In the early hours of the day of the Shibuya Incident, cold white lights still shone in Jujutsu High's Medical Room.
Yuji Itadori leaned against the head of his bed, much of his body still wrapped in bandages.
Shoko had just finished changing his dressings and left. He stared blankly at the back of his hand.
Images of Sukuna's awakening kept flashing through his mind: scarlet cursed energy erupting, the King of Curses with sixteen fingers standing amid the ruins, laughing.
People fleeing in every direction, and Aoi Todo lying among the rubble, blood streaming from where his hand had been severed.
And how Mr. Gu Yue and Mr. Gojo had missed their chance to stop Kenjaku because they had been fighting Sukuna.
It was all his fault.
If he had been a little stronger, if he could have suppressed Sukuna, things would never have turned out this way.
He sat like that for a long time. Only when an extremely faint sound came from the next bed did he snap back to his senses and look over.
Choso leaned against the head of his bed, his upper body swathed in thick bandages. Pale red blood was still seeping from the penetrating wound below his ribs.
He had been awake for a while without making a sound, simply looking out the window, his profile as cold and hard as ice.
The two met each other's eyes in silence for a second.
Itadori opened his mouth. His throat was still a little hoarse, strained from shouting when Sukuna had possessed him.
He hesitated for a few seconds, then spoke quietly:
"Choso... I wanted to ask you something."
The boy's voice had lost its usual clarity, carrying a hint of weary exhaustion:
"What exactly... are we to each other now?"
Just the