"I'm not an R.I.P. I'm not another sick, sad tragedy"

Kid That I Used to Know

Arrested Youth

"So, if you're more of a clean up person then why are you coming on missions with us?" Yuji's question was innocent enough. We were crammed in the small car of a window. Megumi had wasted no time in getting into the front seat and Kugisaki took the back seat, while Yuji had kindly held the door open for me with all the intention of being kind, but with the repercussions of me being smushed in the middle seat. His thick arm was pressed against me and he was a person who spoke with his hands, so nearly every time he opened his mouth, which was every five seconds, his hands flailed in front of my face and sent me to crash into a frustrated Kugisaki.

"Well, I want to be strong, I guess." Was a simple answer and Megumi even shifted up in the front seat that he had so silently, yet forcibly taken. Our eyes met in the rear view mirror and neither of changed expressions. My response was enough for Itadori who immediately went back to talking about, well, I think more questions about a life I was already apart of. His mental fortitude was rather impressive while I was stuck trying to figure out why I was here too.

It seemed rather odd that we had to be sent on this mission considering the grave tone Ijichi had the entire drive to the juvenile penitentiary. We were the youngest and arguable the weakest, least prepared ranked sorcerers of the school and we were to just... go in there and look at it?

But, alas, there was a reason for everything and perhaps the meaning of this lesson was beyond my understanding. Although even Megumi was a little more stand offish than usual. We were a team of only a few days without a sensei and a fourth of us just learned of the world a week ago.

I hated the place the moment we arrived. Every nerve in my body was on the highest alert as the sticky feeling raced down my body in bolts. The atmosphere around us was as inky as the curtain that slowly descended above us and even Itadori's awed attitude couldn't break me out of the distinct feeling of devastation before me. Not even Megumi's dog, who brushed up against my leg so sweetly for my attention, could fully pull me out of the fog that I was in.

Even these teens lived more of a normal life than we did.

It was why when we encountered the curse, I forgot how to breathe because there was no exit, Nobara was already gone, we were children's, barely scraping our rankings, and we were inside a curse's innate domain. Hope was about as prevalent and alive as the dead body we had encountered only moments before.

It was getting worse. My eyes were locked on the blood soaking the floor, the hand meters away, and my ears were thumping with my own. I only had a second to recognize the cursed energy being sent our way and with a quick intake of breath, I fell to a squat and shoved my finger tips to the ground, hoping that I was stronger than I was a couple of weeks ago.

"Shield!"

We barely made it.

Megumi and Itadori had both seen my technique, recognized it, and without my prompt both made the call to fall behind me and the brick shield I had made. It was barely enough to cover us, especially with how big the other two were, but we somehow made it out alive. My eyes stared at the completed shield, at a small crack in it, and there was a thick wetness on my shoulder and Itadori's harsh breathing was behind me. When I looked up, his face was leaning against the shield in an attempt to gain hope or energy or a combination of both.

"You guys should run." He whispered it first, to me, pleading me, before he pushed himself off the shield and I watched as he stared down at this hands, lack of hands, and my own twitched in phantom pain. The blood continued to drip and the flesh was ripped to show case stained bone where you could clearly see the beginnings of the radius and ulna searching for the rest of the arm they'd never find.

Was I a bad person for not wanting to argue with him? In fact, if Megumi hadn't had made the discussion into an argument I would have already been running. I already started as soon as he whispered the command to me, because as much as I commanded attention, I was a follower at the core.

My shield was still up, the only evidence left of me, I didn't bother with wasting the energy to restore my mess back, but I was far from it. I was meters away, waiting for Megumi to selfishly run with me with a pause that my mind told my heart to ignore. Itadori may have been kind, but I would be a fool to let his death become my own end.

"He was going to die anyways." Because he was. Sensei had made it clear that his execution was inevitable. But my words only made Megumi run faster as if he was trying to get away from me as we searched the corridors for Kugisaki. I gritted my teeth and picked up, just barely lagging behind him and the Shikigami leading us, while a terrible sensation nipped at my heels.

It was like that even when we made it out, even if we weren't truly out, and the sky was free of the inky curse. Megumi's frog spat out Nobara at the entrance right in front of Ijichi and I was just there as if I were only an audience member, watching and waiting silently for a purpose, or an escape. Even as she was carefully slid into the car, seatbelt clicked to hold her, I did nothing but watch while my hand made its way around the handle of the door to join them.

"We'll stay behind." Megumi's hand on my shoulder froze me from my escape and led me to what felt like my demise, away from the driving car, and back to the broken building. I wanted to scream, run, hide, but even I knew that Megumi wouldn't stop me if I did. Because I have.

