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A WOLF IS A RECKONING
FEYXUAN
MAY HEAVEN FORBID WHAT I WILL DO TO YOU
tw: csa, sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, gore
ACT 1
ACT 2
ACT I, SCENE 1
A wolf is a reckoning.
This, Fushiguro Megumi knows in his bones. He flicks his canine ear, scratching behind it as he rifes his fingers through his hair. Megumi is quick to irritation, but slow to true anger. He has not been angry for a long time.
There is no providence in the fall of a hunting dog.
Hunting dogs are born and bred to die. There is no need to want better, even if he is a wolf, a canid, but not a dog. More in common with a wild fox than a greyhound. But he has a dove’s grey coat in his second skin, and that’s why they chose him to be Ryomen Sukuna’s sacrifice.“Megumi-sama. To the dais.”The -sama is surely ironic, but the monks believe if they pretend to “honor” the sacrifice then heaven will not hunt them down for what they’ve done to it. Oh, I’m sorry, him. Not even as though that’s right, either.Do wild wolves consider such things as how a man must act to show proper respect to men his elder? Do they know how girls are treated, or how Megumi has learned that the difference between girls that work the red light and girls like he is…it’s that『Men who pride themselves on being men treat all girls the same. Anything they consider a girl? It’s a wet hole for his cock. A girl is not a girl, but a fuck-sock.』Now, of course, women are different, women are what become wives.
Men don’t marry girls.
They come in possession of them.
“Megumi-sama.”The monk prods Megumi with his staff as though he can’t bear to dirty his hands.Megumi sighs and ambles up to the dais in the middle of the mountain clearing, wearing nothing except the thin funerary whites he will be buried in, if there’s anything left to spare after Ryomen Sukuna is done with him.He feels nothing. Not in particular about it, or anything.
I inherited the glory of my clan, before the grounds were razed to cinder and white ash, leaving not even serpents snaking through the grass, after the clan head refused the kind offerings from the monastery missionaries that wished to establish themselves on Zen-in lands.
Not that his father was an exemplary Zen’in in the first place, or that he was anything but a reject through and through.All that was left of the Zen’in Clan were babies and bastards. I was both.Megumi knows he could run. Escape. But where to? He was intentionally raised to be illiterate amongst monks and ex-capital scholars. So he is a backwater boy who can’t read, and while he inherited the raw, shadowy potential of the Zen-in’s bloodline ability, he is utterly untrained, and too old by far at twenty to begin studying 呪術 （jujutsu) in the imperial capital.
If he could survive the run there.It’s better that he serves the purpose he was born for. A sacrificial offering. A blood-hound.Megumi stands on the dais the monks staged in the middle of the woods. It is beautiful, in the way of holy ritual things, bearing a fragility and keenness in the woodworking of the dais and the pedestal across which Megumi is supposed to kneel, like a supplicant. The white lacework inscriptions on the wood, the way the stage is plastered with the deceptively fragile rice paper talismans, the way the anti-curse bell that looks just like a cursed bell stands like an enormous mockery of a new year shrine ritual above the dais, Megumi kneeling up into the very maw of it, the bell held too low for Megumi to even hold his spine straight…Theirs is not a monotheistic religion nor a polytheistic one. It is, supposedly, or somewhat or somesuch, something about solely believing in the sake of fates and rebirths (but in reality, in practice, the monks and missionaries serve only one goal: to rape). Megumi has heard enough of reincarnation as it is preached.What you do comes back to you.But what they have done to me… Don’t be a fool, Megumi. What they have done to you is called religion.
