(A/N: All comments are appreciated! Also shout out to my 2.36 female audience and my 52.18% male audience, I don't know about the rest of you.)
While it sometimes didn't seem like it, curses were rather hard to find.
Curses usually came from places people thought were haunted, and with the advent of the internet, the number of places considered haunted was at a record low.
Of course, just as information can spread easily, lies can spread just as easily.
The 3:00 AM challenge of 2016 took the lives of several sorcerers.
But all in all, curses were at an all-time low.
So, Matteo had some free time to burn at the Jujutsu High Dorms.
He was sitting in the shared living room of the first-year dorms. It was a Saturday, so he didn't have to go to any class, and Matteo was using this downtime to his advantage.
While sitting down on one of the couches, he had a bubble floating around his hand.
The bubbles he could make were made of pure cursed energy, not very much though.
He was able to control the bubbles, but he had to focus to do so.
As well, he could trap physical objects inside the bubbles, like Kugisaki's nails. However, the bubbles weren't big enough to fit an entire person.
Though thanks to the bubbles being made of pure cursed energy, they could pass through materials that weren't reinforced with cursed energy, like how the curse that held the kid hostage passed through the wall.
With this, he could float a bubble through an object before choosing to make it interact with the material again.
If he weren't careful, it would pop instantly. However, Matteo felt like there was something there.
With the bubble on his hand, he floated it over to a nearby doorknob and let it pass through.
He had to be careful about where to let the bubble interact, but if he did it right, and if he added some rotation...
"Matteo!" Kugisaki called out while slamming the door open, popping the bubble in the process
Looking at the doorknob, Matteo let out a sigh before looking at Kugisaki.
"What?" Matteo responded.
"Itadori wants you for something," Kugisaki explained.
"Please, O wise and all-knowing one," Itadori yelled out, running through the door, "Please tell me how I can get a good grade on the next test!" he asked, bowing down in front of Itadori.
"If you want a good grade, you need to study," Matteo answered.
"That's what I said!" Kugisaki agreed.
"Really?" Itadori asked, "Is there really no other way other than studying?" he asked, looking up at Matteo.
"I mean, you could probably cheat, but cheating in front of Gojo probably isn't possible," Matteo thought aloud.
"Probably?" Itadori asked.
"I mean, Gojo will know if you're cheating; the question is, does he care if you're cheating," Matteo said.
"Of course I care!" Gojo said, suddenly teleporting behind Matteo.
Matteo just about jumped out of his seat, hearing Gojo behind him.
"I am your amazing teacher after all," Gojo pointed out while putting his thumbs up.
"So studying is the only way I can pass?" Itadori asked.
"Yes!" Matteo and Kugisaki exclaimed at the same time.
"What are you yelling about?" Fushiguro asked, walking into the main room while holding a book
"Something important, Mr. 'Read a book all day' Fushiguro," Kugisaki replied.
"Why do I even bother," Fushiguro mumbled, turning back around.
"I wish Fushiguro hung out with us more, right, Matteo?" Itadori asked.
"...Yeah," Matteo replied with a short pause as he watched Fushiguro go.
"You good?" Itadori asked.
"Sorry, just a bit tired," Matteo said, rubbing his head with his hand, "I'm going to go take a nap," he said, getting up.
"Lazy!" Kugisaki said.
"Yeah, yeah," Matteo said, leaving.
The time was coming soon, when the students would go to the detention center, where Itadori would die, and most importantly, where Sukuna would become interested in Fushiguro.
Sukuna becoming interested in Fushiguro directly leads to Sukuna possessing Fushiguro, and that leads to a host of bad outcomes.
But Matteo wasn't there yet; he could plan around it.
Currently, he was thinking of three different plans.
First, get Itadori to make a deal with Sukuna now that includes him not being able to hurt himself. If he can't hurt himself, he wouldn't be able to rip off his fingers and feed them to Fushiguro.
Of course, there were two problems with this; if Sukuna bends the deal so that he can't hurt Itadori only when they agree to switch, then Sukuna could still hurt Itadori when he forcefully takes over, and if Matteo brought the plan up, Sukuna might deduce that he was trying to stop something.
Secondly, if Matteo could stop Fushiguro from attempting to summon Mahoraga, which would hopefully stop Sukuna from being interested in him.
The problem with this one is that the reason Sukuna revived Itadori was that he was interested in Fushiguro, so doing this could lead to Itadori's death.
Finally, he could attempt to stop Sukuna from putting his ripped-off fingers down Fushiguro's throat. Which would entail trying to stop a sixteen-fingered Sukuna.
The problem with this plan was obvious.
Luckily, all of these plans could be done at once, so if one failed, Matteo could just move on to the next one.
"Hey," Gojo said, putting a hand on Matteo, "What's going to happen to Megumi?" he asked.
"What?" Matteo asked.
"I saw how you looked at Megumi, and I know you know something that we don't," Gojo replied.
"His sister's going to die, I already told you," Matteo answered.
"You've made it clear that you will talk about that plainly, but you didn't, so what's going to happen to Megumi?" Gojo asked again.
"How about we make a deal?" Matteo suddenly responded, "I tell you everything you want to know, and you get Itadori to make a deal with Sukuna," he offered.
"And why can't you just tell me now? I am your wonderful teacher," Gojo asked.
"Well, I want something, and you want something, so this is just the best thing for both of us," Matteo said.
"So, all you want is for Itadori to make a deal with Sukuna?" Gojo asked.
"All I want is for Sukuna to not be able to hurt Itadori," Matteo explained.
"Got it," Gojo answered, "And if I do that, you'll answer my questions," he responded.
"Within reason," Matteo added.
"Okay!" Gojo said with a thumbs up, "And if I do this and you tell me that everything I want is not within reason, it won't be nice," he reminded.
"How I know what I know isn't within reason," Matteo said.
"I assumed," Gojo replied.
"Thank you," Matteo said, walking away.
As Matteo walked away, Gojo slid his blindfold off one of his eyes and took a look at Matteo as he walked away.
Obviously, he was hiding something about the future. Gojo wasn't yet sure what he was hiding, but hopefully, he could ask the right questions to unearth what Matteo was hiding.
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Matteo Check Up.
Things are going to heat up soon. Best case scenario, Itadori doesn't die, and everything goes well; worst case scenario, Itadori dies without Sukuna being interested in Fushiguro.
Perfection is impossible, and the worst probably won't happen, so I'm aiming for the middle.