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It’s late. Yuuji is slumped against the cracked concrete of an abandoned office building, gazing silently upwards. Thin clouds drift over the moon, occasionally casting the world in shadow, but otherwise it’s bright enough to navigate smoothly.
Tokyo is quiet at night, these days. No lights or cars or obnoxious LED billboards. No people. It’s lonely.
Yuuji sits silently, because the alternative is letting himself feel the grief and rage of thousands of innocent victims. If he starts down that rabbithole, he doesn’t think he can stop himself. He’ll do—something. Something drastic.
Something drastic like swallowing a cursed object? The thought rises, unbidden, from the depths of his mind. Yuuji’s eyebrow twitches as he violently forces it down. Like becoming the vessel for a demon you know nothing about? Slaughtering thousands of people? Giving up any hope you ever had of being a good person?
“Shut up!” he hisses, clenching his fists. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He buries his face in his knees, yanking at his hair, and lets his body fall limply to the side. He braces himself for the rough slap of cement, but it never comes.
Instead, he falls with a splash into unfortunately familiar red waters. Sukuna’s domain—the last place he wants to be right now. “Fuck off!” he shouts, glaring up at the towering ivory of the ribcage above him, and braces himself for the distinctive feeling of being sliced in two.
There’s no answer. No mocking voice, no sharp pain, no sudden lacerations and fade to black before being reassembled like the world’s most grotesque puzzle. The lack of response kicks his fear response into overdrive, and he shoots up, heart beating rapidly in his chest. His head swivels around as he takes in the domain. It’s the same as ever, a vast expanse of bloody water, the towering pile of skulls looming in the distance. The only notable difference is that the King of Curses himself is nowhere to be seen. Yuuji can’t feel him, either—even when he lost control in Shibuya, confined to the domain no matter how many skulls he smashed, Sukuna’s malevolent aura permeated the place.
Is he alone in here? Has he finally lost it? Was his will really weak enough that Sukuna took control of him for good?
“Fuck!” he shouts, rising to his feet. He grabs the nearest skull and throws it. It shatters against an overlarge rib. He grabs another, and another, and he’s aware that he’s throwing a tantrum, but the rage is burning in his chest. The overwhelming urge to smash and destroy is all he can focus on.
“Um—” a small voice interrupts, and Yuuji whirls around, eyes blazing, hands clenched fiercely around the dome of what is probably a cow skull.
The interloper lets out a tiny eep! when their eyes meet. It’s...him? It’s a mirror image of him, wearing loose basketball shorts and the yellow hoodie he used to love, before Sukuna tore it off him or a curse ripped through it or it got too many bloodstains on it to be worth keeping. His doppelganger is missing the thick knot of scar tissue that now pulls his lip into a permanent semi-sneer, and has his hand outstretched, as if to caress him. “Are you okay?” it asks.
Yuuji doesn’t answer, just narrows his eyes. He didn’t know Sukuna could pull this kind of jujutsu bullshit.
“It’s just—you seem really upset?” the copy continues. “And I don’t know where exactly we are, um, this place is pretty creepy, honestly, but I just wanted to see if I could help. I guess you’re—me, also? So I just thought that maybe you could, I don’t know, talk it out with me or something. Like Gramps says, always help people—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Yuuji snarls. The skull in his hand cracks. “Gramps didn’t know shit!"
“H-huh?” the copy says, taking a step back. “What are you talking about? He always said to help people, even if it meant getting hurt yourself—”
“That’s bullshit,” Yuuji hisses. He throws the skull to the side and begins stalking forward. “Hurting others is inevitable. Getting hurt is inevitable. People die in horrible, painful ways all the time. There’s no such thing as a good life." He spits the last two words out.
The copy is staring at him in what Yuuji distinctly recognizes as horror. He would know, after all; he’s certainly seen it often enough on his own face before now. “You’re not me,” it says. “I’m not—I wouldn’t—”
Yuuji laughs bitterly. “Wouldn’t what? Wouldn’t change your mind after you see how fucked the world really is?” He’s standing directly in front of his younger self now. “You don’t know anything."
His copy swallows nervously, but holds his gaze. “I know that I wouldn’t say stuff like that unless something really bad happened,” it says. It reaches a hand out again, tracing over the scars on Yuuji’s face before gently cupping his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
Before he realizes what he’s doing, Yuuji reaches up and grabs its wrist, twisting roughly and jerking the hand away from his face. “I don’t want your pity," he scoffs. “This is all your fault in the first place.” He kicks the copy’s legs out from under him, shoving it forward. They land awkwardly, one of Yuuji’s knees between the copy’s legs, its arm wrenched awkwardly to the side.
“What the hell? Get off of me!” The copy squirms underneath him, bucking its hips up to try and throw him off.
Yuuji settles himself so he’s straddling the doppelganger, holding it down more firmly. “No,” he muses, “I don’t think I will.”
The doppelganger cries out as Yuuji yanks its arm over its head, pressing its wrist to the ground. It’s a good sound. Proof that this past version of himself can feel the pain he feels now.
