,” he says. “Say it. ‘Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void’. I’m ready this time.”

He hears Gojo laugh lightly, but doesn’t look up from the ground. His sensei’s shoes are before him. Yuuji closes his eyes and sighs again. Finally, this will all be over. No more running. No more death, no more pain, and no more Yuuji Itadori. No more vessels for Sukuna. No more pain. No more death. No more. “Please, no more.”

Gojo crouches down in front of him and grins. “Well, it sounds to me like you’ve just about made up your mind.”

He taps two fingers on Yuuji’s head, and that’s the end of it. Everything fades to black.

………

Itadori wakes up in a room covered wall-to-wall in paper warding talismans and seals. Countless, hexagonal lamps cover the stone floor, and that Gojo guy is sitting backwards in a wooden chair before him.

Gojo grins at the boy. “Your head’s on the chopping block, but we can get your execution postponed if you work with us, Jujutsu sorcerers!”

“What?! Execution?!” Itadori exclaims. He mutters, “Just ‘cause I ate some stupid finger?”

Gojo laughs shortly. “That ‘stupid finger’ was actually a cursed object. If anyone other than you ate it, they probably would have been dead already.”

Itadori blinks hard. “What? I could have died?!”

Gojo rocks the chair back and forth. “That’s still the plan. You’re being executed, remember?”

“This is all very confusing,” Itadori mutters.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Itadori could swear he hears someone else screaming.

Chapter Text

Yuuji isn’t really sure why he’s in Sukuna’s domain with black lines running around his body like chains, but he would really like to know if he’s in more like a sent-back-in-time scenario or an alternate-dimension one. He reckons it’ll be pretty difficult to determine which it is given he has no idea what the heck is going on. Maybe he could check if Tengen knows anything about it, but how would he even get to her chambers? “Last time” he swallowed Sukuna’s first finger, he didn’t even know who Tengen was. But maybe he could convince Gojo to get them an audience!

…Yeah, that would be a funny sight: the great “Ryuomen Sukuna”, “King of Curses”, “Eater of Babies”, “Supposed-Traveller of Time”, begging the current Six-Eyes for an audience with one of the only forces protecting Jujutsu sorcerers. That wouldn’t be suspicious at all. He definitely wouldn’t accuse “Sukuna, divorcer of fingers” of wanting to kill her.

Yuuji sighs and places his chin on the back of his hand, his elbow resting on the throne of bones beneath him. He recreates a sight too well-known to him for the sake of comfort in the name of uncertainty and confusion, but it still feels unclean to exist so similarly to the creator of so much misfortune that he once had to share a brain and a body with.

Small, red waves crest against the base of the throne, but he finds himself unbothered by the disturbance. This is, he assumes, his innate domain. Well, Sukuna’s. But if he is Sukuna’s replacement or whatever, he can call it his if he wants to. At the very least, he’s earned that much.

Part of Yuuji really, really wants to see if he has access to Sukuna’s innate technique. Another part of Yuuji really, really wants to tear down the throne of skulls and crush every piece of bone beneath his feet. And another part of Yuuji really, really wants to take control of his own body and ask Gojo to just kill him already.

Yuuji sighs again. That is what would be best for everyone in the end, isn’t it? It would probably take Kenjaku a lot of time to create another “perfect” vessel for Sukuna if he just killed himself now, right? They wouldn’t just test if someone else–like Megumi–were a vessel candidate, right?

With that psychopath, it’s hard to decide which option would save the most people, and since that’s what always matters the most, it might take a while to come up with the best way to go about this. Yuuji hums and lets himself get lost in thought.

………

“Don’t worry,” Gojo says, still smiling. “I got your sentence suspended!”

Itadori gawks at him. “What, you mean you’ll just kill me later? How is that supposed to make me feel better?!”

Gojo shrugs. “Well, did you like the taste of that cursed object you ate?”

Itadori grimaces and leans backwards, trying not to fall off his chair in the process. “What? No, that thing tasted like soap. There’s no way I could like the taste of soap, even if it was flavored like the most delicious noodles in the world!” He tilts his head and hums. “Actually…”

“Great!” Gojo says and claps his hands together. “There’s nineteen of them. We’ve got six in custody at the moment.”

“What? There’s fingers and toes? I don’t know about that, man…”

“No,” Gojo says, like he’s explaining to a toddler why not to eat a gluestick, “Sukuna had four arms. They’re all fingers. And they’re indestructible. See?” 

