Kenji feels his heart stop as they arrive at their mission's destination.
There stands a familiar detention center surrounded by police personnel making him inhale softly. He looks towards Ichiji and then turns his attention to the three teens across from him. The two extroverts of the group are fighting oblivious to the situation they are facing.
"Ichiji, can you tell us anything of importance?" He asks, better to accept the situation and prepare than get scared and fuck everything up. He feels stupid for being so careless, but it was difficult to predict when it would happen with the amount of missions they're sent on.
Even if he personally has only gone on three missions and all with them, two with Satoru to make sure everything went okay.
Honestly, Kenji should have known something was up when the elders sent Satoru on a trip abroad, and of course, the sly bastards are taking the chance to get rid of uncertainties.
Ichiji fixes his glasses while shifting in his seat towards his door, opening it and explaining while they all exit the vehicle, "This is a situation that is of something we'd normally send a special grade, but as you've come to find, this particular career path is severely understaffed."
"That means you four are the ones to do it." As they all look at him the geeky man gives them a stern look, "Whatever you do don't fight, this is a rescue and retrieval operation, not an exorcism."
Kenji nods absently, his mind distracted as his innate technique flickering to life at the sensation of malicious intent.
He suspects that the Elders want to get all three obstacles out of their way. A new unknown person who has the ear of their most powerful sorcerer. A curse bearer who wields the strongest curse to be recorded. And finally, the only Zenin by blood who has access to the infamous ability that is little known about, The Ten Shadows Technique.
"What is a special grace?" He hears Yuuji ask Nobara quietly.
She scoffs.
"Are you that much of a dumbass?" she asks, ignoring his pout and not bothering to answer.
Megumi himself rolls his eyes as he stuffs his hands into his pocket giving the peanut gallery watching the whole thing a dismissive look, "it's not his fault he can't read."
Yuuji pauses in his pout only to sputter and go red in the face, "Wha- I can't read-"
"I FUCKING CAN READ!" He yowls flaring up like a cat.
Kenji laughs quietly into his hand, his mind calming down at their antics.
"You guys, maybe now isn't the time." He admonishes, he is their teacher after all.
Fortunately for him, Ichiji takes the reins and proceeds to explain what the grades and how one handles them go.
Stepping a little bit away he tunes it all out and takes a few seconds to reprieve and try to find the special grade. Kenji can sense the surroundings and dead bodies -something that makes him shiver- only to want to growl in frustration as he meets a block that makes everything all fuzzy. He figures that he can't sense past a domain expansion without entering it.
"My son," a grief-worn lady pulls him out of his thoughts, she comes up to him after crying out to Yuuji, he gives a sympathetic look as she continues, "Please find my boy." He pats his hand, gripping his arm tightly, enough to bruise, and gently prys her hand off.
"I will do all I can." He promises lightly cupping her shaking hand for a moment as he says so.
"Come on Sensei!" He gives the grim woman a kind smile and meets up with the three others reaching out to ruffle Yuuji's hair knowing the boy is fighting an internal battle and it's not Sukuna. They enter and for the first time, they get to see a curtain being put up, as most of their missions have been secluded enough not to have to bother with one.
"Woah," Yuuji exclaims with an elated grin and Kenji mentally swears to himself that he'll do his damnedest to make sure that boy gets to keep his smile.
"That's the curtain being cast by Ichiji to keep the mundane from being a nuisance." Megumi pipes up as they make their way to the entrance.
"God are you really that hopeless," Nobara snarks and it's only the lack of heat that makes Kenji admonish the girl.
Though he does give Yuuji a leg, "In his defense, he's only known about this world for a few months." And Kenji's only been living in it for the same, but he doesn't say it out loud.
"Thanks, Kenji Sensei," Yuuji chirps, grateful and distracted, too busy watching the area as it becomes night.
They tend to be more formal on missions which is good it means they refer to him and also bad because that means they'll rely on him.
And that is a lot of pressure for-
This isn't the time to dwell on that when this is a world where only one second can guarantee life or death.
"Guys," he makes sure his voice doesn't shake in nerves, he's mainly concerned about how Sukuna is going to act after he ultimately gets control over Yuuji's body, cause as much as Kenji wants to believe he is powerful, he doesn't know if he will be able to win against a special grade opponent who is not holding back.
He also wants to avoid traumatizing poor Megumi. Not to mention Yuuji being mutilated for amusement.
"Yuuji." He calls, making sure the boy is paying attention.
"Actually You two as well, look at me." He says seriously.
"This isn't something that we need to risk our lives for." He holds up his hands before Yuuji can shout.
Stepping closer to the boy, he sighs, "Look, I know you want to make sure everyone has a fulfilling death, but listen to me carefully."
"We can't save everyone." He makes sure to keep his tone sympathetic.
"I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying you shouldn't focus on the people who are out of your reach and instead focus on those still breathing." He nods to the two beside them.
"We don't need to risk our lives going in there, They are all dead." His voice is soft as he blows the wind out of Yuuji's sails.
He reaches up to run his hands through the downtrodden boy's hair, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings or made you feel invalidated, I believe in your mantra. I just want to make sure you don't die for a dead person."