ACT I, SCENE 2
"So you don't know where the fuck you're going, Pussy.""Do you know where we're going?""Oh, yeah, just ask the girl with no memories to tell ya fat ass what's up.""Aww, you think my ass is fat? I'm flattered.""I'm going to kill you.""I'm going to kill both of you!" a bright voice rings out.A man with dandelion-puff hair and bandages taped over his eyes tosses out some strange hand sign with his first two fingers in a V.Sukuna and Megumi have made it to the base of the mountain and have reached a crossroads where the path,* if you can even call it that, Pussy,* splits into two. They'd been debating whether to go deeper into the woods, or to follow the sound of running water, when the weird blindfolded guy showed up."Okay, have at it," Megumi says. "At least I won't have to deal with Cock anymore.""I fucking told you that's not my fuck-ass name, you pussycat."Megumi puts a finger on his chin, considering. "Do you even know what your name is?""I TOLD YOU I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING BEFORE I SAW YOU.""Aww, how romantic! Terribly rude of me to interrupt, but I'll have to kill the both of you now! Ahh, who should I start with… The Zen'in? Hmm, but The Big Bad won't be happy if I touch his darling…""WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, TWINKLE-TOES?""Oh, how rude of me, you should at least know the name of The Best! I'm Gojo Satoru. And! I'll even throw in a bonus. You, girlie, are Ryomen Sukuna, The Two-Faced Phantom, and you've just manifested as the worst curse of all time! 呪いの王、 the Emperor of Curses, they're calling you. Of course, now I'll have to exorcize you. "“But why do I have to die?" Megumi checks his nails, and the position of the sun overhead. High noon. Where the shadows grow deepest and longest. “I’ve never done anything wrong. In my life.”"Welll… I wasn't going to kill you, but you seem too friendly with a curse that just massacred your entire monastery, and you don't seem too upset about it, so I think I'll have to play it safe.""What if I surrender?" Megumi is not going to surrender."Then I'll kill ya. Fushiguro Megumi.""Oh, hey, you remembered my name after all! How sweet of you, Cocklet.""I'M GOING TO FUCKING-""領域展開。Ryouiki tenkai," Gojo says, peeling up his bandages to reveal crystalline eyes.Megumi waits.With flaring nostrils, Sukuna flicks his fingers at the metastatic sphere attempting to encompass them."領域展開。Ryouiki tenkai."The sphere shatters like a broken teacup, and they are enveloped in a malevolent shrine built in the hollow ribcage of a celestial beast. The vertebrae hold up the shattered fragments of ivory that collect and collect into a mountain atop which a throne resides. But Sukuna doesn’t sit in it, he and Gojo and Megumi stand below, wading in red waters under the watch of a timber-built and red-lacquered shrine with red-underbelly lighting seeping vermillion into the night-spiced air, flickering with cherry-golden fireflies illuminating the way like lost souls."Oops!" Gojo smiles, but it flickers. He wraps the bandages again, slowly, as though resigned.“How about this: we don’t kill each other, and we strike up a deal instead. O revered Gojo-sama.”Megumi feels a hint of a smile touch his lips as his shadow sways. “You’re familiar with the Zen’in clan. I never took on the title of the main branch, but you know as well as I…sometimes, inheritance says it all. Doesn’t it?”Gojo Satoru, 最強 (saikyou), The Best, the most powerful. Gojo inherited a panthera mutation that gave him both 無下限 (mukagen), Limitless, and 六眼 (rikugan), Six Eyes. Unlike typical pantera who inherit spotted or melanistic coloration, he inherited a leucistic one, as shown in the curved white predatory cat ears poking out of his fluffy hair.“Megumi, Megumi, Megumi…どうすればいいでしょう？ What shall we do with you, last of the Zen’in jujutsu-shi…I could tell you were a Zen’in from the trademarks in your cursed energy, but maa, na, I’d be hard pressed to guess just what you inherited, if anything…”Gojo paces, tapping his lips and strutting around wearing the black-and-brass high-buttoned uniform of an Imperial Capital affiliate, as the Jujutsu Institute is. His boots have an impeccable shine as though they are simply allergic to dubious stains of all types.“After all, possessing the reservoirs, the potential, is merely a bloodline inheritance. Now, if you inherited a special jujutsu, that would be interesting, now wouldn’t it? Why, now, such a thing might even be enough to qualify you as a Zen’in Princess.“Now, Megumi-hime, if it’s true that you possess one of the last and only bloodline jujutsu that the Zen’ins-oh, damn their souls to the most hellacious pits of hell!-then, I just may have a proposition for you.”
