WHAT IT MEANS TO DIE

"I'm waking him up now. Juri, take a step back," spoke a gentle yet ghostly voice deep within Itadori's dark consciousness. He couldn't see anything, but he knew people were around him since he could hear their voices as clear as day. He just couldn't bring himself to fully wake up though. No matter how hard he tried.

There was a sound of an audible sigh, followed by a woman's voice much different than the one before. "Yurei… It's going to be fine."

"I just want-" She couldn't even finish her sentence before a man's voice interrupted her.

"We're gonna end up being here all day if you take every precaution under the sun. Just wake him up and we'll see what we have to do."

He heard what sounded like an exasperated groan, and soon after that, he felt something cold pressed against his forehead that forcefully woke him up. Itadori opened his eyes to dim lights but still couldn't make out anything past his own blurriness. He blinked a couple of times and could finally make out the environment of an unfamiliar room, covered head-to-toe in paper charms. He focused his eyes even more and saw that he wasn't alone either. As he already thought. There was Gojo, the man from before sitting backwards in a chair, and standing behind him against the wall were both Juri and Yurei.

"Morning," Gojo spoke up first. "So, which one are you now?"

Itadori blinked and spoke with a groggy voice. "Aren't you…?"

"Gojo Satoru, and you've already met Juri and Yurei, right? I'm the one in charge of the first years, and Juri is our school's guidance counselor. We're teachers of Jujutsu Tech," he explained briefly to the sleepy teen who was still having a hard time waking up.

The information was short and simple, but it didn't process nearly fast enough in Itadori's head. "Jujutsu… Where are my friends?! Where's Fushiguro?" He woke up fully after realizing and tried to pull his arms forward. They didn't even so much as budge though and remained restrained behind his back. Itadori looked over his shoulder and saw that his arms were bound with a thick rope covered in paper charms. The same kind that was surrounding them. "What's up with this?"

"Every precaution under the sun," Juri said dryly while walking up to Itadori. She tucked in her long black skirt and crouched down to get eye level with him.

Now that Itadori was looking at her, he found Juri's gray eyes to be quite weird. Not in the way that they were colored or shaped oddly, but it was just the look she was giving him. They were hyper-focused and intrigued, staring at him like he wasn't made of flesh and blood, but instead glass. She was looking right through him, scanning her eyes back and forth like there was writing all over him, even though there wasn't.

Juri pushed her lips out in a deep frown. As if she had just read something disturbing off the invisible words on his body. "You…really tend to worry about those around you first. Rather than yourself, huh. Have you not realized the situation you're in yet?"

"Juri's right you know," Gojo called back, "…because your secret execution…has already been set."

"Which has already been suspended!" Juri quickly raised her voice to correct him. "Don't forget, Gojo-san. We talked about this yesterday. Quit dancing around the situation just to make him nervous. We got enough of that already with you know who behind us." She gestured a finger over her shoulder to where Yurei was. The woman had been quiet the whole time with her arms crossed over her chest and face set in a permanent scowl.

"Wait a minute. A suspended sentence? So…it's just on hold for now?" Itadori asked.

Gojo nodded. "Yup. Let me explain from the top." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dingey old finger that was shriveled up with age. "This is the same as the cursed object you ate. There are twenty in all, but we're currently in possession of six."

"Counting both fingers and toes?"

"Nope, Sukuna has four arms," he said before casually tossing the finger over his shoulder towards Yurei. She immediately flinched when he did that and quickly backhanded the cursed object away from her, using so much force that it slammed against the wall and stayed stuck there. "As you can see…it cannot be destroyed, even by the Yurei herself. It's that powerful of a curse." Gojo got off his chair and pulled the cursed object out of the wall. "Yurei, you made a hole in the wall," he said, just now taking notice of the small-sized crater she made.

Yurei grounded her teeth. "I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't tossed a dangerous cursed object over your shoulder like a moron!" She nearly screamed, raising her voice with every word. Her anger went unnoticed by Gojo though and he simply just ignored it by looking the other way.

"Guys," Juri called back to them, giving them a knowing look to not start arguing again. She waited until they were done before looking back to Itadori. "These curses are starting to get troubling because they grow stronger every day, and we don't have anyone right now that can seal them properly."

