Ann:

- Makima (most likely) won't appear in person again, but maybe I'll take someone else from Public Safety.

- I get notifs again. Didn't know they added an option to disable them lol.

- Spoilers about Pochita. Spoilers about Junpei (JJK Pre-Shibuya).

- This chapter, Sukuna. Mind a bit of animal cruelty in the later part.

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Late in the night, Denji wouldn't be able to tell whether today had been a heavenly or nightmarish day. It certainly had had its ups and downs, and Denji had been wide awake for good parts of it. Even though he had messed up in front of the good-looking woman from Public Safety, today he'd won with Nobara; and even though letting the Chainsaw man out earlier had made Denji feel like shit because of blood loss, literal heaven had awaited him at his return to the dorms.

Seemed pretty well-balanced to him. Better than other days in his life.

(And that was only the things Denji knew of.

Had he known that today's mission's success had ensured his life, or rather suspended his death sentence, Denji might've said that today was a great day. With today, he had cheated himself out of dying for the second time, after all.

And if he knew what had transpired after he had passed out during fighting training against Itadori in the evening, he might've re-evaluated that judgement again.)

But all in due time.

During their ride back to Jujutsu High's dorms, Denji felt like shit. Not just because of how he kept messing up his first impression on hot women and destroying his life, but because every time he let out the Chainsaw man, he lost a lot of blood and felt weak and dazed afterwards.

At least neither Inumaki nor Gojo had bothered Denji on their way back. Where the sensei had sent Panda and Maki, Denji didn't know. He couldn't find it in himself to really care right now either.

All negativity aside because Denji had to focus on the positive aspects, at least he now had the goods, only for himself. Denji had them safely tucked away in his socks and felt the paper pages poke against his calves in an awkward angle, but it was the only place he could keep them on himself and still safe and clean. That or in his underwear; but in a split moment, Denji had decided it would've been too awkward to walk with magazines in his underwear. And he really didn't want Toge to hold onto them any longer than necessary. These dirty magazines were Denji's and his alone.

Back at the dorms, Denji was met with another pleasant surprise born out of misery. Because his room had been demolished by Panda earlier and thus under construction until the evening, Denji couldn't go back there properly. He only entered to stash away his treasure, get a change clothes - and then Denji was offered heaven.

"Wash up and then join the others, Denji" Gojo had said as good-bye to Denji, rationally calm for a change. "Inumaki, go check up with Shoko. I don't want to take any risks at the moment."

"Salmon."

So, because Denji's room was under construction, Denji had to use the public facilities. It turned out that Tokyo Jujutsu High was more prestigious than Denji had expected and had its own hot spring. Which Denji had all to himself right now.

"Oooh fuck yes!" Denji dropped his dirty clothes to the floor and did a cannonball, nearly passing out because of his impact on the water. Dazed, Denji pulled through the water to the pool's edge where he could see stone seats underwater and stretched out on them, trying to steady his breathing.

Then he heard them.

"Aaaah that feels so good! All my muscles are so sore from that mission ..."

"I could give your muscles are good rub if you want to. But you will have to return the favour."

The male and female dorms of Jujutsu High were located with properly enough distance from each other, but from the sounds of it, somewhere close-by they shared parts of the hot spring or were at least close enough to each other to hear one another. Whoever was bathing in some distance was close enough that Denji could hear them. He couldn't see the girls (wouldn't have been able to if he tried), or take any guess who they were, but hearing their chattering, squealing and splashes of water in the silence of the male hot springs was … nice.

Better yet: as Denji didn't recognize any of the voices or names dropped, they filled him with hope for the future. Not all was lost for his relationship status if Jujutsu High was bigger than he had originally thought. Getting a girlfriend was not impossible after all. The thought got Denji's blood bumping and lifted his spirits again.

If Denji didn't feel so dizzy, he would've enjoyed himself more for sure. Instead, he contented himself with throwing glances to where the female voices were coming from and washed off the grime and blood in happy silence.

The range of soaps offered was sooo fucking cool. Denji couldn't tell what half of them smelled like, but he tried them all of them for good measure. If that soap smelled good, and the other soap smelled good, then Denji would smell double so good!

