Chapter: Brave Heart

Summary: There are more remnants of the Human Age than anyone realized... Or are there?

Rating: M

Warnings: Character death, puppeteering, mind control, panic attack.

If Satoru didn't have the Six Eyes, he would probably ask about where they have landed at, as soon as he drops Sukuna's hand.

But he has the Six Eyes.

There might not be much left of Jujutsu Tech, but what little ruined walls remain are almost too bright in his sight.

"And I thought there was a lot of forest here before," Sukuna hums as he walks around, peeking around a tree to see the closest of the broken walls, standing barely up to his hip. "Brought to its knees, just like everything else."

Satoru listens with half an ear, turning in his spot to try and see everything.

But not even the Six Eyes can see through a cloud of cursed energy this thick. He hadn't thought much about the charged air of the 'colony of the Hill of the Last Standing', or whatever they call it. Not when he'd learnt about the barrier, and how the world had changed in the last one thousand years.

But here, it's almost drowning him. And worst of all, it's all Tengen's.

He should probably be happy. If Tengen hasn't been killed yet, if he's still around, of course he would be strong. In fact, he better be, because this is a world of curses, after all.

Though… Tengen's immortality technique doesn't guarantee eternal youth – nor eternal humanity.

That's why they had to get the Star Plasma Vessel. That's why Amanai had to die.

Taking into account they failed, who knows what state Tengen was already in before the world ended? Did he have the chance to procure another vessel to prolong his humanity? What will Satoru find… once he figures out just where Tengen is, exactly.

"Do you… have any idea where Tengen could be?" Satoru asks sheepishly, and Sukuna gives him a confused frown, as if his question was absolute gibberish.

"Can't you find him with those eyes of yours?"

"Not with this much cursed energy around, I'm afraid," Satoru laughs, and Sukuna sighs, rubbing his forehead once more. "Hey, you said there was a city here too, right? Why don't we go ask?"

"We're not going to ask for directions!"

"We're lost. Why shouldn't we?"

And the air changes.

It's… like biting on a peppercorn when you don't expect it. A rush of something cutting yet silk-soft coursing through your whole being, all your body hair standing on edge, a whiff of something rotten as the wind changes.

… Okay, maybe not like a peppercorn.

The clearing is stiflingly silent, not even the breeze stirring the leaves of the surrounding trees.

Carefully, side by side, Sukuna and Satoru step out of the clearing and into what used to be an open square.

The curses waiting for them smile unnaturally. Satoru would like to blame his choice of words on their curse nature, but he can't, not this time.

The curses are dead, only empty husks controlled by the cursed energy that has filled them. The same cursed energy that is everywhere.

"Tengen," Satoru whispers, and while Sukuna startles, giving him a surprised look for a second, his excited grin returns not an instant later.

"I see. That's why Origin was dead to the world. It wasn't just the Link being cut – it was the puppeteer taking over."

Satoru expects a reply of some kind. All they get are growls.

That's… even more disturbing than he could have imagined.

He quickly throws his hands up nonetheless, taking a step forward before Sukuna can do more than widen his grin.

"Whoa, easy there! It's me, Gojo Satoru. Come on, you remember me, right?" he asks, making sure his smile is neither as relieved as he feels nor as unsettled as he's starting to feel.

It's been one thousand years. Satoru needs to hold onto hope.

It's the only thing he has left, after all.

The Tengen-controlled curses step closer, still grinning, still growling. Somewhere, a high-pitched cackling starts up.

Satoru thinks back to his basement, to a bad movie playing on TV while Yuuji chokes on his soda again.

A murder of crows, bearing down on the pathetically screaming victim who rushed out on her own. Everyone knows you shouldn't go alone on B-rated horror movies, after all. But she did, and there were the crows, cackling, before they dived at her to peck her eyes out.

… Satoru doesn't appreciate the comparison.

"I told you he'd ascended. There's nothing human left in him," Sukuna comments, stepping up to be by Satoru's side, four hands hanging at his sides in preparation for the fight. "Maybe if we destroy enough puppets, their master will come out and play."

"They're curses," Satoru points out, thinking back to Sukuna's comment about accompanying Satoru to keep him from destroying the city.

"You have a problem with that?" Sukuna asks with a grin, side-eyeing Satoru—

And with the twitch of a finger, a path is literally carved in the crowd, blood erupting out of sliced bodies.

Satoru's lips twist into an excited grin—

"Nope."

—and throws a Cursed Technique Blue into the middle of the crowd.

Black and purple blood showers the rest of the curses as the bodies are crushed into nothingness, and with more high-pitched cackling, they surge at the two of them.

