"Sukuna!"
Yuji Itadori's voice erupted amid the deafening hum. His eyes stayed fixed on the ever-growing mass of energy in the sky, the blue-white light of death reflected in his pupils. No one answered him. The King of Curses sleeping inside him had not even changed his breathing.
"Sukuna!"
He shouted again, louder than before, so loudly that his vocal cords ached.
"What is it?"
A slit suddenly opened in his cheek, and a mouth emerged from beneath his skin. Its voice was languid and indifferent, tinged with the irritation of someone woken from a nap.
"Use my body! Kill him!" Itadori practically roared, every word brimming with desperation. "I'll do anything!"
The mass of energy in the sky had grown large enough to blot out half the heavens. A blinding white light began to shine at the center of the magnetic vortex. The air warped in the intense heat, and the rubble on the ground no longer merely trembled. It rose, flying toward the vortex's center, where it was sucked in, crushed, and vanished. Itadori could feel his hair standing on end from the static, a fine prickling sensation covering his skin, like the electricity hanging in the air before a storm.
Inside him, Sukuna fell silent for a moment. It was so brief it was almost negligible, but Itadori felt it: a moment of scrutiny, like an adult looking down at a mouse still struggling desperately with its tail pinned underfoot.
"Brat." Sukuna's voice emerged from that mouth with a condescending indifference that bordered on pity.
"I already gave you my answer."
He paused.
"I refuse."
Itadori's body went rigid.
"How pathetic, brat." A trace of mockery colored Sukuna's voice.
"That's the same miserable look you wore when you wanted me to save that long-haired brat."
Itadori felt