Chapter Text

Part One: Rebirth

"To return from death is not a blessing, but the most twisted curse of them all"

There’s a saying that is recited at the funeral of a sorcerer, echoing throughout the halls in which they once walked and, like a sacred ritual or generationally passed down tradition, is embedded into the very foundations of natural law. Without the few words that make up this verse, it was only certain that the soul of the diseased would fail to find rest and instead come back as a vengeful spirit, bringing justice to any grudges or misfortunes they’d experienced in their life before death. Considering the experience of being a Jujutsu Sorcerer was far from the glamorous life of a Marvel superhero, fighting in epic battles and ending in victory more often than not, every sorcerer who died and even more who continued living on afterwards, held pain in their hearts. A grudge, a regret, a memory that created the deepest wounds of their own being, carved within their souls. There wasn't one who was clean. Amidst the endless years of moving on and shoving it down, labelled by many as simply getting stronger and wiser, the life of a Jujutsu Sorcerer was cursed.

Literally.

For no other being, when a sorcerer died, regardless of circumstance, if their soul was tainted by hate, their spirit would reincarnate as a curse—a monster of revenge.

Suguru Geto didn't need to die to become a monster; he’d already made himself into one.

A tyrant with an army of curses and an empire built on the thousands of innocent lives he had stolen from the world, molding their rotting flesh and pale bones into the very throne he would sit upon. His palace walls, the colour of spilled blood, and the decor, a collection of organs and insides. It was an empire created from death.

Even though fate had led him to a path consumed by evil, Suguru Geto wasn't born a monster; in fact, he’d been brought into the world embraced by arms that were full of love. Both his parents couldn’t've been better, even when they swore black and blue that there was always something more they could give to their son, the whole village would take one look at them and be unable to turn away without a smile, without feeling just how much they cared.

They had always known their son wasn't like the other children in the village; he was born with keen eyes and a talent even they didn't possess. Who knew where the boy had inherited it from? Since he could talk, all Suguru would talk about was the scary monsters that appeared, whether it was day or night. All he could see was their mangled faces and abnormal statures. One time, he had even seen on approach a girl in his village and pull her into the shadows of the forest. She wasn't found until days later, terrified to death. Suguru found that girl and promised justice, setting out for the monster and preparing his guts for battle. Suguru wasn't aware of his technique at this age; all he knew was that he could see them, and she could not. Protect those who need it, protect those who cannot help themselves. Later that day, when the sun had begun to fall and the moon was soon to rise, he was discovered by his father not too far from home, sickly pale and silently retching behind an old stone wall.

At fourteen, his parents had scolded him once again for playing tricks. The trick in question was his cursed technique, which, a few years back, had finally been given a name: Pocket Monsters. Suguru, at the time, had been persuaded by his closest friend to sit with him and another classmate at lunch to watch their daily episode of Pokémon on the school's secret television in the storage closet. No one really questioned why there was one in there, but it didn't matter. What mattered most was 12:30 pm, the time Pokémon would be broadcast on TV Tokyo, and the daily 30-minute episode would commence. He quickly drew the similarities between the methods of the show and his own hidden talent and felt as though he wasn't so alone in this world—that there were others just like him, even if stuck behind a screen. Just like Ash Ketchum, from that day on, he had made it his destiny to become the greatest Pokémon Master Tokyo had ever seen. Later that same year is when he was scouted by the higher-ups at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, or otherwise known as Tokyo Jujutsu High—they saw potential, a prodigy amongst those who bore cursed techniques. There wasn’t much choice in the matter, but his parents were willing to support him in anything he chose to do, and so Suguru had gone off to become a jujutsu sorcerer.

At seventeen years of age, he had unexpectedly turned up on their doorstep in the darkest hours of the night, his face a sickening shade of white, and on it, plastered an expression so numb not even the two people who knew him best could discern. He looked as though he was dead, a walking corpse or a lost spirit making their way back home to finally rest in the familiar soil. His mother was the one who opened the front door. Upon hearing her son's voice after weeks of radio silence, she rushed to undo the series of locks, excitement surging through her small, aging frame, and with a wide smile full of joy that reached past her eyes, quickly pulled her son into her arms. It had been so long since she held her baby boy, she hadn't realized how big he’d gotten until now. Tightly held by his mother's thin arms, Suguru was an entire head taller than her. Really, how long had it been? But the moment she looked up at her baby boy, concern washed over her like the sea to sand. One moment, the shore was dry and enjoyable to walk upon, but now that the waves had hit, the sand would only be uncomfortable and stick like glue to the soles of your feet. Her eyes widened as the waves came crashing down.

