"Domain Expansion."
The birds stopped singing. The winds stopped roaring. Even the ubiquitous, ever-present numbers seemed to stutter at his utterance.
"Malevolent Shrine."
The air tasted like blood, like raw meat, as a building moulded from teeth rose up behind the thing that wasn't Itadori Yuji. Skulls formed a perimeter of death around the demon.
Yuriko felt it, like a… Her eyes widened. She felt it. Any figurative abstraction to describe what she was feeling fell away. She wasn't supposed to feel anything in the state she was in. Her field was designed to keep the world out—the parts of it that were out to get her. She wasn't supposed to feel anything unless it had her permission to be felt.
Panic rushed into her mind as the numbers did. Their surroundings distorted. Sugisawa Municipal, already in near disrepair trembled as the evening quaked. A force was working its way into the space, stretching under her feet, around Sasaki, 'Megumi', the damn louse of a curse user and Iguchi, helpless, limbless, Iguchi who couldn't have followed her order to run under his own strength. Everything was steeped and mired in pernicious intention.
Yuriko abandoned the attack she had planned. The priority was always—her hand snatched Sasaki whose arms cradled Iguchi's torso, and not a moment too soon. Slashes pinged off her barrier. Her calculation fired at fully capacity, and yet she didn't understand. Not fully. Vectors pressed against her reflection; they were getting closer than they had any right to! And then it strained. Her barrier. Her filter. The construct that stood between her, and hardship, and she never even knew that it could.
A unidirectional undeniable tick of force—a line—manifested across her neck, and—
***
10 minutes ago. POV: Kugisaki Nobara
"Like mother, like daughter, huh."
Nobara took a final, reluctant sip and sighed as she set down her drink. Around her, the café erupted into...silence. Eyes darted around trying to piece together a picture but imagine trying to paint the sky when you've never looked up before. All they could tell was that one moment there had been two girls, the next there was one, and destruction.
Nobara picked up the phone that had clattered unceremoniously onto the table. Her eyes scanned the last message sent. A reply from Yuriko.
"Oh," she said, ambling absentmindedly through the jagged cavity in the wall. Doors were for the unintrepid. Outside, a car was turned on its roof, and the air tasted like ozone. Nobara whistled. "Good luck to them, I guess."
***
15 minutes ago. POV: Negi Toshihisa
Negi Toshihisa was having a bad day. A bad couple of weeks, really. That was just what happened when a sorcerer (read: superior being) spent any length of time surrounded by monkeys. Their uncontrolled, unrefined cursed energy clung to him like so many flies crawling over his skin. It was all he could do to resist the urge to swat. Even if he had only been spending an hour a day at best amongst them.
The school reeked of teen spirit. He had no idea how the resident, baby, Special Grade had endured it. Even the likes of Gojo Satoru who had stood in stark opposition to Geto-sama stayed far removed from the uncivilised. But she? She considered them friends. And it was on their behalf that she'd interfered in the designs of his master. His nose wrinkled. If only they—or even Jujutsu society—had found her first.
As it stood, the monkeys—the two specific monkeys he was currently dealing with—had monopolised Suzushina's good will.
He supposed he couldn't blame them. Why wouldn't apes, so easily dazzled by the light, endeavour to lure Amaterasu from her cave? Toshihisa had seen the sky split from a distance and seen the sun break into the afternoon. That kind of power...the girl deserved to be around others who could appreciate its significance. But in other regards, alas. Suzushina Yuriko had made her choice, and Geto Suguru had been bound, so it was time to appeal to a higher power.
All this to say that it was with no small measure of joy that Toshihisa snatched Itadori Yuji by the collar and hurled him across the corridor. The boy—the irritatingly physically gifted boy—used the sudden momentum to his advantage, twisting midair with his heels over his head, and somehow managing to impale another curse on his makeshift weapon.
It withered away after a pained howl. Negi felt his molars grind. That must have actually been the very first time a non-sorcerer exorcised a Grade Two curse instead of contributing to its existence.
Another thing he would attribute to the girl. A non-sorcerer with the sense and know-how to do what they shouldn't be able to do. How droll, he might actually have to exactly what Kenjaku had wanted him to.
Negi had followed the plan almost to the letter, with additional measures to ensure his own safety. No way in hell was he going to be present when the King of Curses awakened. Kenjaku had wanted him to force-feed the boy. Hah. Just his experience of breaking the first seal had been enough to disabuse him of that notion.