Sukuna shifts from foot to foot, uneasy.Megumi makes the hand signal for his Jadescent Dogs.“玉犬! (gyokuken)”The wolves, one black, and one white, coalesce from the shadows beneath his feet, scuffing the ground with their claws and nosing at Megumi’s thighs. He is still in the tatters of bridal finery, which really just means the funerary yukata. Most of it is torn, and that which isn’t, is bloodstained a flaking burnished copper.“十種の影. Ten Shadows.” Gojo laughs. “Why, now, if Maki could see this, she’d spit.”“Another Zen’in?” Megumi says disinterestedly, rubbing the wolf ears of his shikigami.“The, ah, esteemed monks from The Monastery That Was sold her to the Jujutsu Institute as a baby. She, I quote, had quite a rancid appeal, no, no, keeping her would not be fortuitous, even as an infant!”“What is your proposal, worm,” Sukuna growls.“Aww, I got WORM! What an honor! Though I suppose it isn’t as good as what you got, Sukuna. Though I shan’t dirty my mouth with that!”“I’m sure you’ve done worse with that mouth,” Megumi drawls. “What is your proposal?”“Why,” Gojo pulls a short-brimmed Imperial officer’s hat out of nowhere, and pulls it on over his curved ears. “I have a little issue back at the Jujutsu Institute. See, there are some foreigners that really think they know how things should be running! And, now, I’m the last one you’d call a traditionalist, being somewhat of a rampant sodomite and whatnot, but so are you! Lucky me!”“Uh, ew,” Megumi says.“Not my type, Megumi-dearest. Also disgusted you thought of that. Anyway, I merely brought it up to show how much we have in common!”“Nothing at all,” Megumi drawls. “No idea what you’re talking about, whatsoever.”Sukuna yawns, closing his four eyes, folding his arms, and apparently going to sleep standing up.“Anyway, anyway,” Gojo says, “Between those foreigners trying to seize control from the grouchy old men of Jujutsu Society, and then the terribly pathetic little paper-boned wrinkled windbags themselves, well, now, Jujutsu Society is just going to implode in horrific chaos or a downspiral that will define the rest of time!”Megumi yawns. Sukuna seems to have the right idea. Sukuna is dead to the world, breathing deeply and snoring lightly.“You don’t understand a thing I’m saying, do you.” Gojo smiles wryly.“Don’t know, don’t care, was born in the backwater, raised as a fucksleeve and a human sacrifice for–” Megumi points to Sukuna who’s dead asleep, snoring and head tipping down to rest against his chest. “-him to rape or eat or whatever as his prize to be boy-king who’d become god-king, because I know as well as you know, growing up in the Capital, all about the DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, no?”Gojo whistles, but the rictus of his expression, the bitter tightness in his cheeks and his locked jaw, says about what he thinks about what Megumi was born to do. Megumi shrugs. That’s life!“We just need some food and housing, maybe some jujutsu training, I’ll play your Zen’in Princess in whatever theater-rot you fancy yourself directing and whatnot. I’ll do it. But you have to promise Sukuna and me your protection, and a place to stay, and food to eat.”Gojo laughs, bitterly. “Your Sukuna just obliterated the most powerful Gojo in a millennium’s most powerful bloodline limit with a snap of his fingers. You mock me, asking for my protection, how cruel of you, Megumi-hime!”“In a battle, against an army, in a fistfight, against an animal, Sukuna would win against all of these things. But the threats in the capital are ones neither of us know how to navigate. Sukuna was raised to be king of the lowcountry. But he doesn’t remember anything. He is a curse with no history right now.”