cultor | call me when they bury bodies underwater

Entry tags:

call me when they bury bodies underwater

who: Megumi and whoever. Maybe you??
what: Canon updating.
when: Immediately after the December event/TDM, over the first few days of January.
where: Dreamscape + Columbia University dorms.
warnings: Gore, drowning, and suicidal ideation. Spoilers through the end of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, also.

7-219-2

Part of Megumi's canon update is leaking into the dreamscape in Sleephattan, so characters may find themselves dreaming a nightmare that doesn't belong to them, for the first few days of January.

The bath is a room in the Zenin compound (think rich as balls traditional Japanese estate, although this particular room is kind of nasty) that's been filled with the blood and viscera of a large number of cursed spirits. Cursed spirits are formed when high concentrations of negative human emotion coalesce together, so it not only looks disgusting — it feels disgusting, because it's like taking a soak in every nasty thing humans are capable of feeling.

For Megumi, who gets dunked once he's been possessed by the King of Curses, it's enough to force his soul into a catatonic state, but since his circumstance is pretty specific, and canon is pretty vague, it might affect other characters very differently. Do what you want, I'm not the boss of you. This is basically just open if anybody wants to take advantage of it to aggravate their character's own trauma...or, like, have a pool party in a literal bloodbath, if they're too evil to be fazed.

I'm containing Megumi's own stuff in top level comments. If you want to go forth and do horrible things, you're welcome to start your own threads and mingle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ If there's anyone's judgment he trusts in a matter like this, it's Subaru's.

He stops trying to push himself up, less from recognition that he shouldn't strain himself and more from the (light, barely a puffing breeze) wind going straight out of his sails again. His hand creeps up to the new scars on his face. ]

Then I really did --

[ A shudder wracks his body and he closes his eyes again.

Then I really did kill her. Them. ]

[ That sentiment strikes cold through their tether, given their prolonged mental and physical contact. Subaru's fingers flex slightly against his cheek before they slip away, giving Megumi the room to feel out the scars now strewn about his face. They glare in ugly textures; he's so young still, to have them like this. ]

I felt it. More than I saw it.

[ This precipice... ]

What was it that you experienced down there, really?

I was possessed by Ryomen Sukuna.

[ He doesn't know if that name carries the sheer weight to Subaru that it does in his own world.

He doesn't know if it matters. ]

That pool was...some kind of suppression ritual.

[ Nothing he'd ever heard or read about, but it came as no surprise that foes from the golden age of jujutsu would know things that their modern counterparts had mostly forgotten. There were curse users who went rogue, certainly, but for the most part, jujutsu society had turned its attention to destroying curses, rather than each other. The in-fighting was mostly political, battles waged with money and influence. Curses killed enough of them; there was little sense in killing other.

The Heian had been different. ]

[ It's a familiarity lent weight entirely by Megumi's perception of it, but that's more than enough for Subaru to grasp the implications. ]

From what I felt...

[ To parse the shattered will of one in a cursed sea of anything and everything visceral and horrid and aching is no easy feat, but even divested of his heavenly gifts here, their influence follows him. Subaru knows him, and so had been quick to wield his recollection in being able to find him down below.

Even if he'd brought him back up an into a truth it would be kinder not to know.

But responsibility like theirs is so rarely kind. ]

It wasn't successful, was it? All that was left for you was to witness what was happening.

It was done for his benefit, not for mine.

[ By that measure...it was extremely successful. ]

I think I was just seeing what he felt like letting through. Before the ritual, I knew what was going on and I could mess with his power output. After, it was mostly just...dark and quiet. [ And there's something very eerie about a dark and quiet that's bad enough to unnerve an anti-social shadow specialist. ]

But -- I got pieces. [ The worst pieces. The pieces that would only push him deeper under the surface. ]

[ To think that he'd be given up like that. To think... that these scars are so new. ]

I don't imagine you went willingly. What benefit was there to releasing him and confining you?

He wanted a body he could actually control, but we already knew that.

[ Not just anyone would do, technically; Sukuna did want someone who could handle his levels of cursed energy. But Megumi is far from the only sorcerer that would include. ]

...and, as it turns out. He wanted Ten Shadows.

[ That, on the other hand, there was only one way for him to get. ]

[ Subaru's brows rise in question first, the tender passage of surprise on his face quickly settling into something more grave in its curiosity. ]

Your technique? You were targeted for that?

The strongest shikigami in the Ten Shadows arsenal is Mahoraga. No sorcerer in history was ever able to tame it and bring it under control, so summoning it is a suicide move. [ Kindly don't judge him for resorting to it, senpai. ] But it has the ability to adapt to any and all phenomena, so it's one of the only things that's ever proven able to kill a sorcerer with the Six Eyes and the Limitless technique... [ He stops, sucks in a breath. ] ...like Gojo-sensei.

[ He closes his eyes and tries to ignore the burning feeling of tears welling up. All of that, and for what? The bath, Tsumiki's murder...so he'd be a better weapon to kill the closest thing he ever had to a father. ]

[ A suicide move. The thought runs cold in the hollow of his throat, the feel of how static looks. ...he has no room to talk, though dismay layers into the cadence of his expression as he listens. Megumi is a child, but the architecture of a society based on the merit of prestige and power is one that will neglect accountability for children as such.

He knows why. He would know why.

Subaru is quiet at his side, tether docile, waiting for the emotions to run their course. ]

So, he used your power against you to kill what you loved.

Yes. Gojo-sensei...and Tsumiki.