That very night, no one could have known that this was their last. Suguru Getou, the child born from love, would be the last face anyone in that village saw before the claws of ravaged curses tore them from the realm of the living. One hundred and twelve corpses had been purged from existence. Up in flames and left in a bloody massacre for the world to be witness to, Suguru had unleashed the gates of hell and taken everyone in the village down with him. The blood of his parents painted their son's face and seeped into the uniform he had put on all those years ago, still barely the height of his father's shoulder and half his size, but now he stood slightly taller and bigger than him. Their son had grown, matured into a handsome young man. They didn't recognize the person who watched as the monster slowly approached, eyes crazed as it closed in. They didn't recognize the man who turned away and left them for dead. As they faced death, all they saw was their boy, their young, bright son who’d always kept himself tidy, who’d always harbored kindness and care in his heart, who had only wanted to help those around him—the man in front of them was stone, completely drained of life and walking the earth as a being from hell.

“…Suguru…?” His mother called out. She didn't want to believe it was him…she couldn't believe it was him. Suguru turned away from his parents' slowly dying bodies, the last bit of life clinging to his mother like a thread. The light in her eyes left the moment his foot went over the tall wooden threshold. Although she never said it, she was sure Suguru would hear her. In the fleeting moments of her stolen life, his mother had called out to him, warm tears rolling down her reddened eyes and stained cheeks. They carved out streams within the masses of deep reds and canyons of raw flesh, melting into the floor beneath and consumed by the blood-soaked planks. *I love you;* she told her son. *I’ll always love you.*

Who knows if he had felt his mother's dying words, but one thing was certain: in the ten years that passed from the massacre at his village to the day his reign of terror would be put to an end, Suguru Getou was nothing short of a sick and horrific monster—the devil in the form of a human. He was known as the worst curse-user of them all, a tyrant from hell, evil beyond redemption. Suguru had slaughtered cities and towns, innocents and guilty wanderers, and he’d even betrayed his own word and taken countless lives of jujutsu sorcerers. He killed his friends and sacrificed his family for a purpose buried below a mountain of mutilation. Death had taken over, and all that remained was an end.

In those ten years, he had turned Tokyo into a country submerged by its own ruins.

Stumbling down the alleyway that had belonged to a long forgotten past, the man clutched at the arm that was supposed to be there but had ended up elsewhere in the earlier battle. Blood slowly fell from every open wound, and the explosive end to the battle between Yuta and him had left his flesh scarred by jagged purple and blue lines.
Blood laced around his fingers and fell through his hand before streaming down his toned forearm and dripping to the cold floor beneath.
The sunset had swallowed the ocean and turned its waters a blazing orange, and the clouds that had been sailing the vast seas had become a shade so purple they almost looked bruised and beaten from the waves. It was a rare sight in Tokyo, a beautiful one.

Suguru had unleashed thousands upon thousands of cursed spirits within Shinjuku and the sacred land of Kyoto as a way to easily infiltrate Tokyo Jujutsu High and overpower Yuta Okkotsu, the cursed boy who had a special grade vengeful spirit glued to his side; his plan would work, and the war he had declared would live up to their promises. Compared to Satoru in strength and skill, Suguru would always be second to him, but in tactical thinking, Suguru was always three steps ahead.
Originally, he had set out to kill Yuta and take Rika for himself, using the Night Parade of a thousand demons as a diversion, luring the sorcerers of both schools to the battle within the two cities.
He ordered every curse to kill, kill everything and then destroy everything else--buildings, humans, animals, sorcerers.
They were completely oblivious to his true intentions, and a part of Suguru couldn't help but laugh as he strode through the gates of Tokyo Jujutsu High and reminisced. He had been so miserable and angry at the ways of jujutsu sorcerers; how could they allow such insignificant creatures to impact their own lives so greatly, so easily? So many good people had been trampled on by those useless scum, and their job was to continue protecting them. Till when? Till every last sorcerer had been met with an end covered in their own torn flesh and spilled blood, until every last friend had become yet another name carved in stone and been left as a jar of ashes?
He couldn't take it! He had seen the life escape from his own family and been standing right there as the monsters they were protecting people from tear away at the bodies of young sorcerers; he had witnessed both, but out of the two, he only felt remorse for those like him.