“Hmm…you’re quite perceptive, Megumi-chan. Calculating, too. Good traits for a tactician, or a queen.”“I have no desire to do anything other than live, but I’ll play my part, come what will.”“Do we have a deal, Gojo-san?”“Sensei,” Gojo says with a wry twist of his lips. “Since I’ll be training you up in jujutsu. It’d be such a shame if the Ten Shadows went to waste.”“Fine. How will we hide Sukuna?”“Hide?” Gojo tilts his head.“Yeah. A four-armed beast of a man. Four-eyed. Stomach mouth. Curse marked all over, banded and fanged with black-marring.”“Interesting. Is that what you see when you look at him?”“Yeah, because I have fucking eyes. What do you see.”“I just see a boy. Your age. Maybe twenty. Peachy-pink hair shorn short in the back. Well-muscled, but nothing too obscene. Maybe a sparring scar here or there, but no visible curse marks.”“...”Megumi sees a larger-than-life four-armed god of a thing, dressed in one kimono layer of a noblewoman’s twelve, and banded all over with black stained skin, delicately inscribed, symmetrical, and he sees the fanged, venomous beauty of the curse marks framing his face even as his mouth sags open in sleep, drooling down his chin.He sees Sukuna’s wings, enormous and leucistic, and of the three of them, all of them have that particular blessing, or mutation. Whether or not it will be advantageous to their survival, and if it will be inherited or obliterated from the line, well, now only blood will tell.“Do you see a bird when you look at him?” Megumi asks after a moment of silence.“A bird? No, I see an ordinary human being.”“And I?”Gojo ruffles Megumi’s lupine ears. “Why, now, you’re a wolf, of course. Hungry, Megumi-chan? To be thinking of hunting birds, well, now, as a panther, I can show you some better prey.”Megumi walks over to Sukuna and wakes him up by reaching his arms up and pinching his nose and covering his mouth until Sukuna gasps for breath, grabbing at Megumi who gnaws at his arm until he lets go. Sukuna looks at Gojo, wary, and then picks Megumi up, bridal style, and Megumi digs his claws into Sukuna’s throat, who gags and chokes but grips him close.“Mine,” Sukuna growls.“I won’t lay a hand on him!” Gojo laughs. “Why, now, you two are so sweet. Lovebirds!”Megumi looks at Gojo like he must be fucking stupid.Megumi lets go of Sukuna but Sukuna won’t let him down, and held in four arms heavily corded with muscle, Megumi has no choice but to remain, pressed tight to Sukuna’s chest, cradled like a precious thing. Worth possessing. Megumi goes limp, his feet do ache, having been walked bloody the past few days. Corpses aren’t ordinarily buried in shoes, so he’s been going it barefoot and has blisters all over and probably some rocks and thorns stuck in there.Sukuna smirks down at Megumi, and then Megumi punches him in the mouth. Sukuna retaliates by spitting blood into Megumi’s face, and then they both stare at each other, offended and sulky. Megumi turns away from Sukuna, as much as he can turn when held so tightly, and then sighs.“Well?” Megumi says to Gojo.Gojo tosses his Imperial Officer hat off and then peels the bandages off his crystalline eyes. “Let me show you how to travel in style.”Then Gojo’s eyes shimmer, and the air shimmers around them as though superheated, until the point the substance of time and space warps like blown glass.Then just as fragile, it breaks.“天国(テンコク）の都へようこそ！”
“Welcome to the Country of Heaven’s capital!”
