Chapter: There's Another Me

Summary: One last threat, one last hurdle. One last sacrifice.

Rating: M

Warning: Canon-typical violence, character death, emotional roller coaster.

"Winter is coming," Satoru whispers, staring up at the humongous veil in front of them.

"Autumn," Sukuna corrects, not even bothering to turn around from where he's talking with Fuwa. "The Holy Wings migrate south in autumn and north in spring. Were you listening at all when we explained that?"

"Once we're done with this, we need to visit the library again," Satoru answers instead with a grin, and Sukuna groans and buries his face in a hand as he realizes what is going on.

"Can you refrain from stupid quotes for once?"

"No."

"Then learn to. This is serious," he emphasizes, making eye contact again through the bandages Fuwa graciously donated to the let-Sukuna-recover-his-obi cause as soon as they linked to Minakami Han'ei, the northernmost colony.

And yes, it is serious. The world has changed enough in this past millennium, to the point of giving rise to beasts as previously unimaginable as are ugoku-yamas and rikugyo fishes, both of which Satoru has yet to see in a shape that isn't food. They must be completely new animals though, else Sukuna would have told Satoru that they are, oh, elephants, or something.

… Wait. Does Sukuna know what elephants are?

"Sukuna, do you know what's an elephant?"

"What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I do," Sukuna hisses, insulted, eyes ablaze as his claws twitch in annoyance, and Satoru laughs disarmingly and shelves that thought.

So, yeah. Completely new fauna and flora. At first glance, Satoru would just say there are some tropical trees mixed in with the regular greenery… but then he notices the vine-like tentacles and the pus oozing off the bark, or the large and oddly colored flowers, and realizes he's wrong.

Which brings him back to what should have been his first thought in all this.

Holy Wings.

While most curses—or sentient curses, at least—were restricted inside the colonies, the world changed beyond them. But there was one more barrier in Japan besides Tengen's, and that would be the one keeping Hokkaido, the most spiritual region, cut off from the rest of the world.

And unlike Tengen's, this last barrier didn't fall with the human-turned-curse's death.

Holy Wings are the only known creature that inhabits the 'Holy Land', and that's because they are the only ones that leave it. Apparently, they are some sort of butterflies that perform a migration every year, to and from Hokkaido and somewhere beyond Kyushu's southern border. Maybe to Okinawa, or to the Satsunan Islands. And as the name implies, they are deadly to anything with cursed energy.

Problem is, they are less positive cursed energy, like Kouhai, and more cleansing talisman.

Which is where the problem comes from. Any kind of cursed technique that tries to hit them will vanish, canceled by whatever makes them 'holy'. And the same applies to any curse who dares attempt physical contact.

Plus, while they are deadly to the curse population of Japan, they are a vital part of the ecosystem. So, they can't just destroy them all and let it all go like nothing.

They could try to put some temporary barriers around the colonies again, but everyone is still mostly wrung dry after fixing the Link, so they don't have the reserves for such another monumental task. And the Holy Wings' very nature would make that point moot. The only reason Tengen's barriers worked was because they were human barriers, when he set them up, and the Holy Wings just… didn't care about them, or something. No Yagami left their colony during Holy Wing Migration, so they can't explain how that worked, which means they can't mimic it now.

"Well, I never got to see the end of Game of Thrones—not that I wanted to, mind you, it got bad—so I don't know how to stop the White Walkers. But these aren't White Walkers, they're butterflies. So… put a net around the colonies? You know, your old and trusty rope-woven nets, or however nets are made," Satoru suggests, lifting his hands up to shrug, and Sukuna facepalms again while Fuwa blinks, blank-faced.

"What's the game of thrones? Can we play it?"

"No," Sukuna shoots the idea down with, though the claw he lifts threateningly is, for some reason, aimed at Satoru rather than Fuwa. "Stop it with those stupid references. And we don't have time for those nets," he adds, before his glare turns pensive as he looks at Fuwa. "Do we?"

"Not in Han'ei. Everything south of Victory might. Maybe even Yukatana-wan. But Han'ei and Fukyuu no Tochi are too far north. Besides, how high would we have to make those? And how small? They would have to be like fishing nets, and those take far longer to make."

"Then we better get started. We will prioritize sending finished strips to Minakami Han'ei, and then Yukatana-wan. If all colonies pull their weight, we might yet make it," Sukuna whispers, serious, as he glares at the 'White Wall'.

