What are the relevant facts?

Sorcery, while ancient, isn't that ancient.

Humans have existed much longer than sorcery, which seems to have appeared everywhere all at once around three thousand years ago. Regardless of academic progress, religion, or culture, at around the same time, everyone started seeing monsters.

When Europeans first began venturing across the sea to the Americas, they were shocked to find powerful sorcerers among the indigenous people. Uncontacted, isolated people who would remain alone in the world until only a couple of centuries before had cursed spirits and they had sorcerers.

If the Aztecs and Polynesian ancestors who had been physically unable to contact each other since the Bering Land Strait vanished ten thousand years ago gained the same abilities at the same time, it couldn't be genetic or due to some shared information or anything they were doing, because they were effectively living in different universes.

The only way for something to affect everyone at the same time was if it was a global event, and most humans frankly had not even grasped the concept of what the world was at that time.

It is also true that sorcery abilities have very clearly proven to be hereditary, yet don't appear in human DNA. Running a DNA test on a sorcerer like Satoru Gojo wouldn't indicate that he has superpowers at all. Yet they have some sort of biological blueprint that they pass on to their descendants that has never been discovered or examined by scientists or sorcerers.

The sorcery and scientific communities stay away from each other like oil and water, but now they have been forced to collide. Gojo doesn't want these people in his business; he's been having enough trouble without a bunch of eggheads questioning everything.

Sukuna and Yuji listen to the evidence as Gojo explains that it is simply ridiculous to suggest that isolated humans in multiple places evolved both the ability to cause cursed spirits to spawn as well as the ability to fight them.

There was a real 'chicken and egg' problem inherent to the beginnings of sorcery, as humans create all cursed energy in the world, which causes cursed spirits, which are hunted by sorcerers. The presence of predators implies the prey came first, but if cursed spirits really came first, they would have rendered the humans who made them extinct.

It's all very messy, and it turns out that Gojo as an individual doesn't have a single drop of superstition anywhere in his body. He doesn't believe in the dark forces of sorcery, and openly admits to the group that people believing sorcery is supernatural is a lot less unsettling to most than the idea that it might have come from somewhere else.

Sukuna listens, although he came from a time where many things that were believed to be supernatural were actually just things that humans didn't know about yet.

Convincing an uninformed version of himself from the Heian Era that there are other people living out in the stars somewhere would probably be easier than convincing him that humans figured out what the sun is, and that they use this information to make little suns they can use to torment each other in times of war.

Meanwhile Yuji has no idea whatsoever what he should think of any of this.

The scientists and engineers clearly think that Gojo is some sort of idiot wizard who doesn't understand their ways, and they're actually quite rude to Gojo about his theory that sorcery may be extraterrestrial in nature despite two important facts:

1) They brought the sorcerers there because they encountered a probably-living thing on a place that's not earth and it was invisible to them like a cursed spirit would be.
2) Gojo has presented reasonable possibilities to explain this link that are supported by historical information.

Sukuna doesn't even know why Gojo is tolerating these powerless nerds disrespecting him.

Most of the people in this conference do not believe sorcery is a real thing due to the lack of scientific observability. Yet, the astronauts were very obviously killed by something probably similar to a sorcerer or a cursed spirit. They have observed, and they don't like it.

"You know what?"

Yuji hears Sukuna's voice in his head, and honestly, he kind of wants to hear Sukuna's opinion about all this alien nonsense. Are they aliens? Has Sukuna been part alien all this time?

"What?"

Sukuna says, "These are probably some of the smartest people living on planet with eight billion people, and the most intelligent and thoughtful person in the room is Satoru Gojo. That is deeply depressing."

"Do you think so?"

"If they were intelligent, this conversation would have happened before they blasted the astronauts off into space. These nerds definitely already knew something was up there."

Yuji asks, "What makes you say that?"

"Are you dumb? There were multiple clear signs that they knew they might be attacked."

"I didn't see any."

