Chapter Text
Everyday panned out about the same.
Waking up well before dawn at ungodly hours in the morning.
Putting on the same uniform, then placing an order for a spare if the one thrown on the floor was destroyed beyond recognition.
Twenty years passed in the blink of an eye, leaving Megumi completely behind as the rest of the world marched on.
Maybe he leaned back on routines and habits for support. To keep himself sane.
Maybe Megumi was more of a creature of habit than he actually wanted to admit.
He didn’t have all the answers, deciding to take every miserable day one step at a time with the same gray outlook that he had never really grown out of. The pain didn’t go away, not like Yuji said it would, but Megumi learned to accept that. He intertwined the guilt and the devastation of what happened twenty years ago into his very soul, holding on to it firmly when the weight of life suddenly felt too overwhelming again.
Good people died to save him.
Important people.
His life wasn’t something he could just throw away anymore, even if he hated the late nights and the constant missions and the constant reminders of his own mortality. Even when he saw Sukuna’s face whenever he looked in the mirror, the evidence of the King of Curses’ final transformation using his body written across his skin like brandings made of ink. Megumi had been a tool during the showdown in Shinjuku, acting as a vessel that caused nothing but damage and destruction that would never fully heal.
Twenty years of reminding himself of that didn’t feel like enough.
Not when Megumi’s eyes had permanently changed color, turning an empty pale gray that was near white. Not when his face had a notch scarred underneath his left eye, with two thick familiar patterns carved into the right side of his face. Those scars sat directly where Sukuna’s deformed eyes would have been. The ones that were swollen and malformed like a tumor.
Some of the curse marks never faded.
Some of them scarred into Megumi’s hands, into his back and his shoulders and the middle of his forehead like permanent ink.
Megumi Fushiguro was well into his adult years at that point, mid-thirties and declining without ever leaving the world of sorcery behind despite the tragedy that he had very well contributed to. Even if his part was played unwillingly, the simple fact was that he had yet to accomplish anything of significance to make that simple fact worth it.
Maintaining Sukuna’s final finger and its seals was the least he could do.
Teaching was nowhere near as rewarding as he thought it would be, only serving to further remind Megumi of the mentor that he had lost.
Satoru Gojo was the one thing that Megumi preferred really not to think about.
The death of the only mentor figure in his entire life made the subject a sensitive one.
Sukuna had used Megumi’s body to kill everyone that the sorcerer had cared about, all to break his spirit and make him easier to control.
And Megumi had almost lost himself to it.
What did he have to feel proud of about the whole ordeal anyway?
Yuji and the others were the ones who had actually killed Sukuna.
They deserved the recognition.
They deserved the inheritance that Megumi never bothered to claim.
Yuta was better at using it anyway.
He already had a kid on the way. And he had managed to unite the clans with the help of Maki of course. The Zen’in clan was destroyed from its roots, which helped weed out some of the corruption that Megumi and Maki had also unknowingly inherited.
Being the head of a dead clan made it easy for Megumi to sign over all of the assets to Maki to use. She utilized all of the compounds and the houses in Kyoto to rehome some of those also abused by the arrogant clan, which quickly made her popular in her own right.
Megumi had been invited to their wedding, but that had happened years ago.
Her and Yuta even had a son.
Yuta probably wouldn’t enroll him in Jujutsu high though, which meant that Megumi would probably never meet him personally.
He had lost his chance.
Not that it mattered.
Between missions, securing Sukuna’s seals, and teaching his classes, Megumi barely had time for anything else.
His apartment was next to the tracks, close to Tokyo’s campus and an economy size that was easier to clean. It was cheap, which allowed Megumi to send most of his income to Yuta or Yuji or another one of his friends who could use it more. He also had to pay Yuto an allowance, which was something Megumi was purposefully vigilant about since he knew that the younger sorcerer was also struggling with his own responsibilities.
He owed the man deeply for his assistance with everything. But Megumi was also just grateful for the company, since living by himself for twenty years was more isolating than Megumi cared to admit.
