"P-principal Ga-Gakuganji," he says holding both hands up next to his face in a "surrender" gesture.

"The Kyoto school principal," Fushiguro supplies.

"Ah," she says, releasing his collar. "I see. Expand the perimeter for evacuation, immediately. As far as you can reasonably get it. And call for assistance from a sorcerer equipped to handle Sukuna."

Her face twists and she turns away. "I'm sure you'll mysteriously find that there will be someone right on hand," she snarls, under her breath. "Go. Everybody still here by the time he gets out is going to have a very bad day."

    "Y-yes, Hayashi-san," he says, and sprints.

"You... figured something out."

... He hasn't realized it yet?

"Fushiguro-san," says Hayashi, softly. Almost gently. As gently as she can tell him that their own team just played games with their lives. "Why would anyone send a vessel that is part of a matched set anywhere near a brand new, barely formed curse that has any chance of metamorphosing into a special grade? And what happened the very instant we set foot in that block?"

"...one of Sukuna's fingers is there? And they, what, hoped Itadori-kun would eat it?"

"I have no idea what stupid little games they thought they were playing, or what idiotic lies they told themselves to make them think this was acceptable behavior. I do know that there are some very prideful people that wanted our friend's execution sooner rather than later, and probably didn't like Gojo-sensei countermanding them. Or 'stealing' me. Or you, for that matter. Maybe they thought the risk was too great, that it was smart to trigger the proverbial bomb early, maybe this is some sick demented test of ability, maybe they're throwing a petty tantrum with all of the cool toys they don't get to have.

"I do not care. I do know that every single fiber of my being was screaming from the inside that this did not make any fucking sense, but I told it to sit down and shut up, because I trusted them to want me alive. And I was wrong. Do you think we would have been sent in there if they wanted us alive? Why not a window, to grab everyone and run at the first sign of curses, why not a guard, who fucking works here, why only five people in an entire cell block? Why send young, barely trained curse killers into that fucking viper's nest? Why three extremely valuable, rare sorcerers when everyone knows we are always understaffed? To save five? Why—"

And her voice breaks and she swallows a sob.

"I hope I'm wrong, I hope I look back on this as that time I went crazy and got super paranoid and had a mental breakdown. But I do not think that's what's happening. Do you?"

He squeezes his hands into fists and looks back at the building.

Itadori better fucking survive.

And Hayashi starts doing an inventory of her weaponry. Because she used a lot of needles in that fiasco, and she needs to make sure she has enough for - whatever happens. Because she is a sorcerer, and regardless of any other bullshit that anyone else does, her job is and has always been keeping as many people alive as possible. She will do it if it kills her, which it probably will.

Itadori feels a bit childish, is what he feels, from the wall where he's embedded yet again, where four of his right fingers have been cauterised and his left wrist now ends in a sluggishly bleeding stump. He feels a bit childish, still, because he remembers Principal Yaga's saying that no jujutsu sorcerer dies without regrets, and the thing he regrets right now is not having kissed Hayashi and Fushiguro. That's a childish regret, isn't it? He's pretty sure it is.

He peels himself off the wall and wobbles for a couple of steps before steadying himself again. The curse is—it's grinning, of course the shape of its skull doesn't permit anything else, it's always grinning, but also it's grinning, it's clearly having fun with him.

No matter. He'll, he'll stall, then he'll die, and hopefully he will have stalled enough, and then his only regret will have been not kissing those two stupid, overly-serious, hot sorcerers.

Well. Maybe he should try to... make this a bit more interesting for the curse. Gojō-sensei told him not to try to use his cursed energy in an actual fight, but he thinks Gojō-sensei would excuse him now. It's not a matter of life or death; it's a matter of death now or slightly delayed death.

(Or maybe his plan will work any minute now, the part of his brain that's keeping track of the plot says, and he'll receive some sign, and swap with Sukuna.)

He takes another, steadier step forward, and loads his fist with cursed energy. He stares at the curse.

He leaps.

He lands a punch—

—on its open palm. There's the whole whoosh of anime wind from the punch, too, he knows he did it right, there was a buncha cursed energy in his fist and it caused a small crater on the floor just under his feet and there was wind.

It was still. Not. Enough. The curse is laughing at him and holding his fist and, and, and,

and he hears a howl.

The curse—takes a step back, its face immediately melting from the amused grin to something more akin to terror.

Well, at least it's smart enough to notice the change.

"What a thoroughly annoying brat."

"He's obviously screwing with me," sighs Sukuna, taking a step to the side and around the curse, who gasps and watches him, raising its hands slightly in a defensive manner. He pats its shoulder. "Hold on a moment, please. I'm thinking right now." The curse nods rapidly many times in succession, holding its breath. "Now, what can I do to make the brat regret this?"

If he goes back to the brat's friends, he'll switch back right beforehand, and then it'll be useless. So the thing that would probably cause him the most trouble... Sukuna grins to himself.

The thing that would cause him the most trouble would be bringing this curse outside with him and making this a 2 vs. 2.

"Come on," he says, letting go of the curse (who immediately jumps back several feet away from him), "let's go kill some kids." He's already walking, his back to the curse, and he lifts his (now regenerated) right index finger to do a 'come hither' gesture. "Follow me."

The curse—trembling, breathing raggedly, clearly terrified—makes the wrong choice, the idiot, and tries to send a volley of cursed energy at Sukuna.

Sukuna raises his left hand and stops it. "Ah, shit. Didn't mean to heal this one, too," he says of said left hand. He looks at the curse again. "Don't like walks? I suppose cursed spirits are meant to stay where they're born, most of the time. Fine, fine. In that case..."

And now he's right in front of the curse, and a punch to the skull seems appropriate. "You die here." He grabs the curse's face and slams its head back onto the concrete.

He takes a step back and waits a few seconds, arms folded behind his back. "...what, not getting up? You're not finished already, are you?" It stirs and tries to get up, slowly. "That's it! Come on, try harder." He steps onto the curse's chest and oops that's a bit too much force, now the floor is crumbling under them and they're in free fall.

The curse grabs his ankle, though, and tries to spin around and throw him—

—no, now it's missing its arm. Sukuna waves at it with its own served limb, sitting cross-legged on a particularly large piece of falling debris. "Even a cursed spirit would miss their arm, right?"

"What's taking him so long," grumbles Fushiguro under his breath.

Hayashi has run out of things to prepare or check or organize and is coming very close to doing something dangerous and worst of all useless like crying. At least this stress is building up lots of cursed energy again. Maybe if Sukuna comes out and toys with them she'll be able to power another Domain Expansion, won't that be novel.

"You don't have to stay here," she babbles, because she doesn't have anything else to do and that is always when she starts falling apart. "If it's the worst case scenario we don't both have to die horribly."

"He's my responsibility. I'm the one who brought him into this world, if, if someone has to take him down it should be me."

"Realistically speaking if it's Sukuna, there will be no taking him down by either of us, there will be trying to hold him off long enough that he doesn't go on a killing spree before the people actually equipped to maybe fight him show up, and probably that will not involve all that much fighting and a lot more suffering."

"Still should be me."

"I will never forgive myself if I run now, I would be so ashamed that I'd quit sorcery and take up, up, I don't know, gardening, and be immensely unhappy with it, and. We're both such idiots, aren't we."

He doesn't answer, and instead just paces.