Chapter: Don't Give Up

Summary: With a lot of questions and little to no answers, it's time to make a different kind of move. To the library!

Rating: T

The first surprising bit about Victory's library is that it's underground. A tiny building on the surface, looking more like a beach stand, with only a staircase going down and down and down.

And then, let there be light.

Satoru whistles, long and low, impressed as he looks at the ginormous vault full of stuff.

Because that's the second surprise. The library is more of a museum than any kind of book-place Satoru could have assumed by its name.

The librarian hushes Satoru with a disapproving look—somehow, because the curse doesn't have eyes—and he can only grin sheepishly and ignore Sukuna's eyeroll.

"We're looking for Legends of the Birth of the New Era. Do you have a copy of the texts in here?" Sukuna asks calmly while Satoru looks at the piles of scrolls and books on the closest shelf—

"Human Centipede 2!" he exclaims when he deciphers the text on one of the thicker tomes, only to be immediately shushed once more by both the librarian and a couple more voices down the aisles. "Sorry. I've actually seen this one," he explains sheepishly, and the reaction he gets to that is far more interesting.

Sukuna frowns. The librarian startles, their whole jelly-like body rippling at the sudden movement. Someone falls off of a chair in the next aisle, and quick footsteps rush towards Satoru, carrying the tiny but very long bug-eyed curse to his side.

"You have? But that's a Human Era Chronicle!"

"Chronicle?" Satoru repeats, turning to the shelf to see that, effectively, Human Centipede one and three are next to it – followed by four. "Huh. I haven't seen this one," he muses, tapping the back of number four. "But yeah, the second was the best. The first was interesting because it was a novelty, and three was pretty meh. Four, no idea. Must have released it after I was sealed."

There's a fleshy slap, and when Satoru turns, he sees Sukuna has covered his face with a hand, exasperated – and is that a grin?

"Ugh, I remember now. The brat got so many hits for that one, it was hilarious."

"Oh? Were you watching the movies too?" Satoru teases, grinning widely, but when Sukuna straightens with a scoff, his expression is the perfect picture of disdain.

"Please. I was watching the brat suffer. That was far more entertaining."

"Hey, it's Mister Eyebox! And Sukuna-sama."

Satoru startles at the new voice, turning around—

Huh. The small centipede curse has multiplied – ah, no, they are all different, if tiny, and those newcomers are the chibi gang.

"Why is this full of cursed wombs?" Sukuna scowls while Satoru is trying to get his mind wrapped around the fact there are this many curse 'kids'.

"We're not cursed wombs," Hanami pouts as the quartet makes their way past their shocked and excited… agemates? "We're here for a history lesson."

"Gojo-sama, Gojo-sama! Is it true that you and Sukuna-sama brought the Barrier down? Is it?" Jogo shouts excitedly as he bounces to Satoru's side, immediately slapping his hands over his wide grin when the librarian shushes him too.

"Well, obviously, someone did more work than someone else…"

"That someone, obviously, being the one who bears the title of Yagami," Sukuna purrs right back, stepping up to Satoru's side so they can exchange sharp grins and not literal sparks.

"Who cleaned up after someone when the job was done."

"Keep telling yourself that," Sukuna huffs, grin sharpening, as he leans back with his head tilted smugly.

"Four eyes and you're still blind," Satoru throws right back, straightening to his full height to look down on the unfazed curse.

"Six Eyes, and you are still in denial."

"Over a thousand years and—"

"Children! What are you doing? We have a lesson to – Sukuna-ou?!" a new curse, likely the teacher if one were to judge by his words, hisses as he walks out of another isle, searching for his wayward pupils.

And the moment he lays eyes on Sukuna, he falls back in a dead faint.

"Whoa! Sukuna-ou killed Shiten-sensei without touching him!" Mahito exclaims excitedly, and Dagon bursts into terrified gurgles alongside half of the class.

The other half cracks up, and Satoru with them.

"I did not. Why would I bother doing that?" Sukuna scoffs, though he looks almost insulted at the words.

The librarian shushes them again, waving gooey tentacles – and the teacher springs up, though he still looks quite unconscious.

But when he turns around, the face on the back of his head grins so widely that her eyes close, even as her limbs twist around to face 'front' once more.