Sukuna and Satoru don't move, unleashing their techniques once more to thin out the mass of possessed curse corpses – and how weird it is to think of them like that. It isn't until they are too close to properly utilize their techniques that they both spring into action, using their hands—and claws—to rip the throng to shreds.

Unlike normal—alive—curses, these ones don't seem to feel pain, attacking tenaciously even after literally losing their heads.

Satoru's grin widens, his blood singing at the carnage, as his enemies fall before his might.

He is The Strongest, regardless of how everything else has changed. And while weak on their own, the sheer number of curses pouring out of the trees provide a challenging enough fight to get a laugh out of him.

It's like Shibuya, but without any weaklings around to distract him from what he does best.

Win.

Sukuna shouts a bit further away, challenge in his voice and sharp grin and glowing eyes, as a swipe of one hand sends a wave of dismembered limbs and shed blood out into the air.

Satoru twists over an attempt at a stabbing tentacle, keeping himself aloft with his Limitless just enough to aim a Reverse Technique Red at the new wave rushing out of the forest.

"I'm wining!" he calls in a sing-song tone towards where Sukuna cackles from atop a pile of corpses.

"Think twice!" he roars as he slices a hand, his technique covering a wider area than Satoru's more focused beam.

"Challenge accepted," he purrs, pushing up higher as he locates the mass of Tengen-controlled curses that start to spread around the clearing, seeking to trap them—

And with a twitch of his finger, a new Blue crushes that half of the forest into a mass of debris and mangled corpses.

He can't hear Sukuna's appreciating whistle, but the way he pursues his lips alongside the twinkle in his eyes is more than clue enough.

Not to be outdone, of course, Sukuna spins around, claws outstretched – and cleaves the remains of the latest wave in half.

"Oh, no, you don't get to have all the fun!" Satoru protests as he rushes back to the ground, ready to get his hands dirty once more as they finish off the halved curses.

Sukuna keeps throwing out mocking retorts as he slashes left and right, while Satoru cackles as he crushes the pathetic creatures under his heel.

"Really, Tengen?! That's the best you can do? Come on! At least try to give me a challenge!" Satoru calls, ignoring the twitching body parts strewn all over the destroyed forest-turned-battlefield, while Sukuna takes potshots at as many twitching fingers as he can spot.

It's almost like he has something personal against fingers. Really, Satoru can't even begin to imagine wh—

The gigantic shears spearing Satoru through are as sudden as the voice, but nowhere as painful.

"Well, if it isn't Gojo Satoru! Tell me…"

Satoru tilts his head back and to the side, the shock keeping the pain at bay—for now—and allowing him to ignore the world around him, the way Sukuna calls his name before being distracted by his own newly arrived foe—

Past a segmented wooden body and disembodied wings, Satoru catches a glimpse of blond hair waving in the breeze, and orange-amber eyes glinting with the same glee curling full lips into a sharp grin.

"What is your type of woman?" she finishes, her soft voice somehow making it through the distance, through the blood rushing against Satoru's eardrums and filling his pierced lungs—

The construct at his back, mandibles still all the way through Satoru's ribcage, curls into itself, its mandibles struggling to close against his broken ribs—

The world comes back in a flash, and Satoru feels agony. The strangely blunt paddle-like mandibles that have somehow managed to go through him are slippery with blood, but he still grabs hold of them to keep them from crushing his heart, while he sends more cursed energy towards the injury to stop the bleeding—

But it vanishes, his cursed energy wisps out into nothing as soon as it comes in contact with the construct. Satoru tries to choke in another breath, but the liquid filling his lungs makes it harder with every passing second, and his sight is starting to fill with dark spots…

Sukuna slams one of his clawed hands through the construct's head with enough strength to jerk Satoru back – but fortunately, Sukuna has enough arms to spare him a very painful meeting with the ground.

And it would have been. Cursed energy flows back in now that the construct has dispelled, but Satoru had been trying so hard before that it slams in with the force of a tidal wave.

A tidal wave of cursed energy, his own or not, right into his ripped lungs, snapped ribs and bruised heart.

If he hadn't been chocking on his own blood, coughing it out of his lungs now that they are regenerating with blazing—literally—speed, Satoru would have screamed.

Sukuna's cursed energy burning away the poison, back at the Hill, was a warm bath at an onsen compared to this.

Sukuna stays at his back, his arm gone once the cursed energy rushed in and Limitless reestablished itself, tsking at Tengen's new tool—

"Tsukumo Yuki, Special Grade Sorcerer turned puppet. And Death Painting Number 1, Choso, still a puppet. It seems I underestimated Tengen. You two should've been long rotten by the time he ascended."