"But that's where you come in." Gojo chimed in. "If you die…then the curse inside you, Sukuna, will die as well! Our higher-ups are cowards. They're making a fuss about killing you right now. But that would be a waste, right?"

Itadori cocked a brow. "A waste?"

"There's no guarantee that a vessel capable of controlling Sukuna will ever come around again. So, this was my proposal: 'If we're gonna kill him…why not kill him after he consumes the rest of Sukuna?' The higher-ups agreed. So now you have two options. Die now… or find the remaining parts of Sukuna…and die after taking them all into your body." He proposed, leaving Itadori totally speechless.

"So what do you think? Think he's gonna take the deal?" Gojo asked while walking beside Juri. They were on their way to the crematorium to meet with Itadori when he suddenly asked her this out of nowhere.

Juri blinked and gazed up at him with a perplexed look. "How would I know?"

"It's because you usually do," he said while nudging her arm. "You're exceptionally good at picking up on what people are thinking. Practically reading them like a book. So tell me. I'm curious about what you already know."

Juri frowned and intertwined her fingers together. She stared down at the ground and suddenly stopped walking. Just for a moment to gather her thoughts. "Honestly…I think he's quite an odd boy," she answered, which obviously caused Gojo to cock a brow and looked back at her.

"What makes you say that?"

"A couple of things I've noticed. Like when he first woke up…he didn't at all ask where he was or what was happening. He asked where Megumi and his schoolmates were. The first thing he thought…wasn't of himself. And the same thing happened back at the school too. I think he's the type of boy who worries about those around him first."

"You don't think he values himself?" Gojo asked, now pretty curious to hear her perspective.

"I think he does to some extent, but it might only matter if he thinks he can be useful to others. So, to answer your question…I wouldn't be surprised if he takes the deal, despite the hell he knows he's going to face," she said this with a cracked voice, only now wishing that she hadn't noticed it. It actually broke her heart a little bit since he's still so young.

Gojo crossed his arms over his chest and hummed to himself, thinking her words over and actually taking the time to process them. "I see. You're really putting that psychology degree to the test, huh."

Juri scoffed and continued walking beside him. "It has nothing to do with that. It's just…having a deep understanding of how people work and think. That's all. And I've had more than enough experience dealing with every kind of person there is," she said with a subtle smile before playfully nudging him in the arm.

They knew they were already at the crematorium when they began to smell something musty circulate through the air. They saw the building a couple feet ahead of them with pitch black smoke bellowing out of the chimney, and right out front of the crematorium was Itadori. He was sitting on a bench waiting for them.

Gojo called out to him. "Hey. Thanks for waiting."

Itadori picked his head up and saw Gojo and Juri approaching. "Gojo-sensei. Kocho-sensei. It's alright," he waved and scooted over to make room for them.

Juri turned to sit beside the kid but was abruptly stopped when Gojo grabbed her arm. He pulled her close and leaned into her ear. "Sit on my right side," he said, whispering just low enough for only her to hear

Juri hesitated for a moment but decided to just do what she was told since it wouldn't hurt. "Ah…sure," she said and took a seat at the far end.

"Thank you," Gojo said and sat down between them. He briefly looked back to the crematorium and saw smoke still coming out of the chimney. "So who passed away?" he asked.

Itadori hunched over and clasped his hands together. "My grandpa. But I guess he's more like a dad," he said, clearly still grieving by the tone in his voice.

Juri frowned and instinctively began to play with the fabric of her skirt. "I'm sorry that we had to bother you now of all times. I truly wish it didn't have to be this way." Guilt crept up her throat before she knew it and caused her voice to crack.

"So, have you made a decision?" Gojo asked, getting right to the point at hand.

Itadori thought about it for a moment. "Are there a lot of casualties with Curses like this?" he asked wearily before feeling the same cold finger from before press against his forehead. He looked up just in time to see Yurei's white frame manifest before him.

