Copodeesperaza

He keeps an absent eye on Sukuna as he takes in his rescuer and their surroundings. They’re on the roof of one of the intact buildings at the edge of the wasteland Satoru and Sukuna have made of Shinjuku, at least a kilometer away from where Satoru was standing a moment ago, prematurely triumphant and more vulnerable than he was even when facing down Fushiguro Tōji.

The distance is no detriment to his sight. Down there, Sukuna looks confused, and he’s as much of a mess as he was in the aftermath of Satoru’s final and most potent Hollow Purple. His cursed-energy sensing must be severely affected if he hasn’t detected Satoru yet. It likely helps that he’s instinctively tamped down on his cursed energy.

His knight in lackluster armor is doing the same, and the efficiency of his suppression is frankly mind-boggling coming from someone without the Six Eyes.

Those eyes have shifted from Satoru to Sukuna now. There’s not much of an expression on Yuuji’s face, but the neutral set of his features makes him look somber and distant—nothing like that fiery sunburst of a boy who wore his emotions openly and entirely even when he was sliding the weight of the weight onto his shoulders. Satoru didn’t help, did he? He just added his own dream to the weight.

There’s something else too, mundane in light of everything else but striking all the same. Yuuji’s favored oversized hoodies for as long as Satoru’s known him, delighting even in the unsolicited alteration Satoru made to his uniform, but he’s never worn those hoods up. But this man’s face is shrouded in shadows, the hood pulled down low over his eyes. It’s no obstacle to Satoru’s eyes, but anyone else would only see a scar-touched mouth and the tip of a nose.

“You know,” Satoru says, and he keeps his voice low, hushed, but it stills feels like he’s breaking something sacred, “I thought you’d grow out of this style a few years down the line. Don’t tell me your fashion sense never got any better.”

There’s a strangled noise. Not quite a laugh, not quite anything else.

And for the first time, this strange new version of Yuuji speaks: “Is that really what you should be focusing on right now?”

Satoru shrugs, the motion made a little awkward by how Yuuji’s still got him in a bridal carry. What a gentleman.

He reaches up, shoving the hood off unceremoniously. Yuuji blinks, once, and Satoru already knew that his eyes are the same warm brown of the boy who sent him off barely an hour ago with hope and faith and a firm, grounding touch, but it’s funny how the same color can look so different on the same face.

“You’ve certainly grown up,” Satoru murmurs, feeling strangely wistful. He lets his fingertips brush the top of Yuuji’s hair. It’s shorter than Satoru’s used to, the spiky strands near the front leaving the forehead exposed. Even if he ruffled it, it wouldn’t settle gently down. He lowers his hand to Yuuji’s right ear, smoothing his thumb along flesh that’s apparently long healed. “In more ways than one.”

Yuuji’s lips twitch, the ghost of a smile there and gone. His eyes drift downward, staring blankly at Satoru’s midriff.

Before either of them can say anything else, there’s a whole lot of commotion below—an explosion of cursed energy followed by raised voices.

Satoru refocuses on Sukuna in time to watch one of the incarnated sorcerers allied with them engage him in battle. Higher up in the sky, an icicle forms and melts, dropping a weapon that’s undoubtedly a powerful cursed object.

There’s that white-haired monk too, at least until Hakari spirits them away to his domain.

“Oh,” says Yuuji. “I’d forgotten this part.”

“If they’re already executing the backup plans, they must think I’m out of the game. So impatient, honestly. But I can’t really blame them either. You did swoop in and right back out. Did they even see you? None of Mei’s crows are here—though I might have killed a bunch with that last Purple.”

Yuuji hums noncommittally. “They probably didn’t see me. And that guy’s going to die.”

“Kashimo, wasn’t it?” Satoru asks idly, eying the figure shrouded in lightning. “He did make quite a fuss about my fighting Sukuna first—I was quite offended at the implication.