When Denji was finished washing up, his hair was so silky and felt smooth like female skin (at least as smooth as it looked; Denji wouldn't know its actual feel because he hadn't had the opportunity to test his assumptions - yet). Also, Denji smelled good like never before in his life.

This alone restored a good chunk of his confidence. Maybe now Denji could make a good first impression on his upper classmates (or whoever the women bathing in their own hot springs were to him in terms of hierarchy).

Denji got out of the water carefully, still wobbly on his feet, and walked a wide circle around the stinky, dirty mess he'd left around this side of the onsen. He got dressed in a new set of school uniform, blow-dried his hair, and stared at the range of lotions offered at the exit. Not that he planned to use any, but he had no idea what there were so many lotions for anyway. Couldn't you just use one for your entire body? What's the big idea?

When Denji walked out feeling like a new man from the hot springs, he realized that Gojo had never told him where to join the others. Plus, Jujutsu High was a big unexplored place Denji was unfamiliar with yet, and there wasn't anyone around to ask for help. Should he just walk around aimlessly? Denji didn't feel like doing that, not with how weak he felt.

Denji's hand wandered to his chest. Pochita might've known where to go. Pochita's nose was good, and he had sniffed out some valuable stuff here and there. Denji's nose was shit, he couldn't smell anything. So no following rule one, the just-trust-in-himself (as long as he had a head on his shoulders).

Except …

A brilliant idea came to Denji's mind and made him pause. He knew where he could find people to ask for directions. And he didn't even need to go far to meet them! And he looked his best right now, so he could go and make brilliant first impressions. And maybe - just maybe - he could also land a closer acquaintance or two?

Denji silently congratulated himself for such a brilliant idea.

His way led him out of the men's dorms, along its long window front, in direction of what Denji hoped the women's dorms were in. One day he'd navigate these grounds easily, he was sure of it. Denji wasn't experienced with the whole relationship stick, but he was very experienced with survival. Didn't people say that love was war? That meant that knowing your turf was important in both fields.

Denji rounded the corner and pumped a fist. Far ahead, hidden away behind sparse parts of forest, Denji saw another dorm building that looked exactly like the one he was leaving behind. Bingo! Now, how should he approach the first meeting? Just waltz in and ask for help? Pretend to be lost outside the dorm building and hope the girls would find him themselves? Technically, he didn't even have to pretend to be lost - he was lost.

"I wonder if Todou found the new one yet," a raspy voice somewhere close-by carried over to Denji and made him look around in surprise. The one speaking didn't care about her volume, and in the silence of the forest she was clearly audible. However, Denji recognized the voice from the onsen. "Hey, you. What's your type of woman? Remember how Todou took Fushiguro apart for his answer? Hah, maybe I should leave you two snails behind and go seek them out to watch. I wanna see the beating."

"I thought you liked us, Mai-san," a higher-pitched voice piped up in answer. Denji thought she sounded like a canary bird. "Why are you always so mean?"

Diagonally ahead on the path, Denji spotted the two figures and quickly ducked behind the nearest tree. His heart was racing in his chest. He hadn't expected them to be out of their dorms so quickly. What was he supposed to do now? What would be the perfect first meeting?

"Aaaah dear sweet Kasumi," the first voice spoke again, and to his shock, Denji could clearly make out the sound of a revolver being cocked. He pressed harder against the bark, and his hand wandered to his chest to unbutton the upper buttons. Enemies? "I only come here with you two because we get to deplete Jujutsu High's resources for free."

"Gotcha!" a third voice suddenly came from above Denji and made him jump back with flailing arms, away from the tree. He stumbled backwards as his head shot up - and then he saw the blonde girl in the tree's crown, staring down at him haughtily. "Just as Mai was talking about the devil."

No, not in the tree's crown. The blonde girl, whose hair looked like the ends of Nobara's straw voodoo dolls, was sitting on a broom, hidden away in the branches, slowly lowering herself to the ground. A witch?

"A pity. Todou hasn't found you yet." The other women stepped out from behind the tree. They had known that Denji was here from the very beginning, he realized. Should he fight?

The witch, who floated several arm's length above the ground, wasn't armed by the looks of it, but who knew what spells witches knew to use? Denji couldn't rule out that she knew some crazy magic. The canary girl, a blue-haired woman in a suit that distantly reminded Denji of Public Safety, had a katana strapped to her waist, her hand on its hilt, ready to draw the blade, something he could counter as chainsaw man (if he weren't so weak right now). But the woman next to her had lifted a loaded revolved to point the barrel at Denji and keep his hands from reaching for Pochita's tail.

