Chapter Text
Sukuna's reincarnation is in a cage.
The locals had figured out quickly that sedatives didn't work for long. A metabolism that burned through drugs just as quickly as it healed bruises meant they'd found another way to keep him compliant. Beat him often enough that he physically couldn't run.
Never mind that the vessel had made no attempt to escape. Never mind that he had already promised he wouldn't.
He'd smiled politely as he'd said it, reopening the split in his lip. Blood had trickled down his chin while he'd apologized for bleeding over the floor of the cage.
Suguru ignores the noises his curses make as they dispose of the bodies he left behind. The clearing is quiet now, save for the groan of twisted metal and the distant chirp of insects.
Slowly, carefully, he crouches until he is at the boy's eye level. His face is deformed from inflammation, but the extra eyes are unmistakable, even crusted shut with blood.
The child still startles so violently that the back of his skull cracks against the bars.
"Hello," he says, keeping his voice steady, as gentle as he can. "My name is Suguru Geto. What's yours?"
Hands reinforced with cursed energy grip the rusted bars. Metal screams as it bends apart.
"Y—Yuuji," the boy whispers. "Nice to meet you, Geto-san."
He tries to bow.
Inside a cage barely large enough to sit upright in.
One eye is swollen completely shut. Blood has dried beneath one nostril. Fresh bruises bloom over older yellowing ones, and angry welts disappear beneath the torn collar of his shirt. His wrists are rubbed raw.
"That's a pretty name," Suguru says quietly. "I'm here to get you out of here, okay?"
The opening is wide enough now.
Yuuji doesn't move.
He remains sitting in seiza despite the way one knee trembles, hands folded neatly in his lap.
Then he bows again.
"Forgive my rudeness, Geto-san… but may I make a phone call?"
Suguru blinks.
"I know I'm not allowed to," Yuuji rushes on, "but I'd be very grateful if you let me. I only need to tell my grandfather…"
His voice hitches.
"…that I'm sorry."
His breathing turns uneven.
"I—I'm sorry I didn't visit him today."
Moonlight catches on the tears slipping from eyes swollen nearly shut.
"And… then you can execute me."
His voice steadies again with practiced politeness.
"I won't resist. I promise. Please, Geto-san."
For a long moment, Suguru can only stare.
Then, almost mechanically, he digs his phone from his pocket and places it into Yuuji's shaking hands.
He turns away before the boy can see his face.
The little food he managed to eat earlier has long since digested. Acid burns his throat as he retches into the dirt.
Behind him, the call connects.
"…We're sorry to inform you…"
Suguru squeezes his eyes shut.
"…Wasuke Itadori…"
"…passed away this evening…"
Silence.
"Thank you very much for telling me."
Another pause.
"And… I'm sorry for taking up your time."
By the time Suguru wipes his mouth and turns around, Yuuji has already set the phone carefully on the ground.
He bows over it before offering it back with both hands.
"Thank you very much, Geto-san."
His voice never wavers.
Suguru crosses the distance in two unsteady steps before crouching in front of the cage once more.
"Yuuji-kun… nobody is going to kill you."
Golden eyes remain lowered.
"I've been sent to take you somewhere safe. You won't be hurt."
Yuuji still doesn't look up.
"I promise."
He is presenting his neck.
"It's alright, Geto-san. You may exorcise me now."
Yuuji looks up then, bowed. A wobbly smile on split lips.
"I'd rather have you do it. You are kind."
Suguru doesn't manage to move away fast enough this time.
The child pats his back as he throws up.
Yuuji falls asleep halfway to Tokyo.
He's curled against Suguru's chest, zipped into his coat, as the manta ray curse flies faster than it has ever flown before. Suguru's arms are locked around him, rubbing warmth along his spine, but the kid is just so cold. Each breath puffs into mist against Suguru's throat as he wills the curse to travel faster.
Yuuji's injuries are already half-knitted by the time Suguru sneaks into the dorm, the sleeping child still tucked against his chest. He doesn't stir when a bedraggled Shoko starts running her reversed cursed technique into his body. Doesn't stir as they work together to clean the lingering blood and grime. Doesn't stir as they dress him in soft, oversized clothes. Not even when Shoko inserts an IV for electrolytes.
The only time he moves is when Suguru strokes his hair.
He presses himself into Suguru's palm.
Yuuji sleeps for forty-eight hours.
Long enough for Suguru's adrenaline to wear off. Long enough for him to give in and call Satoru, curled over the toilet bowl, crying.
Satoru picks up on the first ring.
"Suguru? What's wrong?"
His voice comes out cracked. "I found Sukuna's reincarnation."
"Are you—"
He barrels on, "—he's a kid, Satoru. He' fourteen. Pink hair. Markings on his skin. They had him in a cage."
A pause. Suguru's breath hitches.
"He has no cursed energy."
"...What?"
"Zero. Nothing. I checked. He's not a sorcerer. He's not even sensitive. He's just a kid with some markings on his skin, and Satoru—"
His voice breaks.
"I was wrong. I was so wrong. I'm a fucking idiot."
He's crying now, full-on sobbing, guilt and shame and grief tangling into his chest and scratching at its walls. He's hiccuping, and there's snot running, and the words keep coming.
"I thought if I killed them all—the non-sorcerers—the curses would stop. The suffering would stop. But Yuuji isn't a sorcerer. He's just a person. And they still put him in a cage. They still beat him. They still called for his execution."
"Suguru, What the fuck—"
"He asked me if he could call his grandfather to say goodbye before I killed him. He thought that's what I was there for. He was polite about it, Satoru. He apologized for bleeding on the floor of his own cage."
The words are tumbling out now, unstoppable.
"It's not about cursed energy. It's not about who can see curses and who can't. It's about what people do. And non-sorcerers are just people. Some of them are cruel. Some of them are kind. Killing them all wouldn't stop the cruelty. It would just make me cruel."
He laughs, wet and broken.
"What a joke. I was going to become the very thing I hated."
There's silence. Long enough that he thinks he's done it. Satoru hates him now. He'll be labelled a curse-user and executed and Satoru will be the one to kill him and God he'd been such a huge fucking idiot and—
A voice calls, soft with grief and devoid of everything he fears and deserves. "I'm coming. Stay there. Don't move."
When Satoru arrives, Suguru is still on the bathroom floor.
He doesn't say anything. He just slides down the wall and sits beside him, shoulder to shoulder. And then Suguru is talking—about monkeys and dead children and curses made of men. About the weight of a village that needed to die. About the weight of a boy who thought he deserved to.
Satoru listens.
And when Suguru runs out of words, when he's just breathing, ragged and raw, Satoru's hand finds his.
They stay like that for a long time.
Two seventeen-year-olds who have seen too much, holding each other in the dark. Crying for the children that will never cry again. For people who make curses. For people who lose to them. For their lives. For everything.
When Yuuji finally opens his eyes, Suguru is there.
"Hello," Suguru says softly. "My name is Suguru Geto. Do you remember me?"
Yuuji blinks. A slow, sleepy smile spreads across his face, pulling at the fading split in his lip.
"Mm," he hums. "You're the kind one."
Suguru's doesn't trust himself to speak.
He just takes Yuuji's hand and holds it.