Satoru's breath hitches in recognition, and when he next looks over his shoulder, without the shock or the pain keeping his brain from functioning properly, he realizes that he does know that woman.

Tsukumo Yuki, one of the only four Special Grade Sorcerers in the world. Or, at least a thousand years ago, she was. Now, she's as inhuman as the curse corpses they had been battling before, even though, like them, she retains her human appearance.

With one exception. Her eyes are a solid orange-amber that Satoru knows wasn't always like that. He may not have met her, back when they were both at Jujutsu High—Special Grade Sorcerers were kept very busy, after all—but the Death Painting by her side is the one who was in Shibuya, and his eyes hadn't been a solid blood red back then.

"You two should've been long rotten by the time he ascended."

… This isn't like finding Suguru at Shibuya, one thousand years ago. Unlike Kenjaku-possession, in which the possessed body retains the cursed energy signature and techniques, Tengen-possession leaves the body with just enough of the original cursed energy to use the possessed body's techniques. The mass of curse corpses hadn't had useful techniques, or Tengen didn't have the capacity to use so many at once and so kept them as fodder. But Yuki and the Death Painting, Choso… they still have enough of their own cursed energy to be an actual threat.

His injury is closed at last, allowing him to stand and turn to face these new puppets at Sukuna's side, rather than half-hidden behind him. Though his clothes—brand-new, damnit!—are ruined, warm blood soaking them and still slithering down his chest and back.

Ugh. He'll need a very thorough soak once this is over.

There's a new construct floating lazily around Yuki, a curse-like winged worm with paddle-like mandibles that are, as Satoru well knows, unassumingly sharp. He'll have to keep an eye on them.

But more importantly…

"I don't suppose you know anything about her techniques?" Satoru asks Sukuna calmly, throat fortunately not too irritated by all the blood vomiting he did a moment ago.

"You're the sorcerer. Shouldn't you know?" Sukuna retorts, not bothering to turn to him, but Satoru grins nonetheless.

It's not a happy smile, but it's definitely excited.

No, Satoru doesn't know all there is to know about other sorcerers' techniques, everyone kept their techniques quiet for a reason. After all, what use is it to tell your enemies about your techniques to enter a pact of higher effectivity if they already know about them? Also, you never know who might snap and turn curse user. The more cards up one's sleeve, the better.

Which means that, other than recognizing the name as that of a fellow Special Grade sorcerer, Satoru knows nothing about Tsukumo Yuki.

"Ah, but it wouldn't be any fun if I did," Satoru answers, his grin widening – and Sukuna answers in kind.

"The one who doesn't get their heads has to entertain the brats for a week."

"Well, that's good. They adore you!" Satoru needles with an exaggerated grin, but Sukuna is not fooled, his four eyes shining with expectation at the upcoming fight.

"Don't you dismiss me so easily, brother killer!" the Death Painting snarls, ribbons of blood rushing around him as he presses them into bloody arrows—

As soon as they fly, Satoru and Sukuna scatter, breaking away from the other.

Tengen-Choso chases after Sukuna. Tengen-Yuki sends her construct after Satoru, rushing on foot after him.

Kept aloft by his Limitless, Satoru grins and assesses his opponent and what he knows about her abilities.

The construct not only managed to pierce through Limitless, but it also repelled his cursed energy when he tried to use a reverse cursed technique to heal his chest. So, trying to use a technique on the construct won't work.

However, as Sukuna demonstrated, you can still punch one hard enough to crush its head. Unfortunately, Satoru doesn't have claws to aid him on that task, nor some actual solid ground to put more weight behind his hit, and so the construct is merely punched away with a cracked head—

And Satoru almost falls out of the sky.

Okay. Whatever the technique that created it is, it can cancel others when they come in contact. So, if Satoru is going to fight the construct, he better do it on the ground.

Satoru drops down, and decides to treat this like a Shikigami.

And the weak point of any Shikigami user is the sorcerer themselves.

"So, how did you survive?" he asks Tengen-Yuki almost conversationally when she blocks his kick, because even though they are fighting one another now, Satoru still thought everyone else was dead.

If Sukuna is right, and it was through Tengen… Well, they all knew Tengen would cease to be human, one day. This will be just another curse to exorcise.

But if there's a chance, even the most minuscule chance, that it was because of some other reason…

Tengen-Yuki—just Yuki?—chuckles, amused, and throws her head back cockily as she tries to kick him right in the chin, timing it with her construct's next dive so that Satoru has to contort around them both and put some distance between them.

"How? Simple. We were in the Tombs of the Star Corridor, protecting Master Tengen. When the world ended, we didn't end with it. Instead, Master Tengen took us in, allowed us to share in his immortality, to become one with the world," she explains, throwing her arms wide as her voice takes in the same adoring and maniacal tone as those – those monkeys from the Star Religious Group.

