I woke atop the bone mountain, wrapped in the red throw blanket that I'd had draped around me to combat the chills. Glancing down, I realized the cuts that had formed all around my body were no longer there. How was that possible?

"You don't listen for shit." Sukuna's voice sounded next to me.

I shakily glanced in his direction only to pause as I realized he looked different. He looked younger, closer to my age. He still had the same hair and eye color as before but he only had two arms. The tattoos that had lined his body were still present and only one set of extra eyes. He looked much less terrifying.

"Why do you look different?" I asked.

"Must be one of my future vessels." he shrugged as if that were any kind of answer.

"Why am I alive?" I asked in awe. Not just alive, I was in better condition than when I'd arrived.

"Did you want to die?" He smirked.

"I've died thousands of times." I retorted tonelessly.

"Being a medium can be troublesome, especially for one as strong as you." He noted.

Strong? No one had ever called me strong, in anything. No that wasn't right, Gojo often said my strength was not being very helpful. I threw up my guard, why was Sukuna giving me a compliment, he was evil incarnate. Shakily, I sat up grimacing as I looked down at the mountain of bones and the pool of blood.

"Where is this?" I asked warily.

"My domain." Sukuna grinned maliciously.

That explained why it was creepy and gory and why it felt like we were inside the belly of a beast. "...how am I here?"

Sukuna scowled at me, growing tired of my questions. "Because you're a powerful medium now shut the hell up."

As a medium I connected with spirits, curses and cursed energy differently than my classmates and most jujutsu sorcerers. I enmeshed with them on a deeper empathetic level, feeling what they felt, experiencing what they experienced and that granted me the ability to unravel the cursed energy woven around them making them curses. Perhaps, after coming into contact with Sukuna's finger, I'd established a connection. Was that why even without his finger being near I could still hear him from time to time and even feel him around me? Why hadn't he killed me yet? I was in his domain.

A sorrowful thought crossed my mind, Sukuna had been trapped here for a thousand years. Maybe he was just lonely. That first point of connection I could feel his rage, malice and thirst for blood and carnage but even then it seemed like he'd just wanted to scare me, and he succeeded. I extended a hand in front of me, last I'd seen my arm it had been riddled with deep lacerations down to the bone in some places, now it was good as new.

"Did you heal me?" I asked only to jump as he appeared before me, his hand encircling my neck.

"You would have died too quickly otherwise." He grinned maliciously.

In the back of my mind I saw a vision of Sukuna as a child, no more than four years old. He was cold and hungry and so very alone. People passed by on the street huddling closely to one another looking at him with hatred and fear, calling him a wretch and a monster. A single tear slipped down my cheek and the vision dispersed.

"Crying already?" Sukuna snickered.

I reached up tenderly and placed a hand to his cheek, "you weren't a wretch or a monster back then. I'm sorry those adults made you feel that way."

His crimson eyes widened and he released me as if I'd burned him. "Shut the hell up."

Thinking back on how cold he'd felt, I picked up the crimson blanket wrapped around me and took a step toward Sukuna. He glowered at me but made no move to stop me or pull away, watching me with curiosity.

I draped the blanket around his shoulders and smiled. "In case you get cold."

"Leave." He commanded.

I woke with a gasp sitting on my desk chair in a room that looked as if a massacre had occurred. My blood was still splattered across the walls and ceiling and soaking into the rug. Glancing over at my bed, the red throw blanket was missing.

"Hey, Ryoko, we're all needed for a mis-." My dorm room door opened and Shoko stepped in, her words falling away as her eyes grew wide in horror and a scream tore from her throat.

Gojo and Geto simultaneously pulled her back a step and took her place, staring in horror at the state of my dorm and me drenched in blood in torn up pajamas.

"I'm okay." I offered them a smile.

"NONE OF THIS IS OKAY!" Shoko snapped.

"What's going on?" The voice of the second year's instructor Masamichi Yagi sounded from down the hall, in response to Shoko's earlier scream. He shoved his way through Geto and Gojo who were currently blocking my door and froze at the state of my room. All the teachers knew the principal had given me cursed objects to unravel.

His dark eyes fell on the straight razor lying at my feet, "that one shouldn't have been in there; it was a class 1 cursed object."

"It's safe now." I slowly got to my feet, the rug squishing underneath me as I stood up. My gaze turned to Gojo, Geto and Shoko, "we're going out?"

They all nodded, still wide eyed.

"I'm going to take a shower first." I headed toward the small bathroom in my dorm, leaving a trail of bloody footprints across the few patches of untouched floor on the way to the bathroom.

A few hours later I found myself in the front seat of a car, Gojo, Geto and Shoko were crammed in the backseat all watching me carefully. If I was being sent on a mission with them, then there was more than likely a cursed object involved that was dangerous for them to interact with.

"All the blood in the room was yours." Shoko noted, lighting up a cigarette in the middle of the backseat causing Geto and Gojo to wave the smoke away and roll down their windows and our driver to grumble out a complaint.

"It was." I said softly.

"Yet, you're entirely healed." Shoko's eyes narrowed a little, "you can't use reversed curse techniques-."

"Or any curse techniques." Gojo noted with a chuckle.

Geto sighed. "Why must you pick on the weak?"

"It wouldn't be very smart to pick on the strong." Gojo said with a shrug causing Geto to chuckle softly and shake his head.

"Maybe the spirits healed me as a thank you for releasing them from their prison." I lied, "I woke up and I was fine."

I could still sense Sukuna but he was being quiet, keeping his distance.