Yuto was over a decade younger than him. Megumi met him during his first year teaching, which turned turned into him hiring the other sorcerer in a similar way that Gojo had taken Kiyotaka Ijichi under his wing.
Megumi wasn’t aware of just how much Gojo constantly had to deal with until he was suddenly taking his place, taking on any of the dangerous missions that were too high of a grade for his students to properly manage between the rest of his schedule. In twenty years, nothing slowed down. The demand for sorcerers only seemed to be growing, but change was slowly taking effect.
The students of Jujutsu High were no longer tasked with fighting high grade curses beyond their range of skills and were primarily protected by the new higher ups that Gakuganji swore in before his death.
It helped that all of their official records were made public and that they were all under binding vows through Sukuna’s remaining finger to uphold Gojo’s ideals.
Yuji had set that up personally.
Before he left anyway.
Nobara was the only one who seemed to be able to reach Yuji anymore, which Megumi eventually realized was probably for the best.
Even Yuji had to start blaming Megumi for what happened eventually.
Even if he was supportive up to the point when all three of them graduated, the sheer fact that Megumi had killed so many of their friends was inevitable.
When he stopped texting and checking in, Megumi didn’t even need to ask why.
He just accepted it, taking on the rest of the curse that Sukuna left him as naturally as a duck to water.
Gojo had emphasized Megumi’s limitless potential through his technique when he was young, but those words felt like nothing but empty air the moment that Sukuna first took over Megumi’s body. The King of Curses had used the Ten Shadows to unleash devastation, creating powerful Shikigami that Megumi barely felt comfortable summoning anymore.
Sukuna had used them like monsters, which felt like more of a mockery than anything.
The Divine General was tamed. Another tool in Megumi’s arsenal that he also kept sternly under lock and key, more unwilling than ever to summon it based on the fact that it had killed Gojo in the first place.
It was like having a smoking gun tossed into his lap.
Twenty years did nothing to erase that edge.
It did nothing to make Megumi sleep easier.
To make him eat properly.
Or to connect him to someone that deeply ever again.
Yuto was the only reason that Megumi ever ate meals, taking the time to set reminders in the older sorcerer’s phone to alert him. He helped Megumi keep himself together, which was becoming more and more difficult as time went by.
Sometimes he even got Nobara to check up on him, which was also appreciated.
She had found her old classmate in some of his worst moments, always showing up to drag him out of an alleyway and letting him sleep the weekends away on her couch whenever the constant missions completely exhausted him. She took Megumi shopping when his fridge was empty, even dropping by baked goods with her wife when the holidays came around.
Megumi made them meatballs every once in a while with the recipe that Yuji had given to him years ago, since it was simple and easy to remember and something that Megumi enjoyed doing. It wasn’t much to repay them, but Megumi hoped that it was enough to show them that he cared.
That he didn’t want them to leave too.
It was still dark outside by the time he left his apartment, a train passing noisily overhead as Megumi locked the door with a steady frown.
His heavy uniform jacket was pulled tightly closed, modified to look something like a trench coat with a long back that went all the way down to his baggy slacks. There were a few bloodstains left on his worn down boots, which had metal inserts in the toe box for when Megumi needed to bash in a cursed spirit’s skull or dive into one of his shadows.
He wore all black, which matched the ends of his dark long hair that had started to turn gray at the roots. Most of his hair still spiked haphazardly in random directions like a sea urchin as Gojo teasingly described years ago, the back of his hair tied into a thin tail to keep the majority of it out of Megumi’s face.
Megumi quickly pulled the high collar of his shirt completely over the lower half of his face, fussing over his gloves for just a second more before he started to walk towards Yuto’s car. Surely enough, the other man was parked exactly where he normally was, waiting for Megumi patiently as he organized the Special Grade sorcerer’s schedule for him on his phone.