"Sukuna-ou! It is such an honor to be in your presence. Please, excuse my rambunctious lovable curselings, they are simply excited to be in the presence of an eminence of our history such as yourself," she tells them with a, weirdly enough, melodious voice.

"Not true, Iken-sensei! We already know Sukuna-ou and Gojo-sama," Jogo huffs, straightening with the expected accompanying puff of smoke.

"Yes, we went out for mochi once, and we visit them from time to time," Mahito adds, and the other three chibis immediately turn to him to try and hush him.

"We're not supposed to tell about that!"

"Gojo-sama?" the teacher repeats, sending the quartet a we'll talk about this later look, as she turns to Satoru.

From under his new bandages, Satoru looks at Sukuna… who grins, eyes almost glowing in anticipation.

Satoru tries for a sultry grin, though it probably comes across as something sharp.

"Gojo Satoru, Special Grade."

"Special Grade?"

"Does that mean he's a Yagami?"

"Which colony is he from?"

Despite the students' mutterings, the teacher's eyes light up in recognition.

"Oh, my… The Unlimited?" she whispers, almost going unheard due to the kids' whisperings, but Satoru's grin widens.

"The one and only."

And she topples over much like her other face did not five minutes ago.

"Ah, Mister Eyebox killed Iken-sensei this time!"

"I don't know what's better, this or the selfies," Satoru hums, turning to look curiously at Sukuna, who frowns, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Selfies?"

Satoru snorts, covering his mouth when the librarian hushes them again.

Fortunately for the librarian—Satoru's taunting would have not led to a quiet discussion—the male face of the curse teacher wakes up at last with a groan.

"I had the most fascinating dream…" he whispers, and Satoru immediately turns to Sukuna with the largest grin he's capable of.

Sukuna answers with a deadpan look and simply turns around and walks away calmly. Satoru snickers, sends the chibis and the confused teacher a wave, and follows after his host.

… Host. Well, yes, sure. He lives at Sukuna's house, eats his food, uses his money to buy clothes… Sukuna is his host.

Why does the word sound weird?

"Any idea which aisle the documents are in?" Satoru asks, ignoring the loud whispering they've just left behind, and the wildly shushing librarian.

"Some of one. Unfortunately, someone started shouting in the library, and I didn't get the last bit of the instructions."

"Eeh? Seriously, how can people be that rude…"

"Indeed," Sukuna deadpans, sending him half a glare without turning his head, but his lips are quirking into a grin to mirror Satoru's. "How can you even read with that on?" he asks after a second, frowning in confusion while one of his hands gestures at his own four eyes in reference to the bandages covering Satoru's. "I assumed you could 'see' cursed energy, even through the blindfold, but how does reading work?"

"It's funny, actually…" Satoru starts with a hum, scratching his chin, as he thinks back.

One thousand years ago, the one issue he had had with the Six Eyes was how sensitive they were. They take everything in, every single thing, to the point Satoru's world is metrics and energy and numbers upon numbers upon equations and blah blah blah. As both the Six Eyes and Satoru's brain matured, he started seeing it as pictures made by those same readings, like pointillism. A picture made of uncountable small dots in established patterns.

Atoms. Energy. Cursed energy.

Frankly, it was a pain. Good thing some kind of physical buffer 'distills' the world to the basics, to shades and shapes and nothing else unless he chooses to focus on it. Even after he had first managed to control his own cursed energy, the headaches had been a constant obnoxious companion.

Funnily enough, television, with its many little points of light creating the picture, had been comparatively easy. Just dots of energy and wavelengths, and that's that. No cursed energy, no emotions interfering with it, no expectations of Satoru answering back.

Through television, Satoru had learnt to see the world, see how it worked, how it looked. He had learnt to read with that too, in a sense. Different wavelengths meant different colors meant shapes. Sunlight on black ink and white paper reflected different wavelengths, showing different patterns, making words. Television had trained him so he could read, either on paper or, later, through the phone, regardless of any physical barriers between the world and his Six Eyes.

But in this curse world, with the impossible amount of cursed energy everywhere, one would think Satoru would have more problems than he did in the human one.

Strangely enough, it's the complete opposite.