He pulls a finger out of his pocket and throws it in the air before blasting it into a wall of talismans. Itadori stares at the new crater in the wall with wide-blown eyes and his mouth hanging open.

“Probably not very easy to digest, then,” Itadori mutters, gulping nervously.

Gojo laughs. “I would assume not, but I guess you’re just gonna have to find out.”

“Ha-ha. I’m gonna have to find out?”

“Yeah,” says the man. He points at Itadori. “You’ll eat all the fingers and trap Sukuna inside you. Only then will I execute you.”

Itadori grimaces. “I’m gonna die of food poisoning before you get the chance. Can you get food poisoning from eating cursed objects?”

Gojo grins. “I’ve got no idea! Anyway, the higher-ups are cowards and want me to execute you now, but that would be a waste! There’s no way we can let this one-in-a-billion chance just go by, y’know?”

The Six-Eyes narrows in on Itadori’s left cheek. The cursed energy there bounces around like a rabid dog, curling and twisting and creating afterimages like loose balls of string or wads of crumpled paper. The slit there stretches open, forming a strawberry red iris surrounded by the other regular makings of a human eyeball, a round iris like a seed planting itself in the center of the red. A thin mouth appears beneath it, frowning as deep as it probably can.

“No, you should just kill us now.”

Gojo’s eyes widen behind his blindfold as Itadori reaches up towards his cheekbone.

“Jeez, what the heck?” Itadori mutters, rubbing the skin around the eye and mouth. Both articles squint closed when his fingers get too close.

“Woah,” Gojo breathes out. “That shouldn’t be happening here.”

He approaches Itadori and leans down so he’s eye-level with Sukuna’s invasive facial features. “How’d you do that, Sukuna?”

The little mouth frowns deeper. “I’m not Sukuna,” Sukuna says. “I’m Yuuji.”

Gojo looks at Itadori and when the boy just shrugs, he returns the undivided attention of all eight of his eyes on the eye and mouth on Itadori’s cheek.

“Well, I don’t believe that for a minute,” Gojo says, “Because the boy’s body you’re stuck in is also named Yuuji Itadori.”

The red eye rolls. “What, have you never heard of people having the same name before? And what about that theory that there are seven people who look exactly like you in the world? Wouldn’t that mean that a similar case could be made for names?”

Gojo snorts. “What, are you a sci-fi nerd or something? I didn’t even know that genre existed in the Heian Era. Plus, if you believe that junk, you must not really know who I am. No one could come close to being as good-looking and handsome as me, obvi.”

The eye rolls again. “You’re pretty egotistical, sensei.”

“Oh, there’s that sensei thing again. You said you’re from the future or something, Sukuna, but I know that’s not the truth.”

“How would–? Whatever. What can I do to prove it to you?”

Gojo hums. “What can you do, you say? Tell me something that only future-Gojo would know. That shouldn’t be too challenging for you, given how you’re supposedly my student from the future or whatever.”

Sukuna’s mouth drops open. “What? Are you serious? How am I supposed to tell you something that you don’t even know yet? And how am I supposed to know what you did and didn’t know before you became my sensei?”

“I guess I could just seal him,” Gojo says, shifting his attention to Itadori–the one with the actual, physical body–and raising an eyebrow. “‘Put a talisman on your cheeks and see what happens. Maybe he won’t be able to manifest on your face anymore.”

“Wait, wait!” the little mouth cries. “I guess I can try to think of something.”

Gojo grins. “Good call!”

Itadori sighs and leans against the back of the chair. “I just wanna go home already.”

Gojo’s grin tightens.

“Let’s see… uhm… oh! Gojo-sensei’s favorite curse is the Rainbow Dragon.”

Gojo’s grin drops. “That doesn’t prove you’re from the future,” he says slowly, darkly, “In fact, you knowing that only proves that you’ve been spying on me or something more nefarious than that. I think you’re out of chances now.”

Gojo reaches for a talisman, and Yuuji’s eye spins about frantically. “Wait, wait, wait! Hold on! Give me one more chance, man!” He takes a deep breath and then mutters, “I’m under a lot of pressure here.”

Gojo holds the seal an inch from Itadori’s face, right in front of Sukuna’s eye. “Go ahead. Just try to impress me. You only get one more shot; better make it count, Curse-Face.”

Itadori makes an offended noise. “Dude,” he says. “That literally only applies to me.”

Gojo shrugs and pushes the seal closer. Sukuna’s eye squints shut and starts shaking like he’s scared or something. Now that is a funny thought: Sukuna being scared. It’s almost laughable.