Bright brown eyes met Megumi’s sunken gray ones just as the taller man ducked into the passenger seat, Yuto’s usual enthusiasm already making an appearance as he smiled at Megumi and greeted him directly. Even at three in the morning, the bastard was beaming at him like a ray of goddamn sunshine, making Megumi breathe deeply through his nose with a disapproving scowl.
“Fushiguro! Good morning!” The other man chirped loudly, offering Megumi a warm cup of black coffee that was quickly accepted despite Megumi’s unbothered reaction.
Yuto was a man in his early twenties, with embarrassingly ugly bleached hair and a missing tooth in the front of his mouth. It was obvious whenever he smiled or kept his mouth open, which was apparently caused because someone had punched the tooth right out of him.
Despite having a decent amount of cursed energy, Yuto had never managed to develop a technique. He was officially labeled a Grade Three sorcerer and hardly sent on missions in the Kyoto schools, which was how Megumi met him in the first place.
He was labeled as a liability and used as fodder to draw out high grade cursed spirits in an attempt to spare some humiliation from the Kamo clan.
They had wanted him die in action.
Megumi wasn’t sure what had exactly prompted him to step on Yuto’s behalf.
But he did anyway, which is how the poor bastard ended up taking the unofficial position as his assistant without any formal training.
“… what’s on the agenda today?” Megumi asked dejectedly, barely recognizing the sound of his own voice as he took a long sip of the coffee while it was still hot. “You looked busy. Were there any problems that I should know about?”
“Hm? Oh, uh… no. Okkotsu just asked me if you were available later this afternoon, so I cancelled some of your meetings. Principal Kugisaki said she would handle them for you.” Yuto watched Megumi closely, almost seeming nervous as the older sorcerer shot him a suspicious glare. “It sounded kind of important. But he said it wasn’t urgent.”
“Kugisaki really offered to take over with the higher ups?”
“Yeah, totally! She’s even pulling coverage to take over your classes, so-”
“And Okkotsu said this wasn’t urgent?” Megumi muttered, annoyance quickly giving way to concern as he stared down at his lap and furrowed his brow in confusion. He started to chew on the inside of his mouth nervously, taking out his own phone to look over his messages suspiciously.
“Not exactly. It’s tied to the Gojo clan, I think. There’s a few rumors going around about a new heir that was sworn in, but it’s… pretty hard to get any solid information, you know? Apparently there’s a ceremony coming up in a few days.” Yuto explained carefully, honey-colored eyes glancing at the road as he slowly pulled away from the curb and started to drive down the street. “To officially announce the new clan head… or something. Those were kind of important growing up, but pretty rare. The really important part is that this Gojo heir supposedly has an inherited technique. And that they’ve been kept secret… since Lord Satoru’s death was super unexpected. And tragic, of course. But those rumors might not be true at all either! Okkotsu’s the only one with confirmed information, since he uh… he met the Gojo heir to swear them in a few days ago.”
Yuto had started sweating, clearly anxious of dragging up the topic around Megumi as his knuckles turned white from holding the leather steering wheel. Yuto’s eyes flickered over once, a deep frown coming to his face as Megumi continued to look out the window with a cold and distant mask of an expression.
He was eerily calm, taking another long drink of his coffee to distract himself before he leaned back in his seat and hid behind the collar of his jacket again. Megumi’s scarred face was impassive, blank eyes resting on the dashboard as he tried to process all of the information that Yuto had tossed on his plate.
A new Gojo heir with an inherited technique.
There were only two big options of significance for that. If they were picked to be the next clan head, then it made the most sense for it to either be the limitless or the Six Eyes technique.
While he was alive, Satoru Gojo had both of them.
But wouldn’t it be too soon for a new Six Eyes user to appear only twenty years after his death?
Yuta Okkotsu wouldn’t ask to see Megumi for no reason though, and Nobara wouldn’t cover his entire afternoon if it wasn’t serious either.
“There was also a semi-first grade curse that emerged in New Shinjuku, which Kugisaki is asking you to investigate personally. I can get us there in forty minutes tops, but if you’d rather take a wormhole or a Shikigami then…” Yuto started, coming to a red light and glancing back at Megumi right as the older sorcerer disappeared through a small shadow pool that he summoned underneath his seat.