Yuuji grinds his hips down, and the copy underneath him stills for a moment before beginning to fight back in earnest. It kicks and thrashes, but Yuuji has been training for months, is stronger and faster than he used to be. Blood is seeping into his younger self’s hoodie, staining the fabric, dying it red, but Yuuji’s knees are dry where they touch the liquid. He grasps its face roughly, squeezing its cheeks to force its mouth open. “N-no—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Yuuji snarls, momentarily surprising himself with the sheer intensity with which the words leave his mouth. He leans down and presses a bruising kiss to the copy’s mouth, biting roughly at its lips. His teeth, sharper now than they ever were before he swallowed Sukuna’s finger, tear through the flesh there. Blood pools in the corner of its mouth before dripping down its cheek, and Yuuji licks it all up eagerly. He laves his tongue over the small wound, a twisted copy of his own scar—
Hey, there’s an idea. He pulls back for a brief moment, savoring the terror clear in his copy’s expression, the tears welling in the corner of its eyes. His mouth curves up, and he leans back down and bites, harder and with more intent. The flesh at the corner of the copy’s mouth splits with a squelching sound that’s nearly inaudible. Yuuji licks back over it, latching on and sucking the blood up.
“Now we match,” he says, slipping his tongue through the flaps of skin to press against firm teeth. The copy lets out a sob.
“This is insane,” it says, “I’ve gone insane, there’s no way this is happening, this isn’t me, I—I’m going to wake up any minute now—”
Yuuji can’t help the dark laugh that bubbles out of him. “You think this is a dream?” he taunts. "Your dream?”
Tears are slipping from the copy’s eyes now, leaving shining streaks down the sides of its face. “More like a—nightmare—” it chokes out. “I’d never—do this—”
He sneers down at it. “What, you think you’re a hero?”
The copy shakes its head roughly. “No, not a hero. But I’m at least a good person!" It punctuates this exclamation with a sudden burst of strength, shoving at Yuuji’s chest with its unpinned hand. The movement is unexpected enough that Yuuji goes sprawling back, landing on his ass in the bloody water. The copy drags itself to its feet, pointing a shaking finger at him. “You—you’re not me! You’re a monster!”
Anger floods through Yuuji, cold and calculating where it was boiling hot only moments before. He bares his teeth. “A monster? You made me into this, Itadori Yuuji. Remember, this is your fault.”
The copy flinches and glares back at him, baring its teeth, but his anger from eight months ago is a drop in the bucket compared to the depth of his rage now. Yuuji finds it pathetic. A worm under his boot, a worthless insect begging to be crushed. Slowly, he rises to his feet.
Staring down the other him, he can see that he’s grown taller by a few inches. The doppelganger has to tilt its head up just to meet his eyes. Satisfaction curls in his gut with the realization. “I think you need to learn your place.”
In the blink of an eye, he’s moved forward, grabbing a fistful of pink hair and jerking it down. He smashes the copy’s head into one of the skulls next to them. A loud crack echoes through the cavernous expanse of the domain. The copy lets out a pained grunt, bringing its arms up to clutch weakly at his arm, and Yuuji smashes its face against the skull again, and again. He stops only when the copy begins to retch, dropping its hands from his wrist. He waits—very patiently, he might add—until it stops dry heaving, then jerks its head up so that their eyes meet. The same shade of gold, one hard and unyielding, one dazed and unfocused. “You’re weak,” he hisses, “and I’m going to prove it.”
They hit the ground again. Yuuji shoves that stupid fucking yellow hoodie up to bare a pale chest, pausing momentarily at the unmarred skin, running his fingers over his copy’s sternum. The skin is smooth where his own is rough, the scar not quite healed properly despite Sukuna’s Reverse Cursed Technique. He shucks his uniform top off—finally, really, he’d been wearing it for how long again—and revels in the way the copy’s eyes widen at the barely-healed gash over his ribcage. He raps his knuckles carelessly against the scar. “This is what you have waiting for you,” he says softly. In another world, his voice could almost be called gentle. “You should have died then.”
The copy’s face contorts, its mouth working as it searches for the right words. Yuuji doesn’t want to hear whatever bullshit empty platitudes it comes up with, so he hooks a finger into the tear in its cheek and pulls, starting the bleeding anew. “Maybe I should make you match there, too, huh?” he asks.
The copy shakes its head wildly, eyes widening.
“Mmm, no, you’re right. Too on-the-nose.” Yuuji hooks his fingers into the waistband of his copy’s shorts instead and yanks them off, tossing them over his shoulder carelessly.
“H-hey, what are you—” the copy chokes out.
Yuuji shoves its legs apart harshly and dips two fingers into the bloody water underneath them. He pulls them out dripping, the blood thickening into something viscous and slimy. “Aw, c’mon, you can figure this part out,” he croons. “Nothing the Tiger of West Junior High can’t handle, right? You can take anything." He presses one finger in.
His doppelganger’s back arches, hands scrabbling for purchase on the floor. “No, no, no, no,” it chants.