With a huff, the short-haired woman cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at Denji. Somehow, this was extremely familiar. She reminded Denji of ...

"Maki?" Exclaiming his thought, Denji pointed a finger even though he knew that he wasn't supposed to be pointing fingers at people with guns. But the glare and the resemblance were uncanny, and considering how strange Jujutsu High was, maybe people knew how to make doppelgangers or some shit.

"Oh, you're a friend of Maki's? How boring." With the tip of her tongue sticking out between her lips, she loosely targeted the ground at Denji's feet, making him step on one place with growing worry about what to do. Sometimes, bored people were more dangerous than aggressive ones because they came up with dangerous hobbies to overcome their boredom. Some of the yakuza had been like this. Were these girls the same?

"Mai-san, please stop." The blue-haired girl maybe not. Denji watched the girl in suit straighten up but also noticed that her hand didn't leave the hilt of her katana. "Last time, you almost got banned from ever entering school grounds again."

"Is Maki here?" Mai asked, pretending as if she hadn't heard the other girl's words.

"I don't know." Denji shrugged, eyes going back and forth between the two girls as the girl in suit put a heavy hand on Mai's arm to make her lower her revolver. He really hoped that Mai didn't have a light finger that could accidentally pull the trigger because he didn't feel like dying today.

"She went somewhere after the mission," he quickly went on, hoping to smooth out the situation. "At the hospital. I think Gojo said that -"

A ripple of change went through the atmosphere, almost tangible with bare hands, making Denji break off at the sensation in confusion. Before Mai could give an answer, the blue-haired girl jumped towards Denji, eyes shining in contest with the sun.

"Gojo sensei?!" she squealed with trembling hands pressed to her chest, probably surprising everybody present by the looks of it. "Is Gojo sensei back in Jujutsu High? Do you think I can meet him?"

"Eeeh …? Eeeeeeeh ..." Denji stared, the cogs in his head turning, but the blonde witch, which had been silently observing, reacted first. She lowered her legs to the ground, and now Denji could imagine why she had kept floating several arm's length above ground. The girl with the stiff pigtails was standing as the smallest among them now. She had to put her head back to talk up to them.

"Kasumi, tone down the fangirl?" she asked and made a vague gesture at Denji, who grimaced back at her with an audible bleh!. He had decided that he didn't like her style. "You don't even know who that is."

"Hey, that's not cool!" Denji declared loudly to draw their attention back to him and put his hands on his hips, tilting back his head. "Gojo is here! And my name's Denji. I'm a first-year here."

"Hm." Mai finally stopped pointing her revolver at Denji and lifted its barrel to rest over her shoulder. She mirrored his confident stance, stepped closer to Denji and leaned forward, making Denji's breath hitch. "You have remarkable cursed energy, Denji."

"Uuuuh ... thank you?" Denji didn't know where to look, especially with how Mai looked down his face to where he had unbuttoned the first buttons of his shirt. The arch of her lips was pretty. It curled upwards into a mocking smile but otherwise, she was as beautiful as Maki was.

"A bit weak. It's thanks to sweet Momo's help that we found you at once. But remarkable," Mai said.

Ghost fingers ran along Denji's skin, up his arms and into his freshly washed hair. Remarkable, she said. She had called him remarkable.

"Are you ... alright?" Momo, the witch, piped up with an unreadable expression, and Denji dropped his eyes from Mai to her. Maybe the high he was feeling wasn't completely just from ascending because of a compliment, but because the adrenaline was wearing off again.

"I feel weak," Denji confessed and as if to prove his point, his stomach rumbled. He pressed a hand on it. "I need food. Do you know where the cafeteria is?"

Mai straightened up, and Denji now noticed that she was taller than him. Not by much. But taller.

"Yeah. That's where we were headed too. Let's show him the way, shall we, girls?"

-x

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[In the cafeteria, Denji had the best toast ever: strawberry jam, plum jam, marmelade, butter, honey, cinnamon … but that seems like a story best told a different time.]