ACT I, SCENE 3
“You are so stupid oh my god just kill me now,” Megumi hisses at Sukuna, who is stuck in his shirt again.“WHY DO WE HAVE TO WEAR UNIFORMS! GOD DOESN’T GO TO SCHOOL! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”Megumi grips Sukuna’s arms and man-handles his normal pair into the sleeves, though they pull taut around his corded muscle, and then Megumi cuts slits for his other arms with the fruit knife he used to peel a plum for 宿儺王子様， Sukuna-ouji-sama, the Crown Prince (to the throne of boy-king meant for him and him alone) as well as Megumi’s Lord and Idiot.Sukuna folds his arms over his chest and puffs like an offended bird, and Megumi smacks his forearms until he unfolds them and Megumi threads his upper arms through the Imperial University jacket and slits more holes for his other arms.“I look fuckin stupid,” Sukuna says.“No one sees you like I see you. Or that you see you.”“Course they don’t. They see what they want to see.” Sukuna turns to look in the mirror and immediately begins to pull the round brass buttons of the uniform apart. Megumi grabs his hand and bites him until the imprint of his teeth purple his sunned skin in an angry bruise.Megumi is done with this guy. Just stop fucking fussing! God!Sukuna looks at him, stunned. Sukuna turns back to the mirror, eyes skimming over his legs like the pants aren’t hugging his ass three shades too tight, making Megumi a little stiff in his own slacks, wanting to fucking slap that bitch to see the impact ripple over one ass cheek and then the other. Megumi really wants to fucking suck and bite the fuck out of his ass before he rails the holy out of Sukuna. By fucking god the god of all unheaven and ungrace and my whore ass’s dirty lace…I get that he’s god but why did they have to make him so hot.They’re in a room at the Jujutsu Institute, which operates in a similar capacity to the Imperial University as a kind of private religious school, but also as a “technological” research institute. But the technological does not stand for “technology.” Rather. it stands for technique. As in, curse technique.Megumi feels deeply anxious and wrongfooted but Sukuna is somehow even more nervy and upset and it’s hitting him in a raging feedback loop of horrifying debilitating fear and instinctive rage and the sense that his thoughts are all jumbled and unmusical and nothing is coming out right even in his mind, but Sukuna is somehow even worse off.I suppose being raised as The Boy-King of the Backwater will do that to you, once you step foot in a rapidly urbanizing city. Megumi hears the train horns howl, and he flinches every time. There’s too many people and so much noise and it’s so…there is beauty in the dirt of the untouched earth, but in the city, the “dirt” reeks of rotting food, corpses, piss, and shit.The jujutsu-shi keep the area around the Institute with a ferocious sanitization strategy (someone’s curse technique is immolation, which she uses in favor of cauterization and sanitation. Cremation, they didn’t say. But Megumi knew anyway.)“Did you just fucking bite me?” Sukuna hisses, looking at his ass in the mirror again with a weird twist to his mouth.“You’re being IMPOSSIBLE, Sukuna. Just KEEP your GODDAMN shirt ON.”“I DON’T WANT TO.” Sukuna folds his arms over his chest again, but this time, from the shift of his bare feet on the lacquered floor, Megumi can tell he’s nervous.“You look fine, okay?”“YOU DON’T THINK THAT. YOU THINK I LOOK STUPID.” Heat flushes his cheeks high, and Sukuna refuses to look at Megumi.“Sukuna. Look at me. Just because I can see what you look like underneath a massacre’s worth of blood doesn’t mean I don’t like what I see.” Megumi sighs at Sukuna’s stubborn silence. “Yes, you look stupid. Unfortunately, my type veers towards COMPLETELY FUCKING MORONIC. IF CAPABLE OF THOUGHT, DICK GOES SOFT kind of stupid. Okay?”Sukuna worries his lip and peeks at Megumi, weirdly cute. He keeps chewing his lip, though. Something is really bothering him.“Sukuna, what’s wrong?”Sukuna grinds his teeth.Megumi walks up to him, stands on tiptoe, and then pinches his nose shut, covering his mouth. Sukuna bats at him ineffectively, muffled complaints puffing at Megumi’s hand. It’s all for show, and Sukuna’s four red eyes flare red with irritation, but Sukuna could crush Megumi like a bug and they both know it.Both of them are uncomfortable in this room where the floor varnish costs more than the even the monastery regalia had been worth, outside of an overly sentimental appreciation for ancient textiles and architectures…There is that beauty and appreciation for history…but in the city, Megumi suspects that the old ways are decaying like termite-ridden timber, ready to fall at the next earthquake, after too many centuries withstanding too much. Sukuna and Megumi are relics. Priceless, in a sense…of value, appreciation, worth, but worthless, too, when it comes to such things as ordinary monetary concerns.A priceless thing is unsellable, and an unprofitable venture will get you nowhere in the city.So a familiar act, even if it is asphyxiation, sets Sukuna at ease.
