The "Malevalent Potatoes" stall was open when Yuji arrived.
He couldn't help but feel the corner of his eyes twitch when he stared at the scribbled writing hanging from above the stall.
It was directly opposite of Takemikazuchi's sweet potato stall, and even though the God had moved his location to a different spot to avoid Sukuna, the next moment he would be right opposite of him again.
What surprised him most was there being a small queue forming in front of the stall. Three adventurers, two dwarves and a human woman, stood waiting as Sukuna handed over a paper wrapped potato to a cat person who's eyes were watering profusely.
"Stop crying." Sukuna said flatly.
"I-I'm not crying, it's just really good!" The cat person wheezed out, fanning his mouth with his spare hand. "How much spide did you put in this one?!"
"Too little, it seems."
The cat person stumbled away, weeping with both joy and agony in equal measure.
From across the street, Takemikazuchi spotted Yuji and waved at him with a smile, before taking out a barrel filled with water and some mugs, beckoning the cat person over to help quench the spice. For a price, of course.
The dwarves ordered two of the milder potatoes, having learned from prior visits to specify heat levels in advance. The human woman asked for the spiciest available, and Sukuna looked at her with what might have been a fraction of respect before producing something that made the dwarves eyes watered just from close proximity to it.
By the time the queue cleared up, Sukuna was busy wiping down the counter, not looking up.
"The Brat comes to me for once." He said, still wiping the counter of the spilled spices. "Should I be flattered?"
"I'd rather die." Yuji walked to the front of the stall, standing opposite of him. "We need to talk."
Sukuna paused his wiping for a split second, then resumed. "I'm working."
"You sell potatoes."
"And you sell self righteousness. We all have our trades, at least I'm not freeloading off of a cutting board." Sukuna said, setting the rag down and looking up at Yuji directly, a small smirk on his face. When he saw Yuji fully, he could tell there was a sense of tension in the Brat's posture and the fact he had come to him instead of the other way around.
"Fine." He said, reaching behind the counter and pulling out a sign to place on top of the stall. It had the words 'Closed' on it, as well as a stick figure drawing of a person cut in half. "Walk."
Yuji looked at the sign for a second before turning to walk away, knowing any reaction from him would just be to Sukuna's benefit instead.
Across the street, Takemikazuchi watched them leave together. A frown formed on his face before he turned to his own stall with an uneasy look.
-------------------
They had finally found a quiet spot near the edge of the Southern District, where a narrow part was pushed up against the inner side of Orario's wall. A few benches lined the path but the area was mostly empty at this hour.
Sukuna sat on the law wall that served as the parks fencing, one leg pulled up and his back against a magic stone lamppost. Yuji stood a few paces away, with hands in his pockets.
The silence between them stretched for a moment, waiting for the other to initiate conversation first.
"You found something in the sewers." Yuji said bluntly.
Sukuna's eyes narrowed by a fraction. "How did you know that?"
Yuji didn't answer him, and instead kept asked, "What did you find?"
Sukuna studied him for a moment, before clicking his tongue in irritation.
"The sewer network most likely connects to whatever is beneath Daedalus Street." Sukuna said, looking away towards the Eastern District. "Doors made of orichalcum, I'm not sure even you could get past them, Brat."
"Who knows." Yuji simply replied. "Did you spot anyone using them?"
"Who knows." Sukuna mocked back, imitating Yuji's tone. "Your turn. You came here for a reason. You wouldn't willingly seek my company otherwise, and I doubt you came here to gloat in my face about joining Loki."
Yuji exhaled through his nose, debating on how much he should share. Sukuna was the only other person in this world that knew about cursed energy and its properties besides himself. With him being a God now, who knew if that knowledge had been elevated or not, but there were one person who could understand the implications of what Loki had found in his Falna, it would be the former King of Curses.
"My Falna can't measure me." He stated. "Zero stats across the board, which is typical from what I've heard, but everything else is a jumbled mess. The system reads cursed energy as an unknown, becoming a sixth new stat line that shouldn't exist with anyone else other than myself."
Sukuna shifted his posture, leaning against his arm as he studied Yuji.
"Interesting." Sukuna slowly said. "The Falna is a divine inscription system built to interface with mortal potential and grant them the pathway to developing magic. Cursed energy is neither, the system recognizes it exists but has no framework to interact with it."
"That's my impression too."
