"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.

His pacing is going to drive her completely insane! She wants to pace, too, but she's not letting herself because it'll tire her out and make everything worse and and and.

When he next is within arm's reach, she reaches out and grabs his hand. She is far too Japanese for hugs but literally any human contact before she maybe dies sounds nice. And this way he will stop fucking pacing.

"Idiots to the end, yeah?"

He stops pacing and looks at her, then squeezes her hand and nods.

"Hey, did you know? We're both classified as special grades, you and I," says Sukuna to the curse who has found itself attached to a wall

(just desserts, asshole)

all four limbs detached from its torso. It starts pulling itself free, then regenerates its limbs one by one as it does. "Good job, special grade! Hang in there!" The curse manages to free its last limb, then launches itself in front of Sukuna, its perpetual grin widening. "You look happy. Want me to praise you?" He scoffs.

"But healing with cursed energy isn't that hard for cursed spirits, unlike for humans. Neither you nor this brat really understand what curses truly are. This is a good opportunity," and now he's definitely not talking to the curse itself, "so I'll show you what real jujutsu is."

Sukuna pulls his hands from his pockets and then brings them together in a sort of prayer gesture, except the index and pinky finger are folded in while the middle and ring fingers are pointing up. "Domain Expansion:

  "M̠̠ͤ ̼̒A̦̳̫ ͦ̏̓L̘ ͒̿͗E̊̎͗ ͔ͭ͗Vͦ ͕̟O̎̾ͯ ̥̹L̉ͧ̚ ͂̎̀Ḙ͕ͭ ͬͤ̑N̾̔̚ ̇ͧͬT͗̌ͫ
          " ̻̜̿
  "S͊́̓ ̽̂̈H͒̎̅ ͎̜̀R̉ͯ͗ ̘̳͖Ī̾̋ ̮͇Nͣ͋ͯ ̻́̓Eͨ̈́ͭ."

The curse's Domain is entirely overrun by Sukuna's, an infinite wasteland of blue and red with a demonic-looking shrine of black stone and black plants in the center.

He immediately dissipates the Domain, though, as merely its summoning was enough to slice the curse into five pieces. "I was planning to cut you in three slices," says Sukuna, walking towards it, "but you're really weak. Oh, yeah, and then there's this..." The king of curses reaches inside a hole in the creature's chest and grabs one of his fingers from there—Hayashi was right, this curse had eaten one. "I'll be taking this."

They can both feel it when the curse's Innate Domain dissipates, which must mean— "It's dead. The curse's dead."

Hayashi hisses in a breath through her teeth, then gets her phone and texts an update to Ijichi. 'Barrier down'

And then she can go back to holding Fushiguro's hand because aaaaaaaaaaa.

Yeah, so now they just wait—

"Well isn't it charming," says Sukuna from behind both of them. "Both love interests holding hands? Romantic, even."

—he can't move. He can't move he fucking hates special grades so much—

Hayashi jumps and makes a pathetic squeaking sound. There are a few seconds where she is just quivering, immobile terror, personified. Then she gets very frustrated with the idea of such a pathetic introduction, and decides that actually, if she is going to die, she is going to die with style. Then, with a wavering voice, she quips back.

"H-he, he wouldn't stop p-pacing unless I kept a decent hold on him," she says. She gives Fushiguro's hand a squeeze, then lets go. And then, because she is a well-mannered lady, she turns to their enemy and gives him a proper bow. Her voice gets steadier as she speaks. "Greetings, Sukuna-sama. Would you find it terribly offensive if I told everyone you're running loose?"

He smirks and twitches a finger, and now Hayashi's phone has been sliced in two. "By all means, try."

Hayashi's movement is enough to—to convince his brain, his body, that he can move. He also turns around to face their enemy.

"Damn," she observes forlornly, and she drops the now useless pieces of phone to the ground. "I suppose I walked into that one, didn't I."

He grins but doesn't answer, instead choosing to walk around them a bit. "I'm in a great mood, so why don't we chat? She seems on board with the idea."