Right. Well, it isn't like Satoru had still had hope, or anything like that.

His next punch goes right through the construct's head, his strength anchored now with his feet on the ground.

Tengen-Yuki is still smiling.

"You haven't answered my question," she taunts, shifting her weight as a new construct appears out of thin air over her, rattling unsettlingly, like a barely restrained beast.

Satoru takes a deep breath, rotating his wrist. The construct cancels cursed techniques, but Tengen-Yuki doesn't. The flow of his cursed energy wasn't disrupted at all while they fought hand to hand, unlike the few times he's actually touched the construct. That's probably the condition for the technique, then. It only works when channeled through the construct.

Satoru grins, and if he hadn't his blindfold on, his eyes would be sparkling with his excitement.

"Simple. I like women who are alive," Satoru answers, just before flicking a Reverse Technique Red at her.

The construct surges to intercept it, but while the technique itself doesn't impact, the shockwave it created engulfs Tengen-Yuki and her construct.

When she rushes out of the dust cloud, Satoru is there to meet her with a knee straight into her temple. She's thrown away at the impact, but her construct goes after Satoru, keeping him away from its mistress while she's vulnerable.

Satoru follows the momentum from his attack and lands with a hand on the ground, twisting to speed up his spin and kick the construct's head in—

He doesn't manage as solid an impact as he would have wanted, though, and so the construct is merely kicked away with a simple crack on its head casing.

Satoru pushes up to land on his feet, immediately leaning backwards to somersault around Tengen-Yuki's charged punch.

His grin only widens as she jumps away from his retaliating kick, and Satoru clasps his hands and appears six meters behind her and to her right, avoiding the construct rushing at his previous position—

Piercing Blood splatters against the Infinity at his back, and Satoru scoffs over his shoulder.

"Oi, Sukuna! Keep your enemy to yourself, will you? It's rude to interrupt someone else's fight."

"Then stop intruding in my fun," Sukuna scowls back as he lands by Satoru's side, before they spring apart when both piercing blood arrows and the construct shoot at them.

Satoru avoids its new slash with a roll, and pushes away from Tengen-Yuki's next punch with a flare of his Limitless.

"Hey, Tengen-chan! Drop the puppets and show yourself, will you? It's rude to keep an old friend waiting after one thousand years," he mocks with a grin, excited despite himself, his blood rushing hotly through his veins.

Maybe he's still wired after the battle at Shibuya. Maybe its ending left him feeling unsatisfied, a rotten taste almost too much like defeat lingering at the back of his throat. Maybe he's too angry at himself to do more than redirect that anger onto someone else.

One way or another, this deadly dance with Tengen-Yuki is doing it, kindling the flames in his chest. They have been smoldering at the back of his consciousness these past days, what with him doing nothing but sit and walk around this curse world, lamenting his continued existence and being unable to even do something as simple as eat!

His next hit goes right through the construct's head, thanks to the rock he grabbed in his previous roll, and Satoru's grin threatens to split his face in two as he rips his fist out of the dissolving puppet.

That was aimed at Tengen-Yuki's chest.

Satoru rushes again, chasing his enemy as she hops away, and spirals up into the sky when she sends two constructs after him this time.

"You'll have to try harder than that!" he laughs, flicking a Cursed Technique Blue at her even as he throws the stone into the first construct's head to send it into the second—

Tengen-Yuki jumps, trying to get away from Blue's zone of effect – and her right leg is wrenched out of her socket with a wet rip and a blood-curdling scream.

Satoru's grin vanishes.

Is it… She can't be Tsukumo Yuki, the actual Tsukumo Yuki, right? It's – Tengen's taken over, all shreds of humanity lost after his ascension, evolution, whatever. He's controlling her and Choso and all those other curses much like Kenjaku was controlling Suguru's body. The cursed energy Satoru can see in her and the Death Painting is nothing but a remnant, like Suguru's was, with no consciousness—

Suguru's hand snaps to fake-Geto's neck, threatening to crush it, and fake-Geto's surprise turns into a delighted laugh.

… No, there can't be anything left of Yuki in her, there can't be.

But the curse corpses hadn't felt pain.

One of the constructs almost takes Satoru's head, distracted as he was, and the other stabs his thigh as he tries to avoid.

"Damnit!" Satoru hisses, crushing the construct's head in his hands even as they spiral to the ground, the wound healing as soon as its beak dissolves into nothingness, even if it does it with a burn. "Show yourself, Tengen!" he shouts again, fury fueling the words, as he touches down and round kicks the second construct into smithereens when it tries to dive bomb him.

