Chapter Text
It's dark in here.
Wherever “here” is…
Feels like the bottom of some deep, dark ocean. No light coming through at all.
He woke up here a while ago. No clue how long it's been. Feels like it's been ages, but it probably hasn't actually been that long. He doesn't exactly have a long attention span.
You'd think dying would make a guy pay attention, but not him. No, he can't stick to one topic for too long. ADHD follows you through your life and after. Or maybe not. As he said, it's been a while since he's been alive.
Must have been for his memories to be so jacked up.
Can't remember much of anything. No names, no faces, nothing of substance.
Doesn't even know his own name.
He remembers he had children. Six to be exact, two boys, four girls. A lot he knows. Especially as a single dad. Must've worked himself to the bone to pay for them all. Can't remember their faces, can't remember their names, doesn't know their ages…
But he remembers them. Their laughter, the padding of tiny feet on wooden floors. The feeling of small hands wrapped around his. Going to band performances, getting dragged to the store for last-minute projects the little shits waited till the night before to tell him about, sitting through rants about their favorite shows or movies. They were his world.
Even if he can't remember them.
…
…
…
Man, it's been a while, huh?
…
Dwelling on lost time only makes it feel lonelier. Better to focus on the present.
Speaking of, something has changed in the time he's been reminiscing.
A light.
Above him.
Small. Nearly unnoticeable. But there.
He debates with himself whether he should reach for it. If he even can? It's not uncomfortable here. Feels like being submerged in molasses, but also like a warm hug. He guesses that light is the way out, but he doesn't know if he wants to leave. He's so tired. Can’t he just rest here?
Unfortunately, he quickly finds out he doesn't get a choice.
Something unseen nearby seems to be pulled towards the light. It twists and thrashes. Resisting with all its might.
Suddenly it turns to him as if noticing his presence. He doesn't know how he knows when it reaches for him, he just does.
He can't move away from it, can't move at all. It grabs hold of him with its hands.
One.
Two..
Three… Wait what?
Four hands grab hold of him.
The being's claws dig into his arms and sides as he's yanked upwards alongside it. He tries to fight, but he can't move. Can't do anything but watch as the light gets closer, and closer, and closer. The light brightens the molasses around him, and all he can see is red, red, Red, RED, RED, RED RED-
The moon…
It's beautiful…
It seems that light really was the way out. He can feel the wind brush his face and the cold bite his hands. The thing that dragged him out of the red ocean must have brought him with it back to the land of the living.
Speaking of hands grabbing him, there’s something extremely unpleasant grabbing him right now. Rank breath assaults his senses as a hand made of pure malice crushes him in its grip. Dragging him toward the, frankly disgusting, maw of the monster holding him.
He raises his own hand on instinct, and the grotesque form that had been nearly crushing him falls into pieces. Purple blood and cubes of flesh splatter across the concrete rooftop he seems to be standing on. He stares at the slowly disappearing remains for a moment before deciding he's too tired to care about that thing and examines himself.
He appears to be in the body of a teenage boy. One with a curious ascetic sense, given the long purple nails and tattoos that peak out beneath the sleeves of an atrocious yellow hoodie. He's never really been very fashion-focused, but even he finds the combination strange.
He eventually grows bored with examining himself and turns back to the moon.
‘How long since I've last seen the sky?’
“How long has it been since I last set eyes upon this gorgeous sky?”
Huh... that's not what he wanted to say.
The meaning is the same, but he sure didn't say it like that. The way it's worded sounds like something out of one of those period dramas his youngest son used to force him to watch.
He hears a gasp from behind him and turns to face a boy with very strange-looking hair, spiky like something out of an anime. The boy freezes upon seeing him, trembling hands held in a strange position, like he were holding a wheel. Blood drips down the boy's face, which is contorted in terror as though terrified for his life.
‘What are you doing out here, fighting something like this, injured? Where’s your parents' kid?’
“What are you doing out in this battlefield with those injuries? It is unwise for one as young as yourself to be facing something like this on your own. Tell me, child, where is your guardian?”
All of his words are being put through some kind of formality filter.
Being addressed directly seemed to snap the urchin head out of whatever trance he was in. However, before the kid can do anything, A hand reaches up to grab hold of the man's chin, his own hand it seems. A second voice rings out alongside it, coming from his own mouth.
“What do you think you're doing with my body?”
Ah, it looks like the kid he's inhabiting is still here.
“You persist still? How fascinating…”
“Well, yeah, it is my body. Give it back!”
“If you insist, child.”
He feels the sensation of being pulled underwater as the kid takes control of the body back.
“Huh… that was way easier than I thought it'd be.”
He falls, and falls, and lands right back in an ocean of red. This time, though, he doesn't sink. Couldn’t even if he wanted to. The red water isn't even deep enough to cover his whole face.
Above him stands a giant ribcage, reaching high into the endless darkness above. He doesn't have the energy to get up right now, but from a cursory glance around him, there are bones and trinkets littered everywhere around the shallow red sea. Oh, who's he kidding? It's blood. With this scenery, there's no way it's not blood.
He's currently lying down next to a giant pile of bones; some of the bones are human, some not. He can't see the top of the pile at this angle, but something instinctive tells him there's something important he needs to see up there.
He doesn't move.
The sounds of vague voices echo. Likely the two kids arguing in the real world. He continues to lie on his back and rest for now. He's tired, damn it. He can't be bothered to investigate right now; he just wants to rest.
He hears shifting at the top of the bone pile. The sound of sandals against hard bone slowly approaching him. The steps were even, measured. They sounded vaguely to him like the toll of an executioner's bell.
He doesn’t move.
The steps pause at the edge of the bone pile, unwilling to descend even an inch. A figure looms looking over him. Four blood red eyes seem to pierce into his very soul.
He recognizes the face of the “youth” above him. His youngest daughter’s room used be filled with posters and figurines of that exact face.
“Sukuna…”
There's no way…
The universe isn’t that unfair, is it?
Isn't it usually teenagers who get sent into fictional worlds? Why send some exhausted old man? He doesn’t even know anything about this show! All he knows is memes and rants and thirst trap edits of that one white-haired dude that his daughter kept sending him for some ungodly reason.
He can't do this.
So he chooses not to deal with the emotional turmoil of being brought to a fictional world, especially one where most of the characters die (he remembers his youngest breaking down his door at 3 am for the 7th time to cry about one of her favorites dying again). He instead stares blankly into the eyes of the big bad of this series. Praying that he can die quickly so he can return to the bottom of the red ocean and not have to deal with all this.
Unfortunately, whatever god sent him here won't let him off that easily.
“So you do know whose domain you’ve intruded upon.”
“Intruded isn’t quite the word I would use, but yes, I know of you, King of Curses.”
Intruded implies he had a choice.
Maybe if he mouths off, he’ll die quickly? Isn’t this guy supposed to be pretty murder happy? Come on dude, there's an weakling mouthing off to you right here! Don’t you wanna just slit his throat?
Instead of getting angry, the creep starts grinning ear to ear.
“I see you weren’t as dead as I assumed, brother.”
“What's the situation?”