Chapter 8

Yuuji woke to the commotion. There was a lot of screaming and yet, he couldn't understand why at the moment, until he heard. "DAD!"

Instantly, he snapped out of bed and rushed out of the room. Kiyoshi… was aged again!

In fact, he appeared to be fourteen now.

"Kiyoshi?"

"Dad… I swear I wasn't trying to make myself older!" he said. "But dad…" he peered over to the twin's room.

Yuuji rushed in and found the twins were no longer babies.

"Yuuji… what happened to our children?" Yuko whispered with worry.

Peering down, they were no more than four years old.

"WHO THE FUCK MESSED WITH MY BABIES!?"

"Looks like Suiryu has the same troubles." Yuuji whispered.

"Yuuji…"

"We got to get to the bottom of this," he rushed outside but found that they were not the only ones affected. In fact, most of the children were. However, the ones who aged the most were Yua's.

"What… what happened… what's going on?!" Yuuji whispered in disbelief.

Yua on the other hand, her eyes stared at Sukuna. "You…" she whispered angrily.

Sukuna peered over to her. "Yua, let me explain something…"

"IT WAS YOU!" she shouted. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

Her voice rattled windows…

Yuuji even froze in fear from her tone! Suiryu too!

Sukuna however kept himself rather calm as he let Yua shout at him. When she finished he sighed. "Can I explain now?"

"There better be a damn good reason for this! Quite frankly, I doubt there is a good enough reason for you to go OVER MY HEAD and AGE MY BABIES without ASKING ME!"

Silence.

There was silence.

Sukuna sighed once more. "We're in a race against time…"

"Is this seriously about saving your own ass?!" she demanded of him.

"NO!" he snapped back at her. "From what I endured with Kenjaku a short while ago made me realize we are not ready to go against him or the council. What we are doing is merely allowing them to bide their time and plan. No matter who we take out, who is killed, they are quickly replaced since the sorcerers are idiots!" he protested. "At the same time, with what has been going on with Shin, he couldn't handle the curse energy. Don't you think it is strange that a mere baby can sense and be aware of curse energy when it is suppose to awaken and manifest when he is five?" he demanded of her.

"Get to your point!" she snapped back at him. "YOU never talked about this with ME!"

"Because you would have said no," he replied rather respectfully. "Yua, understand that this is for the greater good. Those who have aged did so carefully, the jujutsu used was made by your family over a thousand years ago in case of an emergency."

She stared at him bewildered. "WHAT WAS THE GODDAMN EMERGANCY?!" she roared.

"Answer her, you have to answer to us too, it affected my kids as well!" Yuuji protested.

"Itadori…" Yua whispered.

"Mine too, they're four!" Suiryu shouted but glared at Sukuna. "This… is going too far. To think for a moment we thought you were changing for the better and you pull this shit!"

"Those who were getting stronger couldn't control their abilities, I've been noticing it more and more and the teachers here knew too, right curse corpse?" he asked as his glare came upon Panda.

He was taken aback, but merely nodded. "They were learning fast, at the same time, I saw them look to be in pain trying to control their growing curse energy…"

"How is that even possible though?" Gojo demanded. "I didn't see it happen!"

"Growth happens within the body, not outside of it. You can see the flow of it naturally, however you cannot sense it when it is contained within the body. There have been spurts I have noticed from the students, I keep track of those who are getting stronger as well as the doctor's reports as the children go to her when they are unwell. Don't think just because I am not doing anything, that means I do nothing!" he snapped back.

"Why… didn't you tell me?" she asked of him more gently but at the same time, she was still visibly upset. "You could have said something, I knew NOTHING about this."

"You are burdened enough as it is." Sukuna said. "And you know I don't do anything unless it is necessary. Why would I give a shit to these children who I have no connection to?"

Yua was silent.

"Why my children? They had no jujutsu. Kiyoshi even aged again… he looks like me before this whole shit show happened!" Yuuji protested.

"I don't control who absorbs what," Sukuna snapped back. "Your brats are just sponges for this, but, since they are growing in power, it aged them slightly. Their growth didn't trigger a greater aging within them."

"I still smell bullshit," growled Suiryu.

"Believe what you want, I know what I did is for the greater good of the children!" Sukuna snapped back. He peered over to Shin who was looking at him oddly. "You in particular, I noticed when you were so small, you were getting headaches but couldn't express it. Do you have a headache now?"

Shin shook his head. "No Uba," he said gently. "I feel a lot better… before, everything hurt…"

Yuuji froze, as Yua appeared devastated. She couldn't tell her child was hurting…

"It affected the other children since they too were growing stronger. But their bodies couldn't keep up. There would have been a terrible incident had this happened all at once, but this way, they are adjusted and can handle their abilities now and techniques. I did this since this very thing happened to me!"

There was muttering among the teachers. Yuuji didn't fully believe what has happened before him. Suiryu was still pissed off with it all. "This won't happen again, right?" he demanded of Sukuna.

"That jujutsu was a one time use, not even I can replicate it."

Yua sighed aloud as she appeared to think over what to do now. "Yua…" Gojo said gently.

With a deep breath she turned to the teacher. "Nobara, Maki, Choso, can I trouble you three to go out and get new clothing for everyone, buy out a store at this point. I don't really care…"

"Ooo mall outing!" cheered the wives of the curse wombs. "Mind if we go along?"

"The more the merrier, also you can bring back far more supplies. Please do," Yua said aloud. But her glare came upon Sukuna, "We need to talk about this later, for now… I can't speak to you without erupting."

Yuuji noticed that Sukuna didn't appear the least but upset to her reaction, he nodded and agreed to speak with her later. He excused himself, but everyone glared at him.

When he was gone, Yua turned to her children. She embraced them and apologized for what had happened. "I'm so sorry…" she wept.

Shin held her. "Momma, it's okay… I actually like being big." Shin said and smiled.

"Big boy, I'm a big boy!" Rook called.

"Me too!" decreed Mochi.

"You're a big girl," Gojo said in a correcting tone.

"I wanna be a big boy too!" she protested, if anything, she helped lighten the mood!