Becoming Sukuna

"Alright everyone, back to your seats. Class is starting."

As the bell rang, Shizuka Hiratsuka, clad in her usual white coat over a suit vest, entered the classroom with her teaching materials.

Hayama Hayato stood up from his seat and asked, "Hiratsuka-sensei, why isn't Ooka here today?"

"He's absent today. Aren't you friends? Go ask him yourself," Hiratsuka-sensei said, waving him off and gesturing for him to sit down.

Hayama forced a smile. He had, of course, messaged Ooka, but hadn't received a reply. The messages remained unread.

After what happened yesterday, Ooka's sudden disappearance worried him.

Hiratsuka-sensei passionately lectured from the podium, but Hayama's mind was elsewhere, filled with chaotic thoughts. His anxiety was evident on his face.

And his anxiety did not escape Hachiman Hikigaya's notice.

"Regretting it?"

After class, Hachiman Hikigaya, who usually kept to himself, either playing on his phone or sleeping at his desk, rarely initiating contact with anyone, unexpectedly approached Hayama and struck up a conversation.

Noticing the curious glances from their classmates, Hayama smiled at them before turning to Hachiman. "Let's talk outside."

The two left the classroom, one after the other. Most of their classmates paid no mind, after all, it was Hayama, the school's renowned sunny boy. It was only natural for him to look after the unpopular loner.

Except for Yui Yuigahama and Yumiko Miura, and another girl who started fantasizing about their relationship, nosebleeding profusely as her friends frantically tried to stop the bleeding.

Hayama Hayato and Hachiman Hikigaya arrived in the hallway. Hayama stood by the window, basking in the morning sunlight that illuminated a section of the corridor while casting shadows elsewhere.

Hayama stood in the light, Hachiman in the shadow, as if they belonged to two different worlds.

Hayama turned, leaning against the wall with a wry smile. "I don't regret it... though you probably won't believe me even if I say so."

"Indeed," Hachiman nodded in agreement.

"What would have happened if I hadn't asked the Service Club for help? Was there a better way to resolve this? These thoughts keep swirling in my head..." Hayama said, his gaze lowered. "I know Ooka isn't that fragile, but what if? What if he really did something impulsive, something irreversible? I probably wouldn't be able to sleep well ever again."

"If anything happens, I'll take responsibility," Hayama declared.

"Good. If you had said something like 'none of this would have happened if Yukinoshita hadn't said those things,' I would have punched you in the face," Hachiman said, lightly punching his fist into his palm.

"...What kind of person do you think I am?" Hayama asked with a helpless chuckle.

"A phony guy who likes to play friendship games?" Hachiman said bluntly, unconcerned with Hayama's reaction.

"That's quite harsh." Hayama seemed to have expected such a response, his expression unchanged. "But I don't believe those were fake, nor were they some 'friendship game' as you call it."

He then turned to leave.

After this conversation with Hachiman, Hayama completely abandoned the idea of seeking help from the Service Club again. He decided to mend the broken bond with Ooka on his own.

As he passed by Hachiman, Hayama's voice drifted from behind, "Hikigaya, I don't think we can be friends."

"Same here," Hachiman replied, his voice reaching Hayama's ears.

Hayama returned to the classroom without pausing, and soon the sound of him greeting his friends filled the air.

Hachiman walked through the sunlight with his hands in his pockets, heading towards the vending machines downstairs alone.

...

Hayama was indeed making an effort to preserve the friendship within their small group.

First, he persuaded Tobe and Yamato to forgive Ooka's actions.

"Tch, I'm still pissed, but since Hayato said so, if that guy apologizes, I'll forgive him," Tobe said.

"Me too," Yamato agreed with a nod.

After convincing his two friends, Hayama went to Shizuka Hiratsuka's office to ask for Ooka's home address.

"Say, aren't you guys pretty close? How come you don't even know his address? Never been to his house?"

Hiratsuka-sensei, a cigarette dangling from her lips, wrote down Ooka's address on a slip of paper and handed it to him.

