[ALERT! POTENTIAL JUJUTSU KAISEN SPOILERS IN THESE NEXT 3 CHAPTERS!]
Dante stood there, whole and unharmed, staring at his own hands like they might hold some kind of answer. The phantom sensation of that cut still ghosted across his midsection, a cold line that made his breath catch every time he thought about it.
I was just in two pieces. Two. Fucking. Pieces.
His fingers trembled as he patted down his chest, his stomach, searching for the seam that should have been there. Nothing. Just smooth, unbroken skin beneath his blood-stained shirt.
How is this real? How is any of this—
"Oh?"
That single syllable from Sukuna cut through his spiraling thoughts like a knife through fog. All four of those impossible eyes locked onto him with sudden, laser-focused interest that made his skin crawl.
"He's alive."
Gojo turned toward Sukuna, one hand coming to rest on his hip.
"Honestly. The impulse control of a toddler." He gestured at Dante like he was exhibit A in a very straightforward case. "He was the only other person here, you know. What if he hadn't come back? Then I'd be stuck staring at your ugly face for another eternity."
Sukuna scoffed. All four eyes rolled in perfect synchronization, the gesture somehow more annoying because of the redundancy.
"He's not dead, is he? It was a test. He passed. Barely. Don't be so dramatic."
A test? A fucking TEST?
Dante's mind raced, trying to find some kind of logical foothold in this ocean of insanity. He ignored their bickering, his eyes darting around Sukuna's form, searching desperately for something, anything to explain what had just happened.
Where's the sword? The knife? There has to be something—
But there was nothing. No weapon. No blade. Just that bored teenager standing
Gojo turned his blindfolded face back toward Dante, head tilting with that same curiosity from before.
"Huh."
"That's strange. You have no Cursed Energy..." His head tilted the other direction, like he was examining Dante from multiple angles at once. "But you're brimming with... how can..."
He paused, then his entire demeanor shifted. "Wait. You're not a sorcerer, are you?"
Dante scratched his cheek. "A sorcerer? What is this, Harry Potter?"
"Ahhh. I see." He looked at Sukuna. "Not from our world, then. That explains... a lot."
He turned back to Dante, and that smile widened into something approaching genuine delight.
"Well, isn't this interesting?"
Our world?
"I don't know what world you're from, but I'm just a normal human." Dante's eyes cut to Sukuna, to those four burning eyes and the tattoos that seemed to writhe across pale skin.
"Unlike whatever the hell he is." Back to Gojo. "And from the looks of it, so are you, blindfolds."
The silence that followed was profound.
Then Gojo's smile widened into a full grin.
"Oh?" He took a half-step forward, his posture open and inviting. "You think I'm normal?"
The air seemed to thicken around him, reality itself bending in ways Dante's eyes couldn't quite process.
"Go on, then. Prove it." Gojo spread his arms wide, completely exposed. "Try and punch me. Give me your best shot." That grin never wavered. "I won't even move."
Dante hesitated. Every instinct he'd developed on the streets screamed that this was a trap. That walking into an obvious setup was the kind of mistake that got you killed.
Already dead though, aren't I?
One had just cut him in half and the other was inviting him to take a swing.
What did he have left to lose?
Rage and frustration surged through his chest, hot and clarifying. He needed to do something. Needed something in this insane situation to be real and solid and comprehensible.
Dante threw a punch.
He put everything he had into it. All the strength he'd used to put down two dozen gang members. All the desperate fury of someone who'd bled out in an alley while his sister lay broken in a hospital bed. Every ounce of violence he'd ever possessed, channeled into his fist as it rocketed toward that smug, blindfolded face.
The air around Gojo changed.
It started as pressure. Then it became density. The sensation crawled up Dante's arm like he'd shoved his fist into hardening concrete. The resistance built and built, his momentum bleeding away into nothing, swallowed by some invisible force that turned physics into a polite suggestion.
His fist stopped.
One inch. One single, agonizing inch from Gojo's nose.
Dante stumbled backward, clutching his hand against his chest.
What the actual fuck—
Sukuna had done something violent to him. Had cut him in half with casual disinterest, like swatting a particularly annoying fly.
But Gojo had done something worse.
He'd made reality itself into Dante's enemy.
The white void spun. Dante's breathing came in harsh, ragged gasps as he stared at these two impossible things wearing human shapes. The monster who could cut space and the man who was untouchable. His last shreds of bravado shattered like glass.
"What..." His voice cracked. He hated how broken it sounded, but he couldn't stop the words. "What the hell are you people?!"
He looked from Sukuna to Gojo, his fear finally winning the war against his anger.
"Why am I here with you two freaks?!"
Gojo and Sukuna exchanged a look.
"The brat has a point," Sukuna rumbled.
Gojo nodded slowly. His smile had vanished again, replaced by a thoughtful expression that somehow made him look more dangerous than the grin had.
"He does. The question isn't just why he's here. It's why we're here, with him."
He took a step closer.
"The void doesn't just collect random souls. Something led you to this crossroads." His voice softened, losing some of that playful edge.
"Let's start with the basics. How did you die?"
Dante looked down at his hands.
When he looked back up, his voice came out low.
"My sister." The words felt like broken glass in his throat. "She was in the hospital."
The silence in the void was absolute. Even Sukuna had gone still, those four eyes watching with sudden, focused interest.
"Some scum put her there." Dante's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "I went to return the favor."
Twenty-four of them. In that warehouse. Twenty-four pieces of human garbage who thought they could take whatever they wanted, hurt whoever they wanted, and never face consequences.
"It was twenty-four of them." His voice dropped lower, flatter. The tone of someone delivering a report instead of reliving a nightmare. "I got twenty-one."
He could still feel it. The impact of fists on flesh. The satisfying crack of bones breaking. The way they'd stopped laughing, stopped grinning, stopped breathing.
"The last three got me." His hand moved unconsciously to his stomach, to where the knife had gone in. "Knife to the gut. I bled out in an alley, listening to sirens that were too damn far away."
Gojo had gone completely still. His head was tilted at that analytical angle again, like he was seeing something Dante couldn't comprehend.
When Gojo finally spoke, his voice carried a note of profound interest that made Dante's skin crawl.
"Twenty-one." He said it softly, tasting the number. "You killed twenty-one men before they managed to take you down."
"I didn't say I killed them. I said I got them."
"Semantics." Sukuna's voice cut through the space like a blade. When Dante looked at him, the teenager's expression had transformed.
That bored disinterest was gone. In its place was a slow, deeply appreciative smile that spread across his face like blood in water. It was the first genuine expression Dante had seen from him, and it was absolutely terrifying.
"You're one interesting brat."
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