“He didn’t want us to interfere in your fight with Sukuna. I remember that. The others stopped Okkotsu-senpai because Sukuna might have been planning something, but for him, it wasn’t that about that. Warrior’s pride, maybe.”

“You don’t sound very impressed.”

“Pride is pointless.”

Satoru blinks. Yuuji’s expression doesn’t become any less opaque.

“You’ll have to elaborate on that someday,” Satoru tells him. “For now, aren’t you going to rescue him?”

“No.”

“No,” Satoru repeats, surprised…and something else. A strange feeling in his bones, writhing in his spine. “That’s not like you.”

“Isn’t it?” Yuuji asks dully. He stares into Satoru’s eyes for a moment before frowning, more thoughtful than bothered. “Guess it wasn’t. But that was a long time ago, sensei.”

“You’re, what, twenty-five? Thirty?” Satoru scans Yuuji’s features more carefully—the skin is unwrinkled, and there’s no grey in his hair. He’s older for sure, but he could be anywhere between twenty or thirty. “I suppose it would be half a lifetime for you.”

Yuuji says, “I’m eighty-five.”

“…Come again?”

“Long story.” A slight frown mars Yuuji’s expression for a millisecond, before his features smoothen back out. “Or a very short one, I guess. You can see it, right? Those eyes of yours—they can see what I am.”

It’s not a question; it’s not even a statement that compels an answer.

Satoru still looks, fully ignoring the battle raging below to focus on the man holding him. The most unique web of cursed energy he’s ever seen brands itself into his mind.

It’s more complex than the mess Yuuji made of his body and his soul by consuming Sukuna’s fingers, and it’s not even comparable to what he looked like to Satoru’s eyes when he emerged from the Prison Realm and found his favorite student in the process of slowly but thoroughly breaking down a total of six distinct cursed-energy signatures. Even after the integration was complete, Yuuji felt like a human—like a sorcerer.

That’s still there. An essential quality no curse can replicate, no matter how human they look. Yuuji’s flesh and blood, not pure curse given form. But Satoru wouldn’t quite call him human anymore.

He’s felt something similar, quite recently even. This is a lot like how the Death Painting who calls himself Yuuji’s brother registers in Satoru’s senses. But there’s a world of difference between them in terms of power—not just the sheer quantity of Yuuji’s cursed energy but also the refinement and control that are evident even as Yuuji simply stands there without even a spark of it at his fingertips.

“Ah,” Satoru breathes. “Your body went and changed on me again, Yuuji. It keeps doing that.”

“No,” says Yuuji, and he finally, gently sets Satoru down. “Not on you. Not this time.”

It’s tacit confirmation of something Satoru already assumed. He steps away from Yuuji, just enough that he can properly stand facing him. They’re nearly the same height now, Yuuji just a few centimeters shorter. It’s a drastic difference from what Satoru’s used to. Growth spurts are gradual things. Satoru’s seen his fair share of students shoot up over the years, though few reached his height—story of his life, really. But it’s another thing entirely to blink and be eye to eye with a boy you could tuck under your chin just this morning.

Yuuji doesn’t look nonplussed by their matching stature, but his expression isn’t so blank anymore either. There’s a strange new intensity to his gaze as it bores into Satoru, threatening to make the Six Eyes feel inadequate.

Satoru can understand though. This must be new to Yuuji too.

After all— “I didn’t survive, huh.”

Yuuji doesn’t reply, but the next moment, the same impossible arc of cursed energy that’d have cut through Infinity and Satoru both tears through the air below, and the sorcerer wreathed in lightning escapes it by a hair’s breadth.

“I couldn’t see it then,” Yuuji says. “Did you?”

“If I had,” Satoru says drily, “I’d have dodged.”

Yuuji, still looking at Satoru rather than the battle below, only stares for another long moment.

Then he nods. “I always thought that. But I wondered, sometimes.”

Satoru frowns. “Yuuji—

“I wouldn’t have blamed you, sensei,” Yuuji says serenely. “Even before I really understood, I wouldn’t have blamed you.”