The strong. Jujutsu sorcerers.

He had spent a decade ridding the world of trash and trampling their bones and insides within the sole of his feet. Their death, the soil of glory; he was creating a new world. Or so he said. In truth, Suguru knew he would fail. All this blood and murder, the suffering of a country, it would be in vain. But he was too far gone now, and no matter where he turned to, the path would spell death either way. If he gave up, he would be executed by Jujutsu sorcerers and condemned to hell, but if he continued killing all non-sorcerers, he would still meet an end of death, most likely by the hands of Jujutsu society once again.

In the spur of the moment, as he battled Yuta and condensed 4,461 curse spirits into a final blow, his Uzumaki technique, to end Rika, he decided that if he was to die, he was going to do it himself. The world was a cruel place, and humans were selfish by nature. Suguru released the technique between the two sides and attempted to kill them all. What’s the point of living if you’re going to die anyway?

Out of the three of them, only one had survived.

Why the fuck won’t the heavens just let me die! Suguru internally cursed his life. Rika and Yuta slammed into the ground, and with the force of 4,461 grade 2-1 condensed curse spirits, Yuta's body had shattered like glass and his insides had spread across the battlefield. His heart had fallen from its boned cage and found itself slowly beating in the palms of Rika's fading hands. Blood escaping from the severed arteries and painting her grey hands, claws and all, a deep crimson.

“Yuuta…? Yuuta, my love…my love!” She sobbed, voice broken and desperate. She clutched at his heart and, in a burst of rage and grief, began crawling to Suguru, who watched from a distance, unable to stand. She was like a dog with rabies, frenzied and terrified but unable to think of anything else. She wanted to mutate his body, grind his bones into ash, tear him limb from limb until he was left worse than her beloved. But as she screamed and dragged her body along the shattered ground, she had only made it halfway before she no longer existed. Like she had evaporated into the dust-filled air. She was gone, and the heart of the boy she had held so close, that she had protected even in death, fell from her disappearing claws and finally stopped beating.

Silence filled the scene, so quiet it felt as though the absence of noise would take him under and drown his body riddled of sin instead of cleanse it from the horrors. Slowly, he pushed himself up with the only arm left on his beaten body and fled. The alleyway was the same as it had always been. A means to an end.

Chapter Text

Fleeing, falling, failing. The thing that those three words have in common is action—they all require you to do something first. Suguru had attempted many things throughout his miserable life. He had tried to save people, tried to find a meaning; Suguru had tried to create a world where peace could exist. He had spent a decade attempting the latter, but never once had he gotten anywhere close. Suguru had fallen down a path of villainy trying, Suguru had failed to create a world where curses wouldn't exist and sorcerers wouldn't face the inevitable fate of a cruel death, he had lost his mind trying and trying, over and over, until the only sight he could see was bodies, many beyond recognition and others as though they were stuck inside peaceful sleep. Everywhere he went, the only scent carried by the drafting wind, the only thing he felt brushing beneath all ten of his calloused, pale fingers—Death, decay, destruction. It followed him wherever he went. Now Suguru was fleeing, only this would be his last. Where had he gone wrong? Where had the lines between justice and murder merged into an endless cycle of revenge?

The alleyway was doused in the hues of a distant sunset, and the shadows were slightly darker than usual. Like the night was desperate to take over the setting sun, Suguru was submerged in its darkness. The stone flooring of Jujutsu High was intact, unlike the mess of smashed concrete and soil only a couple of hundred meters behind. Suguru stumbled down the alley, clinging to the remnants of life he had left inside of him. His staple purple robes were torn and ripped apart, leaving the side of his body, of which his arm had blown off, exposed to the bite of cool, stirring wind. A deep crimson had stained most of his clothing and from his open wounds, and the missing arm, painted Suguru's body in flowing rivers of warm blood. carved flesh and sheets of pale blue skin that had lost all its threads hung from his beaten body. Against pale skin, the shades of life were a surprisingly pleasant duo, but at a closer glance, every inch of Suguru's being was a decimated battlefield left in the wake of merciless war.

