Chapter Text
There’s a point when a body stops being a body. That’s what surrounds him, meat, and he doesn’t know whose blood he’s drowning in. These bodies failed to register in his mind as belonging to humans, to people he might know. It’s just heaps of chunky red and the smell of metal. His blood is flowing down his face and into his eyes. Megumi raises his head and tries to clear his vision. Yuuji, where’s Yuuji? He tries to get up but his legs are broken as well as one of his arms. If he were to look he would see the white of his bone and it spikes out from his flesh. Grinding his teeth he moves his body from the puddle of blood and chokes down the bile that rises in his throat.
“Yuuji…” Seeing his shape makes his heart race in desperation. There’s the cold grasp of fear digging into him as Yuuji doesn’t react to his name. His lungs don’t allow him to call any louder and it took the last of his strength to move. “Please…Yuuji.” Don’t be dead, please, don’t be dead, he chants to himself inside his head. Megumi can feel his head getting light and his vision starts blurring. More bile rises as he forces his body to move closer. His cheek hits the pavement and he closes his eyes for a moment. There’s blood leaking down his face and he tries to wipe it away with his good arm.
Clearing the blood from his vision the best he can, he’s relieved to see Yuuji’s breathing. Hope swells and he lets himself lay there for a moment. Yuuji is breathing despite the horrible gash center of his face. Megumi can’t see the full extent of Yuuji’s injuries. It’s safe to assume Yuuji's bones are broken too and it’s clear that he’s bleeding from more than just the wounds on his face. There’s blood soaking his clothes and forming a concerning pool around his body.
They’ve lost but there had to be someone still out there coming to their rescue. Yuuji is still a good distance away but he physically can’t move anymore. Megumi is clinging to his consciousness and his breathing is shallow. He’s never been so tired, everything feels so heavy and yet so impossibly light at the same time. There are footsteps, so faint that he doubts he truly heard anything at all. Perhaps he was dying, his body was in worse shape, if he were to die he’s not sure if he would have minded. They lost.
Sukuna walks out of the smoke of a destroyed city, the white of his clothing is mockingly clean. Megumi watches him with one eye, the side of his face lying against the pavement as he can’t raise it. It doesn’t feel real and he tries to convince himself that he’s in hell. This had to be his version of hell. Sukuna stares at him but says nothing. Then those eyes turn to Yuuji. That’s where Sukuna’s gaze lingers and with a huff, he scoops Yuuji up. “No…” Megumi chokes out, and Sukuna holds the limp body under one of his lower arms. “Leave him, no, Sukuna no!” He tries to scream, blood in his lungs gurgling, trying to force his body to move and ignore the pain. Megumi gets a few inches off the pavement but as broken as he is it doesn’t take long for his body to give out.
“Stop! Give him back!
Give him back
!” Megumi chokes the words, red running from his mouth and he starts to see blurry doubles of the king of curses. He’s ignored and Sukuna walks back into the smoke. That’s the last thing Megumi sees before he passes out.
Three days would pass between then and when he finally wakes back up. His broken body has to heal mostly on its own as Shoko has her hands full. She’s busy with fatal wounds and she looks like a zombie as she moves between beds. Megumi wanted to believe what he saw was just a nightmare but none of the faces in the beds belonged to Yuuji. Although he does see Nobara, unconscious, pale, one side of her face wrapped in gaze. Some of the other beds have curtains around them preventing him from looking inside.
He wants to believe Yuuji is behind one but he knows that he’s not. Sukuna took him. Yuuji is gone. Megumi refused to even allow the thought that Yuuji was dead to enter his mind. He needs to cling to the hope that he’s alive, without it, Megumi isn’t sure if he’ll have the strength to keep going. It takes months for his legs to heal and he’s kicked from the hospital as soon as he’s able to walk. Things were intense, sorcerers were scrambling to reorganize since their failure to bring Sukuna down.
Megumi wants to get back out there, he wants to start looking, he couldn’t just sit here doing nothing. He spent months in bed doing nothing while Yuuji was out there having to face Sukuna on his own. Walking the ground he paces, his legs are still weak from disuse, and he can feel himself tiring quicker than normal. There’s a tightness in his chest and it feels hard to breathe and he staggers, shoulder hitting against the building.