"Haha..." Hayama could only offer an awkward laugh in response to her question. He took the paper. "Thank you, Hiratsuka-sensei. This is a big help."

Hiratsuka-sensei exhaled a plume of smoke, some of it curling into her nostrils. She tapped her cigarette lightly on the overflowing ashtray.

"Did something happen?"

Hayama paused, then shook his head with a forced smile. "If there's nothing else, I'll be going then, Hiratsuka-sensei."

"I thought you were a student who wouldn't cause trouble for your teachers. Go on, go on." Hiratsuka-sensei stared at him for a while, then pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. She waved him off.

"The students these days are getting more and more troublesome..." He could hear her muttering as he left the office.

Hayama left the office with a hint of gloominess clinging to him.

After school, he excused himself from soccer club activities and followed the address Hiratsuka-sensei had given him to find Ooka's house – a typical single-family home commonly seen in Japan.

He rang the doorbell and waited for two minutes. The door opened, revealing Ooka, dressed in a black shirt and trousers.

He didn't look well. His buzz cut was dishevelled, dark circles underlined his eyes, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Ooka, listen to me..." Hayama's smile hadn't fully formed when the door slammed shut with a bang.

"Go away."

Hayama's smile instantly froze.

"Alright, everyone back to your seats. Class is starting."

With the ringing of the bell, Shizuka Hiratsuka, as always, entered the classroom in her white coat draped over her suit vest, textbooks in hand.

Hayama Hayato rose from his seat and asked, "Hiratsuka-sensei, why isn't Ooka here today?"

"He's taken a leave of absence. Aren't you friends? Go ask him yourself," Hiratsuka-sensei said, waving him off and gesturing for him to sit down.

Hayama forced a smile. He had, of course, messaged Ooka, but hadn't received any replies. The messages remained unread.

After what happened yesterday, Ooka's sudden absence worried him.

Hiratsuka-sensei passionately lectured from the podium, but Hayama's mind was elsewhere, filled with a jumble of thoughts. His anxiety was evident on his face.

And his anxiety did not escape Hachiman Hikigaya's notice.

"Regretting it?"

After class, Hachiman Hikigaya, who usually kept to himself, either playing on his phone or sleeping at his desk, rarely initiating contact with anyone, unexpectedly approached Hayama and struck up a conversation.

Noticing the curious glances from their classmates, Hayama smiled at them before turning to Hachiman. "Let's talk outside."

The two left the classroom, one after the other. Most of their classmates paid no mind; after all, it was Hayama, the school's renowned sunny boy. It was only natural for him to look after the unpopular loner.

Except for Yui Yuigahama and Yumiko Miura, and another girl who started fantasizing about their relationship, nosebleeding profusely as her friends frantically tried to stop the bleeding.

Hayama Hayato and Hachiman Hikigaya arrived in the hallway. Hayama stood by the window, basking in the morning sunlight that illuminated a section of the corridor while casting shadows elsewhere.

Hayama stood in the light, Hachiman in the shadow, as if they belonged to two different worlds.

Hayama turned, leaning against the wall with a wry smile. "I don't regret it... though you probably won't believe me even if I say so."

"Indeed," Hachiman nodded in agreement.

"What would have happened if I hadn't asked the Service Club for help? Was there a better way to resolve this? These thoughts keep swirling in my head..." Hayama said, his gaze lowered. "I know Ooka isn't that fragile, but what if? What if he really did something impulsive, something irreversible? I probably wouldn't be able to sleep well ever again."

"If anything happens, I'll take responsibility," Hayama declared.

"Good. If you had said something like 'none of this would have happened if Yukinoshita hadn't said those things,' I would have punched you in the face," Hachiman said, lightly punching his fist into his palm.

"...What kind of person do you think I am?" Hayama asked with a helpless chuckle.

"A phony guy who likes to play friendship games?" Hachiman said bluntly, unconcerned with Hayama's reaction.

"That's quite harsh." Hayama seemed to have expected such a response, his expression unchanged. "But I don't believe those were fake, nor were they some 'friendship game' as you call it."

He then turned to leave.