"Which means your baseline is invisible to anyone reading your status, even if you were to gain any stats in the future. They will only see Level 1 with zeroes across the board, while the reality is something the system wasn't designed to quantify." Sukuna paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "The cursed stat being registered at all is the anomaly. The Falna shouldn't be able to categorise something outside its design parameters."
"Unless the six souls are acting as a bridge." Yuji interjected quietly. "They're cursed entities bonded to a Falna bearing soul. They might be forcing the system to acknowledge what it normally couldn't.
Sukuna narrowed his eyes at Yuji.
"The Death Paintings." Sukuna said, his voice low as an unsavory memory came to him. "Cursed objects, when ingested, can incarnate into a half-human half-cursed spirit being capable of using jujutsu. They exist in the space between what this world considered a curse and what it considers a person. If the Falna is using them as a reference point to break down your cursed energy-"
"Then they're the reason the system can even see me at all." Yuji cut Sukuna off. "Without them, my Falna would probably be completely blank."
Sukuna's eyes were unreadable for a moment. Then he let out a breath that might have been a laugh.
"You consumed them centuries ago to spite me, and now they're the only thing anchoring you to this world's power system." He shook his head. "Your brothers are still useful even in death, you should thank Kenjaku for creating you miserable lot."
Yuji said nothing, letting the silence drag on.
"There's something else." Yuji said after a moment. "Whatever's beneath the Dungeon, it's reacting to me. Every time I enter the Dungeon or interact with one of its extensions, it pulls back and cuts off its connection."
Sukuna's expression shifted to something Yuji hadn't seen on him before, bordering between fascination and recognition.
"Cursed energy as the inverse of spirit energy." Sukuna murmured, almost to himself. "I've felt something similar since descending. The ambient energy in this world is fundamentally different from what we knew. It's cleaner, positive and derived from Spirits. Our energy doesn't belong here."
"And yet we're here."
"And yet we're here." Sukuna echoed.
The wind shifted. A distant bell rang from somewhere in the central district, marking the hour.
Yuji was about to speak when he felt it.
A vibration. Deep, rhythmic, running through the ground beneath his feet like a pulse.
His senses flared outward instinctively, spreading through the earth and across the surrounding blocks. The vibration was getting stronger, moving upward from far below and coming from multiple directions.
It was coming from everywhere.
Sukuna felt it too. He was already on his feet, his sealed divine senses straining against their restrictions as the ground beneath Orario began to tremble.
Then, three streets away, the cobblestone erupted.
A massive shape tore through the ground, sending chunks of stone and dirt skyward. Screams broke out immediately as civilians scattered from the emerging creature. Even from this distance, Yuji could see the familiar shape, the thick vines, the gaping maw, the tough green hide.
A viola.
Another eruption, further south. Then another, to the east. And another.
Multiple breaches across the city, simultaneously.
Yuji's awareness snapped wide, counting the disturbances. He could feel at least eight separate emergence points across Orario, each one the same species of creature that had attacked during Monster Feria.
"Oh?" Sukuna's voice was calm, but his eyes had changed. The boredom was gone, replaced by an intensity Yuji knew too well. "They're bold."
Two more eruptions shattered the park's walkway, barely ten metres from where they stood. Stone and earth cracked upward as two violas dragged themselves from beneath the surface, their vine like appendages whipping through the air as they oriented themselves.
Then two more, behind them, blocking the path back to the main street.
Four violas. Surrounding them on both sides.
The creatures' maws opened and closed with wet, rhythmic sounds.
Civilians were already fleeing, their screams echoing off the walls of the Southern District. The street emptied in seconds.
Yuji pulled his hands from his pockets.
Sukuna rolled his shoulders, his sealed body lacking the overwhelming power he once wielded but his posture carrying four thousand years of combat instinct that no restriction could suppress.
"I assume you won't let me sit this one out." Sukuna said drily.
"There are civilians." Yuji said simply.
"Of course there are." Sukuna clicked his tongue. "Fine. But I'm taking the two on the left."
"Your Arcanum is sealed. You're physically human right now."
"And? I was killing things before I had Arcanum, Brat. Some habits don't need divine power."
The four violas lunged simultaneously.
Yuji moved first. His body blurred forward, closing the distance to the nearest viola in a fraction of a second. Precisely controlling his cursed energy, his fist connected with the side of its head.
