Chapter Text
“What…?” Sukuna murmured, surprised at the feeling of existence, staring out at strange lights that littered the ground beyond the trees.
He looked around slowly. He was on a higher flat area with what looked to be houses lined up and fitted inside a larger structure. On the flat area, however, was a torn apart curse he just barely remembered destroying instinctively and a human body for some reason. He looked scared, body shivering no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
"Hey! What are you doing with my body?" His voice said without his input. His body moved without his input too. “Give it back," his voice said, one hand reaching up to hold his face.
It took less than a moment for him to remember a deal that had been offered by another creature at the height of his bloodlust. He had dismissed it, saying he was having too much fun now to be sealed. He had implied that the creature was free to do with his body whatever he wished after he was dead, after all, who was he to care about what happened after his death?
This body that he was inside, it must be a ‘vessel’. However the owner of the vessel seemed to be aware somehow.
“No," he replied, lazy. “Why should I?"
He had no reason to hand over control of his body to anyone else after all. But despite his unwillingness, his vessel was strong enough to take it from him regardless.
He sank under the active consciousness, and ended up in his inner domain. Without caring much, he sat down on his throne of bones and watched the outside world, parsing through more of his vessel’s memories.
His vessel was named Itadori Yuji, living a normal life with a superhuman body more than 1000 years after he had once lived. Fool. He had even volunteered to die by swallowing a cursed object.
"Fools like you never live long," he said aloud to his vessel, his cheek resting leisurely on his hand.
He had two hands now, instead of two sets of them. It felt strange to not have a body deformed from birth. For the first time, he could feel what regular humans felt.
He felt apathetic. He had already lived and died as he wished. When he had given the man permission to do as he wished, he hadn't realized that it would mean he would reincarnate into a vessel. He didn't like it. He had already had his fill of life.
Without independence or anything worth cherishing, he found his new existence useless. He had his fill of violence and death and had chosen to go out by having a slaughterfest. He had commanded sorcerers to kill each other for his amusement, and then he had ended it by killing them all, himself included.
It was amusing how horrified they had looked at knowing that there was nothing they could do to postpone their deaths. That killing their friends and family would not spare them. He had only spared one amusing child of them all- a powerless child who had offered his own life to his sister.
His death had been glorious. All those sorcerers had been eradicated, no matter how far they ran. The earth would have scorched down to nothing, and except for that child, everyone would die.
Amusing.
How terribly amusing.
He hoped the child managed to survive and claimed the title of someone who managed to end the ‘King of Curses’ himself. What an interesting life that child must have led after his death!
But he had still fully intended for that to be his end. The foolishness of children and humans were something he had no wish to associate himself with. It ended with Uraume’s death as well as his own.
Then something interesting happened. The space warped beside the scared child. He saw strength. Overwhelming strength that the world could not bear- a strength similar to his own.
It was the legendary six eyes.
He had heard of it in passing. The story of the ancestor of one of the clans that kept trying to both kill him and run away from him- their childish foolishness from the despair he caused to anyone around him.
Only Uraume had ever stayed by his side. Weak, but enduring regardless. He had never thought the child would ever die, not with him by their side.
Since Uraume, he could not stop himself from seeing the weak as children. All of them so helpless under his wrath, struggling to even look at his monstrous body. Foolish children who thought they could oppose his will, weak children who bubbled with fear at the mention of his name, good children who were willing to entertain him with their life (whether willing or not).
The old rarely survived in his time and he made sure the old, weak ones died quickly. He had a certain fondness for the youth, but none for the older ones who could not sacrifice their life first.
He had only ever spared one old man in his entire life. During a massacre, he had witnessed an old man trapped in a burning house, a child in his embrace.
The child had already died, and yet the old man carefully blocked the pieces of cinder that wished to fall on the child’s delicate face. The old man would never be able to walk again, and the child he was protecting was long gone, and yet.
Sukuna had walked away from them. The fear in the old man's eyes as he tugged the dead child’s body closer surprised him, even if it shouldn't have. He had killed the entire village after all. The child’s death as well as the old man’s future death was written by him.
He had considered killing him. It would be a mercy at that point. But he had refrained, instead choosing to walk away.
But even so, he felt no sympathy for the quaking child in front of his vessel. But he did feel a flicker of interest at the six eyes. The ability to manipulate space against his ability to cut everything.
It wouldn't be a fair match. Sukuna was slated to win when it came to techniques. However, he had learnt that people could be stronger than their techniques implied them to be.
Not to mention, Sukuna at 1/20 of his strength was far from a match for six eyes.