This will be their room. Sukuna looked on the verge of extreme violence when Gojo attempted to give them separate rooms, as though he would grab Megumi and spirit them…somewhere, anywhere, away, but Gojo acquiesced evenly and told Sukuna to take his pick of the satellite dorms, hand-waving his apologies about how old everything was.Neither Sukuna nor Megumi spoke about the way that the monastery they hailed from had been on conquered Zen’in ancestral lands, so everything there was positively ancient and withered compared to the storeroom must and dusty smell of the satellite house covered by overgrown woodland, on the edge of the Jujutsu Institute’s property, nestling up close to the mountain entrance.Megumi didn’t look too much at the room except to notice it was small, barely enough room for two wardrobes and two futons on the floor. Gojo had looked at Megumi and Sukuna like they were positively out of their minds when Sukuna had shoved Megumi into the room and then shut the door on Gojo’s face, shouting into the hall that they’d be living in here.They found an old, tarnished-silver full-body mirror, two standard jujutsu-shi uniforms, and that was that. The uniforms are identical to Imperial University uniforms except for the spiraling Jujutsu Institute logo branded in red embroidery on the breast, absolutely shimmering beside the brand new polished brass buttons. The fabric is so crisp that Megumi hated to crease it with his body, as well as to touch the starched stiff fabric with his hands.
Megumi pinches Sukuna’s nose tighter as he muffles a shout.Gojo calls out from the hall, “ARE YOU LOVEBIRDS DONE YET?”Megumi says, “Give me another ten minutes. I’m busy.”“Well, as long as you come out looking decent, I won’t tell~”“I’m not fucking him. I’m depriving him of air in the hopes he may yet die.”“Good luck! And hurry up!”Megumi releases Sukuna’s face, who gasps for breath, feathers flaring in irritation.“Fucking quit it with that,” Sukuna says, catching his breath. “I hate these…pants, they feel so fucking…bad, I hate it, I don’t like it at all, it feels bad, it just feels so bad.”“Were you always in yukata or kimono?” Megumi usually was. He hasn’t worn pants like this either, tailored tight along the lines of his legs, fitted, rather than a workman’s loose linens, or legs free in kimono or yukata.Sukuna’s mouth twists and his shoulders hunch and shift. “Yukata, kimono, or…”Megumi has no idea what the third thing in that list is.“Never fucking mind that you were fucking right. When you said. That thing. The…12 layers. Noblewoman. Thing.”“Oh. So you want the women’s Imperial Uniform.”“Never fucking mind, it’s, god, it’s, I hate it but it’s fine or whatever, just don’t, I don’t want anyone to make a big deal about it, I just hate…all of this. I hate being here I hate…”Sukuna’s skin crawls, literally rippling with a swarm creeping under his skin. “I just want, I want to be comfortable and not…”“I don’t know if I can get you a skirt, but I can get Gojo to get you a kimono, probably.”Megumi turns around to head for the door, but Sukuna grabs the back of his collar like scuffing a pup. Megumi growls, flattening his ears.“Don’t go,” Sukuna says, eyes wide and panicked. “Don’t leave me here.”“I’m just going to talk to Gojo. You can come with me.”Sukuna shudders with anxiety, not letting go of Megumi but obviously not wanting to be seen, either. He closes his fist on Megumi’s uniform collar, and Megumi hears the fabric tear at his talons.“Sukuna, it’s okay.”“I’ll fucking kill you if you leave.”