Sukuna is laughing at the edge of his sight, cutting through a wave of blood with just a slash of his hand, as the Death Painting tries to stitch back its own left arm with a thread of blood.

Yuki gets back to her remaining foot, red human blood dripping from her ruined hip, where her right leg used to be, and grins at Satoru with bloodied teeth.

A new construct curls around her, rattling threateningly, larger than any other before.

"As you wish," a new voice answers at Satoru's back, and he turns, surprised, Limitless strengthening with just a thought so he can at least slow down the next blow—

The earth has been wrenched open by the battle, both against the legion of curse corpses and now against Yuki and the Death Painting, exposing a long and darkened corridor.

Standing at its entrance is yet another curse, its head elongated to make space for its ten off-white eyes, its fanged grin curling slowly under them as its cream robe parts to expose a clawed hand—

Cursed energy flares under Satoru's feet, and a small but thick barrier closes around him.

"Tengen!" he shouts, more startled at the former human's appearance than the barrier itself.

He knew Tengen's 'ascension' would change him, that he would cease to be human, but he hadn't thought it would be like this.

Sure, extra eyes are not as excessive as it could have been – which is probably why the surprise is so much more intense.

It's such a small change that, despite not looking human anymore, Satoru can't help the thought that maybe he still is.

Yuki's construct whizzes around the barrier, curling around Tengen before rushing straight towards Satoru—

With a push of Limitless, the barrier shatters and Satoru steps out of the construct's way.

Something thuds at Satoru's back, and it's too late when he remembers that, only one leg or not, Yuki is still there.

But she hasn't moved, she's still standing where he last saw her, grinning her bloody smile as her construct curls around her once more, eyes inhuman and blank—

Her lips move as she speaks the two words Satoru never wanted to hear again – but the sound never reaches him, because he has finally seen it and his soul has been swallowed by darkness once more.

The Prison Realm bursts open and Satoru screams in terror.

Shibuya, fake-Geto, the chibi curses staring up at him in fear as he steps into a world no longer his—

"Gojo!" Sukuna shouts, rushing towards him but pushed off course as bloody arrows stab through his chest—

Cursed flesh wraps around Satoru, freezing him in the spot, keeping his hands away from each so he can't teleport away, cursed energy gone from his shaking muscles, and why can't he struggle he needs to break free he needs to escape—

"Did you think you had destroyed it, Strongest Sorcerer?" curse-Tengen mocks, and despite his frantic panting and the loud drumming of his heart in his ears, Satoru can hear him approach. "All good prisons have a back door. Now, let order be reestablished. Begone from my domain, Sorcerer," Tengen rumbles, threat dipped in glee.

Sukuna roars as he rips three of the arrows out, not even flinching as the fourth expands into something large and spiky that takes off one of his arms, eyes blazing red as two of his remaining arms aim a burning arrow of his own towards Tengen—

"Gate close."

No. No no nononononononononononoNONONONONONONO—

Satoru screams as he rips his blindfold off, his Limitless exploding all around him, crushing the reaching blackened skeletons to smithereens and surging further, searching for a wall, for a weak point—

Blue light flashes at Satoru's left. Red flashes at his right.

He can't see a weak point, his Six Eyes burn at the searing brightness of the seals containing him, holding him prisoner as his world ends once more—

Purple light taints everything, and Satoru finally finds it.

There, the point where all the seals meet, knitting itself closed until it's as if it had never been apart, as the Prison Realm's back door finishes processing him—

"Choke on this!" Satoru roars, pouring his all into Hollow Purple, Limitless flickering away for a second as he lets his technique fly—

The world is back, too bright, too intense, flashing through people and techniques and years as centuries rush past his Six Eyes in an eternity and a second all at once—

He screams again, crushing his head in his hands as his brain is overwhelmed by one thousand years of information flowing into it all at once, students, sorcerers and curses dying and being born and being destroyed over and over again as the Prison Realm's eyes close one by one under its weakening seal—

Mahito, Jogo, Hanami and Dagon reach for the curious one-eyed box – and the world ends.

He pants, warm liquid dripping past his parted lips, still curled into a silent scream. His eyes burn, blown too wide for too long, unblinking. Blood runs down his fingers, staining his sweaty hair from where his nails have dug into his own skin. His every muscle spasms, overcome by both fatigue and the remnants of cursed energy still burning through his veins. His ears ring, his hearing still useless with his heart beating painfully loud in his chest and eardrums. His lungs sting as they fill with dust, but his breathing, his panting, is too erratic to get enough air to cough it out.

He's dead. He's alive. The world ended. The world began again. Neither and both. Nothing and everything.