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Nothing good came for free. Denji knew that. He also knew that if everything's shit, then anything that happened afterwards had to be good (as long as it was better than the shit, at least). They said, down at the bottom, the only way was up.

Like anything around here, the shit started with Satoru Gojo. He walked into the cafeteria like he belonged here, plopped down on the seat next to Nobara and slung an arm around the back of her chair, leaning his upper body back so far that his head almost folded over the back of his own chair. If not for Nobara's deadly gaze at Gojo paired with Fushiguro and Itadori's resigned ones, Denji might've started a fight for her.

"Is that allowed?" Denji asked angrily instead.

"Hm?" Gojo lifted his head back into a healthy position. He noticed the hostile stares. "Oh, even if Kugisaki wanted to touch me, there's Infinity between us, so she couldn't, don't worry. Wanna test it? Here." He removed his arm from behind Nobara and extended it over the tabletop to Denji, waving it from side to side and wiggling his fingers. "Try touching me, Denji."

"Urgh, no. I'm not holding hands with a guy." Denji made a face, and Gojo laughed.

"Even if you wanted to, there's Infinity between us. You couldn't," he repeated, and snapped his fingers, now pointing at Denji as if he had just had an idea (most people feared Gojo having ideas).

"By the way, Denji! Thanks to your reliable upperclassmen, or should I say, upperclasswoman and Panda?, we now know one thing! Public Safety was interested in soul-altering abilities in certain cursed spirits, that's why they were at the hospital too. The transfigured souls are loud evidence in this case, but we don't know whether Public Safety has the same interest for Denji as for Mahito. Do they classify you as cursed spirit, Denji? And what would they base their assumption on?"

So ... what?, Denji wanted to ask but out came: "Huh?"

"Mahito?" Yuuji, sitting at Denji's side, asked darkly, and Denji froze at the wave of bloodlust that swept over him from that side. Denji turned his head, wide-eyed, and mouthed, "What the fuck."

"Mahito," Gojo nodded, seemingly immune to the dark atmosphere that suddenly clouded the table.

"But why would they be interested in Denji?", Fushiguro asked, still chewing calmly on his sandwich. Denji couldn't be the only one who felt this immensely burdening pressure coming from Itadori, right?

"I'm glad you asked, Megumi! As I mentioned already, Public Safety's only interested in soul-altering abilities. But if they're interested in Denji, he must have his own cursed energy that is related to souls in some way. Like Aoi's or Yuuji's Black Flash or talented Nobara's cursed technique. Nanamin's idea, not mine. Sooooo, to get some answers, I think that for the celebration of today's mission's success, we should," Gojo clapped into his hands, "have some one-versus-one combat training!"

And that's how Denji ended up having to fight Itadori late in the evening.

The rest weren't even watching. Somewhere on the side of the training field, Denji could distantly hear Miwa chat up Gojo for an autograph (which he signed happily), and Fushiguro and Kugisaki were rather talking than watching Denji and Yuuji's fight. Maki and Panda had recently come back from their mission, so they didn't have to be here, and the three girls from Kyoto Jujutsu High, the partner school, had returned to their school too (minus Miwa).

"Denji, focus on the fight, will ya?" Itadori moaned and lifted his fists back in front of his face, doing little jumps on the spot. They had been going back and forth this entire time, Itadori insisting that Denji wasn't doing his best. It pissed Denji off.

"What's the fun?" Again, Denji bridged their distance, grabbed Itadori by the shoulders and tried to drive his knee into Itadori's soft parts, but Itadori easily saw it coming. With his inhuman strength, he diverted the attack, kicked at Denji's shin to bring him to his knees, and jumped back with a sigh.

"Remember what I said before? You need to focus your cursed energy. Plus, that's the fourth time you tried to hit my nuts," Yuuji observed drily. "It's not going to work, man."

Denji clenched his jaws. "It's the only right way. I always kick dick."

"Switch it up?"

"No. Nuts or nothing."

Itadori mumbled something under his breath, and Denji believed to hear "stubborn like Todou," but had no idea who that was. Why was everybody mentioning that guy today? The girls from Kyoto had as well.

"Remember the cursed corpse I told you about, the principal's one?" Itadori gave up his fighting stance but kept on jumping up and down. "You don't wanna go through that training, trust me. It was all about maintaining a steady output of cursed energy. But listen, we can work with something more like Black Flash. You need to coat your fist with your cursed energy."