"It's amazing how little insight and intelligence you actually have. First of all, the news report said there were twelve astronauts killed. We see fourteen die in the video, which means there were two people on the mission they don't want anyone to know about. Second, there were exactly two people who had some sort of patch with a skull and lightning, hard to imagine that is a reference to anything but weapons. Third, those two people were the first people out of the spaceship. Fourth, when they got attacked, they seemed to all run toward that one particular crate that was getting unloaded first. Fifth, they didn't televise the landing even though humans haven't landed on the moon in fifty years. And sixth, something bad clearly happened before this. Humans stopped going there for decades and when they finally went back, they brought weapons. That crate probably had guns in it."

Okay, but Yuji didn't really get all that from the video? A lot of people knew Sukuna was evil, but Sukuna was first and foremost actually very intelligent. They share a set of eyes, but somehow, Sukuna always sees so much more.

After becoming frustrated, Gojo says, "Everyone is aware of the existence of dark energy and dark matter, right?"

Sukuna makes a little mouth on Yuji's face. "I'm not!"

"Shut up, Sukuna. No one cares what you know. I'm speaking to scientists, physicists, people with big brains," Gojo answers.

He answers, "I turned you into a fraction. I think that makes me a mathematician. Now explain to my big brain with dark energy is, because it sounds interesting."

Gojo rolls his eyes. "Fine, for all the bloodthirsty villains and military guys who are definitely in this meeting but not showing their faces—although, kind of the same?—the universe is filled with dark energy and dark matter. It's believed that dark energy is causing some sort of pressure in space that causes celestial bodies that are not bound together by gravity away from each other. Then we have dark matter, which is only theorized to exist by the brilliant minds in this room because they can see from how structures like galaxies move that there is a ton of mass out there that is not accounted for. Scientists don't know how to measure or image it or really anything about it, except that they're just sure it's there, and that it is everywhere. It's so everywhere that it makes up most of the universe."

He stands up and heads to the wall opposite all the face squares of people observing him and uncaps a dry erase marker.

"Essentially, at some point about three thousand years ago, all humans everywhere suddenly gained the subconscious ability to interact with dark energy. A very small percentage of humans can purposefully interact with dark energy and dark matter. We can do this very generally, but most of us have some sort of blueprint that allows them to do something more interesting. That's what a sorcerer is."

Gojo starts writing and says, "Here's how cursed spirits are born on Earth. All people have some sort of weird programming that activates whenever they are feeling very negative feelings. It doesn't happen when people are feeling normal or happy for some reason. Human brains that are in a state of distress will essentially create an imprint of whatever that distress is using dark energy. What that imprint entails varies greatly on the person themselves, the reason they are distressed, and the intensity of that distress.

"We will call this a 'bad vibe.' It is a real thing that exists, invisibly, floating around the world. It's information from human brains about something negative. Bad vibes that meet each other will combine their information, and at some point, depending on many circumstances, the bad vibe will stabilize and start absorbing dark matter from the surrounding atmosphere. This is a cursed spirit.

"Dark matter has mass and can interact with other things that have mass. Even if you can't see it, if you shot a cursed spirit with a plain old gun, it would hit and it damage the body. But it wouldn't die because what the actual cursed spirit is the big combined bad vibe at its core. Only sorcerers and certain tools can interact with the core bad vibe because standard weapons don't interact with dark energy. Sorcerers use dark energy in order to force the bonds that break apart the bad vibe, causing the dark energy to lose its information.

"Sorcerers are born with the inherited ability to interact with these forces generally, but most also have a more sophisticated blueprint as well. This is definitely inherited but isn't passed on through DNA. Whatever causes humans to broadcast their bad vibes into the world and whatever gives sorcerers powers is contained in some other type of biological information. We don't really know about it or what it looks like, but it probably didn't evolve here on earth."

Yuji just sort of coasts through this conversation, because he's literally spent years in sorcery training, and no one said anything about any of this to him at all? When he was new to sorcery and didn't understand what it was, certainly, Gojo never casually disclosed that it was an 'aliens' thing and not a 'forces of evil' thing.

"Have I been living in a sci-fi and not an occult story all this time?!"

"Be quiet, my big brain is listening."