The dust stirs, a shadow falling over his unseeing eyes, a weight lands on his arm and another on his chin and pulls—

It feels hot and callused, like a hand, like something alive, and he finds the strength to take a deeper breath and blink.

Four wide red eyes come into focus amidst dust-stained tattooed skin, but when those bloodied lips open to speak, he hears nothing.

His ears are still ringing, his heart beating a staccato against his ribs, the noise swallowing everything up. He's not sure which is louder, actually, the ringing or the beat. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe the beat is felt rather than heard, maybe the ringing is inside his head, the scream still echoing in his skull.

The lips move again, repeating the same pattern, even as they curl into a fanged snarl that makes a trickle of dark blood drip past them. Again and again, they repeat the shape, with some others curving them as those four eyes move between his and the weight on his shoulder vanishes to tug his hands away from his bleeding head.

And then the hand on his chin moves to grasp the back of his neck, the face pressing closer to his own, and the lips make a new design—

"Satoru!"

He gasps, the name breaking through the millennium of history of a dying and rebirthing world that seems to have taken residence inside his head.

He remembers.

Gojo Satoru. The Strongest Sorcerer. Bearer of the Six Eyes and the Limitless technique.

The only human in a world of curses.

Sukuna's scowl twitches, as if it had been about to change into something else but thought better of it, when Satoru gasps and finally coughs the dust out of his lungs, his hands reaching for the King of Curses to anchor himself to something tangible, something real—

One of his hands lands on a forearm. The other finds nothing but empty air.

Satoru blinks further, his eyes still burning at the amount of cursed energy around and the overload of information he just finished processing, but he forces them to focus—

Sukuna's missing his whole right side, from his neck to halfway into his hip. His leg is still attached, but the way it lies under him, bent awkwardly, is proof enough that it is merely a temporary state.

"What…" Satoru rasps, looking up and trying not to choke on dust or his own bleeding throat—and yes, it's blood dripping past Satoru's lips, alongside too much drool for his own tastes.

The surrounding area is unrecognizable. There's nothing left of the forest beyond broken trunks and leaves fluttering to the ground. The broken bodies of the curses, previously strewn around all over the place, have been equally obliterated, splattered everywhere or simply nothing more than puddles of goo dripping down the upturned earth. Rocks keep falling from the sky all over the place, cracked and eaten through like an apple with a worm in it. The ground juts out impossibly in places, contrasted by the gigantic craters that have been carved into it, leaving collapsing arches that crumble under his very eyes.

It's like a vengeful god had stabbed down indiscriminately, a child pettily poking at those hated veggies their parents insist on filling their plate with.

Or like a Special Grade Sorcerer losing control in a spectacularly terrifying fashion.

Satoru can see the wisps of cursed energy sticking to the destruction, the residuals marking everything almost more violently than the dust settling down or the blood staining it all.

And they shine blue, and red, and purple.

The thing that was Tengen growls, crouched behind the broken bodies of Yuki and the Death Painting.

Yuki is still missing her right leg, but no one could say how she'd lost it now. Her whole lower body, from her solar plexus down, is gone, eaten through with a rawness to the injury that could have come only from Hollow Purple. She keeps herself up with her arms, her dead eyes still shining with the cursed energy keeping the puppets 'alive', but there are no constructs by her side anymore.

Choso is missing half his head, shredded by debris or Satoru's Red, judging by the damage and the shards of bone poking through. Both his forearms are gone too, though those cuts look like Sukuna's handiwork. His legs are still mostly whole, though there are chunks missing under the rips in his clothes, but he's not standing. The hole in his torso, as if something had eaten him from the inside out in a way that Satoru knows is Blue's doing, has taken his spine.

Tengen himself is missing the upper half of his head, only two of his ten eyes left, but again, that, and the slashes that have taken his arms and legs, are the result of Sukuna's techniques. There's a hole in his chest too, so alike Yuuji's after the Eishu Juvenile Detention Centre mission that Satoru doesn't need to ask.

The only way Tengen is alive, if weakened enough for Satoru to break out of the Prison Realm's back door, is due to his Immortality technique.

Why Sukuna didn't finish him off—

Oh. Probably because Satoru burst out at that moment and proceeded to go crazy with the information overload.

The Prison Realm had eyes on it, according to the chibis. Whether that was a result of its prisoner being Satoru or it was something normal… Well, the end result was that Satoru's Six Eyes saw everything that was happening outside while he was trapped in it. Only, with his Six Eyes contained behind their blindfold, he hadn't had the chance to process it all until he'd lost the blindfold – and returned to the world again.