—
The mission in New Shinjuku was already a disaster by the time Megumi managed to arrive.
Megumi had managed to make it in less than ten minutes on the scene, traveling in Nue’s shadow and through a couple of dark alleys to eventually reach the mission site.
Toge Inumaki was the sorcerer who had originally been assigned the case, which was another strange detail.
The cursed speech user was just a year older than Megumi, only taking on emergency missions or the select few that Nobara deemed too dangerous for the students to take on directly.
Toge had set up a veil around New Shinjuku’s business district, clearing out most of the office buildings right as the cursed spirit had emerged. He had managed to control traffic with his cursed speech ability, directing the survivors away from the area while keeping the curse trapped. The only issue was that the cursed spirit was another intelligent one, which meant that it was capable of reasoning and problem solving to a certain extent.
It even spoke, which was another strange detail specifically mentioned in its report.
A cursed spirit that was intelligent enough to speak in of itself was unheard of ever since the Shibuya incident two decades ago, which explained why its grade was still undecided.
Toge’s encounter with it quickly changed its criterion for it to be considered a Special Grade, which immediately left a sour taste in Megumi’s mouth.
Despite arriving as quickly as he could, he still found Toge in critical condition.
The poor bastard had been in the middle of the street with his throat cut, barely holding on just to keep his barrier summoned.
Megumi was thankfully desensitized to seeing such graphic injuries, but finding one of the few people that he would have considered one of his friends bleeding out like that had made something heavy weigh in the middle of his chest.
It made him actually hesitate for the first time in a long time, his hands barely managing to stay steady as he took off his jacket and tried to apply pressure to Toge’s neck. He wrapped him in the coat as tightly as possible, assessing the older sorcerer’s wounds with a steady frown.
Toge was watching him closely, greasy silver hair soaked through with blood as his mouth gaped open for air. He was gasping desperately, the tattooed corners of his mouth pressing tighter as he tried to push Megumi off with a shaky hand.
He had lost his left arm during the Shibuya incident years ago, which had held him back from going on fulltime missions for a while during his second year.
Megumi nervously set his jaw, a cruel sense of understanding slowly dawning on him as he stood on his feet and slowly took a step back. Toge didn’t have to say anything for him to know that time was running out.
That if he succumbed to his wounds, then the barrier would go down…
And the cursed spirit would escape.
The world of a Jujutsu sorcerer was an unforgiving one that Megumi was painfully aware of at that point. Dying alone with regrets was something that all of them were told to expect by Principal Yaga while he was still alive, which was a lesson that Gojo had echoed numerous times to Megumi in the past as well.
“It’s not for everyone. Only the strongest people out there can become Jujutsu sorcerers… and not curse themselves for it.” Gojo had said, with a certain kind of bitter resignation that Megumi hadn’t been able to place at the time.
But he wasn’t fourteen anymore.
Dark purple eyes looked up at Megumi silently, pleading for something that the other sorcerer recognized immediately.
He summoned Kuro without another word, already sprinting down the ruined street at full speed so that the black and white werewolf-like Shikigami could track the cursed spirit that Toge had cornered inside of the veil. His eyes stung as he did so, worn and thinned out features becoming even colder as he inwardly prepared himself for what he was about to face.
The barrier overhead was cracking at the seams, purple cursed energy already pulling apart into long threads as some of the early morning sky started to bleed through.
Megumi started to pick up his pace, allowing Kuro to run ahead as the large Divine Dog leapt over bloody pieces of rubble and snarled through its gaping maw. Megumi fell through his shadow next, summoning it several yards through a collapsed wall in a long dash as he followed Kuro’s cursed energy like a bullet.
He broke the glass panels overhead right as he entered the building, the shadowed side of it bearing most of the impact as Megumi shot up to the top of the skyscraper in one last stretch. He emerged from his shadow immediately afterwards in a flash, managing to weave out of the way right as a hooked talon tried to gut him straight down the middle.