"I wasn't even talking to you? I am talking to myself, in my head."

"Well, I am also here, and I don't like it."

"Whose fault is it that? But anyway, do you understand what Gojo is talking about?"

"He's explaining it very simply. If you're not following, it's not the subject material."

Yuji then asks, "Do you think he's right?"

"There is something that happened back in my day that supports this theory."

"What was it?"

"I'm not telling."

Explaining the science behind sorcery to this group actually didn't at all explain what was shown on the video. The lack of 'bad vibes' on the moon and the fact that bad vibes almost always produce weak, inane creatures suggests that whatever killed the astronauts definitely wasn't a cursed spirit.

The whole point that Gojo attempts to make is that there's no way to know what it actually was from so far away, but it was likely that only sorcerers would be able to see it.

Just letting the moon be cursed and scary probably would have been fine, but the creature had used some of the technology the astronauts brought to beam some sort of message into space, and that was a very urgent problem.

There are a lot of questions about the nature of the killer.

Outside, it seemed huge, and while not visible, had some sort of grabbing ability capable of allowing it to pick a whole human being up.

After it finished killing everyone, it seemingly shrank, but remained heavy, because it fit inside the lander and also used implements intended for human fingers.

It also understood how to use all of the equipment.

Gojo immediately thinks about how Sukuna basically copied Yuji's knowledgebase when he incarnated in this era and wondered if the creature somehow utilized the intelligence or shape of the astronaut that was shown being eaten.

There is a broader debate; they don't know if there is just one monster who was for some reason stranded by itself or a thousand.

They don't even know if it is actually a monster.

Gojo poses the possibility that there could be indigenous sentient beings on the moon that are simply invisible to humans, and accuses the group of knowing in advance that something was up there.

Yuji assumed he'd observed whatever magic Sukuna had, and someone who was on audio only, without identifying themselves, conceded that on the last lunar landing mission decades ago, the astronauts awoke to the sounds of something outside of their ship, touching it, scratching along the edges lightly, toying with screws and fiddling with whatever was in reach.

After this ended, they went outside to find huge impressions in the lunar dust that were perhaps more like enormous footprints than anything else.

Gojo asks, "I'm just a guy, but we went there for scientific curiosity, and they kind of checked us out. Did we maybe try being friendly? I mean, in theory a sorcerer might be able to communicate in some way. They didn't kill us the first time. Why'd we take weapons? Maybe it's some sort of cultural misunderstanding?"

Sukuna's little mouth smirks. "What a faggot!"

Yuji slaps his face and covers the mouth. "I'm so sorry. I have asked him to stop doing that many times. He understands that it is wrong."

Sukuna says to him internally, "I bet I convince these people I'm not real."

"…and why would you want to do that?"

"It would be fun to convince all these really important people that you've gone mad and have an alternate persona that wants to eat people and use slurs."

Yuji visibly sighs. "But why?"

"I'm so bored. I want to go up there! Bounce around and go for a little hunt. They obviously want to blast a sorcerer up there to make sure that device gets turned off right away."

"We are not going to the moon."

Sukuna, sitting atop his throne of bones, picks one up and hurls it at the barrier between them. "I am asking you, Yuji Itadori, to be interesting for once in your life. You're not smart. You're not funny. You're can't bring a woman to climax. Depending on how you look at it, launching you into space is probably the best thing for everyone."

"I should have stomped you to death when you turned into a little pile of shit."

"But you didn't. You wanted to save my soul. How's that working out for you?"

The meeting goes on for what feels like ages, and Yuji spends most of the time sitting with his head resting in his hand, listening to Sukuna rag on him for not wanting to go on an adventure without any respect whatsoever for the fact the 'adventure' was being rocketed to the moon in order to fight an unknown attacker or attackers.

Maybe it was one thing at the level of a first grade curse.

Maybe there were a thousand Satoru Gojos up there.

The idea that things might be terrible and dangerous just made Sukuna want to go even more.

When they finally leave the meeting, Gojo warps Yuji back to the Tokyo campus, and they have a long discussion about everything that happened, and Yuji really doesn't know what to think about any of it.