So he wasn't surprised when the sorcerer asked his vessel to bring him out. He must want confirmation of his presence, or perhaps a fight, before six eyes killed him.
Unfortunately, Sukuna loved to put a damper on things. He could just imagine it. The legendary six eyes against the King of Curses showdown of the millenia, and yet, Sukuna refused to make it happen.
Ah, it must have been that old, decrepit ghost’s plan somehow. The one opponent he had never faced by sheer virtue of missing their birth by two centuries, and Sukuna would ruin it because he was more petty about being reincarnated than his wish to soothe his bloodlust!
The man turned his back to him, arrogant, yet a given due to his sheer strength. He was speaking about something that soothed the fear in the other child while his vessel forced a switch between them.
He had 10 seconds.
“Six eyes," he purred, something pleased and bloody in it. The man turned around, a seemingly insociable grin on his face.
“So the King of Curses wants to speak?" He asked, grin widening. “Or are you too scared to attack me?"
“I seemed to not need an introduction so I merely skipped it," Sukuna said, grinning equally wide. Then he raised his arms, as if to embrace the world. “Come at me, Six eyes. Kill your only opponent of this time!”
The man seemed to pause in surprise at his words.
“Huh, you really meant it," he said, surprise visibly coating his words. But he didn't take any action. Sukuna thought about it a little. Perhaps, the 10 seconds weren't for him but for his vessel.
It was an almost incomprehensible act. For a sorcerer to not want to kill Sukuna was almost too strange for words. And it was clearly not due to fear of himself that he refused to attack.
No. It must have been due to his vessel.
Sukuna burst into laughter.
“Soft! Too soft!" He got out between his laughter.
And then, Itadori Yuji slammed the two of them into place with prejudice. Sukuna kept laughing even inside his domain. To witness with his own eyes the arrogance and kindness of the sorcerer was indeed fun.
And yet.
Sukuna watched lazily from his throne. The way Itadori Yuji was knocked unconscious and woke up to be told his execution was delayed. He saw him hours later at the hospital, and the cremation of the last of his family.
Itadori Yuji had a benign life. There was nothing particularly interesting in it. His life was more unexciting than even the average mosquito during his era.
It was only Sukuna’s presence that changed life for him, and he was beyond grateful for that. It would have been a new form of torture to be subjected to a body he couldn't move, doing mundane things without even a flash of excitement.
At least in the Jujutsu World his vessel was being introduced to, sorcerers and curses alike would try to kill him. It would be nostalgic if he wasn't bored of it already. Insects try to kill him, he kills them, then he kills their family and clan. Someone bothers him, he kills them and then their family and clan.
Boring, boring.
He didn't even bother trying to take over the brat when he ate his second finger. If he had consumed two or more fingers at the same, maybe he could.
The next day, the six eyes carefully dragged his vessel into the safety of Tengen’s barrier, and talked about Sukuna like he wasn't even there. It was amusing to hear how they spread stories of his noterioty even 1000 years after his death.
“Six eyes," he spoke up from an additional mouth on his vessel’s face. “I spared a child before I died. Did he live?"
His words seemed to throw both his vessel and the six eyes off. Then the six eyes smiled, the same insociable smile on his face.
“And if I say he didn't?"
“Disappointing," Sukuna drawled. “I had hoped a child who was willing to give his life to his sister would have done more. It would be disappointing if his greatest achievement was being known as the killer of the King of Curses."
“He wasn’t," The six eyes said, and Sukuna felt all his interest drain away. So he did survive and wasn't even known as his killer? Boring.
“Disappointing," Sukuna repeated, but this time his tone was bored to death. He disappeared from his vessel’s face.
“What…what was that?” Itadori whispered.
"Is that the first time he's done this?” Six eyes asked. His vessel touched his face, nodding. "How interesting!" Six eyes grinned.
Then he turned out most of the rest. The six eyes was warning his vessel that just because he let a child go, didn't change the fact that he killed everyone else there.
That child had been pathetic, but he had amused Sukuna. The foolish and useless sorcerers of the time had not even realized that the larger than normal eruption of cursed energy along with no remaining sign of his traces meant that he had killed himself. It made sense since he had been unchallenged in strength for decades before his death, and a child could hardly cause his death.
But it irritated him that the reason the boy hadn't been named as the cause of his death was not because of something as logical as that. But because those fools had not even realized he had died there.
When Itadori was about to head into the Principal’s office, Sukuna’s mouth formed again on his cheek and he froze.
“So, what did that child do?" Sukuna asked, sounding grouchy and lethargic even to Itadori.
Gojo Satoru smiled.