“Okay, okay, uhm… Oh! I know it!”

Itadori looks down towards his cheek as best as he can from the fixed position of his eyes which, believe it or not, is not optimal for looking down at one’s own cheeks.

“Getou Suguru’s body was taken from its grave and used to become the host of an ancient, parasitic brain that’s been transferring from body to body for eons!”

Gojo blinks. Yuuji swears he can see the glow of Six Eyes through his blindfold.

“You’re really testing my patience, here,” the man says, his voice tense and his grip on the seal tightening more than reasonable under any circumstances, “And I’m usually such a stand-up guy, y’know.” He lets out a sigh. “But, I think it’s your time to shut up and mind your own business.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” Sukuna practically wails. “I did exactly what you asked me to do! That’s something you’ll learn in the future but obviously don’t know about now! I thought we had a deal!”

Gojo’s eye twitches and Yuuji flicks his own away and then back in a split second.

“Listen,” Gojo says. “What you just told me isn’t something that could possibly be true. I killed Suguru. I buried Suguru. I bear all the blame for his mistakes, and you aren’t going to just prance all over his memory–”

“But did you cremate him, though?” Sukuna asks. “Y’know, as jujutsu regulation states that you do?”

Gojo grits his teeth but doesn’t respond. “So you know something else about the past. That still doesn’t prove you’re from the future, and you’re out of chances.”

Sukuna grits his teeth back. “I just want to help you guys!” he exclaims. “Why are you all so dang stubborn? I’m trying to protect thousands of people from dying here!”

“What, because you know that you’ll kill them?”

Yuuji is stunned into silence. That’s right. Gojo doesn’t even know–let alone believe–that he’s Yuuji Itadori from the future and not Sukuna, King of Curses.

Gojo puts a seal on both of Itadori’s cheeks and Yuuji’s mouth and eye sink back into the skin.

………

Yuuji pops back into existence laying back-down in the red water of Sukuna’s innate domain.

He stares up at the cavernous ceiling, looks at nothing, moves not a millimeter, and barely even breathes. Of course they wouldn’t believe anything that he tells them, even if it was true, because no one can prove it and nothing else matters.

…He probably shouldn’t have come out so hard with all the reminders of Gojo-sensei’s confused and unstable late best friend.

Yuuji groans and tosses an arm across his face and hopes Itadori doesn’t do something stupid like he did when he was his age.

………

Gojo hands Itadori the second of the nineteen remaining fingers he has to consume before being executed after the cremation ceremony for his grandpa. The two of them are the only ones in the crematorium, and even though Itadori knows the path he’s being tugged along on is one full of isolation and ending in his premature death, he takes it without much hesitation.

The nail scratches the back of his throat when it goes down, but he swallows it anyway. It still tastes like soap, but Itadori did forget to brush his teeth this morning, so he figures this might as well make up for it. 

None of Sukuna’s black tattoos appear on his face or hands, and nothing out of the ordinary occurs whatsoever aside from the full-on consumption of an ancient and evil artifact. Gojo splays his fingers to stretch out the tension in them and claps slowly for Itadori’s lack of hesitation.

Itadori laughs. “That was disgusting! ‘So gross it’s funny or something.”

Gojo tenses for a moment before shrugging to himself. Aren’t all good Jujutsu sorcerers a little crazy anyway?

“That last request of yours is gonna be a pain and a half to follow, grandpa,” Itadori tells a picture of Wasuke he set up for the ceremony.

Gojo grins wide. “Well, kid, ‘you ready to go through hell and back and then die and take down Sukuna with you? If so, you’ll have to start packing.”

Itadori hums. “‘Guess I better be!” He lifts a brow. “Wait, where am I going?”

Gojo approaches the doors to the exiting corridor and it opens automatically. Fushiguro, with bandages wrapped around the crown of his head and stuck around his face, stands on the other side of the door.

He answers in lieu of Gojo, “Tokyo.”

“Woah!” Itadori exclaims. “Looking good, brother!”

“How is this looking good?” he asks seriously. “Idiot.”

Chapter Text

“Tokyo Jujutsu High School,” Gojo says wistfully. “The place where dreams go to die.”

“I thought it would be curses dying here, at least, based on what you’ve told me about it.” Itadori mumbles, “Which isn’t much, to be honest.”

Gojo laughs. “Sure, those die here too, but that’s just secondary. They also die everywhere else. But have you ever seen a guy massacre an entire village while you try to convince him not to?”