They're standing at Cape Tappi, way out of the colony area of Minakami Han'ei, and staring across the less than 20 kilometers separating them from Hokkaido. The wind blows strong, as the cape was known for, but there's a thick white fog that blocks Matsumae's Peninsula from sight.

And yet, even through the bandages, Satoru can see that the fog is not natural, practically glowing as it whirls threateningly over the darkened sea.

The White Wall, the veil-like barrier that keeps the Holy Land cut off from the rest of the Curse World.

Obviously, the Seikan Tunnel is long since buried under the sea, its entrance lost to this new world. And with the White Wall in place, any attempt to cross it would be moot, nonetheless.

Except maybe for Satoru, who is—should be—the last and only human in this Curse World.

But now, without Limitless, there's no way to get there, even if Satoru knew for sure he could cross.

He buries his hands further in his pockets, barely holding back the urge to look at their now dark skin.

Cleansing, Sukuna called it. Angel's cursed technique, which, as the original Angel, cancels the cursed technique of whoever it is used on – alongside their life.

If it had hit Satoru fully, before he could escape via destroying everything around him with Red…

Well, it hadn't. But it had still cost him Limitless.

"What are you thinking about?" Sukuna asks softly as he joins Satoru on the ridge, while Fuwa is using a Kogane, this one furry tailed, to discuss the net with the other Yagami.

Satoru lets the words sink into his bones, slithering under his clothes, under his skin, much like the cold wind rushing through the Tsugaru Strait.

"What am I doing here?" he asks, his voice as soft, or even more, as Sukuna's, previous teasing and smiles all but memory now. "You didn't need me to put together a net. You don't really need me for any of this."

"Yes, I do," Sukuna answers, serious and honest, shuffling his hands into the shredded and dirtied sleeves of his yukata for a more casual stance that doesn't match the intensity of his eyes. "You don't know how this world works, so you can think of options we would have never even imagined. We are too used to the colonies, to what we can and cannot do because of them or the barriers that no longer exist. We have spent one thousand years boxed in, and whether we want to admit it or not, it has affected how we see and react to the world. You haven't. That is why I tolerate your insufferably obscure quotes."

Satoru snorts before he can stop himself, and the smirk is on his lips even before he can think about it.

"They're only obscure for you, old man. And I'm the one who spent one thousand years in a box," he mocks back, and Sukuna grins and tilts his head to meet Satoru's hidden eyes.

"My sanity thanks you for that respite every day I have to live alongside you. If only I had another box to shove you into every now and again…"

"Hah! You'd pull me out soon enough. You'd miss me," he needles, leaning closer and poking a finger into Sukuna's side until the curse finally slaps the hand away.

"Would not."

"Oh, yes, you would. You'd have to deal with the chibis all on your own without me," he reminds Sukuna, and it's only because he's looking for it that Satoru catches that minute widening of his eyes as the realization dawns. "Your face! Hah!"

"Shut. Up," Sukuna growls, but he knows better than to leave that up to Satoru, judging by how two of his hands are squeezing Satoru's face hard enough to keep him unable to do more than shout muffled protests. "I will box you."

"Like a Pokémon," Satoru snorts when he's finally freed, rubbing his reddened cheeks to try and get some feeling back, though he's still grinning widely. "Hey, what kind of Pokémon would I be? I've always been more of a Digimon fan, so I don't really know many of them…"

"A Zubat, definitely. You do nothing but screech and get in the way all the damn time," Sukuna huffs, rolling his eyes – and stiffens when Satoru gawks at him in shock. "What? Weren't you around after the Sisterhood Event? All the damn brats started hunting Pokémon on their phones every time they went on missions, and it was all they would talk about whenever they got back. Comparing their catches and that one shiny Rhyhorn Fushiguro Megumi caught…"

"Actually, no, I wasn't. I was busy looking for the traitor, and picking up the slack because, duh, Special Grade. You got hooked to Pokémon Go? You of all people?" Satoru asks, grinning so widely that his abused cheeks hurt, and when he scowls this time, Sukuna doesn't look embarrassed.

"Do you know how boring it is to inhabit a body that you can't control? I got my laughs where I could, and nagging the brat about his pathetic Pokédex was one of those."

"Did you catch anything interesting?" Satoru asks all hush-hush, going as far as to poke Sukuna's ribcage with his elbow as he leans in, earning himself a dirty look.

"What, you think the brat would give control over just for a made-up creature in a childish game?" Sukuna asks, all rhetorical, Satoru is sure – but after enough eyebrow waggling, Sukuna grins triumphantly. "I got Mewtwo."