The Prison Realm back door is also here… or, at least, one corner of it is. Impossible to break when it has a prisoner in it, it turns out the damned thing is as breakable as any other cursed tool when it has nothing to draw strength from. The front door was destroyed in the Hill of the Last Standing. And the back door has been destroyed here, in the barrage of uncontrolled techniques Satoru unleashed in his… well, his bout of insanity.

He's finally free, truly free. Nothing will trap him ever again.

The realization is so strong that Satoru's body tilts over, head thudding into Sukuna's bloodied chest.

And then, he giggles. Sukuna sighs, and if it sounds almost relieved, Satoru dismisses it as him projecting as a method to process the mess that is still his brain.

Exhausted as he is, Satoru still feels the flash of cursed energy at their side—

Sukuna slashes a hand and Choso is cleaved in half, blood arrow collapsing into a puddle. Another slash, another cut. And another. Another, another, another—

By the time Sukuna lets his arm drop to his side, Choso is nothing more than a pile of minced meat and pooling blood.

Tengen growls louder. Yuki sways on her shaking arms, but drags herself one step closer, a hint of one of her constructs curling over her shoulder—

Satoru lifts his hand this time, before Sukuna can even think about it.

This is Tsukumo Yuki. A human and fellow special grade sorcerer. Possessed by Tengen or who knows what, it doesn't change the fact that, like Suguru before her, this is Satoru's responsibility.

He curls his heart finger over his index before she can finish coalescing her construct—

And as Unlimited Void surrounds them, Tsukumo Yuki ceases to exist. It takes but one second in his Domain for her eyes to glaze over and her body to collapse into a pile of ashes. Tengen, on the other hand, still has his Immortality, so while his mind is as gone as Yuki's, his body holds on.

"Allow me," Sukuna whispers, a hand squeezing Satoru's shoulder.

For a second, he doesn't, still clinging to his responsibility, this is Tengen.

But then he huffs out something that is almost a laugh, and closes his eyes, allowing Unlimited Void to disappear.

"Goodbye, Jujutsu World," he whispers, opening his eyes in time to see Sukuna's own Domain Expansion expand across the landscape, darkness spreading like water while a monstruous toothed shrine rises over them—

Tengen is cut in bits so small that he's scattered by the wind like Yuki's ashes.

It's… liberating, almost.

The Jujutsu World is gone, Tengen has been laid to rest, and there is no more Prison Realm to threaten Satoru's freedom.

The barrier over their heads cracks – and explodes into uncountable glittering shards, raining over the ruined landscape like embers from a fireworks display.

Satoru straightens out of Sukuna's grip as the domain vanishes around them, shifting until they are leaning against each other's backs to keep themselves upright.

Satoru rests his head on Sukuna's remaining shoulder to stare at the fake stars floating down like burning snowflakes. With a huff of laughter, Sukuna lets his head fall on Satoru's shoulder in turn.

There's no Infinity separating them.

Satoru smiles.

JUJU STROLL!

"Domain Expansion!" Jogo exclaims, throwing his hands up as his cursed energy rushes all around him—

Nothing happens.

Just in case, Hanami, Mahito and Dagon look around, trying to see if the cursed energy—or the smoke—is changing anything about their surroundings… but no, the field at the foot of the Hill of the Last Standing stays as is.

"It's not working," Mahito pouts, and Jogo finally drops to his butt, panting harshly.

"Damnit! I thought I almost had it," he grumbles, leaning back into the grass, unbothered by the way a halo of ash forms around his head.

"Maybe you weren't concentrating enough?" Hanami asks, tilting his head, and earning himself a glare from Jogo.

"I was! Let's see you do it, then."

"Okay, let me try! Domaaaaaain…" Hanami starts, shifting into a more comfortable stance, pressing his hands in front of his chest.

"Expansion," Mahito prompts after a moment, but while Hanami twitches, he doesn't reply. "You have to say 'Domain Expansion', Hanami. Otherwise, it won't work."

Dagon burbles a question, swaying from side to side, and blushing madly, Hanami drops his hands.

"I was trying to concentrate! I didn't want to call it too soon and mess it all up. You need to visualize your Domain before you can bring it forth, after all," he protests, arms crossing against his chest as he pouts petulantly.

Dagon bounces excitedly, before he lets out a litany of gurgling and the occasional raspberry. Hanami tilts his head, dumbfounded, while Jogo sits up on his arms and gives Dagon a deadpan look. Mahito folds his hands behind his head, leaning back with curiosity in his mismatched eyes, and he's the first to open his mouth when Dagon is done.

"That doesn't sound like a Domain, Dagon. It sounds like a vacation spot," he comments, and Dagon flinches in surprise before he lies down on the grass, burbling in sadness.