[ The weight of Gojo's death feels like it's hitting him only now; at the time he was already so far gone from Tsumiki's that he didn't have much room left to fall further. But now, with others having reached out and given him a hand to pull himself up with, however short a distance he's managed to climb -- ]

Maybe more. I know everyone was fighting him, but...I couldn't make out details.

[ His sister, too... ]

If none of this can be taken back, [ he intones with the weight it deserves, the thrum of his unscarred heart in the tether too used to opening for anyone who might be in need of it. ] if you have to carry this knowledge with you, waking here...

What will you do, Megumi?

[ With this light he followed back. ]

I don't really want to keep going.

[ Said quietly, but with no hesitation. Megumi's always had a fairly loose relationship with the will to live -- not actively destructive, but not deeply caring about the possibility of destruction, either. He kept going because of inertia, and because of the things that still needed to be done. It was never about living for the sake of living. ]

...but even more than that. I don't want Yuji to suffer any more than he already has.

[ The inertia was reversed by Sukuna's possession, shifting from keeping him moving to keeping him frozen. But even without that force animating him, there's still something that needs to be done.

Something that might take a lifetime, as agonizing as the thought of living that long sounds. ]

[ Subaru is also quiet by his side, allowing the curved flats of his knuckles to brush the corner of one of his eyes in thought, where tears had welled but not fallen.

Anyone would likely recoil in the wake of a sentiment like that. Many years ago, Subaru might have been among them. He didn't carry these similar weights in the way Megumi carried them. Megumi has barely started his life, and yet bears enough grief and disenchantment to last him many lifetimes over. ]

Are you going to be the one to ensure that?

I have to be.

[ But not only, maybe, because he knows that losing him would be one more thing for Yuji to suffer over.

The thought of making Yuji cry is unbearable. The thought of making Yuji smile, though...

Megumi's not sure if that's enough to make him forget wanting to die. But it feels like enough to make him try to live. ]

[ To live a life thinking only of one person is a sign of sickness. But Subaru can't be the one to tell him to choose differently. He can only guide him to the precipices on which the choices he has to make gather and allow him to choose himself.

And even among insurmountable sorrow and violence, a lifetime of survival is still a lifetime.

However it might exact itself. ]

Then... I'm glad you came back to us.

[ Maybe someday there'll be more to it. Something else to live for.

Right now, he can't see it. ]

Thank you. For...helping me find the way.

[ He can't say he's glad to be here, exactly, but he still isn't finished. ]

[ Because he is here, by his own accord, by Subaru's hand, or that of their host, he will have to sort out the burden of choosing to live, for whatever reason he might have...

...or find.

So far, Subaru has ensconced him in the soothing halo of his tether, concentrating on keeping everything else storming through the Murmur from invading Megumi's dream. On waking, something woke with them. Sorrowful, singing, beckoning. But Megumi can decide to follow that call where it leads when he's ready.

He's so still. He's swallowed so much, committed it to the shape of his will defined by what he can do for others. ]

Do you want to cry?

[ Can he do that?

Megumi's gotten so used to stifling that kind of thing that it's second nature. Even when Tsumiki fell into her coma, he hadn't cried. He'd gotten angry, yelled, punched a few walls. But crying was a kind of vulnerability he didn't think he could allow himself. Yuji's death had been the first time in...he's not sure how long.

But denying his own vulnerability feels laughably pointless. Of course he's vulnerable. After being violated like this, what's even left to protect himself from? ]

I... [ Deep breath. ]

I do.

You can.

[ There may be nothing left to protect in himself, but by this connection that they have, it doesn't mean Subaru won't do so anyway. ]

[ Subaru's words are enough to break the dam. He rolls onto his side, curls into a ball, and finally stops biting back on everything that's been threatening to break through, shaking with deep, choking sobs. ]

[ Quiet a moment, he tries to recall the last time he felt such a personal affect for someone's tears. It's an everyday occurrence, dealing with death and the dead, the transgressions traded between worlds best kept apart. Despite the longing. Despite the wishes, and the bitter taste of heartache. Maybe he's never truly forgotten.

Reaching over, he places his palm to Megumi's back and rubs slow circles there, like Hokuto used to do for him. ]

My sister used to say to me... no matter how much you cry, no matter how much you blame yourself, you can't turn back time. If tears could heal what's been broken, or return what's been lost, there'd be no use in thinking of what you can do next, or how you can help.

But there was catharsis in it, sometimes. Being able to cry it all out.

[ Which is why he asked in the first place. ]

[ Thinking of what you can do next, or how you can help.

That's the problem right there, isn't it?

For Tsumiki, for Gojo...there is nothing to do next. Nothing he can do to help them avoid a fate that's already taken them. Anything left he can still do can only be to help Yuji, or...or himself.

As if he deserves that.

He's not sure how long they stay there like that, Subaru rubbing his back while he cries a wet spot onto the bedsheets, but eventually he runs out of tears and his sobs quiet. His breathing slows, evens out. ]

[ Subaru sits quietly after that, waiting for the hopelessness to weather itself out. It does, eventually. As he thought it would, even when nobody would be able to blame Megumi for having more tears to cry than what he actually does.

Eventually, the cadence of his palm shifts and he places it on his shoulder instead. ]

Can you sit up?

I think so.

[ His muscles are a little stiff from days without moving, but it shouldn't be that bad, probably.

Then again, if the scars appeared here, then it's not impossible that whatever stress the battle with Gojo and everyone else had put on his body might be echoing back, in some form, so he'd better take it slowly.

Flipping back to his back, he plants his hands to the sides and carefully, haltingly, pushes himself up. ]

call me when they bury bodies underwater

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