"...that desperate to have alone time with me?" I tried to break the tension as if there wasn't impending doom settling in around us, there was an owl greeting the night in an early wake up call to the nocturnal creatures.

"That desperate to live the life of a coward?" His response made my shoulders stiffen, because how dare he insult a desire to survive. My life was dedicated to survival, my own, because what good would life be if I was dead?

"You had no intention of saving anyone-!"

"We save our own!" Megumi snapped at me and I could the warm breath on my face. My heart skipped a beat, but his expression remained the calculated yet angered mess it was before.

"Just because everyone else in this god-forsaken world wants to die, doesn't mean I have to!" I shouted back, shoving him away and standing firm in both stance and word. "When is enough, enough?!" Megumi didn't give me the satisfaction of shock on his face, but neither did he have time to react my eyes flickered up.

"Stop being selfish." He didn't let up and once again he was in the middle school yard punching a bully, not just any bully, and snapping at me for being so stupid. Then in a blink it was like my back was up against a chain link fence and his phantom fingers curled into my uniform collar with that familiar emotionless, judgmental gaze aimed at me.

"Stop being a self righteous, prick!"

I countered back without a skipped beat nor loss of emotion. Why was it my job to be the shield for people who didn't know me, my sacrifice, my name? It wasn't like I asked for this nor was it something I even wanted, yet here I was. A flesh shield for the world. "I didn't ask to be born this way!" And Megumi let out a roll of eyes because it's all he's heard before from me for years.

"I didn't ask to be forced into saving others!" There was a light hysteria in my tone that I couldn't even force down if I tried, but Megumi never gave me the sympathy that I needed, wanted, deserved. "If you want to die, fine!" I threw my arms up, blessing him with my permission as I took a step forward into his space, staring at him, him staring at me, examining each other. "But I'm not going to die with you--" My ears twitched, I cut myself off.

Against my better judgment and with teeth gritting down harshly, I shoved my arm forward to grab Megumi by the shoulder. His eyes widened at the sudden attack and grabbed my arm to throw me off, but I leaned back to gain space from the S-grade that spawned behind him. His body skated behind me and the declaration I had just made mocked me faintly. I had no death wish, I made that clear, but Megumi ended behind me even though my hands shook at the monster wearing our classmate in front of me.

"Relax, relax." Sukuna grinned as if we all were pals after school, but even Megumi's hand on my shoulder was shaking and the blood on my other was still warm. "I'm in such a great mood, life is good, let's just have a chat."

I was in no mood for a chat. There was a distant memory of sensei complaining about me not listening to his story when we sparred, that it was normal to talk in a fight, but I found my patience allowed no such exploit . I was already squatting, a heart of my fingers on the floor and faster than ever before had a dome of earth shot up around us. Building upon each other like ants making a bridge out of themselves with a fast closing circle of light growing above us. My breath quickened as I tried to force the seconds to go by quicker. Two seconds passed, one more to go of mud growing above us and we would be—

"Guess the word relax means something different these days."

And there was a hand in the hole. A clawed, tattooed, not even covered with an inch of cursed energy hand whose predecessor was lobbed off in front of my eyes. My mud moved around it, tried to cut it off, but instead of a splat of blood raining above us we were splattered with dirt and gravel as Sukuna viciously ripped my dome apart.

The dust settled and there the nightmare was again in front of us and grinning that psychotic grin like sensei gave us. That mischievous, evil expression that knew we were no match for him yet gave us the mercy to be alive. But this time there was no warmth and it was this moment that I realized that maybe I was wrong about the evil in sensei.

"You know, back in my era women weren't sorcerers." Watching Yuji's body lick his lips like a senior punk talking to a poor freshman didn't sit right with me nor Megumi, who took the second to exchange our positions. "It's almost insulting to look at you really. After all, they are just meat suits for us to use, consume, control—!"

"Itadori!" Megumi shouted over the psychotic ramblings with a voice so loud my lungs released its breath that I didn't know they were saving. It dawned on me that he had curled over my body in an attempt to prevent any harm from falling debris and had so quickly shoved himself forward at Sukuna's psychotic ramblings focused on my presence.

"He's not here!" Sukuna laughed out mercilessly with a wide display of his hands, his grin never falter in showing all of his molars as his right hand gripped the uniform he wore and began tugging with a sick tear of threads. His laughter turned into giggles of a mad man, inconsistent and incomprehensible in their origins to the point where I had no idea where one ended and the other began. "He should have made a pact with me before he changed because now..."

The tearing of his clothes followed by the squelching of skin was enough to make Megumi step back into my own near petrified body. My hands grabbed his arms to prevent either of us from falling while the ancient being in front of us yanked the heart from Itadori's chest in a single pull.

