A couple of hours later, you arrive with Gojo and his other students at a retirement home that's been recently foreclosed. You stand in front of it a bit confused as to why he's brought you there of all places.
"Why're we here?" Yuuji asks for you.
Gojo puts his hands on his hips and looks up at the building proudly. "The four of you are going in there to get rid of the curses that caused issues for the previous owners and forced them to shut down."
"Shouldn't we have done this before they closed down?" you mutter to yourself.
Gojo either doesn't hear or pretends not to, although if you had to guess, you'd guess it is the latter.
"Don't worry," he then assures your group, "most of them are grade three but there might be a grade two or one in there."
"What?!" Kugisaki cries out. "You can't do that... We're not ready for that!"
Gojo shakes his head in disagreement. "You'll be fine, just don't make Fushiguro do all the work and save your asses again."
"Wait, what about you?" you ask him, fully expecting his answer.
"It won't be that difficult," he shoots you a smile. "You'll be fine."
Just as you roll your eyes, Kugisaki looks her arm around yours. She says it's time to go in and together you walk with her inside, not bothering to look back at the others.
Almost immediately when you enter through the front doors, a curse walks out from a room down the hall. You cringe internally as it looks like an overgrown infant with four small eyes and large hands.
As it runs towards you, you take a stance in preparation like you've worked on in training. However, before you get a chance to make any kind of impact, Kugisaki has thrown nails into its head. You turn to the side and find an extremely satisfied, yet terrifying look on her face. At the same time, the curse's head explodes into bits of dust.
Just then, Yuuji and Megumi run in asking what all of the commotion was about.
"I already got a grade three," Kugisaki glares at the pair of boys darkly. However, Yuuji does not seem phased by this and immediately gives her a high five.
Once Kugisaki's moment ends, the conversation of what to do next begins.
"Should we split up?" Yuuji asks as he looks towards Kugisaki.
"That might be a good idea," Megumi nods. "We can cover more ground and nobody will be left alone in case of that higher grade curse Sensei told us about."
"Okay," Kugisaki chimes in, "Y/N, you go with Yuuji. The two of you have gotten the most practice with each other and work well together."
Yuuji gives Kugisaki a thumbs up and turns to you with a smile. You agree with your friend's statement with a nod.
"Then I guess Nobara and I will take the first floor. Can you two handle the second?" Megumi asks.
"Sure," you reply, and together you and Yuuji search for the stairs.
When you finally find the stairwell, the doors stick but open after a bit of pushing. You then walk up and arrive on the second floor. A dimly lit hallway presents itself to you as you push open the doors to the level.
"Hey, do you hear that?" Yuuji whispers as you check in and out of patient rooms.
"No," you reply quietly, "what is-"
Just as you turn to look at your partner, he has completely disappeared. You whip your head around, hoping to find him, and stop when you see a flash of clothing disappear down the hall.
Immediately you begin to chase after him. You run in and out of each of the small rooms in the hall only to be repeatedly turned up empty-handed.
"Yuujiii!" you call out again when you get to the end of the hallway.
Just then, you hear loud crashing come from a nearby room and run towards it. Inside you see blood sprayed across the room, spreading across the walls and dripping from the ceiling.
So gross, what the hell did he do? you think to yourself as your stomach starts to feel uneasy.
"Yuuji..." you whisper this time.
"Ah, you made it," a voice replies to you, yet it isn't Yuuji's.
Your stomach is now flipping. Every part of your body is screaming at you to leave. The only thing keeping you from doing so is Yuuji. Where the hell is he?
When you turn to the corner of the room, you see Yuuji's familiar pink hair. A small bit of relief washed over your shoulders knowing that he's alive. However, as you glance down at the rest of his body, that reassurance dies down quickly.
Yuuji's body is now covered with more black markings than you've ever noticed before. Right away you can tell you aren't looking at Yuuji anymore, despite it being his physical body, this is Sukuna.
You get ready to fight, full well knowing there's no chance in hell you have against this guy. You put your arms up defensively as you peer around the room for anything to use as a weapon.
"Don't get all worked up," Sukuna chuckles. "I have no intention of fighting you. If I did, I wouldn't be here."
"You're not?" you reply as you drop your arms slightly to glance at him over your fists.
Sukuna shakes his head. "I only momentarily switched with the kid, and I promised him I wouldn't hurt anyone."
He then takes a moment to soak up your appearance in a way that made your skin crawl, your body screaming for you to run away deafening your ears.
"And even though you're not technically a human, that includes you as well."
You narrow your eyes, now knowing that what he's going to want will somehow be worse than death. "What do you want?!"
Sukuna steps closer to you, still taking in your features.
"I did a marvelous job at gene selection, didn't I?" his words flow through your ears like poison, causing you to forcibly listen to his words apart from everything else.
"Gene selection? Like modification?! What the fuck are you saying to me?!"
"Good job," he pats your head as he walks around you. "I knew you'd be smart. We are family after all."
Family?
Sukuna hums as he stands directly before you. All you can do is stare into his eyes, your mind and body frozen in shock.
"I need you to prepare yourself, Y/N," he says coldly. "Because now that I've seen you for myself, I've got high expectations."
You don't stop him as he places a hand on your shoulder, only yelling out in pain from a burning sensation arising from the place of contact.
The moment Sukuna lets go, you drop down to your knees. You watch from below as he walks past you again, this time as though you meant absolutely nothing to him. You place your hand over your shoulder, hoping to relieve some of the pain, only pull it back and see blood covering your palm.
"I need you to back away from that idiotic sorcerer, Gojo, before something bad happens to you, Y/N," he says from somewhere behind you.
You don't bother looking back, too paralyzed by fear to look him in the eye anymore.
"Trust me, you're better off without him. In the long run, only I can help you with your so-called 'curse troubles'. Blood is thicker than water after all."
His final words run through your brain over and over. There's no way in your mind that you could believe Sukuna is actually your ancestor. But, you've never even met any of your relatives so who's to say for sure?
Getting a small amount of courage, and being a bit worried after not hearing Sukuna speak after a minute or two, you run around. Instead of seeing his eyes burning into your soul like you had expected, you find Yuuji laying on his back with his mouth hanging open.
"Yuuji!" you yell as you run to his side. "Hey, wake up!"
Thankfully, Yuuji coughs and opens his eyes. He looks up at you with a sad smile.
"Sorry for letting him out... I don't really know what happened there," he says worriedly.
As you assure Yuuji that everything is fine, Kugisaki and Megumi run in.
"We heard a lot of yelling so we came as fast as we could," Megumi pants. "Are you two alright?"
"Mhm," you reply.
Megumi's eyes narrow, a bit unsure as to what really happened in the room. He looks down at Yuuji with suspicion growing.
"Did you let him out?"
"Uh-" he starts, but gets cut off by you.
"No!"