He certainly knows what Sukuna thinks because Sukuna won't shut up.

While sitting on a bench in the courtyard, Yuji asks, "So, is it a secret that we're aliens?"

"It's probably best to keep quiet about it. People thinking were occultists doing some sort of good magic against evil magic is probably better than them understanding that we are their alien hybrid overlords who can exterminate them at any time."

"So like…how did it happen?"

Gojo shrugs. "Who knows? There are probably a lot of ways it could have happened. Meteorite is probably the most likely answer, right? It's also possible that I'm wrong, but I don't really think so. Whatever tells our bodies what technique we have is hereditary, but it's not in our DNA and nothing else on earth has it."

Yuji asks, "What's going to happen?"

"One of us probably has to go up there."

Sukuna's little mouth appears. "I want to go! It would be good for Yuji. Just look at him. Is there a more boring person? He's what a toast sandwich would be if it came to life."

"What the hell is a toast sandwich?" Gojo asks.

Yuji sighs. "We ate one in England on that job a few months ago. Sukuna has a lot of thoughts about English food and they are all very violent."

Sukuna answers, "If someone serves me mashed peas on fried potatoes, I should be allowed to kill them!"

Gojo knows it must be interesting in Yuji's head.

Yuji has tight control over Sukuna when it comes to combat, and while he can't make Sukuna fight for him, if Sukuna just wants to do it for his own reasons, it's not so risky because Yuji can take control at any time.

And ultimately, if whatever up there poses some kind of challenge, if there's one thing they can count on Sukuna for, it's finding new and creative ways to kill.

Best case scenario, Yuji wouldn't need him, and whatever is going on is minor.

Worst case scenario, if fighting was needed at scale, they could use Sukuna.

The space agencies wanted Yuji and Sukuna because while their sources said they could likely talk Sukuna into participating in violent murder, if he was lost, they'd still have Gojo who would defend earth if there was additional trouble.

If they switched, while Gojo would do his best on the moon, Sukuna would absolutely not act as Earth's protector. He was for doing violence only, no defense, no protection, and could not be relied upon to do anything except cause death.

Gojo says, "I dunno. I just think, if we're going to meet extraterrestrials, maybe Ryomen Sukuna should not be our ambassador. Anyway, let's think on it. We'll probably have to go to another meeting soon about this since it's an urgent problem. What a pain in the ass!"

Yuji is still not sure what to think about any of it, but he understands that he can't talk about it with anyone else, so when he returns to his apartment, he is surprised to find Yuko Ozawa waiting for him.

He had given her a key to feed his parakeets while he was out of town a month before, but this time, she didn't have a reason to come over.

As soon as he enters the apartment, she drops her robe and reveals lacy black lingerie.

Yuji is just really distracted, but he feels like he needs to redeem himself.

"Yuko. Hi. You're here. In my apartment. You look nice. Very…handsome?"

"Like watching someone play a sport so badly that it not only ruins the game, but the sport itself," Sukuna comments.

Yuji answers, "Please just leave me alone and let me do this."

"That big ass is in a black lace thong and the best thing you can come up with is 'handsome?' Why should I let you do this? You need to be stopped."

Yuko watches as Yuji just sort of zones out, unaware that he is arguing with a thousand-year-old demon who happens to live in his body. To her, he just looks disinterested, and with a sigh, she puts the robe back on.

"Yuji, do you really want to be with me?" she asks, a bit disappointed.

"Yes. Yes! Very much yes!"

Sukuna says, "I'm going to go take a nap so I don't die from secondhand embarrassment at what a weasel tit my own flesh and blood is."

Yuji doesn't know what sort of an insult 'weasel tit' is or why Sukuna called him this, but if he spends time thinking about that, this situation will get worse.

His phone starts buzzing, and he answers, and it's an assistant who has taken the first years on a training mission. They need backup, and so his chances are officially blown.

"I like you so much…but I have to go."

She just sighs. "Of course. Please call me later, okay?"

As he heads out, he hears Sukuna say, "Loser strikes out again."