No longer able to continue walking, Suguru leaned further into the grey brick wall of the alley to steady himself before his legs gave in and his body slid down the cold, hard surface. The fires from hell burned all the way up his back from where exposed skin met brick, sliding down with his back pressed firm against the wall and a faint trail of blood staining his path down. With a thud, a pained groan escaped from his clenched teeth. It wasn’t the most thought-out plan, but it was one that had either been to fall face-first to the floor or fall ass first.

Suguru's eyes felt as though half a ton had been placed above them as he tried to observe his surroundings. Was this really the end? Would Suguru seriously die in a stupid alleyway during his attempt to flee? In the distance, an unmistakable figure emerged from the other side of the alleyway where the exit to his escape had been. Although Suguru could barely lift his eyes further than the horizon, he didn’t need much to know who it was. But even those who are most familiar can fall into denial.

*No. I’m just seeing things; I have to be. Why would he ever want to see me again after what I’ve done?*

Suguru released a strained breath and, with a slight cough, called out to the stranger, “Satoru…is that you?”. The words were like molten lava trickling down his esophagus, burning holes all the way down and blistering everything on the inside.

The man’s eyes hadn’t left Suguru's, who struggled to focus, and a slight hint of wistfulness weaved through his mind, undetected by the person who was the cause of his storm. Mountains of thoughts drifted like a lone leaf amongst the currents of all the things he could say. Like an ocean without a floor, so many things were still waiting to be discovered, but the leaf would drown if it were to fall in and try to piece together the things it wanted to say the most. He nodded, “It’s me.”.

Satoru Gojo, the man he thought had hated him, detested everything about who Suguru had become, had been the one who met him at his end.

“You're late.” Suguru managed to get out before coughing another mouthful of blood. His insides were beyond repair and slowly succumbing to the damage, broken ribs stabbed into his lungs and threatened to pierce straight through, and a few organs had shifted from their natural places and sat awkwardly inside his body. Suguru could feel everything as it happened. The sharp, jagged bones of his ribs, the blood pooling inside his lungs restricting his air, his stomach felt the pressure of his diaphragm expanding in and out as he struggled to breathe.

The phrase “you're late” could mean a million things and nothing at the same time; it was an ambiguous thing to be late. It was the difference between life and death, the ocean and the land, the sun and the moon. Was it because Suguru had already made it this far in his plan? Was it that Yuta had already died by his Uzumaki technique? Or maybe during the last ten years, Suguru had been waiting at the exit only to be received by death, now, after all the innocent lives he stole, after all the suffering he inflicted upon people who hadn't known better, after becoming a monster born from the cruel and hopeless reality people like him were fated to. Only now did death await him. Satoru was late, he couldn’t change the past anymore, he couldn't take Suguru back with him and keep his mind from collapse. Satoru was a lifetime too late. Nothing could fix what had already mended itself, even if it had mended wrong.

Satoru slowly made his way to where Suguru now sat, slumped against the grey stone alleyway of Jujutsu High, and crouched down to be at his level. He could finally stare at that man and be met with a pair of Amythest eyes that had only appeared within his dreams. Shortly after Suguru had deflected, Satoru had switched his typical circle rim sunglasses for a white cloth blindfold to protect him from cursed energy and help maintain his own cursed energy flow without constant fatigue. He hadn't taken it off since. Lowering himself and following that same trail of ink black hair, as long as the night itself, Satoru's eyes met Suguru's. Like the sky against a field of violet, an endless ocean crashing against a shore of Amythest rock. It was the first time in ten years they looked at each other this way, under these circumstances. They were completely alone, just the two of them in the same alleyway they’d been through hundreds of times before, only now, they weren’t the same people as those two kids dressed in dark blue running hand in hand, laughing as they fled from another scolding. They were Satoru and Suguru, but they weren't *them*.