After this conversation with Hachiman, Hayama completely abandoned the idea of seeking help from the Service Club again. He decided to mend the broken bond with Ooka on his own.

As he passed by Hachiman, Hayama's voice drifted from behind: "Hikigaya, I don't think we can be friends."

"Same here," Hachiman replied, his voice reaching Hayama's ears.

Hayama returned to the classroom without pausing, and soon the sound of him greeting his friends filled the air.

Hachiman walked through the sunlight with his hands in his pockets, heading towards the vending machines downstairs alone.

...

Hayama was indeed making an effort to preserve the friendship within their small group.

First, he persuaded Tobe and Yamato to forgive Ooka's actions.

"Tch, I'm still pissed, but since Hayato said so, if that guy apologizes, I'll forgive him," Tobe said.

"Me too," Yamato agreed with a nod.

After convincing his two friends, Hayama went to Shizuka Hiratsuka's office to ask for Ooka's home address.

"Say, aren't you guys pretty close? How come you don't even know his address? Never been to his house?"

Hiratsuka-sensei, a cigarette dangling from her lips, wrote down Ooka's address on a slip of paper and handed it to him.

"Haha..." Hayama could only offer an awkward laugh in response to her question. He took the paper. "Thank you, Hiratsuka-sensei. This is a big help."

Hiratsuka-sensei exhaled a plume of smoke, some of it curling into her nostrils. She tapped her cigarette lightly on the overflowing ashtray.

"Did something happen?"

Hayama paused, then shook his head with a forced smile. "If there's nothing else, I'll be going then, Hiratsuka-sensei."

"I thought you were a student who wouldn't cause trouble for your teachers. Go on, go on." Hiratsuka-sensei stared at him for a while, then pinched the bridge of her nose with a sigh. She waved him off.

"The students these days are getting more and more troublesome..." He could hear her muttering as he left the office.

Hayama left the office with a hint of gloominess clinging to him.

After school, he excused himself from soccer club activities and followed the address Hiratsuka-sensei had given him to find Ooka's house – a typical single-family home commonly seen in Japan.

He rang the doorbell and waited for two minutes. The door opened, revealing Ooka, dressed in a black shirt and trousers.

He didn't look well. His buzz cut was dishevelled, dark circles underlined his eyes, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Ooka, listen to me..." Hayama's smile hadn't fully formed when the door slammed shut with a bang.

"Go away."

Hayama's smile instantly froze.

...

"Ooka, do you believe in the existence of souls?"

In Ooka's room, Mahito's hands rested gently on his buzz cut, as if giving him a head massage. His voice was soft.

The room was dark, with the curtains tightly drawn, plunging the space into a dim gloom.

"Souls? Do those things really exist?" Ooka asked, perplexed.

"My cursed technique is to reshape souls through touch," Mahito said with a smile.

However, this is my first time trying to implant a cursed technique into a regular human. I wonder what kind of result it will produce.

Compared to the crude method of transforming a human soul directly into a curse, this process of altering a soul to grant cursed energy and a technique was far more delicate.

Yet, he still maintained a carefree attitude.

It was just a trivial experiment. If it failed, he would simply find another test subject. Humans were expendable, after all.

"Oops, I seem to have overdone it," Mahito said with a playful wink. "Oh well, it'll do."

"Eh? Overdone what... AAAAAHHH!!!" Before Ooka could finish, a searing pain erupted in his head, as if a thousand needles were piercing his brain. "Mahito-san, my head hurts!"

"It's alright, it's alright. This is the price of gaining power," Mahito soothed, stroking his head like one would a baby. "Now you can do anything you want."

His words echoed in Ooka's ears, his mind muddled with pain, like a devil's whisper from hell, tempting and deceiving, urging him to offer his soul.

"Anything... I want to do...?"

"That's right, anything." Mahito painted a picture of a "bright future" with his gentle voice. "Take what you want, kill those you want to kill. You have transcended humanity and entered the realm of jujutsu sorcerers."

"Kill... those I want to kill..."

The pain in his head gradually subsided, replaced by a growing malice and violence that spread from deep within his heart. Ooka muttered in a daze.

