A missing piece (itafushi) |itadori × fushiguro|

Chapter16

Chapter 16: Hell on Earth

*****

It was done.

People were murdered.
Itadori Yuji blamed himself.

"Hey, brat, be sure to savor this"

Like a spell, these words broke Yuji free from his trance, his consciousness screaming into existence like a diver coming up for air. But Yuji couldn’t breathe. No air filled his lungs. It felt like they were full of water and bile instead, his mind flooding with memories, rubber banding into his brain with a force that made him stagger while red and crimson dominated his mind.

He brought his hands up to his face. Whether it was for comfort, he didn’t know. What he did know is that the blood on his face wasn’t his own. He was covered in blood before, but this was different. It was wrong, wrong, wrong; It was staining him in filthy colors, adorning him like an unholy regalia, clinging to him, choking him. He could smell it. The lives taken with his body, his hands.

His legs buckle. He falls to his knees unceremoniously. He knows Sukuna is watching, his eyes searing him from inside.

He wretches once. There’s nothing coming out of his mouth, but he can hear Sukuna’s laughter ring in his ears like a windchime. He is propped up on his arms, but he could swear the world is spinning around him, blurring into vague shapes towering over the clouds of dust and smoke crowned by monuments of destruction. A wave of bile forces its way up his throat, crashing against the roof of his mouth and the back of his teeth when he can’t open his mouth in time. He throws up the content of his stomach until he’s dry heaving. There’s still so much inside. He has to get it all out, all that makes him feel empty. But no matter how he gags and cries and pleads, it is lodged inside of him, unmoving. His hands grasp at pebbles and dirt, the drag of his fingers on concrete sending bolts up his spine that push away the void, even if only momentarily. He claws at the ground like he’s trying to bury himself, his fingertips turning red as he scrapes away at his skin, leaving dark red streaks on the ground.

"Die"

The plea escaped his lips. Who he is directing it at, he isn’t sure.

"Die. Die. Die!"

He repeats it, as he is hit with the revelation of who his words are for.

"Only me! Right now!"

He keeps scraping his hands against the ground. Not as a way of punishment. Punishment promises redemption. There is no redemption for what he had done. No, he was long past the point where he could be absolved. Not since the day he had killed. Not since he had deliberately taken the lives of living beings, no matter how far they were from salvation. Even when he held on to the belief that there was meaning to it.

This was different. This was murder.

Dark patches had formed on the asphalt beneath him, where his tears had refused to pool into puddles. His screaming had turned into sobbing which now had turned into an eerie stillness. Crowds of people had been merrily celebrating on the streets of Shibuya just a couple of hours ago. Now there was only silence echoing through the giant crater staring back at him. Innocent people, caught up in forces they didn’t even know existed. Innocent people that hadn’t even left ashes to be mourned behind. How dare he live when the victims of his survival couldn’t even be physically counted?

"People die because you live, brat!" Sukuna had manifested a single eye and a mocking grin full of teeth on his left hand. Yuji stared back at it blankly.

"And you know what’s the best part about it? It’s your fault. It’s your hands that killed them, your hands that choked the life out of this town." Sukuna giggled like a child playing with its toy. "Too bad all you have as a testament to our handiwork is this empty crater. Seeing all those corpses reflected in your eyes would’ve truly been a marvelous sight. Though I suppose there should be at least one or two bodies left for that"

Yuji willed his body to still. He didn’t dare offer Sukuna any reaction to use for further mockery.

"I can hear both your heart and your thoughts racing" Wrong. "Would you look at that." Don’t say it. "It wasn’t all bad, was it?" Wrong wrong wrong! "He deserved it, didn’t he?"

Yuji made the mistake of glancing at the corpse on the ground, barely a hundred meters away from him, earning him a snicker from the curse on his hand. Yuji was aware this man was responsible for the deaths of many of the assistant sorcerers that were on duty in Shibuya, helpless prey before trained killers. It was unbearable for him.

He was losing himself.

"If I stop caring, what would I be left with?"

He faints.

****

Fushiguro stalked his devine dogs following Itadori's scent, with his hands in his pockets and a scowl weighing down his brow. He drowned himself in his anger, revelled in it, for he knew that if he didn’t, he would be crushed by the weight of his despair.

So many were dead, and so many more were, if not dead, as good as. In a matter of hours, the world around him had crumbled and he didn’t think anyone had the ability to pick up the pieces. His world had ended in Shibuya and now he just lived in the wreckage.

So, he got angry, at everyone and everything, at Itadori Yuuji. Especially Itadori Yuuji, who had all but disappeared before Fushiguro had even regained consciousness. All he wanted to do was to grab him by the shoulders and scream at him, hit him, punch him, ask him why he did what he did, but most of all he wanted him back, to see him alive, to give him a hug.

Everywhere he went he heard the whispers, hushed in the corners, whispers that damned Itadori to death. And they weren’t just empty threats, it was an order of the highest kind – Itadori Yuuji was a wanted criminal and was to be killed on sight.

Fushiguro had lost Itadori once before and he knew that he could not survive going through that again.

Itadori Yuuji, unconscious to himself, left traces of his presence wherever he went and Fushiguro could feel him in the air.

And, in that moment, Fushiguro wanted nothing more than to be able to feel that warmth again. The world around him had never felt colder.

Fushiguro swore to himself, wherever Itadori ran off to, he would follow him.

To the ends of the earth, he would follow him, so that he could drag him back home where he belonged.

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Another one done:3 make sure to vote yall <3