Back in the human world, Satoru saw in… well, not black and white, but something like that. He was a bat most of the time, simply navigating the world through the residuals around him, his own Limitless caressing his surroundings, and sound. If he wanted to, he could focus on something, anything, and put color to the different wavelengths. Electric signs were easier to read, they had their own distinct energy already creating the pattern, but he could do it with anything, really. When he was younger, when he was a student, it had been a lot more difficult, which is why he'd gone around with the glasses – less eye-catching, even with his shock of white hair, and far easier to simply steal a peek at the world if he didn't feel like making sense of energy wavelengths.

But that's the thing. Satoru saw color, he saw detail, only if he focused on it. But in this new world, with cursed energy everywhere, he hasn't even had to try. If he hadn't been as shocked by everything going on at the time, he would have probably realized it was a different world the moment he'd stepped out of the Prison Realm the first time.

Which brings the topic around to where it began.

"This world is choke-full of cursed energy. It clings to everything, and I mean everything," he tells Sukuna, making sure to emphasize that point, before he gestures at the closest shelf. "It clings to it so thoroughly that it even clings to color."

"I assume that's not normal," Sukuna hums, lifting an eyebrow in interest, and Satoru opens his mouth to agree, but hesitates.

"Well… it is… in this world," he concedes with a hum, tilting his head with a frown that, judging by Sukuna's intense look, doesn't stay hidden under the bandages. "I wonder if that will change now, with the Barrier gone…"

"… I wonder what won't change with the Barrier gone," Sukuna replies, stopping when the next aisle goes from books to sculptures and glass cases. "The texts we're looking for should be somewhere around here."

"Get ready to lose," Satoru sing-songs as he steps towards the closest case to blink down in shock at an action figure collection. "Nope, not this one. What is it even supposed to – ancient human models? Do curses seriously think all humans looked like Barbie dolls?"

"Get ready to lose," Sukuna parrots back mockingly, walking around the displays without getting distracted, unlike Satoru. "In your dreams, Gojo."

"Gojo-sama!" Jogo whisper-shouts before Satoru can do more than pout at Sukuna, startling them both to the herd of tiny curses rushing up to them. "Ne, ne, can you give us a history lesson? Pretty please?"

Satoru stiffens and turns to Sukuna. Sukuna laughs.

"Him? I'd love to see that. You do know he has been sealed away for the last thousand years, right?" Sukuna mocks, and Satoru grins sharply in answer.

"I saw everything that happened around the Prison Realm," Satoru reminds him softly, though he conveniently forgets to add that he hasn't managed to make any more sense of it now than he did when he first burst out of the 'back door'. "Are you sure you could do better?"

"Definitely," Sukuna purrs, and the way he arcs his eyebrows tells Satoru that he is more than aware of this blatant attempt at manipulation. "But why should I?"

"Please?" the curselings beg in unison, throwing the full force of about a dozen puppy eyes—the curse version, of course—at an unfazed Sukuna.

"Don't you have a teacher?"

"Shiten and Iken-sensei are boring!"

"Children!" said sensei scolds them as they finally catch up, the male face flustered while the female glares at the kids with a wide grin, immediately quieting them. "Sukuna-ou, Gojo-sama, my most sincere apologies for my students' behavior."

"We're very sorry, aren't we, children?" the female voice purrs, and all the kids immediately bow down with a chorus of terrified sorry.

"Ne, Mister Eyebox, why are you called the Unlimited?" Mahito asks not a second later, apparently recovered from the scolding, or most likely, never having been sorry at all.

Satoru opens his mouth with a grin, lifting a finger as he prepares his explanation – and stops himself as the metaphorical lightbulb turns on.

He thinks he knows why he would be called that, taking into account his Limitless technique, but he doesn't know. And isn't that the whole reason they came here in the first place?

"You know, I don't quite recall why you were given that name. We must have been in different colonies when it first came up," Sukuna muses with an almost picture-perfect confused frown, going as far as to scratch his chin with one hand while he crosses his other arms. "Do you know?"

"They never actually called me that to my face, before I got sealed," Satoru answers promptly, trying his best at startled realization that, judging by how all the chibis turn to their teacher, works like a charm.

Hook, line…

"Well then, if I may be so bold, we do have something around here that could answer that question."

And sinker.

The teacher turns around, the woman leading this time while the man makes sure the curselings aren't touching anything, and Satoru exchanges a brief triumphant grin with Sukuna.