The car came to a stop outside of an outdoor public swimming pool. It was closed since the summer season was over. Our driver placed a veil and sent us inside after debriefing us. Somewhere in the pool was a cursed object with a 100% death rate. Anyone who touched it, drowned whether they were in the water or not.

I sensed multiple cursed energy residuals, the cursed object wasn't the only thing here. Gojo sensed it too but he didn't seem the least bit worried. He was never worried. There were dozens of low level curses hanging around, too many for me to try and connect with all at once. The others didn't seem even slightly phased. Even Shoko was confident in her abilities.

"Stay back, Ryoko, save your energy for the cursed object." Shoko stood in front of me. "We won't be able to touch it."

"O-okay." I hid behind my classmates as they took care of the lower level cursed spirits.

I sensed something beneath me at the same time Gojo did. "Ryoko!" Gojo's bright blue eyes widened as he looked at me. Time seemed to freeze as a large blue clawed hand reached up from the ground as if it were swimming through water and coiled around me.

A scream tore from my throat as I was pulled beneath the ground's surface. Though I knew I was moving through the earth, it felt like water. Several moments later we broke through the surface into what looked like a domain. A cold watery domain with countless bloated bodies floating in the water.

I screamed in terror as the clawed hand around me tightened and turned me to face the cursed spirit that had apprehended me. It looked almost dragon-like but a warped and mutilated version, it was gory and grotesque and looked at me with a bloody grin.

"I hope you're as delicious as your screams." It spoke in a haunting voice.

It could talk! This had to be a special grade!

I uselessly smacked at its talons gripping me in a desperate attempt to break free. I wasn't sure my classmates would make it in time. The grip on me tightened, and I was drawn closer to the bloody razor sharp maw.

I was going to die! For real!

So what? Would that be so bad? It would be the end. I wouldn't have to experience all the death and despair from all the cursed objects in the world any longer. I'd finally be at peace. I thought of Shoko and how upset she'd be if I died. I wasn't sure Gojo would care. Geto may, for a short time at least. If I died here, I'd be abandoning all those suffering souls imprisoned in cursed objects forced to relive their personal hells over and over again for eternity. Alright, no dying.

"HELP!" I shrieked, praying my classmates were close enough to hear me and break through the domain I was trapped in.

The creature before me suddenly froze, its body going rigid in terror. I sensed a powerful presence resonating all around the domain. A very familiar powerful presence. Sukuna.

"That one is mine." Sukuna's voice reverberated all around the watery grave.

The cursed spirit holding me looked like if it were a creature that wore pants it would have just pissed them. I heard a faint sound of someone snapping their fingers and I was suddenly in a pair of strong arms.

I looked up, wide eyed, at Sukuna. He was in his less scary form and he was only half here but I could see him clearly and so could the cursed spirit. His presence was terrifying enough the cursed spirit dropped into a strange bow and began groveling.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sukuna glowered down at me.

"H-huh?" I squeaked beneath his horrifying glare.

"You a curse magnet?" He growled.

"...I think so..." I trembled in his arms, "...maybe they just want to be understood...so they seek me out...possibly..."

Sukuna turned his fierce glare to the cowering cursed spirit. He flicked his clawed hand in its direction and I stared in horror as it was shredded to pieces and the domain I'd been trapped in shattered. I felt myself fall and let out a scream before plummeting into the outdoor pool. I could still faintly sense Sukuna but he was no longer physically present. Why would he save me? I kicked desperately and broke the water's surface coughing and gasping for air.

"Ryoko!" Shoko cried as Geto and Gojo fished me out of the freezing water.

"You killed that special grade, on your own?" Gojo asked skeptically.

I shivered from the cold and wrapped my arms around myself while shaking my head.

"Then who d-?" Gojo paused as I sensed a strong cursed energy heading our way or more specifically toward Geto. He must have sensed it too. "Geto, don't!" he turned as Geto reached up and caught the object soaring toward him before it could collide with him.

I looked up in horror as water suddenly spilled from Geto's mouth, his dark eyes wide as his lungs filled with more water. I looked at the red whistle in his hand, the source of the cursed energy.

"Geto!" Shoko panicked.

I snatched the whistle from his hand, "please. Stop this." I held it tightly in my hands and felt as if strong hands were holding me down beneath the water's surface.

I opened my mouth to scream and water spilled into it. I looked up to see several faces obscured in darkness, only their outlines visible in the moonlight as they held me beneath the water's surface. They were laughing as they kept me beneath the water's surface. I slapped at them uselessly, strength leaving my body as my vision darkened. Fear, panic and regret flooded through me overwhelming me in my final moments.

I fell out of the memory and spat out a mouthful of water. Geto was still drowning. I clung to the whistle tightly, "Midori-chan." I hugged the whistle. "I'm sorry." Tears clung to my cheeks.

Water sloshed to the ground around me as a young woman crawled out of the pool, her long ebony hair dripping wet and hanging in front of her face. There were bruised handprints on her neck, arms and legs from the assholes who'd held her down and drowned her.

I opened my arms to her, and cried as she fell into me and sobbed against me. "You're safe now, Midori-chan." I hugged her tight. "Please, let Geto go."

My arms fell through the air as Midori exploded into light and I heard Geto cough out a mouthful of water behind me before gasping for air. I turned to see him being held up by Gojo and Shoko lingering nearby worried.

Geto caught his breath and looked to me with a gentle smile, "thanks, Ryoko. Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah." I shivered uncontrollably.