Unbeknownst to him, the grotesque eyes on the back of his neck had spread, covering a large part of his back beneath his shirt.

"Use this power wisely."

With those words, Mahito abandoned his pitiful test subject and left leisurely.

To him, Ooka was a failure. Perhaps in a few days, his soul would crumble under the strain of the distortion and he would die.

In the following days, Ooka still didn't go to school, locking himself in his room all day, refusing to come out even when his family tried to persuade him.

He only emerged from his room in the dead of night, after his family had fallen asleep, to raid the refrigerator.

Ooka's parents had no choice but to leave prepared meals wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge for their son to eat during his nightly escapades.

During this time, Hayama Hayato visited several times, even bringing Tobe, Yamato, and Yumiko Miura along. They were invited in by Ooka's parents, but still couldn't get him to leave his room.

Whenever Hayama came, Ooka would simply tell him to go away.

Shizuka Hiratsuka also visited once. With Ooka absent for so many days, she, as his homeroom teacher, had to check on him.

Although Hiratsuka-sensei usually had a carefree and boisterous personality, more like an old man than a refined lady, even earning the nickname "Iron Fist Teacher" from her students, everyone recognized her genuine concern for them.

So even Ooka, his mind no longer clear, politely told Hiratsuka-sensei to go back when she knocked on his door.

Unable to persuade him, Hiratsuka-sensei had no choice but to return to school.

The moment she arrived back at Sobu High, she sought out Hayama Hayato to inquire about the situation.

Seeing that he couldn't hide it any longer, Hayama, with a wry smile, honestly told Hiratsuka-sensei everything that had happened.

"This is terrible..." Hiratsuka-sensei sighed, taking a drag from her cigarette. She was at a loss for words.

She couldn't blame Yukinoshita Yukino for being too harsh, could she?

That wasn't fair.

"Does Yukinoshita know about this?"

After a moment of silent contemplation, Hiratsuka-sensei asked Hayama.

"I think... she probably does?" Hayama hesitated before answering. Yui Yuigahama and Hachiman Hikigaya were both in Class 2-F. They would probably inform Yukinoshita about the situation.

However, the truth was that both Yui and Hachiman had tacitly agreed to keep this matter a secret from Yukino.

Hearing Hayama's response, Hiratsuka-sensei frowned even deeper, the ash on her cigarette growing longer. She exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, making Hayama cough.

Seeing this, she extinguished the remaining half of her cigarette in the ashtray and waved Hayama away. "Alright, go on. I'll think of something."

"Knowing Yukinoshita's personality, she might blame herself for this..."

After Hayama left, Hiratsuka-sensei lit another cigarette. But even after the cigarette burned down to the filter, she still couldn't come up with a good solution.

Directly confronting Yukinoshita didn't seem right.

After some thought, Hiratsuka-sensei decided to call her former student and current friend, Haruno Yukinoshita, for advice.

However, after explaining the whole situation to Haruno, the response she received was unexpected: leave it alone.

"Shizuka, Yukino has changed. We don't need to worry about her anymore."

That was Haruno's reply over the phone.

Even if something did happen, that Sukuna-kun would probably take care of it.

"Is that really true?"

After hanging up, Hiratsuka-sensei put down the phone, unsure. Haruno was actually going to let her sister be? Was this really the same Haruno Yukinoshita she knew?

Just as she was hesitating about whether to check on the situation at the Service Club...

The next day, Ooka returned to school.

...

...

Late at night, in the darkness of his room, Ooka knelt on his bed, shirtless. His back was covered in eyes of all sizes, grotesquely bulging as if something was growing within, the stretched skin writhing, threatening to burst.

The bedsheets were torn and shredded. He let out hoarse cries, his bloodshot eyes bulging as if they were about to pop. A constant ringing filled his ears, as if another voice was whispering incessantly.

Moonlight pierced through the gap in the curtains, casting a distorted shadow on the wall.

The shadow resembled a giant hand, its reach infinite, clutching Ooka within its grasp. He instinctively tried to struggle, but the very thought was suffocating.