Human Adjacent - Megumi Fushiguro x READER

Chapter 16

When my feet hit the ground I roll quickly onto my shoulder, springing back to my feet as soon as possible. I tear my way towards the backside of the curse and the boy it is keeping me from.

I can see Fushiguro on the ground. He is conscious, but covered in blood, trembling in every inch of his body,  and one of his eyes won't open due to the blood leaking into it from a gash on his scalp. He brings his hands up in a weak attempt to summon a shikigami, then drops them and mutters something, shaking his head with a grimace.

He meets my eyes.  I'm not sure if he can see me, but I nod anyway, refusing to tremble.

Then I charge, sliding along the ground and under the belly of the curse. I grab out, digging my hands under leathery flesh and tearing as if it were paper. The curse howls, but it does not drop as I'd hoped, too strong for my ill formed technique, even as its flesh bubbles and the festers. I get four strikes in before the beast swings out a hand, swiping me sideways and sending me skidding toward Fushiguro. I hear myself cry out as the red-hot concrete scrapes through my uniform and skins my entire right side, but I don't feel the pain for long, adrenaline flowing through the gravel filled abrasions faster than I can think.

I slam into Fushiguro as I slide and he grunts, wrapping an arm around my waist to stabilize us as we roll over one another and tumble to a stop ten feet away. I regain my bearings after a few seconds, and see Itadori flying through the air, one hand still wrapped around the cursed object. So he jumped behind me. Stupid boy.

"Itadori!" Fushiguro calls. He's on the ground underneath me, one arm still wrapped tight around my waist. I wonder if he notices, and if he does, if it brings him as much infuriating stability as it does me.

"Your best bet is to grab those guys and get out of here!"

I try to push myself off the ground, but my arm buckles under me. When I look to it, the flesh has been worn away and revealed pink bone and stringy red muscle beneath it. I have to look away before I lose consciousness.

"You're in big trouble yourself-! " Itadori shouts, grappling to keep his grip on the curse as it flings him through the air. The idiot.

"Only a curse can kill a curse!" I scream hoarsely. "It'll eat you and the finger! We'll all die!" I beg, imploring him to understand.

"Is that your idea of a pep talk?" He calls back, landing a heavy blow to the curse's giant mouth and knocking it back a few steps. Who does he think he is? Why won't he understand that he can't do this on his own.

But what choice does he have?

I feel helpless. As I lay against Fushiguro's chest, I feel my exhaustion catching up to me in spite of my efforts to stay alert, and the pain in my skinned flesh, and my ankles- likely splintered from the fall - begins to become very real. All day I've been exerting energy in ways I never had before, and the consequences are finding me all at once as I lie still for the first time in hours.

I can tell Fushiguro feels the same, his fingers tremble and I find them, wrapping them in my own. Both of us are helpless, both terrified to watch this boy die. Both too exhausted and broken to do anything about it.

He says something I can't understand, low and muddled.

"If I quit now," Itadori is saying, "I'll be having this nightmare for weeks. I know what I have to do!"

"I'm living with a rotten curse already."

The curse slams him over the ledge of the bridge, but Itadori grabs its finger with his free hand and uses the momentum to fling himself back up. The curse strikes him and blood spatters from his mouth. The finger flies from Itadori's grip and into the air.

The monster wraps him in one giant fist and opens its mouth to the falling appendage, but Itadori finds his footing on another part of the curse's body, using it to launch himself upward and intercept the falling finger.

With his teeth.

Panic courses through my veins, and finally, I'm able to vault to my feet. Fushiguro grunts as I push off his chest for momentum and his arm falls limply back to his side.

"Idiot!" Fushiguro shouts behind me, scrambling to get upright. "Throw it to me or you'll be eaten with it!"

Itadori whips his head back and tosses the finger into the air. "There's a way I can save everyone! I just have to up my own cursed energy, right?"

My heart sinks to my stomach. He can't. He wouldn't.

"Don't do it," Fushiguro says behind me. His words are weak, effortless. I doubt Itadori hears, or that Fushiguro was really trying to get him to, because he knew it was a hopeless feat. I remain silent. We both know there's nothing we can do, because the stupid boy's stupid plan is already in motion. The special grade is a poison, even to most curses. It will kill an ordinary boy within moments of entering his body. We are too late, we won't save him.

He gulps the cursed object down in a single motion.

For what feels like a long time, all is still, even the giant curse holding Itadori in its vice grip. I steel myself to war with the curse once it eats the boy and the special grade cursed object in his stomach.

From behind me, I hear a slurred whisper.

"One in a million."

I don't have time to ask what it means.

After a single second's pause, a loud boom echos over the courtyard as the curse's arms are blown in a hundred different directions. Itadori leaps from the curse, arms spread wide, and hovers in the air a moment before hitting the ground just ahead of the two of us. The impact jars me to my teeth.

The curse charges him, all eyes and teeth and flailing arms, and for a brief moment I prepare myself to die, to watch him die. 

Then it is gone. Turned to a thousand tiny reddish chunks spread over the courtyard with a single swing of Itadori's arm. His fingers are tipped with black claws, and his sleeve slides up to reveal two thick black tattoos on his wrist. How did I not notice before?

Oh. Oh.

No.

Dread sinks deep into my bones, heavier than the cursed energy and colder than the country night air. It washes over me like it did earlier today when Itadori passed by with the finger tucked away in his backpack. That boy, that brave, stupid kid, too strong for his own good, had just defeated the impossible odds. He had revived an ancient evil. I feel frozen in place, I can hear the voices of my teachers from Jujutsu Tech, I can see the faint image of a shadow with white eyes sitting on a throne over a field of bones and naked bodies.

From behind me, Fushiguro wraps thin, cold finders around my wrist and tugs me back behind him. He does not shake, he looks less dazed now, but I know how beaten he is, and how little energy he must have left. His eyes never leave Itadori.

Not Itadori.

Ryomen Sukuna.

The clouds part, washing moonlight over Itadori's boyish face, now marred with crude black markings and four blood red eyes.

Sukuna looks around quickly, taking stock of his surroundings.

Then the ancient monster, the Disgraced One, the King of Curses wearing the skin of a high school boy, tilts his face to the sky, and begins to laugh.

1304 Words 

I'm in class right now editing this.

OK SO we're through the first episode, from here on out I'll be LOOSELY following the story but idk how loyal I'll be because this chapter I was literally watching the first episode in two minute increments then pausing to write so i got the details right im sobbing. Anyways I'll probably be less detail oriented sorry hehe.

THATS ALL HOPE YOU ENJOYED <3

-Chaos