Malevolence rolled forth like an avalanche reshaping the effective topology of a mountain. Pressure settled on his shoulders. The air became so thin, it could cut. And this was the least of his power. Of Ryoumen Sukuna's. One twentieth of the god, if even that. Even the non-sorcerers sequestered at their desks at the time had felt it. In that same incognisant way their kind often did. Like ants only mildly aware of the shadow of a falling boot.
But even being as strong as he was, relative to the ants, all that did was give Tohihisa just enough perspective to see the shoe.
Hell. Fucking. No. He wasn't planning to be in stomping distance.
Instead, Toshihisa had—
"I will not save you."
The first finger in his possession slams on the table. It is ancient. It is grotesque.
"Swallow this, and you'll be like Suzushina. Swallow this and maybe you can take your fate into your own hands for once and even save the other monkeys while you're at it."
—And he left them stranded with their monkey instructor, in a locked classroom surrounded by curses. He was prepared to run, to negotiate from a distance with the second finger in his pocket, but then he had heard the whispers. And then he had heard the sound of cellulosic fibres as they splintered. And then he had seen them stumble out alive, all of them, and somehow the pink-furred ape remained every bit as unremarkable as he had since the classes this morning.
In a matter of minutes, the fading carcasses of curses littered the hallway.
That brought Toshihisa to his current irritation. The boy, the vessel, the monkey offered a chance at transcendence like Wukong of myth, and more specifically to the 'weapon' he was wielding.
"How insulting."
The future-vessel was currently holding a metre ruler, and on its end affixed with literal fucking duct tape and part of its former seal was one of the twenty fingers of Ryoumen Sukuna. A DIY cursed tool. One twentieth of divinity. Special-Grade potency in the hands of a special-ed monkey. A fucking Special Grade cursed weapon made in a goddamn classroom.
Toshihisa lunged, throwing a palm strike. The boy caught it with the shaft of his spear. Mundane wood, it may have been, but it was being reinforced by the cursed energy of the King of Curses. Toshihisa scowled as Itadori only staggered before swinging the pike at his face. He leaned back, narrowly avoiding the desiccated finger and its very sharp, very indestructible fingernail.
Or at least he thought he had. A wetness ran down his cheek, and when his hand came away red, red was all the curse user could see.
Negi Toshihisa was a sorcerer. A Grade One sorcerer if he were ranked; he would be on par with the likes of Kusakabe Atsuya. Toshihisa wasn't an insanely versatile prodigy like Okkotsu. He wasn't an insurmountable juggernaut like Gojo. But to them, to these odious monkeys, these insects, who couldn't even use Jujutsu, he should have been a god— The instinct to swat overpowered his good sense for a moment.
Negi had barely managed to restrain his cursed energy as his fist made contact. Still, the strength differential it created remained vast. A sharp exhale. A spattering of spit. Blood. Lift. And Itadori Yuji was flying.
A back hit glass, glass sprayed. Then gravity remembered.
"Itadori!" said Iguchi Takeshi with his slovenly voice, and undignified cadence. At least Itadori had deigned to do something. The other monkey had been cowering, teetering just out of the reach of the confrontation, instead of fleeing like their teacher had. Only now that his defender had been defenestrated did Iguchi rush to the window. Disgusting coward. He would deal with him later.
"Shit," Toshihisa groused as the vessel, the finger, the future went tumbling out of the window.
How high up were they? Four storeys? Five? Did the boy have to live for Sukuna to make use of his body? 'Luckily,' that wasn't a hypothetical he needed to ponder.
The sound of wings—heavy wings were beating the air. A screech shrill enough to powder more windows rocked the building, and before Toshihisa had the chance to wonder if it were a curse, a voice said:
"Nue!"
And Toshihisa knew pain. Fluid, electric, pain. An involuntary muscle twitch sent him careening into a classroom, desks, tables and pedagogical paraphenalia blasted every which way.
"Iguchi! Jump!"
The cowardly monkey cast a look through the rubble at the curse user, and whatever he saw in Negi Toshihisa's expression made him obey Sasaki Setsuko without a second thought.
***
POV: Fushiguro Megumi
Four people who were dependent on him, and a Special Grade object in their possession. Megumi knew when to pick his battles.
"Go, Nue."