Cursed energy. What even was cursed energy? Denji thought these people used the term quite loosely but never explained what it actually was. How was he supposed to use something like that? Though ...

Denji thought back to the wave of bloodlust he'd felt from Itadori earlier. Denji had never felt something like this before. That? Was that cursed energy? It hadn't felt familiar to Denji but nobody else had seemed to mind, so that could very well be this cursed energy. So ... what then? Denji couldn't think of anyone he'd want to have dead very badly right now.

"Try ... try thinking about something negative in your life. Channel it. Then punch me again." Itadori tapped his temple, ignorant to Denji's train of thought. "It can be anything."

Anything?

"That's annoying. Can't we just stop?" Denji rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, hanging his head. He'd rather go to bed now instead of wasting his time on the field against Itadori. Plus, the others on the side still weren't watching. Instead, Kugisaki was petting Fushiguro's divine dog, while Fushiguro was talking avidly to Gojo. Denji felt a stone fall into the pit of his stomach.

"That's a beginning! Annoying is good. Focus on that annoyance," Itadori encouraged him, but Denji didn't hear him.

Wasn't it unfair?, Denji thought, staring at the divine dog and how it wiggled its tail. His hand went to the cord in his chest, where Pochita's tail was dangling from his heart.

Just because Fushiguro had a dog, Nobara paid attention to him and not Denji. But when Denji still had had Pochita, no girl had ever looked at him twice. Wasn't that unfair?

The longer Denji thought about it, the more it seemed unfair to him. And now, he didn't even have Pochita anymore. Pochita may not have scored Denji any girls. But were Pochita here, Pochita would've watched Denji. Pochita would've understood Denji. Pochita would've been happy for Denji because Pochita was the best pet, friend and companion Denji ever had.

Denji slowly clenched his hands into fists. He wished this to be over, so that he could go to sleep and think about everything tomorrow. He wished he could have Pochita back.

Denji fell into a crouch and punched out at Itadori's waist level, aiming for the usual spot. This time, contact with Itadori's defensive stance felt different. When their hands clashed, Denji didn't feel like his punch connected with a body. For a second, he felt an immense pull at his heart and saw Itadori's face twitch in confusion, hard black lines drawn across his face, then Denji just ... collapsed.

He lost his consciousness and fell like a stringless puppet to the ground.

-x

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Oppressive darkness. An enormous pile of skeletons only visible because of how white the bones were. The dripping of water against a still lake. Or no, not water.

Blood.

The surroundings were hot and cold at the same time, hostile and barren. Except for the bones, a body lying in the sea face up, and a small orange creature seated next to it with its paws against the body's chest, only the consciousness' owner existed within this realm.

The owner wasn't pleased about the interruption. Not that Sukuna was busy doing anything, sitting away the time inside of Itadori's existence until he felt it was the right time to take over his body. But nobody - and he stressed, nobody - was allowed to touch his soul. First, there had been this pesky low spirit that could change its shape at any time and that had touched Sukuna's soul twice. The insolence!

And now this, a direct attack of something, their bodies trash in Sukuna's domain.

Sukuna wouldn't have looked twice at those pesky intruders and simply added the motionless human body to his pile of skeletons with a flick of his wrist robbed of its flesh, but before he could swing his lifted fingers and set his plan into action, Sukuna felt a wave of something terrifying wash over him.

He paused.

Over more than 1000 years, Ryomen Sukuna hadn't known the word "terrifying" in his vocabulary other than the word being used to describe him (though he had to say, mortals knew more flattering adjectives than just "terrifying"). But when this presence washed over him, a dead part of Sukuna came alive again like a zombie and reminded him of a time before he rose to the top as the king of curses.

He hated that.

"I remember you," Sukuna said and rose from his throne of skulls. One step, and he stood at the body in the pool of blood and looked down at the creatures at his feet. One frail boy and one putrid dog. From up this close, Sukuna almost couldn't feel the danger come from the dog anymore.

Almost.

"You were the ultimate devil hunter when I was a human sorcerer. Now that I'm the King of Curses, you are nothing."