“I don't know!" He said cheerfully. There was a brief silence where Sukuna’s mouth on Itadori’s cheek and Gojo-sensei’s blindfolded eyes seemed to have a staring contest, before the mouth on his cheek smiled.
“So he did do something," Sukuna said, and he sounded pleased. “What a good boy."
The mouth disappeared.
For one incredulous moment, Itadori stared at Gojo-sensei and he stared back at him through the blindfold, and then Gojo Satoru started laughing.
“What an amusing period the Heian era must have been!" He laughed. “I'm almost disappointed I wasn't born then."
Itadori rubbed his cheek again and frowned. He was getting too many mixed signals from Gojo-sensei about Sukuna. Still, he couldn't mistake the hostile sensation from inside of him.
Sukuna might like Gojo-sensei, but clearly he didn't like Itadori. He kept frowning.
“Now, now. Don't frown like that! It's time to take your admission test!" Gojo-sensei laughed, and Itadori put on his brave face and went in.
Not as much later as he would have wished, Itadori called out to Sukuna from the depths of his heart desperate to save himself and his friends.
To which Sukuna said almost casually, “If you let me out, I will kill your friend first."
It wasn't even a threat, but simply a statement of fact that sent shivers of dread down his spine. One statement during a moment of crisis said more about a person than a thousand words before.
Itadori firmed the part of him that had been tithering on the brink of giving Sukuna a chance to speak his side of the story. No matter how many times Gojo-sensei had emphasized the amount of deaths Sukuna had caused, it was difficult to relate it to someone whose first words had been of suicide and second about saving a child before his death.
Even Sukuna’s adamant dislike of him had been brushed aside in his mind.
He sent Fushiguro away before facing the curse- a hopeless endeavor, but he still did it. Sukuna laughed at his pathetic attempt of a fight. Words telling him to give up echoed in his ears.
Until finally Itadori heard the sound of a wolf howl and sighed in relief. The switch was ridiculously simple in comparison.
Sukuna laughed and laughed.
His pathetic little vessel, begging for scraps to be placed in his mouth. He disliked it immensely. Punishment…hmm.
Ah. He promised to kill that dark haired brat, didn't he? That six eyes would be sad to see one of his students die, but even that would be an entertaining reaction to witness.
If he kept hesitating to kill Sukuna, he could always torture him until he couldn't. Death was the only solace that life had to offer, and he would just have to make sure that the six eyes understood that properly.
He smiled, before punching the newborn Special Grade. It broke through several walls and whined loudly. Trying to regenerate the limbs that got destroyed while travelling through the walls. He waited patiently. When it was done, he punched it again.
He couldn't sense his vessel anymore. What a child. He thought he could entrust the safety of his friends after trapping a bloodthirsty being who committed massacres with his own body and then letting it go free. What a fool!
Ah, this kind of foolishness. He wanted to return it with an appropriate punishment.
He smiled again, the unstable domain breaking apart as the owner was blown out of the detention center. He jumped out behind the domain, lips breaking out into a wider grin. He could see that dark haired brat.
He landed in front of the brat, hands in his pocket as he waited for the pathetic Special Grade to recover.
“Brat," Sukuna said gleefully. “Now, call six eyes before you die.”
“Sukuna," the brat breathed, terrified. The Special Grade got up behind him.
“Are you not going to call him?" Sukuna cocked his head, almost amused despite himself. The dark haired brat’s hands shook.
“He’s not picking up," the dark haired brat got out.
“How boring," Sukuna said, before sitting down on the side. “Defeat this brat," he commanded the Special Grade.
The Special Grade got into a stance, staring at him with wariness.
“Oi," Sukuna clicked his fingers, pointing to the dark haired brat. “That one. Kill him."
His vessel was still as unresponding as ever. He watched slowly as the Special Grade finally attacked the dark haired brat. He yawned, watching the slow movements of the two. Boring.
It would have been better if Uraume was by his side. She would have entertained him with offerings, and commentary to distract him from the boring fight.
After a few more moments, he went up to the two of them, realising that the Special Grade had overwhelmed the dark haired brat. The brat had a sign made with his hands, his cursed energy taking on a terrifying quality he recognised- a suicide attack. He had scorched the entire land where he had decided to die. He knew how strong of an attack it could be.
But he only found it disappointing. The boy’s strength was mediocre, even if he had decent potential. He would sacrifice everything he was and could be, already? Though he understood the sentiment. He was Sukuna.
The moment the boy saw him, however, he stopped.