He means it. Megumi can smell it. The rancid, sour-bitter-sharp of green yuzu. Sukuna is terrified.“Woowow! That’s some baad curse energy! Everything okay in there?”“Gojo-san, can you bring us some yukata? Kimono is fine, too. We’re not used to this style of clothing.”“Ah, yeah, the more western style clothes aren’t for everyone. The uniform would make you less noticeable, but we have kimono style uniforms as well.”“Thanks, Gojo-san.”“Sensei to you, Megumi-chan!”“OK,” Megumi says, looking over his shoulder at a shaking Sukuna, vibrating with distress. Megumi smooths a hand over his shoulder, peeling him of his uniform that Sukuna suddenly rips off, shredding with his talons, his pants, too, sweating and trembling with nerves. Sukuna is almost panting like a dog. Megumi doesn’t feel too far off, but he has to keep calm to keep Sukuna calm.Megumi strips off the uniform jacket but keeps his shirt and pants on as he guides Sukuna to sit on the floor, Megumi climbing into his lap and hugging him.“I hate this I hate this I hate this, I want to kill you and then I want to die,” Sukuna pants, holding Megumi in his lap, keeping him from laying flush against him and holding his hips and waist still with all four hands, fingers rigid and bruising around him.“You don’t have to die,” Megumi says simply. “I’ll help you. We have to help each other.”Sukuna shakes his head, tremors wracking his body. Megumi smells the acrid woodsmoke of burning bones in Sukuna’s sweat.“It’s okay,” Megumi says. “The only ones we have in this whole world are each other. We’re the only ones that know what happened, and we are the only ones left. But, that means you can trust me utterly.”Sukuna shakes his head, his talons digging holes where they claw into Megumi’s skin. The hot sting of new wounds bites raw as yuzu rind.“You can trust me because I have no one else.”Sukuna’s tremors intensify, and Megumi looks up at him, so he can tell when something very, very wrong happens. His eyes turn liquid amber, draining of color the way his body drains of ink, and his hands at Megumi’s waist and hips fall to his sides until there are only two.
Someone else looks at him sheepishly, scratching the pink fuzzy fluff of his hair, cut under in the back, and he looks at Megumi with only two ordinary mud-red eyes, the secondary pair closed to slits, and this boy smiles at him with confusion clear in his gaze.“Umm…who are you? Not that I’m, er, mad…about a nice looking guy in my lap, but, ah, a bit awkward not to even know your name!”Megumi stands up, backing away from this stranger, this very human stranger.The horror strikes him like a distant bell. Quietly, then tolling all at once.
“The ritual was no mistake. You are the boy. Sukuna is the name of the king. The Emperor of Curses is a king, 呪いの王。The boy-king was two people. The vessel, the boy, to become the man, and the vessel for the king…”“Hah? Oh, then, is it over? Hmm…how was it? Where are we?”Gojo knocks on the door before barging in.The human vessel stands up and smiles at Gojo, cheery. “Hi! My name is Yuuji!”“Ah, I was wondering when I’d get to meet you!” Gojo gives him a strange hand shaking ritual but Yuuji laughs and meets him strange twist for turn.
“You’ve definitely got it, kid!”“I’m twenty now! A full-ass man!”“Well,” Megumi says haplessly, “you do have a full ass.”“Um, thank you! For noticing. Do I, uh, know you?” Yuuji says.Megumi studies his face, which is Sukuna’s face, but Yuuji isn’t interested in him in the slightest. Megumi isn’t really interested in Yuuji, either. So stupid it becomes unsexy.“Fushiguro Megumi.”Yuuji narrows his eyes and then makes…some kind of face. “Oh, Sukuna likes you, but he’s really weird about it, he’s telling me…He’s being really weird about you, yeah, uh…”“What’s he saying, Yuuji-kun?” Gojo puts a finger on his chin, handing over the kimono with his other hand.