It feels like every huff of breath is made of steam. Grinding his teeth he grabs his shirt by the collar to pull it away from his body. There’s a throbbing in his temples and Megumi squeezes his eyes shut. When he closes his eyes he can see Sukuna’s back and Yuuji’s dangling legs as they fade into smoke. They were so close and yet so far. If his legs hadn’t been broken, if he had only been stronger….
There’s a quick slap to the back of his head and he turns with his teeth bared in a snarl. Seeing Gojo should be a relief, he thought he was dead, but he doesn’t understand why seeing him fills him with rage. Even the smell of this bastard was setting him on edge, the scent similar to that of spearmint gum. It makes his stomach turn and his skin feel right. Gojo doesn’t react to the growling. “I knew this day was coming but man the timing of it is shit.” He says with a roll of his shoulders and a sigh.
He grabs him and shoves him back. “Fuck, I’m not in the mood for your bullshit right now. I need to do something…I can’t just sit here and…and…fuck.” His body feels like it’s burning and his jaw aches. Something was wrong with him and he didn’t know what. The pain in his jaw only makes his headache worse. Letting Gojo go he instead rubs at his face, turning away from him. All he wants is to scream and punch and kick and bite. All of his thoughts feel so muddy. Gojo’s horrible sickly minty sweet scent only makes it all worse.
“You're presenting.” Megumi almost misses it when Gojo says it. The answer to this weird feeling taking over his body. He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. Now was a horrible time for this. Gojo takes him by the arm and Megumi snarls at him and tries to pull away. He’s too weak from recovery and Gojo drags him with ease back inside. With a firm push, he’s made to sit in a chair. Gojo does a circle around him. The man sniffs the air around him and tries to hide the way he gags. “Congratulations, you’re an alpha. A stinky one at that.” What Gojo doesn’t say is that Megumi’s scent is too similar to his father’s to be of comfort.
“You stink too. It’s like spearmint but…wrong.” Megumi complains back and tries not to look defeated. He didn’t want to be an alpha, he never met one that he liked, and they were all so frustrating. “You’re an omega, aren’t you supposed to smell good?”
Gojo grabs his chest in a mock wound. The mood is still too light for Megumi to find comfortable. Without Yuuji here it felt wrong to find humor in Gojo’s actions. “That’s not how that works. Some omegas will smell really good to you and some won’t. It’s an evolutionary trait, bad smell equals incompatible genes. So basically it’s our body's way of saying that we should
not
have a baby.” Gojo wags his hand as he talks, one hip popped out, his hair down and unstyled. It’s only then that he notices how tired this man looks. There’s less shine and shimmer.
Megumi stands and groans. “Gross.” He wishes he had been a beta instead. This feels wrong, he feels gross, and his jaw only seems to hurt worse the more time goes on. Then he feels something happen inside his mouth followed by the taste of blood. When he spits into his hand one of his top canine teeth sits like a pearl in his palm. “What…what the hell?”
“Oh, are the fangs coming in? You must not have felt it with the cocktail they were feeding you in the hospital. Normally you’d be in pain for weeks as they form and come out. Open up, let me take a look.” Gojo says and Megumi doesn’t protest. Opening up Gojo whistles and reaches to touch the area. That tooth had been barely holding on when it fell out, the replacement already halfway out of his gums. “Don’t worry about them not all coming in at once. The bottom ones take longer to grow in.” Gojo then lightly taps the other tooth on top and it falls out. That fang is also already halfway out.
Megumi looks at the teeth in his hand and feels the urge to vomit. “I should be saving Yuuji…not going through second puberty.” What use was being an alpha, he was still weak, he couldn’t do anything. Gojo pats him on the back and Megumi’s dark eyes glare down.
“Save Yuuji?” Gojo questions, he didn’t see the area Megumi was found in but he heard about it later. They had gone against Sukuna and were caught in some sort of attack or trap. The bodies couldn’t be identified and most had assumed Yuuji was among the masses. Even now, his heart struggles to believe Yuuji’s alive. As much as he would like to hope, he also knows there are worse things than death. It would be better for Yuuji if he was dead. Sukuna is all the things worse. If Yuuji's alive with him then Gojo can only pray that it's not for long.
Megumi seems to sense this and growls. “I saw him, he was breathing, Sukuna took him alive. He’s
alive
.” Clenching his hand his teeth dig into his palm. The rage that he feels burns at his heart. Nothing else mattered besides this goal. “I need to get stronger…we have to save him.”
I have to save him.