“Itadori-" he choked out through his abused throat, and Sukuna punched the Special Grade in the face. He wanted to hear the brat’s last words. “-I didn't have a logical reason to save you back then. Even if it's dangerous, I didn't want to see a good person like you die. I had my doubts, but I heeded my selfish emotions. But that's all right. I'm no hero. I'm a Jujutsu Sorcerer. So I've never regretted saving you.”
The Special Grade charged again, and Sukuna grabbed the cursed finger inside and yanked it out. He could feel his vessel responding, forcefully taking back control of his body regardless of the Special Grade curse right beside them. The fool.
“I will respect those words," Sukuna said. A mouth forming in his palm to eat the finger he was holding. It gave him a little more time. Then he slashed through his own arm, cutting it so small that the limb dissipated into the rain. “I won't kill him. Today.”
Then Itadori took over, and gave Fushiguro a relieved smile.
“I'm glad you're okay," he said, before fainting as the blood loss overcame him.
Sukuna was ridiculously amused by how angry everyone seemed to be by Sukuna’s act of cutting off Itadori’s arm. While it was a career ending injury, he was still alive unlike most of Sukuna’s victims.
It seemed only six eyes had connected the dots, looking surprised at what his dark haired student had told him, even the words he had spoken to Itadori and Sukuna’s response to it. Gojo Satoru seemed somewhat amused, but he had to suppress it at his vessel’s despair.
Losing your arm was a devastating thing, let alone for someone who was aiming to be a jujutsu sorcerer. The dark haired brat insisted that Sukuna could regrow it (he could) but he had refused to respond or do it.
“Sukuna~ Sukuna~ come out, come out wherever you are~" six eyes sang almost cheerily, but Sukuna had heard and seen the bone deep relief after knowing that everyone of his students were alive and seeing his attempt at reassurance without promising anything.
He had his usual blindfold off too, watching his vessel and himself with ethereal blue eyes.
“Six eyes," Sukuna said from his vessel’s scowling cheek.
"Sukuna~ I heard you saved some students of mine! Did they interest you?” Six eyes asked, smiling.
"That brat of yours was weak. But his mentality wasn't trash. I simply commended him for it,” Sukuna replied.
“My, my. Is the King of Curses getting soft over some students? I heard you healed Itadori’s arms too, why don't you heal him up again?” Gojo asked, smiling.
"No," Sukuna kept his reply short and uninterested.
“Not even with a binding vow? I'll even throw in a full fight with me," Gojo offered. An honest offer, he could tell.
“I don't bother with useless brats," Sukuna replied bored. "The mind is the basis of everything in the jujutsu world. If you don't have the mentality for it, you never will, not until you get ground up to dust by the world. However interesting shattering this brat’s mentality piece by piece would be, I don't want to bother with weak, useless brats. Out of the three of us, six eyes, you're the only one who wishes to keep me alive despite the danger to the world, just so this brat can live too.”
He could feel his vessel clenching his fist, looking frustrated and angry.
“If you can't protect him, both of us will simply die. I have no problem with that. If he dares to switch with me again, I'll take his leg next,” Sukuna said, bored. His mouth disappeared from Itadori’s cheek as his vessel hunched down.
Six eyes sighed, resting a hand on Itadori’s head. But his eyes were considering.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Itadori was completely home-bound. Six eyes had him learn to control his cursed energy and Sukuna watched as well, bored as usual. He imagined Uraume’s reactions, but it only frustrated him more, so he just meditated, going as close to sleep as he possibly could.
The only exception was the times six eyes was in his vicinity.
The first time his vessel had fallen asleep, and six eyes had appeared, Sukuna had opened his eyes, curious. Six eyes observed him silently, and Sukuna- driven by curiosity- had formed a mouth on Itadori’s cheek again.
“Do you make a habit of staring at your students? If you want to take him while he's sleeping, feel free. I won't interrupt," he cackled to himself a little. It would be beyond interesting if the mentor-figure did.
His vessel’s despair if it happened would be beyond interesting. Would he cry, knowing that the man he depended on so much was a mere man lusting after him?
“I have no idea what kind of thing happened in the Heian era, but it is considered immoral to take advantage of the people who put their trust in you,” Six eyes replied, the slight irritation from their last conversation was a little more obvious.
“As if it would ever stop humans from doing it. Shouldn't you know that better than most, six eyes?" Sukuna drawled.
"You were a human too, weren't you?" Six eyes said. Then after barely taking a pause, he continued, “That boy you let go. He helped Tengen-sama create the barriers that still stand to this day. The ones over the entire country as well as the ones over places like this school.”
"Good for him," Sukuna hummed leisurely.