The silence was deafening, and a tsunami of memories all came flooding in as it continued to haunt the absence between them. Inside this place, everywhere you went, looked, and touched, lay a piece of them. Satoru was the first to break; he couldn't take it anymore. He had seen his best friend become a monster, watched as he bathed in the blood of thousands, and could no longer wash his hands clean. He blamed himself for it all, wished that heaven would let him in or that hell would send them both down together. After a deep breath, steadying himself and his own voice, making sure the pain didn't seep through any of the cracks within his skin, Satoru asked, his voice numb, “Anything you want to say?”. It was a question only someone who had been betrayed would ask—Do you feel regret for what you have done? Do you feel even a morsel of compassion for what you have done to me? In truth, Suguru hadn't regretted a thing; he didn't feel bad about anyone or anything he had ruined during this decade of bloodshed. Up until this moment, Suguru hadn't felt anything.

Did he regret it? No.

Was it all worth it? No.

Suguru had no idea how he felt or what he wanted to say in his final moments. He had planned to escape, but then what? Who would be waiting back at home for him? They were all gone. Mimiko and Nanako had been the last of his family to die during his last big attack in Nakano City, one of Tokyo’s special wards, almost a year ago from now. He had nothing. No one. What was he doing? Where was he going to go? Who was he going to? What did he want to say?

In the back of his mind, a voice echoed through his head, like he was standing inside an empty tunnel and not on the stone floor of Jujutsu High's many alleyways. It was familiar, almost like his own, but he couldn't seem to remember ever saying it. *“There is no redemption for someone like me—A curse user who massacred thousands to prove a point that would lay weightless in the near future. There's no use in wanting more, for wanting things to be different.”* Is that what he wanted to say? He felt it deep within his rotten bones, engraved upon every layer of spoiled flesh.

“I don't have any regrets, but...” *him*. Satoru Gojo, the only person in this world he could ever call his best friend, even if it had been only for a moment, had slipped away like the blue springs of teenage youth. He couldn't say it; Suguru could never say that. He always felt that whatever he had built with Satoru during their student years had been trampled under his own bare feet and set on fire to burn until even the ashes were gone. left wilting like a flower in a vase of an empty home. He had ruined them in his mind and made it their reality.

In a moment of contemplation, scrambling the mountain of words they left unspoken, even longer than the decade, Suguru gave him his full gaze, turning his own head to meet the eyes of the other. Those crystal blue eyes, like someone has pulled the ocean from the earth and placed it right inside them, were filled with nothing. Like a void had swallowed the sea whole and become thief to its once gentle waters. Suguru had never seen eyes that he could remember so clearly shining, now appear so drained of their spark. barely holding on to the day and quietly sinking into the darkness. He was awfully calm for a person about to die, but he truly felt like his entire body was beginning the melt into the wall. He tilted his head to the side and finally spoke,

“At least curse me at the very end.” At the end of his ask, a soft laugh escaped through his words, and the lingering silence had taken over his thoughts; all Suguru could see flickering through his mind like a stop motion film were the pictures of them. It was funny, it was as if his mind had recorded everything and stored it all away for a time like this.

*Curse me at the very end, Satoru, don't let me leave again.*

Satoru was slightly taken aback by Suguru's question; the words may have seemed cryptic and like a riddle, but the rims around Suguru's eyes had turned a vibrant red, and the tears had unknowingly welled up inside them; they looked like glass from where Satoru crouched. The smile said it all. It wasn't a question; it would never be one. Satoru felt as the floodgates burst inside his heart, all the things he wanted to say, all the places and things they planned to do together all those years ago. Everything came rushing out, and nothing could ever bring it back in. A stream of warm, salty tears carved their way down his face and fell to the ground below, making an almost silent pit-pat as they came crashing down. The lump in his throat that he had been trying to ignore suddenly choked back at him, and as purple hollow penetrated through Suguru’s heart, like a bullet firing from a chambered gun, Satoru couldn't hold back his pain any longer. He sobbed as he watched the last remaining threads of his best friend's life slipping through his own fingers, fretting at the palms of his own hands.

“I love you.”

Luminescent purple flooded Suguru's vision before everything was finally dragged into the void by the hands of death. As he felt his life leaving his sinking body and falling under the waves of the afterlife, he could've sworn he heard a voice in the distance, only reaching him after a moment had passed. In his final moments, still able to see, all he saw was that boy with the white hair and bright blue eyes. Now in death, all he could see was him. Satoru Gojo. When had he forgotten all the memories? When had he fallen so mad that even now, even in death, he struggled to believe it all.

Love is the most twisted curse of them all, and Suguru was cursed to death.