Negi Tohihisa was one of the curse users who had aligned themselves with Geto Suguru. A zealot who believed the lives of non-sorcerers—of people like Tsumiki—were inherently worthless. Less than worthless: actively caustic. He wouldn't have batted an eye before murdering two of the passengers on his shikigami.
What was worse was that, as far as the rumours went, Negi had managed to exchange blows with Kusakabe-san during the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. Even if he had eventually had to flee, Megumi was no Kusakabe.
The moment he had heard the man's name from Sasaki's projection, Megumi realised that the scope of the mission lay a little wider than his current capabilities. Nue, Orochi, Divine Dogs and Gamma. He had only started taming his shikigami in earnest after his enrolment at Jujutsu High—a little over a month ago... Surely, Gojo-sensei could have at least sent a second year for an errand as important as securing a Special Grade object?
"T-thanks for the save, man."
Megumi winced. "Are you Itadori?"
"Y-yeah! And you're...?" Itadori wheezed. Injured, clearly, but the smile in his voice stirred a vague assortment of memories that Megumi couldn't immediately place. He didn't know Itadori, but he felt like he did.
"…Fushiguro," Megumi replied. Then it felt like they were hands around his throat. Like every little finger joint was a knife against his windpipe. It was cursed energy. Utterly dark, and utterly malicious. It came from under the wings of Nue. Megumi could see it sticking out attached to a— "Is that the…?"
"Oh," He wheezed again. "Y-you mean my stabbing stick?"
"…" No! "That's a cursed object!"
"Ohh! The uh—the finger of Ramen Sakana?"
"Ryoumen Sukuna! And why the hell did you?" Wait before that... "How do you even know what that is?"
"Well, Yur—"
"Itadori!"
Sasaki's voice rang hoarse. She had been in a state of shock from using her technique, but whatever her friend had been about to say had roused her from it.
Megumi shelved certain suspicions in the back of his mind. Now was not the time to doubt their intentions. Nue jostled to compensate for the sudden shudder that came over Itadori. The boy let out a wince then spoke with another slight, uneven, wheeze. "S-Sasaki-san? What're you doing up there?"
"Answer my question, please." What he left unsaid was that Nue might drop them off near the ground, if Megumi even suspected that the three of them had any intentions on the dangerous object they had arts-and-crafted into a weapon.
"Sorry, where was I…" Itadori hummed. "Oh! After I made a… bad decision a few months ago." Once again, that had nothing to do with what Megumi was asking. "My friend spent hours grilling us with an emergency response plan." The boy pitched his own voice up. "Rule number one," he said. "You can't kill magic without magic. 'Just run, dumbass.' We tried to do that, but…"
The air and silence broke under Nue's rings. They soared over the rugby pitch.
Do they know another sorcerer? His suspicion thickened. Megumi stole a subtle glance at Sasaki, who turned away a little too awkwardly. The impression hadn't matched her tone of voice at all.
"T-there were so many! Itadori could have gotten away on his own, but he stayed behind, and!" 'Iguchi' erupted in perfect frustration, but the ashes of his anger immediately cooled to despondence. "Useless." A firm, but ultimately harmless thump landed on Nue's back as Iguchi's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so useless..."
Sasaki reached her hand over his back, never quite coming into contact. Just hovering. She didn't say anything either.
Nobody spoke until the voice under Nue let out a squawk of bewilderment. "What're you talking about?" His voice coloured by just the faintest shade of anger. "The thing with the spear was your idea! You really saved our butts there Iguchi. That guy up there wanted me to swallow it… yeugh."
"Alright," Megumi sighed, a little suspicion sublimated, but the last of what was said made his eyes widen. Those crazy bastards! Well done Sasaki. She might have just saved the country. Gojo-sensei was probably gonna cobble together a 400 YEN trophy for her troubles when she actually joined. He sighed again, as he casually filed the three of them under the umbrella of 'civilians.' But as civilians, the cursed object was only slightly better off in their hands than the curse users.. "Do you think you could hand it over—"
They soared over the rugby pitch. Wait a minute... A loop? Why was—Wait! The shikigami's wings tilted, and suddenly they were coasting towards the broken window again.
"See No Evil." A voice rang clear and final like an organ. It was Megumi's third time hearing it that day. Weight landed on his shikigami, and weight was displaced.
Iguchi, clothes, schoolbag, glasses and all was suddenly in free fall.
