"Get away from him!"
Seeing Megumi Fushiguro battered and broken, the words of Yuji's grandfather echoed in his mind. Without a second thought, he lunged forward, placing himself between the wounded sorcerer and the looming curse. He wound up and threw a heavy punch directly at the monster's face.
CLANG!
Yuji's face contorted as he pulled his hand back, shaking it frantically. It felt like he had just punched a solid slab of reinforced steel.
The curse remained unmoved. It stared down at the "food" that had dared to strike it, its expression vacant and cruel. Several whip-like tentacles lashed out in response, striking with such speed that Yuji could only scramble and leap, his skin being flayed open by the razor-sharp strikes.
"You idiot!" Megumi hissed through the pain.
His two Divine Dogs lunged from the left and right, their claws carving deep furrows into the curse's hide. The monster shrieked in agony, swinging a massive limb that sent the dogs and Yuji tumbling across the room.
Megumi seized the opening. He slid beneath the curse's reach, his fist glowing with a concentrated aura of cursed energy.
BOOM!
The force wasn't as great as Yuji's raw strength, but the effect on the spirit was night and day. Upon impact, the curse's distorted body detonated into a shower of purple mist.
Breathing heavily, Megumi turned his glare toward Yuji. "I told you to run with the others! Why did you come back? That was incredibly reckless!"
"Curses can only be exorcised by cursed energy," Megumi continued, his voice rising in frustration. "You can't hurt them with physical strength alone. You almost died, do you understand?"
"Hey, you were still here!" Yuji countered, wiping blood from his forehead. "I figured I could at least be a distraction." He paused, looking around the ruined classroom. "What are these things anyway? Why are they at a school?"
Megumi took a breath to steady himself. "They're Cursed Spirits. Just think of them as beings that ordinary people can't see."
"Like ghosts?"
"In a sense. As for why they're here, it's because of this: a Special Grade Cursed Object." Megumi held up the gnarled finger of Sukuna. "This thing is a deadly poison to any living creature, but it's an irresistible lure for curses. If they eat it, they gain massive power."
"I see..." Yuji nodded slowly, though his confused expression suggested his brain was still trying to process the information.
"Alright," Megumi said, leaning against a desk. "Now we just need to take this back and reseal it properly—"
CRASH!
The entire building shuddered. Before Megumi could react, a massive curse shaped like a chameleon—boasting six legs and a tongue covered in blinking eyeballs—smashed through the brick wall.
The impact sent Megumi flying. He hit the far wall with a sickening thud, his body actually cratering into the masonry. The finger slipped from his grasp, skittering across the floor to stop at Yuji's feet.
Remembering how important the object was, Yuji snatched it up just as the chameleon-curse roared and lunged at him.
Yuji lived up to his nickname as the "Tiger of West Junior High." Using nothing but his natural athleticism, he managed to dance around the curse's strikes, though the gap in power was closing fast. He was cornered, the finger clutched tight in his hand.
In a moment of desperation, Yuji bit down on the finger to keep it from being knocked away, just as the curse's massive hand clamped around his torso.
"Stop!" Megumi shouted from the wall. "It'll consume you too! Throw the finger away!"
Seeing the curse's maw open wide to swallow both him and the relic, Yuji's mind raced back to Megumi's words. Curses can only be exorcised with cursed energy. Eating the finger gives you cursed energy.
His adrenaline-soaked brain bypassed the warnings of poison.
"In that case, Fushiguro, I just need to have cursed energy, right?"
"Don't do it!" Megumi screamed.
Yuji tossed the finger into the air, caught it in his mouth, and swallowed it whole. He didn't even chew.
Suddenly, Yuji felt the world tilt. His feet left the ground. Looking up, he saw a man with snow-white hair and dark sunglasses holding him up by the back of his shirt like a stray kitten.
Without a word, the man flipped Yuji upside down and began shaking him violently, as if trying to empty a stubborn trash can.
"What are you doing eating that? Spit it out! Right now!"
"Guh... hurgh!"
Yuji's vision blurred as his stomach did a somersault. The finger, which hadn't quite cleared his esophagus, came flying out and landed on the floor with a wet thud.
The man—Souma Gojo—dropped Yuji and reached for the finger. He stopped, looking at the glistening coating of saliva with a look of pure disgust. He patted Yuji on the shoulder.
"Pick it up. Pick it up right now."
"Oh... okay!" Yuji, still dizzy, grabbed the finger and wiped it clean on his sleeve.
ROAR!
The chameleon-curse let out a deafening howl, sensing its prize was still within reach. Souma lowered his sunglasses just an inch, his Six Eyes flashing with a cold, crystalline light.
POP!
The curse simply ceased to exist, its form bursting into nothingness.
"Huh???" Yuji's jaw hit the floor. He immediately looked away from Souma, terrified that a single glance in his direction might cause him to explode too.
"Souma Gojo-sensei!" Megumi called out, limping toward them.
"Good work, Megumi." Souma placed a hand on his shoulder. A wave of warmth flooded Megumi's body as his broken ribs and bruises vanished instantly.
"Reverse Cursed Technique..." Megumi murmured with a hint of envy. He knew the Ten Shadows' Deer could eventually do the same, but seeing it done so effortlessly was always humbling. "Thank you, sensei. If you hadn't arrived, we would have been in real trouble."
Megumi then turned a furious gaze on Yuji, grabbing him by the collar. "You total moron! Why would you try to swallow that finger?"
"Hey! I was trying to help you!" Yuji protested.
"Idiot! I told you the finger is a lethal poison! If you swallow it, you die!"
"Wait... did you actually say that part?"
"Actually, he wouldn't have died," Souma interrupted, his tone shifting. "Itadori-kun is special. Even if he swallowed it, he wouldn't die. He was specifically created to be the perfect vessel for Sukuna's incarnation."
Souma turned his gaze toward the shadows of the hallway. "Am I right? You, hiding over there?"
Two figures stepped out from the darkness. One was a woman with a stitched forehead. Beside her was a towering, pale creature with branches for eyes and white cloth wrapped around its left arm and shoulder.
The moment Yuji saw the woman, his mind went blank. A strange, haunting sense of familiarity washed over him.
"Who... who is she?" he asked, his voice trembling.
The woman looked at Yuji and offered a smile that felt like a cold blade. "Yuji. My name is Kaori Itadori. I am your mother."
"Mother..."
"Hey, Kenjaku," Souma cut in, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register. "Toying with a woman's corpse and messing with a kid's head? That's incredibly low-rent. You really are a piece of trash."
Read The Full Story at P@treon: P@treon .com/zefyrus