Sorcerer? I hardly even know her

*****

"What are sorcerers?"

The dulcet toned question adds to the insanity of the situation the little pink menace had placed him into.

That Toji had walked himself into, hand in hand with the said little pink menace scarcely give or take two years ago, back when they barely knew each other and he was reeling in the fact that he was still fucking alive. He might have been a bit delirious and out of it when she fished him out on his way down to hell that had him nodding his head in agreement to whatever the fuck she just said in that manic pixie way of hers. But he was alive.

Against all odds, against all logic and against the mandate of a fucking teen-shaped shithead God, Fushiguro Toji against all reason, remained alive, breathing and existing.

Against all odds, he's still here.

All because a tiny pink haired girl happened to find him and happened to have the means to bring him back from the brink of death.

(What the fuck?)

And she also happens to be unrelated to the sorcerer society and their bullshit.

(Again, what the fuck?)

Which was extremely suspicious and he had called massive bull when he had asked her what sorcerer clan she came from and why the fuck did she do what she did.

(Toji doesn't know whether he's lucky or what. Maybe the Gods were finally smiling down on him for the shit they've bestowed upon him at birth or they were pulling another prank on him. Whatever it is, Toji hardly believes in the existence of higher beings living above and beyond, Gods were just crutches humans made in order to reason out their own suffering and why they make others suffer in turn. Really, they could just be honest about their primal instincts to topple the weak and be the one in power like any savage animal in the food chain.)

Honestly, Toji is still in the state of wonder if everything that happened so far had been a massive delusion of his. A fresh start, with a new name from some poor dead guy and a new tolerable family. It still all seemed like a joke to Toji that this is reality and he is maybe sorta content with the way he is living now.

And now, sitting across Itadori Yuuka, the impossible girl who made all this shit happened, is looking at him in askance to a question that she should have asked ages ago or something Toji should have told her way before when she had looked at him all confused and clueless about his sorcerer clan question.

("Sorcerer clan?"

"Yeah, just say it so I know which names I should avoid when taking a hit."

"Huh? Sorcerers? Like magicians and abracadabra and stuff? Oh or is it like Harry Potter and–"

"You've got to be shitting me.")

Toji notes how young she still is, how bright and innocent and pure, all things that Toji had never been ever since that day he was thrown at the punishment room. It should disgust him, this innocence and the brightness that just exudes from her very being. He should want to ruin it, should want to rip those rose-tinted lenses away from her big golden eyes, should want her tainted the same way Toji knows she would have if she was born from a sorcerer clan.

(His mind suddenly wonders to his abandoned child, someone who might be close to Yuuka's age, someone he sold to the very clan he tried to cut away from. Toji seizes these thoughts and locks them in a box to throw it to the darkest pit in his mind, hoping it won't resurface again to eat at his heart and weigh down his soul.)

But he doesn't want her to be ruined.

(What the fuck?)

Toji wants her to stay the same.

Bright, loud, innocent and pure. Obnoxious and annoying in an endearing way. Sweet and so kind as to accept a broken man like Toji into her fold, into her small family, not even questioning his past or what shit he just went through to have a hole carved through his torso.

(Toji knows that Yuuka isn't sunshine and rainbows all the time, in fact, he thinks she might be slightly insane with darkness that nips at her bright light. He has seen how her eyes could darken into mania and lust for violence, her bouts of dark humor and the way she had selfishly accepted all of him because she's lonely, knowing full well that she's unlike the other kids.)

Toji wants to keep her this way.

But the world is a shitty place and it's even crueler to those that have yet to have a glimpse of it.

So Toji,

"Why the sudden interest?"

Big golden eyes blinked at him, long rosy lashes touching cherubic cheeks and her mouth opens to answer his question but instead,

"I believe that it is because of me."

Toji jolts away instinctively when a menacing aura poured out of the girl in waves, and when his ears registers the decidedly deep and male voice, his sharp eyes zones in on the now scowling girl and on one of her cherubic cheeks was a toothy grinning mouth and one piercing red eye looking at him.

"What the fuck."

*****

Juju Sanpo: Good Enough

Sukuna could only watch as the hag he was stuck to reached the high note of the song while maintaining the emotions in her voice.

Betrayal and anguish intermixed with fear, the vulnerability of her delivery almost made him think that the act was real, the emotions authentic and coming from a place of experience.

Huh.

If only the chit would react this way whenever he threatens her, what a wonderful world that would be. But no, she outright ignores him or merely laughs at him, like his title of King of Curses means nothing to her.

And maybe to a creature like her, it was.

But it doesn't make her any less annoying or infuriating.

Hmph, and maybe she does have a talent for the arts, good enough to make a children's theater troupe entertaining.

(In addition, he was right in his assumption that tears would go wonderful to her big eyes, if only she was like this all the time then he would be more disinclined to call out her stupidity for not taking her right to power. What's so good about friendship and bonds anyway, blegh, just thinking about it lives an acrid taste in his tongue.)

Maybe she is good enough to back up her claims when it comes to artistry but Sukuna would rather be caught and sealed again by the maggots rather than to say it to that annoying hag's face.

And from the looks of it, she doesn't need anyone's words to know her worth.

How annoying, if only she would shut her trap and stop debating with him in every turn, she would be a more tolerable vessel, but unfortunately it would snow first in hell before that would happen taking her personality into account.

"Told you I am awesome, now watch me closely in the second act, that's where it all goes down."

Sukuna does not deign her an answer, but he does watch her more closely in the second act. Not because she said so, but because maybe, he could use the flashing memories in her mind to find her vulnerabilities that he can use when the time comes that he has to discard her.

He'll indulge himself in the memories of watching her break and hmmm… she really hates captivity and having her freedom taken.

Sukuna would just have to think of a way to use it in the future, but for now, he'll accumulate her weaknesses to throw it back to her and see her break.

Then he'll just have to plan on how to accumulate more of his fingers, but he bets all nineteen of them that the insane woman would find them for him once he says the word.

She's insane, curious and stupid enough to do so.