Megumi jabbed the shocked figure in front of him right in the underside of their flared ribcage, delivering blow after blow with his gloved fists right as Kuro tore through the ground underneath them.
The bastard laughed like a crazed lunatic, mismatched eyes glowing with depraved delight as the Shikigami grabbed the curse by its ankles and bit deep into its torso with its fangs.
The cursed spirit was skinnier than Megumi was, covered in clammy and pale human skin with jagged stitches like a cheap taxidermied skeleton with bones that didn’t quite match. Its legs were bent the wrong direction, neck a couple inches too long and eyes too wide. It had too many teeth, the slightly uncanny nature to its face making it look more like a caricature than anything natural.
Matted gray hair was haphazardly tied into a single knot on one side, the rest of it fanning down the curse’s back like a curtain as its flesh bubbled and sizzled like a bag of sand.
The curse didn’t seem to bleed, regenerating far too quickly as it clawed into Kuro’s snout and mimicked the appearance of the Shikigami’s maw. Its face twisted into the hooked snout of a dog, new fangs tearing from the curse’s bleeding gums as it wrestled with Kuro with its wicked claws.
Toge’s barrier was almost completely dissolved at that point, dipping dramatically in the center as it started to cave in like quicksand.
The cursed spirit seemed to notice as well, wild blue and black eye rolling about in its skull as it scrambled towards the edge of the building desperately.
“Yes… yes! Yes! Run! Run!” The curse chanted loudly, its bony back rippling unnaturally as a pair of poorly formed wings started to rip free from its pale skin. Bones extended out of nowhere, the flesh forced to expand and stretch over the newly formed skeleton like rubber glue.
Megumi set his jaw, unsheathing the shortened katana at the back of his belt and summoning an extended form of his shadow to trap the cursed spirit before it could try to escape. The creature shrieked in frustration, talons digging into the ground as it struggled against Megumi’s cursed energy and thrashed like a fish in a net. The cursed spirit’s fleshy wings beat haphazardly, starting to tear at the seams right as Megumi approached it from behind with his weapon glinting ominously in the bleeding sunrise.
The cursed spirit just smiled again, its face resuming its vaguely humanoid shape as it licked nervously at its mouth and snickered to itself darkly.
“… you… actually became Sukuna’s vessel, huh? That’s… funny. Really… really damn funny.” The curse rasped, looking far too calm and composed as its claws finally found purchase on the edge of the building. It wore a twisted smirk that just spread wider, cold and beady eyes tracing the telltale scars on Megumi’s face and his bare forearms.
He was only wearing a black compression shirt without his jacket, putting the scarred lines where Sukuna’s curse marks would have appeared on his wrists.
The dark haired sorcerer paused, brow furrowed and ever present scowl slowly turning more and more bitter.
“Haven’t been around long… but that actually catches me up to speed fairly well, I think.” The creature mused with a wide and feral grin, slowly pulling itself free from Megumi’s shadow and prying its skin off in the process. The bastard regenerated seamlessly like a snake, barely even bleeding through the process as a fresh piece of white flesh replaced any of the damaged tissue immediately. “Tell me this. Itadori isn’t dead… is he?”
“… you won’t be around long enough to find out.” Megumi sneered, increasing the pressure through his cursed energy as his shadow held onto the other creature in a vice grip.
It was the wrong call.
The cursed spirit suddenly shed its skin completely, managing to tear free from Megumi’s shadow and multiply itself in the blink of an eye.
Suddenly the sorcerer was forced to defend himself against a dozen or so claws and talons all at once, sword somehow managing to block multiple blows as he summoned another Shikigami instinctively for ranged support.
The red owl-like Shikigami was quickly speared through the middle by a column made of flesh, dark lightning bolts hailing from the sky as Megumi disengaged the rest of his shadow and used it to absorb the majority of the attack.