Well, Satoru may be a Digimon fan first and foremost—no one beats Digimon in terms of compelling storyline and kickass character growth—but even he knows that name.

"Woohoo!" he shouts, slinging an arm over Sukuna's shoulders and throwing his free fist up. "That's my boy! How did you manage that?"

"Mocked the brat enough to the point he made an unconscious binding vow where he would allow me one raid to prove he wasn't doing it wrong," Sukuna chuckles, taking the whole one-armed hug in stride as he gloats. "Needless to say, I got a week of very good food after that one capture."

Aaand Satoru's good mood is gone.

"What kind of good food…?"

"One of my fingers, for starters."

"… Right. I think that's enough."

The wind blows again, harsh and salty, and Satoru turns to the ocean and the White Wall in front of them, letting Sukuna go as his mind circles back to the topic at hand.

Holy Wings, unlike Pokémon and Digimon, are—regretfully—not imaginary.

"Will the net be enough?" he asks in a whisper, and Sukuna's grin disappears just as quickly as Satoru's own.

"Do you have any other bright ideas?"

"If I had Limitless—" Satoru tries to suggest, before his words catch up to him and he snaps his mouth shut.

"Out of the question," Sukuna huffs, and Satoru shrinks into himself before he can stop it— "There are too many Holy Wings even for your Limitless."

… Well. That's a sad consolation, but some consolation, nonetheless.

"And how would you know that?" Satoru asks instead, tilting his head as Sukuna's eyes darken.

"You couldn't see the Holy Wings from behind the Barrier – not as anything more than a dark cloud blotting the sun. But you could feel their enormous presence."

"Sounds… disturbing."

"… It was."

Satoru swallows and straightens, trying to keep the feeling of cold sweat running down his back hidden from view.

… View. View.

Satoru brings his hand up and pulls his bandages aside, freeing one eye – and grimaces at the brightness of the White Wall. It sure is an impressive barrier, Satoru will give it that much. And just like any other veil, Satoru can't make out whatever might be—

… What if…

"What are you doing?" Sukuna asks as Satoru unwraps his eyes, all six—four?—of them.

"You said it yourself, that I could take a new look at things and figure out a different approach. So, I'll give it a try with—" Satoru whispers, opening eyes to a world tinted with blue hues—

—and almost falls on his face onto scorched ground, saved only by Sukuna's dirty claws wrapping around his shoulders.

"—all that's cursed was that?!" Fuwa is shrieking, all puffed up and – why is he missing an arm? "Sukuna-koutei, what kind of monster is he?!"

"Enough, Fuwafuwa," Sukuna hisses, even as he pulls about half a dozen sharp quills out of Satoru's arm with one hand, while a second runs over the green-tinted skin with a warm burning feeling that makes the odd coloring go away. "Are you finally aware, Satoru?"

"Aware of what? What just happened?" Satoru tries to ask, though the way his tongue flops in his mouth and Sukuna's frown tell him he is not making sense. "Where are—Pffbt!"

Sukuna scowls, but his hand doesn't release Satoru's chin and cheeks, pulling him back to look at him straight on.

"Don't look at the White Wall! Do you want a repeat of that or what?!"

"A repeat of what?" Satoru asks, though this time, the reason for his mumbling is Sukuna's hand rather than the numbness his Reverse Cursed Technique is finally clearing out of his system.

Sukuna frowns, and finally, slowly, almost carefully, lets Satoru go.

"Don't you remember?"

"… Remember what?" Satoru asks carefully—

And Sukuna's face fills with realization the second before he turns to where Satoru assumes the White Wall is—

Wow, Satoru must have got far more poison in him than he thought. There's no way Sukuna can look worried, so that's the only explanation.

Satoru blinks, shakes his head, and blinks harshly again. When he finally focuses on Sukuna once more, carefully not staring at the White Wall, that hallucinated worry has at last revealed itself as burning… determination? No, there's something else there, something not entirely as self-assured or strong as the rest of Sukuna is – or is supposed to be.

"Have you ever been to Hokkaido?" he asks, voice low, and Satoru blinks in surprise but nods. "Do you think you could teleport to it?"

"With the White Wall there?" Satoru asks, wide-eyed, and Sukuna is the one to nod this once without turning back to him. "We're talking a veil here, Sukuna. And sure, I'm the Strongest – was the Strongest," Satoru corrects himself, before he grimaces and looks down at his now dark-skinned hands, resting on his lap. "No, I don't think I can."