With a contemptful tsk, Sukuna kicked out and sent the chainsaw devil flying through the darkness. The chainsaw devil yelped, landed somewhere far away in the pool with a splash, but came running back with a growl in its throat immediately. Because its legs were so short, it could only jump through the water or sink in, its speed one of a sun crossing the sky.

And Sukuna had thought this was terrifying?

"Once, you were the Hero of Hell. But look at you. What are you now?" Sukuna actually felt disappointed. Sukuna hated feeling disappointed. "Pathetic."

Sukuna doubled down and picked up the blond boy by the neck, lifting him at eye-level to look at the unconscious face. He felt the chainsaw devil hit his legs with an angry bark, reached down with his other hand and picked it up by its scruff, ignoring how its chainsaw came to life.

"Leave him alone!" the devil yelled, but the former Hero of Hell was in no condition to pick a fight with the powerful King of Curses, even if Sukuna hadn't regained his full strength yet. Interesting though that the former Hero of Hell seemed to care so much for this human. Why did it though? Sharing a body with a human was the most boring shit in the world. Sukuna would know.

"Why did you make a pact with this loser and restore his heart when you got nothing back of it?" Sukuna asked and shook the boy, grinning at the devil's mounting protest. At least he, Sukuna, had made a good deal with his vessel in exchange for restoring the vessel's heart.

No way the chainsaw devil was … emotional? Or thought kindly about this boy? Oh, but if that were the case - emotional characters were so much fun to break …

Sukuna was bored, so terribly bored. Would killing the boy bring him satisfaction? It would need to be some cruel way to torture the chainsaw devil, to draw out the pleasure so that Sukuna had more of it. If it was as much fun as it had been with Itadori and that one other boy who died, Sukuna would do it.

But ... the chainsaw devil was so weak, Sukuna would get no satisfaction from it at all.

Sukuna thought of something different. He lifted the struggling former Hero of Hell to his face, his grin growing devilishly.

"I want a contract with you," Sukuna said, digging his sharp nails into the devil's fur. Sukuna had had some respect for the Hero of Hell and his past deeds. He was sure that even at his prime, Sukuna would've still bested him. And well, Sukuna's respect counted for something.

"I will spare his life," Sukuna said and lifted the boy up some more. The chainsaw devil froze. "You will use my mercy and get back to the height of your power. Then, I will destroy you properly. I want a good fight. If you refuse, I will use my vessel to hunt this boy wherever he is. And I will make sure that his death will be slow and painful when I find him. Maybe I'll make it worse than death. And you will watch."

He released the chainsaw devil and pressed the blond boy closer to himself, drawing two fingers from the boy's neck to his heart. The pressure wasn't enough to draw blood, but Sukuna could easily change that.

"Do we have a deal?"

-x

(…)

-x

Denji woke up with a splitting headache, disoriented. His chest hurt. His heart was beating too fast. His neck felt like somebody had suffocated him.

He needed a handful of seconds before he could place the faces hovering above his head. A pretty girl, a sea urchin, a blindfold.

Right, Jujutsu High. Fighting training.

"What happened?" Denji croaked and hid his face in his hands. If not for the headache, he might've enjoyed the worry on their faces for him. But the pain overrode the joy, unfortunately.

"No more training with Yuuji, Denji," Gojo said in answer way too chipper, slapped his palms against his thighs and straightened up. The slap reverberated through Denji's brain and made his ears ring. "It seems that your soul-altering abilities don't resonate well with Yuuji!"

"Do you remember what he said?" Itadori looked to Gojo sharply, prompting Denji to wonder what he'd missed. He didn't remember anything between feeling extremely annoyed during the fight and now waking again, Nobara's cool hands pressed against his temples. It was as if she was trying to keep his head from splitting apart. Oh, was the frown between her brows worry for him?

"He?" Denji echoed, trying to pierce the darkness in his memory.

"Maybe nothing happened," Gojo mused. "Anyway, good that you live, Denji! Had us worried there. Oh, and also, you will be training with Nobara and Maki from now on," he decreed. Even Gojo didn't know what had happened in Itadori's consciousness when Denji's and Yuuji's cursed energies clashed, but he sure as hell wouldn't want to repeat an encounter with Sukuna like this.

And Denji? Denji might not know what exactly had happened, with his mind still being slow to catch on and all. But hearing that instead of having to fight Itadori he'd get to train with Nobara and Maki, he couldn't believe his luck.