Itadori's heart landed next to me and it would be a disservice to call the landed location unplanned, judging by the harsh giggle turned into laughter from my stumble away from the still pumping organ. There was nothing to give it and yet it still tried to pump the little left blood out from the arteries onto my white, once clean socks.

"Just like a woman to run from the sight of blood! Run, cower, hide! Scream!" His giggles turned into self righteous cackles as held his stomach and sent the sound of his sadistic mercy into the sky. "But it'll be no use! Because once I kill the other brat, I'll find you and I'll have you. I'll use you and remind you of what a woman is until your nothing more than shell. And then, you'll be my prize, my trophy, to stand and be nothing more than a dying doll forgotten to the world—!"

"You talk a lot." I snapped out and tried to stuff the cotton in my throat down into the depths of my stomach. I was already on one knee by the heart and picked it with only a moment of hesitation to feel the hot, slimy organ frantically sending minor pulses to remind the body of its need for blood, but it never got a response. It was lighter than I expected.

"Oh?" Sukuna paused in his villainous speech to watch in only mild surprise and amusement as I examined the contracting heart tediously. I could only hope I appeared more nonchalant than the fear that slammed against my chest begging to join the other heart I was holding.

"...can you do it?" Megumi asked seriously and I focused on the tiny parts of the heart, peeling off the blades of grass and gravel, trying to find any signs of imperfection or trauma. "Soru..." he knew me better than most people did, he was there during my worst and best, and he didn't let me hide behind the masks that made life easier to pass through. He knew what I was pondering and I knew too.

"...yes." I finally confirmed and turned towards the suspiciously curious ancient evil letting us have our talk. Maybe having a chat during a fight could be a good thing. I accepted the mercy and used it to my advantage, getting into stance behind Megumi and forcibly shoved my palm into has back, pushing him to make the sign of his shikigami. "Go!"

While Megumi ran forward, I ran off to the side and ignored the taunts of me obeying like a good woman should sent my way. My own teeth grit as I forced myself to run as fast I could away and dodged a root, climbed over the juvenile gate, before pausing to try and get a glimpse of the fighting with heaving breaths matching the frantic racing inside of me.

I didn't have to look long to see Megumi being shot into the air and batted away like a tennis ball. My stomach dropped, and I gripped the heart to my chest, ignored the fire flies that began to sprinkle the air around me. My goal was to stay close enough to the fight to be ready after, not too far where I couldn't reach in Yuji in time with the organ, but if they were going to be that far I'd need to run now.

Speaking of not reaching in time, the heart was reaching its final leg and growing cool as its cells lost their energy. I stared at its final moments of contracting, sputtering weak drops of itself onto my shoes. My breath was shaky as I closed my eyes, curling around the heart slightly as it rested in a sick warmth on my chest as I uttered out a quiet restore, allowing a pink glow transfer from my body to Itadori's heart.

It shimmered and shined, fixing the small scratches that had formed after its fall and the even deeper ones from Sukuna's nails. They stitched together before me like a tapestry, rapidly, probably faster than I should have because my head was starting to get light headed. But there was more to it than just fixing holes, I had to provide that little spark to keep the contractions going, and with a sharp pain riding up my side I pushed harder to create that little bit of pulse. Please work, please work, please work—

Instead of a heart it was a cat, years ago in a different life, in the hands of a toddler who demanded the life back into the creature. It was my equally small hands that desperately held the other ones and pushed with all we had until we heard that meow. But then it was my hands again reaching out, screaming out, trying to get to those other hands and suddenly I wasn't able to—

Thump.

Ba-thump.

My back hit the tree behind me with a soft think and my eyes opened to look down with deep, shaky breaths and shaky hands at the pumping heart. A moment of rest as my eyelids began to collect that same familiar feeling of weight on my eyelashes.

"So that's your plan."

The shaking stopped, but only so that I could escape the clawed hand reaching for my throat that cracked through the thick tree like it was nothing more than a block house kicked over by a malicious older sibling. Sukuna turned from the tree to my tensed body with a disarming smile that was so Itadori-like that I faltered in my flee.

"A reverse energy user, how useful." He almost cooed like a parent watching their child draw a messy circle out of crayon for the first time. I must have been so tiny to him, so ugly and small and insect-like. I wasn't event sure I was worth the energy to him to smash, it was like I was a spider and he was watching what I would do, knowing he could stomp on me faster than I could run. "So, you'll keep the heart nice, warm and juicy so that once the brat changes back you can keep him alive, huh?"

My lips didn't move to say anything, because that was, is, was, should be the plan. A plan that Megumi had realized without even looking at me, one that I hated and wanted nothing to do with, one will get me killed if I wasn't fast enough in running.