"I think you can," Sukuna sighs, closing all four of his eyes before he stands up and takes a step away from Satoru, finally revealing the missing chunks of his side that are slowly bubbling back into place. "Try it."

"But—"

"Do it!" Sukuna snarls, something dangerous and far too dark swirling in his burning eyes. "And remember, if you're going to die, it will be at my hand."

Satoru swallows, startled and more than a bit confused, before he looks down. Fuwa stammers behind Sukuna, though his half-formed words are quickly cut off with a glare from the stronger curse.

His skin is dark, peeking through the holes in his now damaged jacket—what happened…?—but it can still channel cursed energy just as well as before—

Though the skin lights up with red and blue and purple, in a way that Satoru hadn't ever noticed before but that feels somehow familiar all the same.

Taking in a deep breath, he decides to give this crazy thing a chance. Best case scenario, he finds out something useful about this 'Hokkaido Holy Land' and how to stop or redirect the Holy Wings. Worst case scenario, he dies.

Judging by Sukuna's insistence that he give this a try, either of those would be a good outcome.

Satoru snorts, completes the teleportation circle, and looks up into his host's eyes as he clasps his hands together—

And Sukuna's heartbroken sorry is the last thing Satoru is conscious of.

There are voices, or a voice, roiling like mist and whispering like waves on the shore. There are eyes, white like pure snow, colorful like the aurora painting the sky. There are hands, helping him up, holding him down, ripping him apart and piecing him together, cold like freshly fallen snow on his shoulders, warm like onsen water soothing sore muscles, gentle like laughter and harsh like the northern wind.

There's a world, or a thousand, a story that is history that was born of myths and ancient tales. There are legends born of lives long since lived and long since lost. Cities as ancient as the land they were made of, that make up the land, that were destroyed and rebuilt and worn down to their bare bones by the many who once inhabited them, who still inhabit them now.

One second and one thousand years go by in a whisper, in a breath, in one million heartbeats and just the blink of an eye. Satoru lives them, listens to them, breathes them in and chokes on them, burns under the weight of the lives lost to build them up, to raze the world to nothingness and then build it up again, and he dies and dies and dies all over again.

And then something grabs the only thing that matters out of his hands and Satoru opens his eyes—

Through six different eyes, Satoru watches Kenjaku grin with Suguru's face as the amorphous mass of bubbling cursed energy coalesces into Sukuna, four arms snapping wide as he bares his fangs to the world with a triumphant laugh and blazing eyes.

"Finally!" he laughs, cracking his neck before he rolls his head and four shoulders, limbering up in an excitement that doesn't match up to the pitiful amount of cursed energy coursing through him. "Well, well. Hello, Vessel," he snarls when he finally stops, turning to look at—

Itadori Yuuji grimaces, facial scars not blurring the expression in the slightest, while a winged figure with a halo looks almost excited at the prospect of a fight.

Wow. Seeing them together once more really brings to the forefront the slight differences between possessed Itadori Yuuji-Sukuna and actual-Sukuna.

… Wait a second.

The world explodes, cursed energy flashing around almost too fast to comprehend, clashing and deflecting and slashing and burning—

And it stops.

Actual-Sukuna stands tall over a fallen Yuuji, wiping some blood from the corner of his mouth but nowhere as battered as the kid. The original Angel—who else—simply waits out of the way, delighted at whatever is going on, practically glowing in a way that Satoru knows is bad news from first-hand experience.

"Did you seriously think you could keep me at bay? You poor, pathetic brat. Even with just one finger at my disposal, I stand unmatched. How will you protect your precious world when I get the other nineteen you are keeping inside your weak fleshy self? And you were supposed to be my jailor?"

Sukuna laughs, but Sukuna jerks back at the sound all the same. It takes Satoru a second to realize that the one who is laughing is the mouth that has appeared on Yuuji's cheek.

"My jailor?" trapped-Sukuna chuckles, one bright red eye opening over that toothy grin to meet his free self's own eyes. "You're wrong. This brat is not my jailor… He's an extension of myself."

Yuuji grabs free-Sukuna's ankle and flings him off of him, twisting back to his feet with a sharp grin on his face – and two extra eyes open up as well-known tattoos appear over his skin.