Yuuji and Megumi awkwardly get dressed in a tiny room without looking at each other, Yuuji looking mournfully at the shirt and pants shredded on the ground. Gojo helps Yuuji tie his obi since it rapidly becomes apparent he’d never had to dress himself before. Megumi ties his like an expert.“Um…” Yuuji flushes. “I really don’t want to say.”A mouth pops open on Yuuji’s cheek. Sukuna’s resonant deep voice says, “I told him not to lay a fucking hand on you!”“But he’s * you*,” Megumi teases.“If you fucking say that shit again, I’ll spit down your throat!”“Oh, and I’ll do worse to yours,” Megumi laughs, weirdly at ease.“CAN WE NOT, I’M LIKE, RIGHT HERE, AND IT’S SO AWKWARD, and also this other guy is here, and like, everyone just watched me get dressed, and um, can we like…be normal guys…guys…”Mysteriously, Sukuna’s mouth winks. And then disappears. He’ll be just fine.Gojo laughs at Yuuji. “Don’t worry, Yuuji-kun. I think this’ll work just fine.”Megumi wonders about that. But he feels Sukuna’s anxiety slough off of him as self-assured, and very confused, but very lackadaisical and easy-going Yuuji takes his place. The purpose of a vessel…I wonder if it’d be possible to separate them.As long as Yuuji lets me fuck Sukuna, I don’t suppose it matters too much, Megumi thinks to himself. And, a little giddy, he thinks, Sukuna really does care about me.Megumi has never had anyone he likes like him back. He’s never been able to just have a crush like anyone else. He’s never had the luxury. But weirdly, with that one short interaction, with Yuuji as intermediary, at that, Megumi feels…Megumi feels happy. And relieved that Sukuna doesn’t have to do this alone. And by extension, Megumi doesn’t have to. Even if Megumi wouldn’t fuck Yuuji, who has about as much sense and Megumi-fucking inclination as your average rock. Maybe even less than.Megumi and Yuuji are dressed in plain black kimono with uzumaki-red spiral obi. Megumi follows a few seconds behind Yuuji and Gojo, so he can hear perfectly Yuuji chattering on to Gojo about how he loves foreign women, and about how he’s been absolutely in love with one that visited the monastery last year.His verbal enthusiasm for women increases after he forgets to close his mouth when a person with hair covering one side of his face slips by, his wrists covered in wooden-bead bracelets, and his vibrant red kimono spiraling with the jujutsu-uzumaki. His lips are pale and particularly plush, and Megumi superficially notes that they are worth looking at, though not of any especial interest to him. To Yuuji, though…When he passes by again, behind Yuuji, about to speed past him, Yuuji wanders off to chase after him, promptly abandoning Gojo who watches with fatherly amusement.“Oh, a baby-gay,” Gojo says. “My idiot son.”“Hm,” Megumi says.“Aren’t you jealous?”Megumi doesn’t understand the question.“Your boyfriend’s running off with another man!”“Yuuji?”“Yuuji, Sukuna, aren’t they the same?”“No?” They don’t even look the same to me. And even if you supposed that they did, they act completely differently.“Ah, well, I’ll leave that unenviable little conversation to divide amongst yourselves. Oh, young queer love!”“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Megumi states point-blank.“In time, Megumi, you, too, can come to accept yourself as much as your father, Gojo-sensei.”“...Right.”
Gojo says that he’s trying to collect all of his allies in this satellite complex and chatters on about more stuff Megumi doesn’t care about while Megumi thinks about the round globes of Sukuna’s ass. It’s all good and fine until Gojo stops in front of a long-ponytailed woman wearing spectacles who practically raises her lip at him, even more unimpressed than Megumi is unimpressed, which is very.“Maki! You’ve got to meet Megumi. The Last Zen’in Princess, how do you like the sound of that?”Maki’s eyes darken, and her mouth twists. “A Zen’in?”What’s your problem, Megumi thinks.
Gojo slings an arm around Megumi’s shoulder. “Megumi! Meet Zen’in Maki. The only other survivor of The Zen’in Massacre.”“What happened to the rest?” Megumi says blankly. *Babies or bastards. *Bought and sold.Maki shrugs off her weapon case.“Oh. I killed them.”Megumi looks at Gojo, smiling, and regrets his entire miserable life.