Megumi made a grab for the civilian, but then there was the sensation of nausea. Up became down, but down did not default to up, and there was no up. Left stayed left, but so was right. The sky stretched out below him, and the ground, above. A cursed technique!
In the corner of his vision, he saw a hand lash out and grab the boy by his ankle. Somehow, Itadori had broken Nue's grip on one shoulder to save him, but any relief Megumi felt at that would be short-lived, as the technique made a tamagoyaki scramble of his senses. Eventually, through their connection, he felt how the effect had propagated to Nue. No, it had started with Nue and spread to him.
They were above the rugby pitch again.
Nue had been flying in circles, instead of away. Now there wasn't even the illusion of control as the curse user struck the owl, only a downward spiral and its terrestrial conclusion. Six bodies slammed into the loamy soil—or they would have, if not for—
Megumi made a split-second decision to partially dematerialise Nue. In its transient, quasi-shadow state, the shikigami became the crumple zone to their car crash.
All its former passengers were in various states of disarray.
A heavy shade of blue bloomed along Itadori's arm from where he had tried to shield—Oh. The less said about Iguchi, the better. He was breathing, yes. So was an open head wound. The boy mumbled incoherently. He needed a hospital, or Ieiri-san, immediately.
Sasaki Setsuko was perfectly unharmed. Which should have been a good thing, but she was only fine because the curse user had elected to save her. The girl lay slung over Negi's shoulder and given that he had had the leeway to protect her, it followed that he too was perfectly unharmed.
Negi stood with one hand conspicuously in a pocket along his robe. Conspicuous, because while the man regarded Megumi with the casual mien of one who was certain of his own superiority, he was also subtly ill-at-ease. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, his uncovered eye searching the sky for…something. Someone?
Megumi could see Sasaki tugging at the curse user's hair. The man in question just ignored her.
"My cursed technique," he said. "Allows me to distort the perspective of anyone who falls within my line of sight. Depth perception. Colour. Field of vision. It's not control per se, but you can't rely on your eyes as long as my own is trained on you. My technique has yet to falter against a single sorcerer…" Except for Gojo Satoru, of course. "I would advise you to stay out of this."
"Itadori," Megumi whispered, cautiously picking himself up. "Grab Iguchi and run."
"But—"
"He's too strong. Too 'magic.' What was it your friend said? Take the finger and get the hell out of here."
Itadori went quiet, save for his continued wheezing—broken ribs? Even so, Megumi heard what he hoped was Itadori picking himself and his friend off the ground.
"Rule number two," Itadori said, again in that faux voice that sounded nothing like Sasaki. "Stay alive until I get there… 'dumbass.' Don't die on us, Fushiguro-san."
Megumi ignored the comment and threw himself between the civilians and Negi.
The man's cursed energy exacerbated his nausea. Really. His first mission? Could he grab the finger before Negi reacted? Could he run? Could he leave them behind to the curse user's devices? Megumi let his mind race.
He hadn't become a Jujutsu sorcerer for this.
Not to be the buffer between curses, whether they were people or spirits. Not even to get stronger. The truth was a lot more boring than that. The truth was stretches of summer with the A/C broken. The truth was an onigiri diet when they were still learning to live alone. The truth was in a simple smile after a long day at school: Tsumiki. His career as a sorcerer was just the collateral it took to subsidise her happiness. His sister's smile and her joy were the only thing in the world worth fighting for, even now that she was cursed. Especially now.
So, it was her face he pictured in his mind's eye, crouching, bruised and bleeding behind him. The thought of running away died a grizzly, undignified death.
The man glared past Megumi for a moment, before his eye fell on the weaker sorcerer, and—vertigo. The world swam as the curse user appraised him. Colour went to war with shape and depth lost all consistency.
"This isn't your fight," Negi warned, cursed energy coiling like a spring. "Step away from the vessel, blessing of the Zenin clan."
Megumi clasped his hands together.
"I'm no Zenin," he growled. "Divine Dogs."
'Kuro' sprung into existence. The other remained primed beneath the abyss of his technique. They were shikigami that navigated the world more by their noses than their eyes anyway.
Negi studied them mildly, "Hm."
Then Megumi threw a punch. Negi countered with a Sasaki. With his sight compromised, Megumi couldn't dodge as the bespeckled projectile and her body sent the pair a-thump to the ground. Negi devoured the distance and stomped, but Megumi's reprisal had fangs. Shiro sprang from their combined shadow, jaw agape and—
"Ugh!"
