♡ ♡ ♡
My impulses were never clear
♡ ♡ ♡
Black tar-like curse energy slid down an invisible wall as it covered the sky around the correction facility. The words Ijichi spoke to incant it made Hanzō glower.
'Purify this defilement?'
Barbaric intentions immersed his wit, thoroughly suffocating his rationale.
"Jade hounds." Fushiguro's hands shaped a shadow puppet of a dog, only the white canine forming from his dark silhouette.
No words seemed to break his fury, it encased him in glacial ice and smoldering insides.
Ijichi shuddered, those unfeeling eyes staring into his very being bringing an ominous premonition. Some sliver of him has no doubt of the cruelty he is capable of.
"Woah! It's almost night-time."
"The 'screen.' It's because the residential district is nearby; the screen hides us from the outside."
Or so we can't leave.
♡
Fushiguro glanced at his shikigami. "He'll let us know when the curse comes closer."
Yuuji rubbed the dog's fur with eagerness and full of affection. And Hanzō watched every corner for any sign of intrusion, even if he would be able to sense it right away. The cursed womb didn't seem the subtle type.
"Let's go." The four of them (not including the dog) entered the place and Hanzō could already detect curse energy everywhere around them.
They all looked around them, mystified, if not terrified. Strange industrial pipes wound around what looked to be apartment complexes abandoned halfway through construction.
"Shit."
"Wasn't this a two-story building?"
"Where's the gate?" Fushiguro panicked a bit, flustered from going into unknown territory. The scared murmurings of Yuuji and Nobara smacked all his panic away. He narrowed his eyes. "Don't worry, he remembers the door's scent."
He gestured to the white dog. Yuuji grinned. "You're really reliable Fushiguro! Even I'm saved."
Hanzō lowered his head.
♡
Three different bodies littered the ground in separate parts, some limbs missing from the abstract art.
Meatballs, Hanzō thinks as he sees two corpses compacted and rolled into foot tall balls.
A body layer in the center, everything waist down missing. He looked at the name tag.
'Tadashi.'
If he remembers correctly, it was the woman from before's son. Already dead.
He analyzed the scene coldly, the dark blood on his shoes not bothering him. They can be cleaned.
Yuuji's eyes widened, this was the first time seeing such a gruesome sight. Even the slightly more experienced Fushiguro and Kugisaki seemed disgruntled, horror flashing across their faces.
"This is atrocious..."
"It's... okay to say there are three people here, right?" Fushiguro hesitates seeing the state of things.
Yuuji grabbed the name tag of the only semi-intact body. His lips quivered. "I'm taking this body home."
"Huh?" Kugisaki frowned.
"It's that person's son." Yuuji continued and Hanzō once again felt like Atlas. "His face hasn't been too damaged. Being told he's dead without a body, she won't be able to grasp it."
Hanzō blinked and bit his inner cheek, only half understanding what he was saying.
What is he meant to do?
What should he prioritize?
Killing those old fogies as soon as he is able?
Protecting Yuuji from all harm?
Obey and carry out his every hope and demand?
Follow him to the end?
Hanzō stared eye to eye with the mangled corpse on the ground. Its dead eyes observing his own.
He made a decision. One he swore he would never give up or forget. Not even until the bittersweet end. What has he to regret in life when he spent it serving God?
"Yuuji." Yuuji's head snapped at him and he could see him fully. His eyes were red, rimmed with sadness and a burden given by someone who didn't understand life. He softened in everything but expression, his frown still sharp. "Leave it."
Disbelief clouded Yuuji, his eyes widened. He couldn't believe Hanzō would leave that woman's child here, even if he is already dead. And...
'It.'
"But—"
He is cut off by Kugisaki's short yell as she is pulled into a portal to an unknown abyss.
"Kugi... saki?"
♡
How did it come to this?
Fushiguro had torn him from his standing with the help of a newly summoned shikigami using its tongue to keep him.
He could have escaped. He needed to escape. Yuuji needs help.
Yuuji.
Yuuji.
Yuuji.
Yuuji.
Yuuji.
Yuuji turned to him, a sad and self-blaming smile contorting his always lively face. "Go, Hanzō."
'Go.'
'Go.'
'Go.'
'Go?' Is this being relieved of his duties? A divine demand to abandon his faith? To return to a void a nihilism? No. No. No. No.
No!
He tried so hard to move. He tried so hard. Useless whimpers escaping him no matter how hard he tried to conceal them. Tears rolled from his eyes, everything in his expression screaming 'pained.'
Yuuji's command bound his body from movement.
'Please please please!' He wants to scream his heart out and throw it up his throat.
None of it makes it pass his exhausted lungs.
Fushiguro carries him away. Going somewhere to save the girl student.
He doesn't care about her! Take him back to Yuuji!
Fushiguro doesn't. He uncaringly drags him further and further away.
He doesn't care if Yuuji would swap with Sukuna! He needs to be with his brother!
Kugisaki is safe and Hanzō is livid.
Yuuji's status is unknown.
♡
Hanzō thought he would be fine if there was at least proof that Yuuji had lived brightly, divinely. But seeing red, red, red, red everywhere is his sight he froze. Ice planting his feet to the ground and frost nipping his skin, whether it was covered or not.
Budump
Yuuji's heart is thrown to the dirt like garbage.
The heart he treasures so much. The heart he had sworn to cradle in his palms and shield with his hands.
Treated like disposable trash.
He felt his own thrashing against his ribcage—almost breaking it.
Budump
Blood rushed in his ears so that he could hear nothing else. The marching of a million invisible soldiers spurring on his need to rip and tear and devastate.
Budump
He couldn't do anything. Still frozen in the image of red,red,red,red,everywhere.
In this state of mind, rarely brought out with the help of a vice, he'd attack the source of his conflicted thoughts. But just barely, through the thick fog of confusion, he recognized the face of his brother.
His every being holding him back from any action of retaliation.
A dog on a leash.
He felt a surge of curse energy bubble up, the sludge-like substance painting at his intestines and every crevice of his body. Feeling it with every fiber of his being. Disgusting. Vicious. Merciless.
He refrains.
Sukuna laughs.
♡
Hi...?
I'm so so so sorry I didn't update yesterday!
I had some emotional stuff going on, but don't worry! I'm okay now!
This chapter is for @_kedamaa because they voted first last time. Here you go 💖
I might stop dedicating chapters to people 'cause I don't know how to choose from any of you because I love you all
Stay frosty, ciao~♡
Word Count 1122