Itadori blinks and then blinks again in rapid succession. He pauses in his step beside Gojo as they travel towards the entrance to the school building. The stairs up to the main courtyard hadn’t been as grueling to climb up as they might have been had they had this conversation before their ascension.

“I’ll take your silence as a no,” Gojo says, raising his hands in a little shrug as he continues on past Itadori.

Itadori jogs to catch up with him. “Uh, I know we’re out in the boonies and all, but aren’t people who aren’t Jujutsu sorcerers pretty likely to just… I dunno, stumble onto the schoolgrounds on their morning jogs or something?”

“Great question,” says Gojo. “We’ve actually told everyone who comes by that isn’t a Jujutsu sorcerer that it’s a private religious school. Most normal people can’t see curses in the first place, so it always looks like we’re just training when we’re fighting.”

“Oh,” Itadori remarks. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Plus, a lot of sorcerers use it as a homebase of sorts after graduating. It’s a real pillar of the Jujutsu community and all. They really help sell the whole ‘we’re-a-normal-school-and-appreciate-our-allums-enough-to-let-them-visit-the-new-kids’ schtick.”

Itadori hums, thinking over the fact that if a giant curse just decided to attack at any time, and someone who can’t see curses happens to pass by, they might see people flying in the air or jumping inhumanely high. He wonders if anyone’s passed out from shock after seeing strange things on the schoolgrounds. And that thought makes him wonder if the school’s ever been sued for causing people’s injuries or head traumas. And that thought makes him wonder how much money the school has, or if it can even afford to pay for any lawsuits. And that thought makes him wonder how the school even gets money in the first place.

“Don’t worry about all that junk for now,” Gojo says, as though reading his mind. “You’re about to have a meeting with the principal, and if he decides you aren’t ‘Jujutsu High material’, you won’t be able to attend the school.”

“What?!” Itadori exclaims. “And then what, you just excommunicate me immediately?!”

“Oh, no, you’d be executed. With a -t-e-d. They’re different words entirely.” He breathes in deeply and then sighs with a smile. “Anyway, we’re here. Get ready to have your socks knocked off! And make sure to make a good impression.” Gojo grins. “His entrance exams are the best.”

Itadori lets out a “huh”? And the doors of the large building close on their own. He blinks owlishly and looks around the entry area for anything that could have closed the doors just now.

A light beams down the corridor at the two of them, and in the center of it sits a man surrounded by plushies and various stuffed animals and stuffed animal-adjacents. “You’re late,” the man says, tinkering with a plushie even as he speaks. “Eight minutes late. You know, they say if you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; and if you’re late, you’re fired.”

Gojo grins from ear-to-ear. “Awh, does that mean I’m free to go, then?”

The man sends him a dead stare. “Not a chance. But fix that habit already. You’re going to get into some real trouble one day because you just can’t stop showing up late to important things, and I’m not referring to the kinds of things you can talk yourself out of.”

Gojo waves his hand dismissively. He turns to Itadori. “Anyway, this is Yaga Masamichi.”

Make a good impression. Make a good impression. Make a good impression. “My name is Itadori Yuuji, and I like girls like Jennifer Lawrence!” Itadori exclaims, bowing at  the waist. “This is an honor, your majesty.”

Yaga pauses in his stitching and sighs. “What are you here for?”

Itadori gasps comically. “Uh, an interview?”

“No, I meant ‘why are you here at Jujutsu High’?” Yaga clarifies.

“To… study jujutsu?”

Yaga levels Gojo with an annoyed stare and the man shrugs with his hands in his pockets. He angles himself slightly more towards Yuuji. “No, I mean beyond that. Once you learn about curses and how to exorcise them, what will you do?”

“I suppose I’ll just collect all of Sukuna’s fingers,” Itadori says, wiggling his fingers. “Isn’t the whole point of me being here that the fingers shouldn’t just be lying around out there anyway? Am I supposed to be here for some other reason?”

“Oh boy,” mutters Gojo.

Itadori startles. He forgot the man was even still in the room with them! He’s so quiet it’s freaky.

“Why can’t the fingers just stay ‘lying around out there’? People die all the time due to non-curse related things. It’s actually more common. It’s natural. But you can’t overlook that death when it’s a curse that causes it?”

“It was someone’s dying request for me to save people. I don’t care about the details; I just want to save them.”

Yaga hums. “Then go become a firefighter or something and quit wasting my time. You say that you want to fight curses because someone else told you to? That’s not enough of a reason to join a world of things you don’t understand and cause trouble for everyone else.”