Negi threw an elbow into the lupine face. Then another, but the wolf doggedly clenched on. Its fangs burrowed deeper into the calf. Shiro mewled at the blows, and its other half rushed slashing claws at the robed man. Negi slipped out of its trajectory, catching Kuro by the throat. Reinforcement rippled along his sleeve, just as he slammed the second dog into the first. Blood gushed, but the leg was free now.
Megumi couldn't have that. He needed to rush in, needed to keep the pressure up for as long as it took Itadori to escape, but he was seeing double and backwards and the sky was Magenta. He needed to keep the eye off him or failing that—waita minute. Megumi freed himself from Sasaki who was muttering something to the dirt and stood. A sizeable dent hit his reserves as he chanted, "Orochi."
Air split apart. A colossal serpentine body took its place and revolved around Megumi's before bowing its head to the ground. Orochi's tail lashed at Negi who weathered the strike on the back of his arms, blasting back a few feet.
The relief was instant, but it took Megumi a moment before he could readjust to his regular vision. If Negi couldn't see him, he couldn't be affected by the technique. It was good to confirm that, but the sheer impracticality of fighting the man while never falling within his field of view… This was a losing battle, but he had to try.
Negi wasn't about to give him time to think. The curse user's energy surged to his legs. Megumi could hear the earth crack and braced himself for an impact... that never came. Damn it!He's going for Itadori.
"Stop him, Orochi!" Megumi ordered.
But then he was suffocating. The soil underneath him was replaced by the fleshy walls of a gigantic throat. Orochi had been misled, like Nue. Megumi dispelled the snake, but by then it was too late.
Negi Toshihisa, registered as a Grade One threat having survived Kusakabe had already bypassed his attempted blockade. It was only a matter of time before he caught Itadori, overpowered him, and unleashed the King of Curses. Megumi shouted out a warning and the pink-haired boy who turned at the sound, whose eyes Megumi could see widening as he realised that he was about to be caught, stopped. What?
The boy planted his shoes in the ground, his friend on his back. Wait, wait. Even from where he was standing, Megumi could see the boy's expression as it became the picture of absolute focus. Itadori staggered. Injured, and likely under the influence of Negi's technique. He closed his eyes, then thrust his spear into the pitch. It sliced into the ground like an Olympic diver into water. The curse user's head snapped voraciously toward the object.
Distance shrank. Cortisol boiled. And for the briefest, unobservable femtosecond, there was no snarling of distant, approaching abominations. No pounding of blood in Megumi's ears, even the ground gave way in auditory oblivion. Megumi gasped when 'stone's throw' became 'point-blank.'
"Damn it! I said ru—" Megumi would not be completing that sentence. Run. The word burned at the tip of his tongue like a redundant missive. Because the very instance he had lain the syllable, Negi who had taken his eyes off Itadori was now sailing overhead.
The Grade Two sorcerer watched in numb confusion as the curse user landed behind him with a snarl. Cursed energy rippled with frustration, and something else. The man was rubbing his jaw.
A kick? On the other end of his flight path was Itadori with his foot in the air. A new bruise over his shin told Megumi there had been an equal exchange. That was a kick, right? Was he like Zenin-senpai? Itadori was already special. The curse users had singled him out for a reason; wanted to feed him the… Idly, Megumi wondered would happen if it was Maki instead, they had chosen to—
A fist struck the thought from his mind. Megumi belatedly threw up his guard from the floor. It wasn't that he hadn't also been watching Negi. Just as Orochi had been fooled by the sensory technique, it only took the curse user one glance, then Megumi couldn't tell if the punch had been coming from behind, or above him.
The curse user didn't press the advantage; he simply took the moment Megumi had been stunned to bypass him again.
They were back to square one. The ground crunching under Negi's output. Only this time his output had a frantic edge to it. A fervour. The man practically drowning his limbs with an elevated, clumsy surge of cursed energy. Itadori was limping away now. His place slower for his injured ankle. Stubbornly, he had elected to keep Iguchi on his back. Respect warred with frustration in Megumi's mind.
Beside Megumi, the recovering Divine Dogs were perusing the air. Snouts high, they let out low whine in tandem, and the message was clear. Curses. Lots of them. Drawn in by the finger. The situation would only escalate if it didn't end soon.