"It doesn't matter what a Domain looks like, does it? The important bit are the techniques in it," Hanami points out, sitting next to Dagon to pat his back reassuringly.

"Yeah, but a sunny beach with palm trees doesn't sound like the kind of place that could have deadly techniques," Jogo grumbles, unimpressed, before he perks up and throws his arms up with a huge grin. "I want an active volcano! Fire and lava all around!"

"That sounds horrible!" Hanami squeals, hiding behind his hands, while Dagon gurgles questioningly.

"It's not someplace to have fun in, Dagon! I told you, it's got to be impressive, to strike fear in the hearts of my enemies!" Jogo laughs, almost maniacally if not for the higher pitch of his voice, and Mahito hums as he sways from side to side, staring at the sky.

"I don't know… I like what Hanami said, about the techniques. Like, say, in my Domain… In my Domain, you would probably be in the palm of my hand!" he exclaims with a cheerful grin, and Jogo stiffens with a tremulous grin.

"That… sounds pretty terrifying."

"See?"

"But what about the ambience?!" Jogo protests, blushing and smoking as he tries to prove his point, and Dagon waves his tentacles in agreement while Hanami shakes his head.

"I don't know. I still think the techniques should be the priority."

"What do you think Sukuna-sama's Domain is like? Or Mister Eyebox's?" Mahito asks after a moment, and the other three quit glaring at one another to think about the question.

"It's got to be something really amazing," Jogo whispers, eye alight in awe as he imagines various possibilities.

Dagon burbles out a long sigh, eyes closing in bliss as he rolls around the grass, earning a deadpan from Jogo and snickers from the other two.

"A shrine sounds stupid, Dagon. Why would either of them have something as peaceful as a Domain? It makes no sense," Jogo scoffs, crossing his arms against his chest, but Dagon simply rolls a bit more, ignoring him.

"I think they would be quite simple, actually. This way, the techniques in them would hit so much harder. No one would expect them!" Hanami proposes, throwing his arms up with a wide grin.

"Like, what, some kind of infinite void?" Mahito questions, leaning forward on his crossed knees, and Hanami hesitates.

"Well, maybe not that simple…"

"What kind of techniques would they have, anyway? I mean, Sukuna-ou can slash anything, everyone knows that, so the techniques in his Domain must have something to do with it," Jogo asks, leaning back on his hands to stare up at the sky. "But what about Gojo-sama? He's really fast, but what kind of techniques does he have? It can't be just speed, right?"

Dagon stops rolling around and looks up at Jogo with a gurgle. The other three turn to him in surprise.

"Do you really think so? I mean, that red lightning was impressive, and the way it ran all over the barrier was really amazing, but…" Hanami questions, hesitant, as Mahito and Jogo exchange pensive looks.

"Can Mister Eyebox shoot red lightning? All he's ever said is that he's faster than Sukuna-sama."

"Why are you asking me? But I guess… No one ever heard of a barrier-rattling technique until Gojo-sama popped out of the box. And everyone knows Sukuna-ou is one of the few curses who can cross the barrier without being exorcised," Jogo reasons, once more tilting his head back to look at the clouds.

A moment later, the other three follow his gaze too, lying down on the grass.

"I think it's stupid," Mahito finally speaks up after a while, squirming in his spot, but the others simply hum questioningly, too comfortable to move. "I mean, break the barrier? It's been there for forever. If anyone could break the barrier, it would be Sukuna-sama. And he can't. So, there's no way Mister Eyebox can break it. What's he going to do anyway, run at it very fast?"

"I once ran so fast down the corridor that I ran straight through the paper door," Hanami points out, and blushes once he hears Jogo and Dagon snicker at his sides. "I was a cursed womb! I know better now!"

"Barriers aren't paper doors anyway. There's no way they would break as easily as that," Jogo comments once he's done laughing, squirming into a more comfortable slump on the grass.

And then the barrier cracks – and breaks into tiny glittering dots that float slowly to the ground, like flower petals.

"… Mahito, you lost the bet."

AN: Remember the mention of 'plot' from last installment? Yeah, it was leading to this... and to what's coming next. Up until now, all that's happened was me rolling the snowball up the hill. From this episode on, it will roll.

And talking about rolling... I need ideas for Juju Strolls. I have some of them, more or less plot-oriented, ready for the next installments, but I'm running out of ideas. I don't want to just 'copy' the ones from the show, either, so I could use some ideas about what to do with them. The next installment will probably give you all some more material to play with, in regards to that, but if you have something I could use thought about already, I'll take it (and give due credit, of course). Thanks in advance!

On another note, did anyone notice the theme behind the titles yet? I'll put a list next installment, for everyone who is wondering.