“So why did you save him?" Gojo Satoru stepped fully into the room, taking a leisurely seat as if he had nothing else to do but chat with the King of Curses trapped in the body of his sleeping student.
Sukuna was well aware it wasn't true. But he was willing to indulge him nonetheless.
"When I decided it was time for me to die, I trampled through the entire capital city established by one of the clans,” Sukuna started, and he was pleased to see six eyes actually listening. "They all ran, and I killed everyone who left the boundary I established. I told them that I would only let the people who had bloodied their hands leave alive. And the parents turned against their children, siblings turned against each other, friends clawed through each other and came to my feet hoping to receive benediction.”
Sukuna talked slowly, weaving the scene with his words, his lazy voice depicting the agonising picture that it must have been. Gojo Satoru kept his breathing steady and his face expressionless.
"This boy, however," Sukuna said amused, “he dragged his sister in front of me, and put a knife in her hands and dragged it to his throat. He glared at me the entire time, but he didn't waver. His sister kept crying but that brat-” Sukuna huffed, sounding amused and fond. "-he looked like he would have murdered me himself if he could.”
"He was amusing. I had a feeling he would do something interesting with his life if I let him go. So I did,” Sukuna said.
There was silence after that.
"Is that why you let Yuji-kun and Megumi-kun live?” Gojo asked, and his voice was serious, instead of the false levity of before.
"Cultivating a correct mindset takes time,” Sukuna said. "Unlike my vessel, your other student cannot even use what he has correctly. However, he has a good mindset. I let them live because he was worth keeping alive and his mindset worth cultivating.”
Then he said, sounding even more amused, "However, he does need to be less coddled. He couldn't have developed that kind of a mindset unless he had an absolute assurance of safety behind him. Someone who would carefully pick up the pieces if he shattered the table.”
Gojo Satoru was flabbergasted, letting out an incredulous laugh at those words. Even though he was infuriated at some of the things Sukuna said, he couldn't say the curse had a completely different purview.
He had read about the accounts from many of the clans members during the Heian era- during Sukuna’s reign- and he knew a fraction of how terrible the time had been. The massacres Sukuna had created were not the only atrocity of the time, not even nearly.
Though, they certainly were the loudest and most obvious. There had been so much rampant accusations about the heinous acts Sukuna had committed, and already he could tell that while the curse-who-had-been-a-human had probably, actually been a cannibal, he probably hadn't raped those women after scorching their bodies inside out.
Sukuna was far more obvious than he seemed, perhaps because he felt no need to hide away. He took a twisted delight from making people suffer, but he also did things like spare a particularly talented child just because.
He was definitely evil. But it didn't feel very simple. If Sukuna had been a curse user of their time, Gojo would have killed him without hesitation. But he also had this terrible feeling that if Sukuna had actually been born in their era, he wouldn't have turned into the King of Curses at all.
Gojo Satoru laughed.
“Are you giving me parenting advice?" He asked, resting his chin on his fingers, smiling slyly at the dead-asleep figure of his student and the talking mouth and eye open on one side of him.
“Parent," Sukuna scoffed. Then there was an odd pause, as if he was considering the word a little. Then when he spoke there was an odd inflection in it, "Someone who can't care for their children is not called a parent.”
Gojo Satoru would have to be dumb, deaf and blind to have not understood the subtext in that statement. He would have to be stripped of his cursed energy and as ignorant as an ant, to have not heard the silent self-reproach in those words.
If he had not been Gojo Satoru. If he did not have absolute control over his cursed energy. He would have given away the utter shock he felt at that very moment.
Sukuna had a child??? Someone had killed Sukuna’s child? No, of course they had. He remembered everything he had ever read. He could never forget the oozing hatred even from the simple statements about Sukuna left behind by the previous clan members.
But it was a shock to think about the bloodthirsty curse he had always heard about, the curse on those fingers that became stronger day by day having had a child. He had been thinking only moments ago that Sukuna didn't seem like someone who had raped women.
Had he been wrong? He couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting to, considering Sukuna was said to have four arms and two faces.
Despite his utter control of his cursed energy, something must have given away what he had realized, because Sukuna disappeared without a trace. Gojo Satoru sat there for a moment more, still in partial shock over the reveal.
Then he huffed out a laugh, before standing up.
“How about I keep it a secret in exchange for you healing my student’s arm?" He said. The silence that followed gave him his answer.
He hummed to himself as he stepped out. Not too long after, Fushiguro stepped into the room and huffed in annoyance at seeing Itadori asleep on the couch. He put a blanket over his body carefully, before leaving him to sleep.