"It goes without saying that Sukuna is a dangerous Curse. Since I've fought against him in the past, I can say with absolute certainty that the damage he will cause will be detrimental and catastrophic. You wouldn't believe how many people were lost during at least one of our fights," she said with a pained voice, showing in both her face and eyes. "This is what you should really be thinking about though…Is this hell really worth dying for? Will it be meaningful if you went through with it? Take it from someone who knows better and had seen the worse…because if you go down this path… then it's gonna get hard to stomach certain things." Yurei wasn't nearly as sweet with her words as Juri was, but that was only because she wanted Itadori to have a clear picture of what he was going to go through. Unfortunately, there was just no gentle way of saying it.

Itadori's facial expression didn't change at all in the time Yurei was explaining things to him. Which was surprising. She was expecting a bit of panic but that didn't happen. He remained neutral the whole time and was generally placing a great deal of thought into his choices.

"If Sukuna is completely eliminated…will there be fewer people killed by Curses?" he asked quietly.

"Of course," Gojo answered.

"Do you still have that finger?" Itadori asked before being handled the shriveled-up finger. He looked at it for a moment, spinning it around and inspecting it closely. "Now that I look at it again, it's pretty disgusting," he muttered in a half-hearted voice before opening his mouth and swallowing it whole.

Juri watched curiously to see what would happen but did take notice of what Yurei was doing. She was hovering close by her side while placing a firm hand on her shoulder. Like if something were to go wrong, the first thing she was going to do was get Juri and Itadori as far away from each other as possible. It quickly dawned on her though on why Gojo wanted her to sit on his right side…it's because he wanted nothing to be between him if Itadori were to lose control.

After a couple of seconds of heart-pounding silence, a mass amount of unbreathable curse energy leaked out of Itadori's body. His eyes opened wide, and his skin flared up with these black marks that coiled around his body. But before Gojo or Yurei could do anything, Itadori suddenly gagged and held out his tongue.

"Gross! That was so gross," he cried out with watery eyes. Even the black marks on his body disappeared.

Little by little, Yurei's grip on Juri's shoulder eased up before releasing her completely. Her gentle features didn't look so intense anymore, and the confirmation that Itadori had everything under control brought both the girls great relief.

Juri cocked a brow and saw Gojo snickering to himself. "What are you laughing at?" she asked before abruptly getting her hair ruffled by him.

"It's nothing," he said with a wide smirk. "But I take it…that you're prepared for what's to come?" he asked the kid.

Itadori frowned before shrugging. "Not at all. I'm just wondering why the heck I have to be executed…but I can't just do nothing about the Curses. I'm gonna eat the rest of Sukuna. That's all," he said and stood up.

"Good stuff! You're really growing on me," Gojo cheered brightly. He got up off the bench and pulled Juri up with him. "Looks like hell's shaping up to be fun."

"It's best to get your belongings now, Yuji," Juri said. "We'll be heading out by the end of the day."

"Where we going?" the kid asked before suddenly hearing Fushiguro's voice speak from directly behind him.

"Tokyo."

Itadori turned all the way around and saw Fushiguro standing before him. His face was worn, and his eyes had dark circles under them. "Fushiguro! You're looking good!" he grinned and even gave him a thumbs up.

"I feel exhausted," he said dryly.

Juri walked up beside Fushiguro and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You're going to be enrolling at the same school Megumi goes to. And with this…you'll officially be the third person in the first-year class," she said with the biggest grin.

"Oh. I see." Itadori closed his eyes and nodded his head. He opened them back up though and double-takes hard. "Wait! What do you mean only three?!"

Author's Note:

Regarding my newest review from a guest: Yes. Juri and Yurei are separate beings. You're correct about that, but their situation is also vastly different from Sukuna and Yuji. Their bodies are seprate but not their souls. All because Yurei can manifest in the real world doesn't mean she can break the link between them. It's more like they're physically bound together by a line instead of being mixed. (I might actually go back and fix the wording. My bad.) I haven't fully explained everything yet, which is why it might be somewhat confusing at the moment. I can't really say anything right now because of spoilers, but I do plan on fully explaining everything in an original arc. It will be out after I'm done with the Kyoto Sister arc. Just be patient with me. I promise everything will come together in the end.

Much love, guys. I appreciate the steady growth of this story and hope you'll continue to follow Juri and Yurei's life as the story progresses!

Until next time!