The principal raises himself off of the ground and lifts his hand. A green plushie stands in tandem with his hand’s motion, and Itadori’s eyes widen in shock.

“Woah!” Itadori exclaims. “That thing’s alive! What the heck is it?!”

“I suppose they’re alive,” says Yaga, “in a way. They’re actually corpses.”

Itadori pulls a face of disgust.

“They’re dolls that I’ve infused with my Cursed Technique,” Yaga continues.

Itadori’s eyes widen as he breathes out an, “Oh…”

The curse jumps in front of him, quick enough to appear as though it teleported across the room. Itadori clenches his teeth and slings the backpack off of his back and holds it in front of himself like a shield. The cursed corpse punches into the bag, but Itadori still grimaces at the pressure of its attack on his chest. The force of it sends him flying into one of the round pillars scattered throughout the room.

“That’s one crazy doll,” Itadori mutters. The doll strikes a series of funny poses and laughs at him. Itadori makes an offended noise.

“A person’s true nature is usually revealed during crises,” Yaga says. “My corpse will keep attacking you until you give me an acceptable answer on why you want to study at Jujutsu High.”

Itadori shudders. “Dude, maybe don’t phrase it like that…”

The cursed corpse jumps up and down like it’s loosening its limbs and Itadori rushes towards it.

“Look, man,” Itadori says while he runs. “It wasn’t just anyone who told me to save people, it was my grandpa on his deathbed. It was his last request. What kind of grandson would I be to go against his wishes?”

He lands a direct cross on the cursed corpse, which goes boinging and bonging around the room, landing against the wall directly beside Yaga. It continues propelling around the room until every candle is blown out and darkness surrounds them.

“Who lights rooms with candles anymore?” Itadori mutters. “Geez.”

Itadori does his best to track his attacker’s movements, but that becomes an even more challenging feat with the lights out. The cursed corpse shoots off of a post across from Itadori like a rocket, barreling into him. Itadori is sent spinning in a backwards summersault through the air until he slams into the outer wall of the building.

He groans upon impact, rubbing his head which had been slammed into the wall.

“Family still counts as ‘someone’.”

Itadori grimaces at Yaga’s words and the cursed corpse starts dancing again. It’s all just so absurd.

“A sorcerer faces death on the daily,” Yaga says as he strikes a match and relights the candle nearest to him. “Their own; their friends’; the deaths of civilians and victims; the deaths of curses. It’s a harsh line of work full of people who desperately want to be here. And nutjobs. But mostly the first one. What chance do you have making it in the world of jujutsu when you only want to join because someone else told you so?”

Itadori grits his teeth.

“It would have been much more believable if you said you wanted to join to postpone your own execution.”

“Screw you!”

Yaga points at him. “Are you going to blame your grandpa when you die fighting a curse?”

Itadori huffs. “Geez, peepaw, you sure do say some mean stuff.”

“I’m a teacher,” he says, stroking his short beard. “I have to help people see and understand the truth.”

“I guess that’s true,” Itadori replies, stroking his own chin, deep in thought.

Wham!

The cursed corpse wails an uppercut into Itadori’s chin, sending him flying yet again. His cheek and chin swell from the impact and aggression of the hits he’s taken.

“It’s not easy to simulate how you’ll feel on the brink of death,” Yaga says, “But with how you’re coming along, you might could curse your own grandpa by working so hard to fulfill his last wish. Jujutsu sorcerers must die without regret.”

Itadori’s eyes widen at the sight of the cursed corpse’s body in front of his face, winding its fist back to hit him with another punch.

“I’ll ask again. Why do you want to join Jujutsu High?” Yaga demands.

Itadori dodges the punch, lunging for the cursed corpse and tackling it, wrestling into an arm hold. He glares at Yaga.

“Eating all of Sukuna’s fingers is something only I can do,” Itadori proclaims. “It’s my responsibility to take care of him so that no one dies because of Sukuna. There’s no way I could just sit back and wonder if he’s out there killing people when I can stop him! I don’t want to regret the way I lived.”

“Satoru, go ahead and show Itadori to his dorm room.” Yaga turns to Itadori, still sitting on the floor and holding the cursed corpse in place. “You’re admitted.”

“See, what’d I tell you?” Gojo says with a smirk. “Aren’t Yaga’s entrance exams just the best?”

Itadori allows himself to relax. He did it! He really gets to go to Jujutsu High and fight to keep Sukuna off the streets!

The cursed corpse punches Itadori right in the face again.

“Oh, whoops, sorry; I forgot to release the curse.”