"We aren't heroes." He says softly.
As gently as possible he says, "I am not saying you can't be one, but-" he stops and sighs.
Is he a coward? Yes.
Does he care? No.
"If you want I'll call Gojo and tell him to come here an-" Whatever he was going to say is interrupted as something pierces his calf and proceeds to drag him away, some sort of venom causing his body to spasm and the curse energy in his system to seize.
The last thing he hears before he is too busy seizing is Yuuji crying his name.
"Kenji!?" Yuuji croaks, feeling frozen, stunned at how fast that thing came, and dragged Kenji away.
'You Fool Move!" Sukuna snarls in his mind, a tidal wave of rage not his own causing adrenaline to pump through his chest and jolt his body into action. The other two rush to follow as he desperately tries to follow the way Megumi's shikigami went after thanks to Megumi's quick thinking.
"Shit, shit." He hears Nobara chanting.
"Gojo is going to kill us."
"We have to survive for that first!" Megumi huffs out as his curse energy pools in his hands as he prepares to conjure his other wolf.
They run through twisting halls and confusing stairs while frantically trying to catch up with the thing that took Kenji.
Kenji coughs as he is flung into the wall and by the sound of cracks he breaks something and it's not the wall. He shakily swipes his hand across his forehead wincing as he feels the cut just past his hairline. He bleary looks up at the creature with one of Sukuna's fingers wedged in its chest. He spits out a glob of blood, the taste lingering in his mouth.
"Fuck," he whispers to himself and digs his fingers into the ground, trying to pull himself up as his innate technique fights the toxins in his body, his teeth clenched as he struggles to stand on his uninjured leg.
Whatever pierced his leg is causing his cursed technique to go haywire, he suspects the fact that it's semi-independent is the only reason his ability is even able to fight back. The venom in his blood disrupts his output of cursed energy and makes his muscles want to seize up. Kenji barely has time to call his ability his throat closing as pure pain shoots up his chest as his technique listens and forces itself out to create a crystal disk.
He flicks his hand towards the curse, who seems to find him unthreatening and starts to walk slowly towards him. His legs struggle to stay up, and despite all the pain he feels absolute satisfaction as the bladed disk separates the special grade arm from its shoulder.
The curse screams in surprise and stumbles and he immediately begins to pool his curse technique into himself and is about to teleport away when his hand is snatched and he can't stop the cry of pain when his wrist is snapped and his arm pulls back as he is tossed again. His technique is fighting to fend off the venom and heal his injuries.
"Now just who are you to touch what's mine?" He inhales
"Sukuna?" He croaks feeling the weight of the curse lift off of him as it disregards him for the bigger threat. He struggles to turn his head at the sound of footsteps, "t-the others?" He asks through a cough.
"The brats are fine, long gone. Silly little Yuuji thought sending them away would be enough to keep them safe." The curse converses like he isn't being circled by a cursed spirit.
"Are you dying on me?" Sukuna asks benignly, leaning over him as he is sprawled across the ground.
The curse' feeling insulted' let's put an unintelligible scream at being ignored and goes to attack only for Sukuna to tsk. He turns his head still leaning over Kenji, and says, "Wait, your turn maggot," while flicking his two fingers causing the cursed arm to disappear as it's cleaved.
Kenji lets out a whimper as a pulse of agony runs across his body, and Sukuna's playful smile drops and with a bored expression and another twitch of finger, has the thing cut into multiple pieces and he plucks the finger from the corpse's body causing it to disintegrate.
"You bore me." His all he says and walks back to Kenji who is bleary looking at him.
Sukuna shift Kenji's jaw in his hand tilting his head towards him, "You're going to repay me for this."
"W-what?" He says, only to let out a whimper as Sukuna lets go of his face to lift his injured leg, Sukuna hums as he has the wound in his grasp.
Then the king of curses lowers his mouth onto the wound and proceeds to suck the venom out of his system Kenji wants to die as a surge of pleasure trickles through his body, though any sensation is a relief after the constant scorching burning sensation.
Sukuna looks extremely satisfied as he laps up the blood seeping out of his leg, Kenji is about to tell the other he's getting better and the pain is gone when he feels teeth sink into his calf and he has to stop himself from twisting and making the pain worse.
He doesn't know how long the new sensation lasts, but when he regains his awareness he feels like he has run a marathon other than that his body doesn't feel broken.
"What did you do?" He asks, trying to sit up and when he looks down he has to withhold a gasp seeing two strips of ink wrapped around the area Sukuna bit him.
"What the fuck!!" He yelps looking up weakly as his vision swims, he hopes Sukuna won't traumatize poor Megumi and Nobara as he goes unconscious.
His last thought is that Gojo is going to kill him.
A/n:
So Kenji gets a reality check and realizes that he isn't invincible.
Will Sukuna still wreak havoc against Megumi?
What did he do to Kenji? And why did a tattoo similar to his appear?
How will our possessive gojo react to another's mark on his beau?
Are stingers venom or poison? Like scorpions are venomous right since they inject a toxin and not are toxic.