… Ah. Neither lost. They both won, and it was by working together, to boot. Tch. They will need to find another contest after this, Satoru will not let Sukuna win.

They go almost to the very end of the display area, where some hulking sculptures and mounted rusty weapons are, but the teacher turns to the shelves instead, going a bit further inside before she finds the large tome she was looking for. When she returns to the far wider and comfier display area, all the curselings are sitting on the ground, waiting expectantly, while Satoru and Sukuna stand behind them, bemused and curious at the same time.

"This is the famed Legends of the Birth of the New Era, which records both the great calamities of the Age of Humans and the rise of the heroes of the Age of Curses," she tells her students in an almost mystifying tone, and Satoru manages to restrict his open-mouthed surprise to a simple eyebrow lift that goes unseen under the bandages. "Some of our greatest heroes hailed from even further back, but only one was strong enough to survive to this day."

And as one, everyone turns to Sukuna, who stands tall and unfazed.

"Hero?" Satoru taunts with an eyebrow waggle.

"Do you value your tongue?" Sukuna retorts casually, not even bothering to face him.

"That isn't threatening when I know you can't get to it."

"Do you want to bet?"

The sound of someone clearing their throat immediately startles Satoru out of his comeback, and he suddenly remembers that they are in the middle of a lesson.

And hero-worship or whatever that the female face of the teacher feels for him is not enough to allow him to interrupt her class, apparently.

"Sorry, sorry. What were you saying?"

"Everyone knows of Ryoumen Sukuna, the King of Curses," she continues as if she hadn't been interrupted in the first place, and both Sukuna's teasing grin and Satoru's answering glare immediately vanish when she opens the huge tome in her arms and flips pages until— "But fewer curses know about Gojo Satoru, the Unlimited."

There it is, the painting of Satoru's 'curse version' floating over the well of body parts, Limitless keeping any and all attacks at bay. The literal six eyes are so weird… Though Satoru still feels grateful to whoever thought arranging them like Sukuna's was a good idea. A big pair, with two smaller pairs framing it at the top and bottom. Yup, far better than Tengen's eye tower.

The curselings whisper in awe and excitement, sneaking glances at him, and Satoru makes sure to grin and answer with a cocky two-fingered salute.

"Now, who can tell me which are the three different kinds of Special Grade Curses?" the teacher asks, ignoring the exchange, and more than a couple hands shot up excitedly. "Yes, Kouki?"

"There's regular Special Grades, and then there's the Imaginary Gods and the… huh, the Vengeance Spirits?" the centipede brat answers, grinning widely even after that instant of hesitation there at the end.

"Vengeful Spirits, Kouki. Very good!" the teacher praises, before looking around once more. "And who can tell me why they are called thus? Yes, Hatameku?"

"Cause they're special!" a tiny butterfly-winged curse chirps excitedly, throwing their four hands up. "They are the strongest of all curses, and they have the bestest techniques."

"Indeed, sweetie! And what about the Imaginary Gods, Shizuka?"

"Uh, they, uh, have the power of… Of the whole world?" a quiet fuzzy curse whispers, hiding behind its bristling mane for a second before one eye on a long stalk peeks out.

"That's right! They draw their power from the world around them, all of the curses who have ever known them."

Satoru frowns and turns to Sukuna, who lifts an eyebrow with a look that speaks louder than words.

They aren't exactly wrong.

Imaginary Gods were born of the communal fear of humanity concentrating in one image, like the Nine-Tailed Fox or even the 'primordial fears' that gave birth to the original Jogo and Hanami.

Still, Satoru shrugs, unable to argue the explanation given to the brats, more so with how little knowledge he has of this world's curse formation. And then, the teacher asks Hanami about Vengeful Spirits.

"They are… gone? I think? All of them? You said they were the original curses, the ones born from humans. But there are no more humans anymore, so there can't be any more of those, right, sensei?" Hanami answers, though the words immediately turn into a question of their own.

The sensei's grin goes even wider.

"True again, but there's a tiny bit wrong in your answer, Hanami. Not all of the Vengeful Spirits are gone," she explains in a mysterious whisper, and once more, all the tiny faces turn to Sukuna with even more awe than before.

Sukuna smirks and points at Satoru. Satoru grins and waves a hand.

It isn't technically true, but Satoru was born from a human, and he's from the Age of Humans, so it isn't a complete lie either.