"What, nothing? You're the first woman I get to talk to in this new age and you're just going to ignore me?"

Yes. I wanted to scream as I darted away with the heart clutched to my chest and focused my attention on dodging tree after tree after bush after random stone. The heart continued to beat although it was nowhere near the speed of my own thumping blood through my body while Itadori's splashed on the outside of it. I disappointed him and it made me feel at least mildly better while I frantically attempted my escape.

Jump over that root, duck under that branch, turn away from that tree, jump again!

Run, run, run.

Run!

He's going to get you if you don't run, so run! Run fast, fast. I could drop the heart, he's forget me, wait—

"Not fast enough!"

It was the only warning I got before a fist was in my guts, he was there, and the precious air from my lungs was forced out of me unceremoniously. The punch's energy went through my body and instead of flying backwards, I crumpled to the ground over his receding arm with a gasp, rolling to the side to escape the stomp to my head.

"You're right, you're right!" Sukuna conceded mockingly as he watched me get up and motioned to his face with pity on it. "If I mess that up now, then I'd be ruining my precious doll too soon! Not when I want to watch that face scream and cry out in so many different types of fear, pain, rage— where are you going?"

By the time he got through his second sentence, I had already began running, not wanting to be the one to be caught off guard in a fight. I had nothing to say to a psychopath who wanted nothing more than to do the immoral for the hell of it. There was nothing I could say, plead, beg or anything so I was not going to stand there and act like there was a chance I could survive.

I didn't want to die.

I don't want to die.

Run, run because I can't die—!

"Please don't insult me."

Sukuna appeared behind me with a fist in my hair. He yanked me by the braid with a harsh gasp spewing from me, I almost dropped the heart in my hands to grab at the claws digging into my scalp, but I sacrificed the relief and held on to the organ while Sukuna dragged me away. "Now, here's the deal, I'm going to make a deal and you are going to be a good doll and. Let. Him. Die!"

"No!" I screamed in denial kicking and using my left hand to try and force his fingers from the grip he had on me. It wasn't even in my panic that I was trying to protect Itadori by denying his orders, I was refusing his control over my life, but either didn't matter.

"Yes!" He hollered back as he sent me flying over his shoulder to skid head first into the tree before him.

With my whole body reaching past its pain point into a point of numbing disparity, my eyelids become lead that I had to consciously keep open. The heart, my head twisted to the side and there it was in the shadows of my blurring vision on the ground beside. My right hand raised to grab the heart in a desperate, maybe delirious, attempt to bring it back to me as if the simple act of holding it would keep the bad man away—

Snap.

Crack.

My metacarpals snapped and my phalanxes cracked a few times before he twisted the hauntingly familiar red boot over them heavily, unforgivingly. The experience didn't register at first until he lifted his foot and stomped on them with a loud thump into the earth. The pain been building up rapidly as the alarm signals went up my arm and sent my body into overdrive.

I screamed, lurching forward to hit his foot off with the very little energy I had left, but he made no sign that I did anything other than amuse him like a toddler playing with figurines - or maybe it was the face I made when I played the Sims and took away the ladder.

"As much as I love to hear you scream, I've got some things to tie up." Sukuna's grinning face squatted next to me as I weakly sobbed with my hand still under his foot. His own clawed hands picked up Itadori's heart that I had so painstakingly kept beating and held it in front of me in a taunt. "And just so you know how serious I am."

Blood.

More blood.

It was once again heavy on my shoulder, but heavier on my chest as it rapidly changed from a stream to beady drops that stained the white, dress under that of my uniform. He squeezed it again, wronged it out like a mop, before he tore it in half, then again, and shook the left over all over me like one does with left over water in a cup. The droplets were on my face, mixing with my tears and dripping down my neck to join the rest of the puddle that I basically bathed in.

My eyes didn't leave the organ, my brain was already scanning it and processing it to see how much of me it would take to fix. The heart was still there, all of it, I could do that. I could fix it. I can restore it even if sensei was warning me in the back of my head, what did he know anyways he wasn't like me, I wasn't him, I could fucking fix it—!

A heart of gold turned to ash before my eyes.

Lost.

Gone.

Both Yuuji Itadori and hope.

"Now, sit, stay." Sukuna turned away from me with a flippant wave of hand and my dying sight stayed locked onto the blurring puddle of blood drying out on my chest. "Sleep, if you must. I'll be back for you soon."

...It was the one time I would listen to him.

A/N: a full chapter of one scene woah. I didn't like the ending, but I couldn't figure out an end to the chapter that I liked so I'm just posting it lol