'Kokusen' (Black Flash)
The impact cratering the creature's skull and sending it careening into the park wall with enough force to crack the stone as black red lightning crackled out from the attack.
The second viola whipped its vines toward him. Yuji caught two of the appendages, wrapped them around his forearm, and yanked the creature off balance before driving his knee into its exposed maw. The magic stone inside flickered wildly from the contact.
He could feel it, the connection running downward from the stone, the same thread he'd sensed during Monster Feria. And at the other end of that thread, something vast and formless recoiled the instant his cursed energy made contact.
'There you are.'
On the other side of the park, Sukuna had picked up a section of broken lamppost and was using it as an improvised weapon. His movements were precise and ruthless, each strike aimed at the joints where the violas' vines connected to their central body.
His Arcanum was sealed, reducing him to the physical capabilities of an ordinary human. But Ryomen Sukuna had never been ordinary, even before he was the King of Curses or a God. His technique, his timing, his understanding of anatomy and structural weakness, none of that required divine power.
He had more up his sleeves, but there was no point in revealing his entire hand just yet, especially with Yuji nearby.
The lamppost cracked through the first viola's vine cluster, severing three appendages in a single swing. The creature screeched and reoriented, its remaining vines lashing toward him.
Sukuna ducked beneath the first, sidestepped the second, and drove the jagged end of the broken lamppost through the creature's open maw, piercing deep into the body cavity where the magic stone sat.
The viola spasmed and went still before disappearing in a black mist.
The fourth creature, seeing its companion fall, turned its full attention on Sukuna. Its vines whipped forward in a barrage that would have overwhelmed most adventurers.
Sukuna met it head on, his movements weaving between each of the incoming assault. But without his Arcanum, his body was mortal. A vine caught him across the shoulder, tearing through his kimono and drawing a thin line of blood.
He didn't flinch.
Instead, he used the contact to pull himself closer, grabbed the vine with his bare hand, and wrenched the creature toward him. As the viola stumbled forward, Sukuna planted his foot on its lower body and slammed the broken lamppost downward into the top of its skull.
It crumpled and disappeared into a black mist.
Behind Sukuna, the second viola that Yuji had kneed was struggling to rise, its magic stone flickering erratically. Yuji appeared beside it in a blur, placed his hand on the magic stone, and pulsed his cursed energy directly into it.
The connection severed instantly. He could feel the presence at the other end recoil violently, the same reaction as Monster Feria but stronger, more panicked. The viola's body went limp as its magic stone cracked and dimmed.
In the distance, explosions and screams echoed across Orario. The other violas were still active, tearing through different districts. He could sense Ganesha Familia responding in the eastern quarter. Guild personnel were mobilising near Babel.
Yuji straightened up and looked at Sukuna, who was examining the tear in his kimono with an expression of mild annoyance.
"You're bleeding." Yuji said.
"I've noticed." Sukuna pressed a hand to the wound, then pulled it away to look at the blood. "Mortal bodies are so fragile."
"Do you need—"
"If you offer to heal me, I'll kill you myself."
"Fair enough."
They stood among the four fallen violas, the park around them destroyed along with the wall cracked and the walkway shattered. The sounds of the wider attack continued in the background, but the immediate threat was over.
"That presence." Sukuna said, and his voice had lost all traces of humour. "When you touched the magic stone. Whatever's at the other end of those puppets, it was afraid."
"Yeah."
"I felt it from here. Even through the seal." Sukuna looked at his hand, then at Yuji. "It didn't react to me. It reacted to you. Whatever you are to that thing, it considers you a threat on a level beyond physical strength."
Yuji looked down at the dead viola at his feet. Its magic stone was dark, the connection severed cleanly.
He thought about Aiz, somewhere beneath Floor 24 right now, walking into an environment controlled by the same entity that was sending its extensions to the surface in a coordinated assault. He thought about Bete and Lefiya with her, and the Hermes Familia supporters who didn't know what they were truly up against.
And he thought about the entity, deep beneath the Dungeon.
This wasn't random, the timing was deliberate. The surface attack and the Floor 24 operation were happening simultaneously. The entity, or whoever was directing its extensions, was fighting on two fronts.
"We need to move." Yuji said. "There are more across the city."
Sukuna tossed the broken lamppost aside and cracked his neck. "Lead the way, Brat."
For the first time in history, Yuji Itadori and Ryomen Sukuna moved in the same direction.
Neither of them commented on it.