Megumi took a runner's stance, and the dogs began their own frantic charge for Negi before he could even deliver the order. He was about to follow when he felt a tug at his sleeve.
"Th-the headband!" she spluttered.
"What?"
He looked down to see Sasaki, the toxic glow of a phone screen, and a text message from her end. It read 'Hanako.'
Megumi's eyes snapped back to the girl herself. One hand on his uniform, the like a mountain goat on a sheer cliff face was clutching some—hair? Negi's hair!
Sasaki looked him dead in the eye as her nose bled. "Over his right eye. It's a—it's a 'self-imposed' binding vow." The girl tested the words on her tongue. Clearly, she was entirely unfamiliar with the term, but after what she had shown him earlier with her technique, Megumi was inclined to believe her.
Negi had thrown an underarm blow into Itadori's stomach by the time the dogs caught up with him. He made a desperate grab for the spear—Megumi's heart sunk—but Kuro pawed the offending arm away.
"He sacrifices depth perception in exchange for— it doesn't matter! His technique is weaker as long as his eye's covered!"
Good to know. Exactly how much weaker, would be a gamble. But Megumi needed more than that to win. He considered his options, considered Mahoraga in an intrusive lapse of insanity, as he watched Negi barely dodge a thrust of the Sukuna-spear.
Why would a Grade One adjacent sorcerer be struggling against a civilian, even one as gifted as he was? What was it Itadori had said? Yeugh. Negi wants Itadori to swallow the cursed object. And for Itadori to do that, he needed to be alive. Alive and to keep him that way, Negi had to be holding back. The man's hand drifted to his pocket, as he stepped into Itadori's guard. Megumi felt Negi's output drop as he weathered a shoulder check with Itadori, and Iguchi's combined weight behind it.
Shiro tried to bite his throat while he was down and summarily joined the Imperial Japanese Airforce when Negi's output spiked, and a boot met its soft underbelly.
Restraint, blatant restraint—reserved for Itadori Yuji. There was no way the curse user wasn't getting whiplash from having to vary his level of reinforcement between hitting Megumi and his shikigami, and hitting the would-be vessel. He was bound to be make mistakes that erred on the side of caution.
Megumi rubbed his face. A bloodied nose. The only price he had paid for getting hit by a sorcerer far above his current weight class.
"Okay." He turned back to Sasaki. "This place will be overrun with curses soon." The girl flinched. "I have a plan, but even if it works, I'll be low on energy, so I need you to run."
He didn't wait for her to respond. Whether or not she chose to take his advice, he had his mission, and unfortunately Ryoumen Sukuna took priority here. In the worst-case scenario, well… she didn't need to be there for the following 'ritual.'
It took Megumi two seconds to catch up. Two breaths to brace himself, and two hands to form the gesture.
Negi kicked Itadori away, and singular his eye landed on Megumi's pair the way a falcon lands on a grazing rabbit. "See No Evil."
Megumi left the ground when an open palm struck his abdomen. It hurt like hell, but he could take it. He had to take it. The last embers of his reserves fell to his crumpled shadow, setting his technique alight. "Nue!"
Negi broke away, a single eye scouring above for the owl, when he should have been watching the ground.
'Woah, Megumi-chan. You suck.'
'Cheaters.' His cards slap on the table.
'Pfft, don't look at me like that!' says the strongest nuisance of today. 'Your face is way too honest. Even Tsumiki's a better liar right now.'
A peal of laughter titters to the side. 'Stop corrupting my brother, Gojo-san!"
'Sorry, sorry, but he's training to be a sorcerer. Honesty will make an only-child out of you. Ooh, actually, would you like that? Think of all the presents—'
And in heeding that lesson, it was Gamma, the toad, that sprung forth from his shadow in lieu of Nue. A waterlogged tongue smacked the unprepared sorcerer in the face, and with a comical slurp, Negi Toshihisa's second eye was exposed to the world.
The ground returned to his feet, and the sky above his head, and the world stopped spinning. The only indicator of the technique were some lingering artifacts in his vision. Megumi blinked the spots away.
Itadori whinnied in relief. "Hey! I can see again."
"Clever." If Negi was panicking, he made no show of it. "For what it's worth, Fushiguro, you're every bit as annoying as a Zenin."
