So, I got into JJK again and was thinking about the ending of the Manga. Spoiler Warning! I'll be discussing stuff from the end of the Manga!
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Spoilers below the break if you haven't finished the Jujutsu Kaisen manga!
Anyways, I remembered how Sukuna talked to Mahito after dying and said he'd probably choose another path if he ever got the chance to reincarnate again.
And I was like, hmm, interesting.
My brain works in weird ways sometimes. I thought of a fic idea where in an alternate universe, Sukuna doesn't incarnate inside of Yuji. He’s given a second chance through a distortion in the process of him becoming a cursed object in the first place. He loses some of his memories.
He knows he existed in the distant past. He knows he was meant to reincarnate in what is now the present modern day. But he does not fully remember the Pact with Kenjaku, who he was, or the life that turned him into the King of Curses.
A restart.
Sukuna wakes up in the body of Itadori Ryuko, Yuuji’s twin brother in this au. The two of them were kidnapped as kids and Ryuko was forced to eat one of the fingers. Ryuko died but Sukuna took his place. And he knew this wasn't how things were supposed to go, despite not remembering why.
But this new brother of his held him so tightly, begging him not to die.
No one had ever asked him to live before, he knew that for sure. No one had ever cried for his sake so sincerely. No one else had ever tried so desperately to save him before.
Was this what it meant to be loved?
Sukuna, now Ryuko, grows up alongside Yuuji as his brother. When the timeline reaches the point where Yuuji would've eaten the finger, Ryuko does because he knows it's a piece of his own soul.
But a little more of his memory returns with it.
Each time he consumes a finger, more of his memories return, but he continues to reject them in favor of his new life.
Jujutsu sorcerers can't just look past the fact that he is Sukuna. That he is regaining the old strength he once had. They can't trust that he's not a threat, that he won't turn on them.
And some of the curses they're spewing at him land on Yuuji as well.
After Shibuya, with fifteen fingers in him, he can remember a good chunk of his past life. He remembers the constant fighting and bloodshed. He recalls how he was cursed from the moment he was born, how his own curse burned away at him until he could only spew it back at those around him and earn his title.
And it was happening again.
They were taking away his choice to walk a different path again. They only saw him as a monster, so when their curses affected the one person who never cursed him, he let himself become the monster they claimed him to be.
I might call this Second Chance AU, Restart AU, or Incomplete Incarnation AU.