The Shikigami’s skull mask parted at the middle to form a hooked beak, hiding human teeth deep inside the creature’s sharp mouth as Nue bit into the stray pieces of flesh and tore them free from its chest. Black lightning started to roll off of Nue’s feathers like spears, striking through the cursed spirit right as the red Shikigami finally managed to tear free from the pillar of burnt flesh with a beat of its large wingspan.
When the curse threw itself over the edge of the building, Nue flew after it with its talons outstretched.
Megumi also jumped over the edge, pale eyes struggling to adjust as the wind clawed at his face and tore through his clothes like razor blades. Megumi shuddered from the cold and the intensity of it, using his forearms to brace himself as he concentrated on summoning his shadow at the right time to brace his fall.
Nue had caught the cursed spirit on the ground, holding it between its cursed talons as it struggled to reform from the bone-breaking impact. Parts of it were scattered everywhere, still moving and amassing like a worm that had been cut in half.
Megumi crashed into the pool of his shadow and sank into it like a heavy rock, falling deep into the endless dark well of cursed energy with his eyes closed.
He forced himself to breathe slowly, adrenaline and frustration ebbing away as a quiet rage bubbled up underneath the surface of it all.
When Megumi finally broke the surface of his shadow again, it was with his blade drawn. He attacked the cursed spirit relentlessly, dismissing Nue so that he could cut it into ribbons himself. Red blood splattered his uniform almost immediately, something that he didn’t even register at the time as he kept cutting the curse’s regenerated body down.
Then a hand reached out and grabbed him by the throat, no talons in sight as the oddly humanoid stitched flesh rippled with cursed energy and immediately burned Megumi’s skin. Something deep in his soul was shattered from the touch alone, slowly reshaping underneath Megumi’s bones and manipulating the flesh around it.
Megumi choked loudly, clenching his teeth tightly in pain until his entire mouth started to bleed.
It hurt like hell, the cursed spirit quickly rearranging something internally as Megumi somehow managed to cut its arm clean off. He stumbled back afterwards, struggling to breathe as he held the hollow part of his throat and the blistering wounds left by the curse’s fingerprints.
The bastard just smiled at him with all of its teeth, head crooked unnaturally to the side as it finally began to dawn on Megumi that he couldn’t say anything at all. His throat felt swollen shut, his airway somehow forced closed and leaving hardly any room for air to reach his lungs.
Was that how Toge had been attacked?
If the curse had its hand on him for a second longer… would his throat have torn open as well?
The lack of oxygen caught up to Megumi painfully fast, his face becoming ghastly white and his mouth blue as he collapsed onto one of his knees with a grimace. He refused to give the curse the satisfaction of watching him slowly suffocate to death, raising two shaky fists right as the pale creature in front of him pushed him down to the ground with a foot on his chest.
Megumi was forced to look at the curse directly, at the blacked out skin on its legs and the stitches that went all the way up its torso. Silver strands of hair were still spilling well past its broad shoulders, which were rising and falling sluggishly as a half hearted scoff was punched out of its chest.
Megumi’s suspicions were finally confirmed.
The cursed spirit was the same one that had emerged twenty years ago during the Shibuya incident.
The one that took Nobara’s eye and sent her into critical condition.
Mahito.
One of four Disaster curses that had been part of the plan to initially seal Satoru Gojo in the first place.
Megumi glared up at the cursed spirit right as it popped all of the fingers on its regrown hand, fleshy wings still draped behind its shoulder blades as it smoothed its uneven bangs back with a painfully satisfied humming noise.
“As long as this world stays the same, curses like me… are the ones who will rule it. All while you sorcerers become older… grayer… and sadder.” Mahito mused with a small frown, sitting on top of Megumi’s chest so that it could wrap its hands around his throat again.
Two arms sprouted out of its flared ribcage, holding Megumi’s wrists down as the cursed spirit flashed the dark haired sorcerer a wild grin.
The four armed silhouette made Megumi freeze, seemingly having the desired effect as Mahito began to manually cut off his breathing with two large white knuckled hands.