Megumi flinched as the man's cursed output began to climb; Megumi stood. What became increasingly apparent now that Megumi could see him, was just how uninjured Negi was. His left hand remained in his pocket. A little involuntary muscle twitch here and there, robes slightly blackened and ionised; a cut ran along his that had already begun to close. And his remaining reserves...holding back had done wonders for the man's stamina. Compared to them, he had hardly been fighting.
And he was aware of it, too. Negi cocked his head to the side, "But do really think, even with that, that you could take—"
Shiro and Kuro howled into the wind as it picked up. Megumi watched Negi's pupils shrink to the size of needlepoints. His own ears popped softly. Itadori's face meanwhile lit up like a festival. The boy and the curse user shared a look that Megumi couldn't decipher, until a new presence filled his mouth with static.
Murder. The dizzying stench of murder clogged the air. Megumi could feel the rage converging on their location, along with anxiety, fear and a deluge of blood lust. It couldn't have been Gojo-sensei. They wouldn't have felt it before they could see him. Then who? Megumi shuddered.
"Well...shit. It's the sun." Negi sighed. He turned to Itadori. "Hey, Sukuna. Nothing personal, okay?"
The Grade One's cursed energy rose to a fever pitch. Not that a solitary shout made a difference against the backdrop of an arena—who or what is that? They were getting closer, and the wind more restless.
By the time Megumi remembered Negi was there, the man had already closed in on Itadori.
The pink-haired boy, who hadn't been distracted, barely reacted in time. His spear forged a path for Negi's inner thigh, and Negi... kicked it. Hard. The bridge of his foot catching the makeshift weapon where the finger met the shaft. Crack!
Megumi recovered from his shock and lunged for the finger. Negi slapped it into the air, disregarding it entirely as he made a mad dash for Itadori, who threw Iguchi to Shiro. The object spun, flying high above them, completely out of reach.
A knuckle swung, reinforcement met unprotected bone. His jaw dropped, shattering against the ground. Itadori screamed.
"Time to take your medicine, monkey."
Then Negi reached into his pocket and took out—wait—a cylindrical object wrapped in paper. In a seal—wait, wait. The curse user unwrapped it and—in his mind's eye, Megumi sees the apparition of a four eyed—
"Stop!"
Down went the finger.
POV: Tohihisa Negi
Run. Shit. Fuck, fuck—shit. Fuck!
Two extra eyes split the skin on Itadori's face. The boy's wounds, every inch of damage earned through combat evaporated like a lie.
"Marvelous!" Negi didn't feel the cursed energy until it struck, but when it did as though it were the most natural thing in the world, the arms clinging to Itadori's back had been severed. Iguchi fell with them. "Women and children are crawling around like maggots!"
Itadori's hoodie disintegrated.
Fuck. Fuck!
A monster—understatement—a demonic god. Negi threw the entire weight of his reserves into his legs. His muscles burned as he tore away.
A distant part of Negi's mind registered the sound of a gulp. The second finger. His presence exploded, doubling, sharpening.
Above the clouds, Suzushina's energy crackled like the thunder. Sheets of white were reeling apart, like the entire sky was made to herald her. If Negi squinted, he swore he could even see—
The ground rocked. Water tore through the cracks as the irrigation system beneath exploded. The curse user swallowed a mouthful and lost his footing, and before he could find it again, the water swelled. There wasn't enough to be considered a pond, let alone an ocean, yet Negi felt himself adrift as if he were lost at sea. Waves roared. Foam sprayed. He couldn't tell up from down or left from left and right simply wasn't.
Negi came to in a tree.
When the world finally settled, it had settled around her. The Zenin sorcerer, the monkey, and Sasaki Setsuko positioned behind her. All dry in a manner that encroached divinity. Ryoumen Sukuna, demon and vessel, stood with his hands in his pocket, and his back to the school. A quartet of red eyes met a pair.
"You," Suzushina rasped, hurricanes condensing above her shoulders. "Who the hell are you?"
The demon's smile had teeth.
***
Author's Note:
Anyway. Sorry for the delay. This chapter was uhm somewhat difficult to write (read: abject agony). I even contemplated deleting the whole thing and starting over, but I suppose I don't hate the way it came out in the end.
Negi's technique. (Everything Negi does here is a Kusakabe upscale.)
We get no info on if he even has one, so I just made it tf up based on the fact that he started keeping one eye covered. Named after Mizaru (literally the monkey of see no evil) because I feel like the irony works on a few levels.