Kenjaku jerks back, shock all over his face, even as Yuuji-Sukuna turns to Angel, one hand aiming at them and the other pulled back as if docking an arrow on an invisible bow—

"—and give me guidance!" Angel screeches, releasing an arrow of pure light—

Yuuji-Sukuna's grin widens as he drops onto his back to roll out of the way, the technique flying past him and towards—

Kenjaku.

He jerks to the side too, trying to avoid the deadly arrow – but his right hand grabs onto the pipes on the wall, stopping him short—

And the technique pierces his chest, engulfing him in a searing light that drains the very color out of him, leaving nothing but charcoal-colored skin and white hair behind as the corpse finally hits the floor – and the top of his head rolls off of the rest to reveal a rotten mush seeping out of the otherwise empty cranium.

Yuuji-Sukuna chuckles as free-Sukuna and Angel recover from the shock, flicks a hand – and Suguru's corpse is incinerated, destroyed, at last.

"Now, for the rest of my minute of freedom—"

Free-Sukuna attacks, lunging at Yuuji-Sukuna with all four clawed hands ready to rip him apart, but Yuuji-Sukuna merely sidesteps with almost impossible speed for Yuuji's body—the one Satoru knew, that is—and slams free-Sukuna almost clean through the floor with an elbow jab to his back.

And Angel lets a second holy arrow fly – straight into Yuuji-Sukuna's chest.

Yuuji-Sukuna snarls in shock and pain, skin darkening around the bright light that he barely managed to catch but that still pierced through skin and muscle.

"And all is as it should be," Angel chuckles, eyes wide in madness as a huge grin distorts their face—

Yuuji-Sukuna falls to his knees, and Satoru lets Red explode.

Angel and both Sukunas turn in shock, but Satoru can feel his six eyes burning with cursed energy, with hatred and grief and denial, fueling the energy that builds up to such intensity in his blackened limbs that they seem to have been set aflame—

Angel shrieks, another arrow nocked – but Satoru slams a hand into their face—

SPLAT!

… Well. That was perhaps a bit more than Satoru had expected. Not that he would take it back, but now he's covered in mashed human bits. Yuck.

"Gojo… sensei…?"

Satoru jerks around, watches as the last tendrils of Sukuna's poisonous cursed energy, weakened as it is, transfer to the four-armed body made of that one finger Satoru took from Riki – and catches Itadori Yuuji's body before it collapses.

His eyes are unfocused, and his cursed energy is all but gone. The only reason he's still hanging on, like Fushiguro Toji before him, is the Heavenly Pact that granted him superhuman strength and endurance even before he ate Sukuna's first finger.

Yuuji doesn't know it yet, but he's already dead.

"Hey, kid," he whispers, gently lying Yuuji down – and the boy's lips twitch into something that tries to be a smile. "Good job, Yuuji. You can rest now."

And the kid sighs and finally goes still.

Free-Sukuna – the only Sukuna, actually, straightens out of the hole in the floor, still as pathetically weak as a half-drowned kitten but snarling impressively enough to scare away a grown bear.

Satoru grins, large and toothy and as cold and brittle as ice.

"I wanted to finish that spar," he tells Sukuna – who blinks in shock when his clawed hand pierces cleanly through Satoru's chest. "But I remembered…"

"What the Hell? Where's your Infinity? Why would you let me—"

"If I'm going to die…" Satoru interrupts with a chuckle that sends blood cascading down his chin, before he pulls together enough strength to open his eyes—just the one pair, the original—and send Sukuna a happy grin. "It will be at your hand."

As the world vanishes, Satoru feels two pairs of clawed hands catch him as he falls.

JUJU STROLL!

Fuwafuwa is not the oldest, strongest, cleverest or wisest curse, not even among the Yagami.

But he has good instincts. Pretty good instincts, if someone were to ask him. Probably the best out of all of them.

Which is why, the moment Satoru-kakka is gone, Fuwa makes himself scarce, clutching his destroyed side and blaming it as the reason for his return to Han'ei all on his lonesome.

He will never tell anyone more beyond Satoru-kakka and Sukuna-koutei had a spat. He will never tell anyone of the state the cape had been in, all green and alive, before their visit, or how it had been much larger than the pitiful stubby rock it had been reduced to.

He will never tell anyone of the curse he left behind at said cape, or how the seawater being blown in their faces wasn't the reason Sukuna-koutei had shielded his four eyes behind a hand.

And he will never, ever, tell anyone of the whispered words he'd heard spoken by the mightiest curse of all times.

AN: Yup.

Only the epilogue left.