“You… and the rest of your friends… are going to die horrible, disgusting deaths. You can’t help it! I mean, you sorcerers are all too busy just wasting your lives running around… fighting one another and spitting out riddles and lies… and then you act all surprised when you finally die alone!” Mahito licked its mouth deliriously, shifting on top of Megumi as the dark haired sorcerer coughed desperately for air and looked away from Mahito with his eyes stubbornly squeezed shut. “You’re a disgusting and rotten species… that’s why a curse like me was born in the first place… to show you how disgusting your souls really are.”
Black spots started to dance across Megumi’s vision, his body slowly shutting down as his eyes desperately shot open. He was losing sensation in his limbs as his nerves began to shut down, arms and legs helplessly spasming as the world around him began to fade.
Megumi’s lips were purple and blue, his face turning a deathly pale like a fish caught in a net. He couldn’t breathe, chest starting to ache as it felt like his heart and lungs were about to explode.
He couldn’t lift his arms from where they were pinned into the ground, his entire body weakly struggling against the curse’s heavy frame as he kept his expression as neutral as possible. Megumi refused to give the curse any sense of satisfaction, a cold sense of acceptance slowly washing over him like a final shadow.
He wasn't afraid.
Megumi had prepared himself for an awful death his entire life, practically given a front row seat to how even Jujutsu’s most powerful sorcerer hadn’t been able to escape the curse that every single one of them seemed to inherit without exception.
Megumi couldn’t think of a more fitting way for a used vessel like himself to die, choking on his own blood with a curse’s deathly cold fingers wrapped around his throat like a snake.
He deserved this.
Maybe that was why he wasn’t fighting as much as he should have. Maybe that was why the pain had slowly faded into an afterthought, his mind foggy and incoherent enough to welcome him back into the darkest recesses of his soul.
Into that same void where Sukuna had cornered him and took complete control over his body, shattering his will until even the most broken side of him was reassured by the blank nothingness that enveloped him there.
Megumi’s innate Domain was turned into a prison of his own making, a response to the trauma that he had experienced that took shape as a dark shadow at the bottom of a dead sea. Streaks of light barely managed to penetrate the surface, making the top of the water reflect stripes of white that reminded Megumi of snow.
He had always liked the snow.
It reminded him of the rare instances when Gojo actually took time off to spend with him and Tsumiki for the holidays. The older sorcerer would usually play with them outside for hours, always asking Ijichi to make hot chocolate for them after both of the younger kids had completely exhausted themselves.
Megumi wondered why they stopped doing that when they got older.
Gojo still took time off, but he sulked around that time and mostly stayed shut in his room.
Tsumiki was the only one who would check on him… and Megumi just gave Gojo space.
But he would give up anything just to have one last snowball fight with Gojo again. Even if Megumi was the one to always lose those stupid fights, they were still some of his favorite memories from when he was growing up.
He didn’t remember much about his birth father. But Megumi couldn’t blame that man for abandoning him anymore.
Not after he took the time spent with the man who raised him for granted.
Memories were dragged into the back of Megumi’s mind in flashes of color as oxygen suddenly filled Megumi’s lungs all at once, making him gasp loudly as his chest finally managed to expand.
He coughed violently, barely able to hunch over himself as someone supported him with a clawed hand on his shoulder.
“Fushiguro, just take it easy… try to breathe.” A muffled voice was trying to reach him, words barely heard over the metallic ringing that was still painfully loud in Megumi’s ears. The hand on his chest was huge, more like the paw of a dragon with barely skin covering it at all. Bits of muscle were split into exposed tendons and bone, which spread all the way up to the other sorcerer’s extended elbow.
Two distinct fingers were missing on the left claw, the same ones that Yuji had lost during the fight with Sukuna.
That made Megumi freeze, pale and bloodshot eyes darting in the direction of a hooded face that was completely obscured from view. The man in front of him was wearing a black jacket with a faded red hood, the visible portion of his square shaped jaw revealing just a hint of a familiar scar on the left corner of his mouth.
“Itadori…”