He thrusts his finger in and out slowly before adding another, using his other hand to hold its hips against the floor. “Shh, shh,” he hushes.
The copy is crying in earnest now, thick tears slipping down the side of its face, mingling with its blood. “Stop,” it chokes out, “I don’t—I don’t want this—”
Yuuji slips in a third finger. “Then stop me.” He crooks his fingers up to punctuate the statement, and any fight the copy was going to put up evaporates with a strangled cry. “You can’t, can you?”
It’s not the easiest slide—it would definitely be easier to prep himself with actual lube—but it’s close enough. He’s straining against his pants now, the bulge obvious with no shirt to tug over it. He unzips his pants and shoves them halfway down his thighs, giving his dick a few rough strokes, thumbing over the slit. “Weak.”
The copy is panting, a flush spreading from its face down its chest. “I’m—not—weak—”
Yuuji rolls his eyes. “Jeez, how did anybody stand me a year ago? Whiny little bitch.” He lets himself rut against the copy’s half-hard cock for a minute before he lines himself up and shoves in in one harsh movement.
A sharp keen fills the air, but Yuuji doesn’t give it any room to breathe, pulling out almost to the tip before snapping his hips forward roughly. He hunches over the copy, his hand on its throat, pressing down directly on the esophagus. The copy chokes, trying desperately to take a breath, but Yuuji doesn’t let up until its eyes begin to glaze over. He keeps fucking into it the whole time. As it gasps for air, he begins talking, the words spilling out of him, every self-loathing thought he’s had since he let Sukuna out, since he killed an entire ward, since he swallowed that damn finger in the first place. “You’re fucking pathetic,” he grunts. “You think you can save people? You think you can help them? You can’t do shit. You don’t deserve to help people. They’re going to run fucking screaming from you. All you are is a murderer—a killer—you should have stayed dead—”
“No!” the copy gasps. “I’m—that’s not—true—”
Yuuji tightens his hand around its throat again. “You don’t deserve a proper death,” he snarls. “You’re alone. You lived alone, and that’s how you’ll die, alone. Alone and—fucking—worthless.” He punctuates each word with a snap of his hips. Sweat is beading on his forehead, running in lines down his neck and back and pooling in his collarbones. It gathers with it the dirt that’s accumulated from weeks of living on the streets, the grime from fighting and killing curses, looting convenience stores, and sleeping on the ground.
The copy’s dick is fully hard by now, the tip flushed red and weeping, but it’s still sobbing, tears and blood mingling with the bloody water underneath them. “You’re—lying,” it chokes out, clenching its eyes shut.
Yuuji grabs its jaw again, jerking the head up. “Fucking look at me,” he snarls. “Look at what’s been living inside you this whole time—the rot and destruction that you tried to pretend wasn’t there—”
Anger crosses its face again, and it bares its teeth, the enamel streaked with blood. “Fuck you,” it hisses. “I hate you!”
A crazed smile splits across Yuuji’s face. He probably looks fucking insane, half-naked and grinning manically while fucking into a mirror image of himself. “You think I care?” he shouts. He feels giddy, the reciprocated hatred swirling around inside him, filling a hole that he didn’t know was empty. “You think I give a single shit how you feel?”
The copy lets out a frustrated scream, kicking its feet uselessly. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” It claws at the hand still on its throat, blunt nails scrabbling uselessly against Yuuji’s grip. “Fuck you! Let me go!”
Yuuji’s still grinning when he leans over to bite at its lips again, their teeth clacking together. He draws blood again, lapping it up desperately. “You’ve tried so hard to lie to yourself,” he says when he pulls back. “But I know the truth.”
Fists rain against his side, but there’s no force behind them; they’re the last stand of a desperate man. “All you do is bring destruction,” he hisses, hips pistoning faster. "You killed them all! You killed Nanami! Nobara! Gojo! You don’t get to hate me! Not when I hated you first!” He brings a hand down to roughly jerk the copy off, resting his body weight on the hand still pressed to its throat. “Fuck—I’m close—” he bites out.
The copy groans, low and broken. It’s a noise of pain, not arousal—and yet it still tips Yuuji over the edge, the movement of his hips becoming erratic as he spills inside himself. His hand keeps moving on the copy’s dick, and it comes too, eyes rolling back in its head in ecstasy—no, wait, that’s just oxygen deprivation. Yuuji pulls his hand away, reveling in the dark ring of bruises around the copy’s neck. He leans down to lap up some of the tears still slowly leaking from the corners of its eyes before pressing his mouth to its lips again, worming his tongue in between the loose flaps of skin he tore apart earlier. The blood is thick on his tongue, coppery and delicious.
As Yuuji pulls out, the edges of the domain shift and blur around him, red fading out to gray. The piles of skulls seem fuzzy and distant. The body beneath him warps from used and crying to deathly still, wide eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Sukuna’s laugh echoes around him.
Still, as he lies there in the Tokyo ruins, curled up on the ground as the cold of the concrete seeps into his bones, he smiles. It’s the best night of sleep he’s gotten in years.