"That's so cool!" Jogo whispers with a shrill whistle of smoke coming out of his head, and though the class seems about ready to devolve into excited babbling, the teacher clears her throat to attract their attention again. "That means Gojo-sama and Sukuna-ou are the strongest curses ever, right, Iken-sensei?"

The teacher hesitates, turning to Sukuna and Satoru, as if afraid of what her answer will trigger.

Sukuna huffs, almost amused, and all eyes are on him once more.

"We can still be exorcised, kid. And unlike other curses, Vengeful Spirits don't ever come back," he tells them, and all the curselings gasp as if he'd just let out the foulest insult. "Vengeful Spirits are born of a cursed human soul. No more humans means no more Vengeful Spirits."

"They still have to get us first, though," Satoru adds, straightening proudly with a sharp grin. "And there's no one in this world or the last who could defeat us. Other than, you know, me."

"I swear, once we're out of here, I'm going to punch that smug grin off of your face so hard that you'll sleep for one thousand years more," Sukuna hisses, his grin murderous, and Satoru feels a shiver of excitement course up his spine.

"You can try."

"I call first row!" Mahito shouts, lifting a hand, and a second later, all the other curselings add their cries to the chorus.

"I want to be first row too!"

"No way! It's Sukuna-ou! If we get first row, we could be exorcised!"

"Sukuna-ou is the bestest, he wouldn't exorcise us by accident, dummy!"

"Me too! I want first row too!"

"Children…" the teacher calls sweetly, and all the voices go silent at once. "Thank you. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Special Grades," she continues calmly, as if nothing had happened, and Satoru can't help but exchange an impressed look with Sukuna. "Sukuna-ou and Gojo-sama are indeed Vengeful Spirits, but they are even more special than that. You see, a Special Grade curse can be an Imaginary God, a Vengeful Spirit, or neither. But Sukuna-ou and Gojo-sama are both. They are Special Grade curses who are both Imaginary God and Vengeful Spirit. And that's why they are the strongest kind of Special Grades, of curses, in the whole of everyone's existence."

This time, rather than turn to stare at them, the curselings shiver and curl into themselves. It probably doesn't help that Satoru is grinning in delight, far more teeth in the gesture than there ought to be, while Sukuna revels in that admission, proud and far more composed than Satoru himself.

"It's nice to be recognized, isn't it?" Satoru asks almost casually, and Sukuna's grin turns sharp as he glances sideways at him.

"Only if you are so low in self-esteem that you don't realize that in the first place."

"Aw, don't worry, we love you all the same," Satoru mocks right back, both their grins turning fanged.

"As for the 'Unlimited' bit…" the teacher calls, and the words immediately cut through the bloodthirsty stare down. "It is, quite simply, because no one could stop him. No one could put any limits to his will, his strength, his rampages… The only thing they could do was seal him away, and even that wasn't enough."

"That's disappointing," Satoru thinks, and the moment all eyes land on him, he realizes he didn't as much think it as he said it out loud. "What? It's true. I already knew that; they called me The Strongest. I honestly thought it would be a far more interesting story," Satoru elaborates with a pout, crossing his arms against his chest.

The teacher shrugs almost sheepishly, closing the book. Satoru's pout turns into a tired groan as he drops his head back.

A hand pats his shoulder, and Satoru looks down in surprise. Sukuna's grin is all fangs, eyes almost literally shining red.

"Do you want interesting? I think it's time I showed you my personal training ground."

JUJU STROLL!

Sukuna is staring. Satoru knows it, he can feel it, but that only makes him grin even wider.

"And what are you doing?" Sukuna finally asks, and Satoru barely holds himself back from snickering.

"Stretching, of course," he answers as he bends down, leaning more into something yoga-ish than proper stretching. "You should try it too. It won't do to win because you pulled something."

"As if," Sukuna deadpans, but Satoru can still feel his stare. "How long are you going to do that?"

"Until everything's properly stretched!"

"… Seriously?"

"Yup!"

Sukuna groans, but when Satoru peeks up, he finds him stretching up his upper pair of arms, while the lower pair pull behind his back.

Satoru 1, Sukuna 0.

"I heard that."

"I didn't say anything!"

AN: Action is coming back in the next episode, I promise! But hey, chibi gang? We loves the chibi gang, don't we?