What Was Once Lost (Itafushi)

5

It's all my fault. I'm such a coward.

Why am I such a coward?

I'm the reason Itadori is dead

-

Three inmates were stuck inside of a juvenile detention center after the evacuation order. Itadori and I were supposed to retrieve the inmates dead or alive. We were explicitly told not to interact with the curse.

"Why wouldn't we kill the curse?" Itadori asked.

"It's too dangerous. A higher grade sorcerer will exorcise the curse when one is available. Right now, our focus is getting the inmates out of the detention center." 

I had my doubts about why we were sent on this mission if it were too high of a grade for us, but I opted to keep them to myself. How stupid was I? I let both of us walk into a death trap.

I summoned my white divine dog and entered the detention center alongside Itadori.

Before long Itadori called out to me. "Fushiguro? What happened to the door?" I looked behind us to find a solid wall.

"An incomplete domain," I had never experienced one before, but Gojo once explained it to me. When a curse hasn't mastered a domain expansion, it can use physical barriers like the building itself to expand its domain into. Since it was bound by the physical barriers of the building it was incomplete, this possible to escape. "My divine dog remembers the sent of the entrance, so we'll be able to get out without exorcising the curse."

When he thought I had focused my attention back to finding the inmates, Itadori pat my divine dog's head and whispered, "Good boy." 

I probably smiled to myself, but looking back there was nothing to be happy about. We were walking straight to our executioner without knowing it.

The curse was like nothing I've ever experienced. I thought I was in control. I thought the shock of the mangled corpse of the inmate had caused me to stop in my tracks. It wasn't until I locked eyes with Itadori that I realized I was unable to move.

I don't want to admit how much of a coward I was. I want to say I stayed and fought by Itadori's side. I want to say that I saved him. I want to say that I paid him back for saving me from the curse at the high school.

I wanted to ignore him when he told me to run away, but after seeing my divine dog's head severed from its body, I fled. I left Itadori completely alone, without any weapon. I sentenced him to death.

Without my divine dog, I had no sense of where the entrance was. I was running completely blind l, and just out of dumb luck, I stumbled out of the detention center into the moonlight. 

After a beat, I felt his presence.

It was so overwhelmingly evil.

Not only did I leave Itadori to die, I let Sukuna, the king of all curses, the strongest sorcerer in history, take control of Itadori's body.

I should have run far away from the detention center. The area had already been evacuated, and there wasn't a single other soul for miles. 

But selfishly, I stayed. Maybe the outcome would have been different had I run. Maybe Sukuna would have grown bored with nobody around. But I didn't run, and Sukuna found that interesting. 

He was incredibly fast. Before I could even sense that the special grade curse inside the detention center had been exorcised, Itadori was standing in front of me.

"What a waste of talent," he sneered. With the change in posture and facial expressions, he was hardly recognizable. I stood there, stunned, my eyes wide and my mouth slightly agape. 

Do something! I shouted internally. But of course, I didn't do anything.

Everything Sukuna said sounded so distant and distorted, like my head was underwater.  I saw Itadori reach inside of his own chest and tear out his heart. The blood mixing with the water on the damp concrete where he stood.

I fell to my knees and cried out something I can no longer recall. I remembered the burning feeling in my throat, thinking I was tearing my vocal chords to shreds.

That was when I really saw Itadori, the soft, genuine smile, the hand scratching the back of his neck. And he said something. Why couldn't I remember?

His final words. He spoke directly to me, and I couldn't even give him a place in my memory.

After he collapsed to the ground, I crawled to him. I laid his head on my lap, trembling. And as my final, shameful act, I waited. I waited for an hour before I called for help. I waited there, embracing his corpse for an hour. 

If I had run and called for help, maybe he wouldn't have died. If I had called for help just after died, maybe he could have been revived. But I was selfish.

Itadori was dead.

It was my fault.