Shoko stood alone, surrounded by the people she couldn’t save. Higuruma, Mei-Mei, Takaba, Kashimo, Choso.
Gojo.
The kids.
Emotion overwhelms her until there’s none left. Slowly, she removes her gloves. She stops looking up, she stops looking at their bodies. She knows there’s nothing left. She knows there’s nothing she can do.
Fwoo-hyoi.
“You’re the healer.” A statement from behind, made by a deep voice.
Shoko gasps, a cold chill running down her spine. Instead of responding she turns, slowly.
Sukuna. In all his glory. Two arms crossed, the other two poised on his hips. A smirk crosses his face. Still saying nothing, Shoko takes his form in. He’s like nothing she’s seen, even knowing what his true form was was nothing in comparison to seeing it. Sukuna takes a step closer, then another one. Soon he’s inches from her face, Shoko’s breathing becomes heavy.
“Y-yes.” She gasps, there’s something there but she can’t quite pinpoint it.
Excitement.
The word enters as quickly as it goes. It causes Shoko to clear her throat, and Sukuna to raise his brows. She breaks their eye contact.
“I need you for something. Follow me.”
Her legs shake, they nearly give in at the request, but she does. Setting down her gloves on the cool metal table that laid young Ui Ui to rest, exhaustion having taken over the poor boy, she follows.
“It’s always the healer. You’re always standing meekly, left to the side, clinging to the last bits of life that you can. You’re hopeless.”
Sukuna turns in an attempt to make eye contact with Shoko, but it fails, her eyes falling before he can reach them.
“You-” Shoko falls flat, unable to complete the sentence, complete the thought.
She grits her teeth. Willing the words to come out, forcing them.
“You killed them.” The last note hangs in the air, pitching upwards while reaching downwards, attempting to trip Sukuna, forcing him over his own actions.
He takes it though, Sukuna, casually and in stride.
“Yes, they died fighting.”
There’s more to the question, and so much more to the answer, but it all goes unsaid. An uneasiness hanging in the air around them. It clings to Shoko, forcing her to catch her breath, while it sweeps off Sukuna, refreshing him, leaving him anew. The two work in opposition, like positive and negative atoms trapped between two walls. They do this silently and in unison as they walk down the hall, towards an unconscious Uraume.
Reaching the destination, the two quickly diverge. Sukuna makes his way towards Uraume, assuming the healer would follow, forgetting about the other sorcerer entirely. He had finished him off swiftly, one blow from behind while his focus was elsewhere. Quick, perfect, finished, textbook . It took next to nothing, adrenaline still surging through him after finishing his fight against Itadori.
It was something so meager to him he’d barely noticed.
But Shoko did. The action, the intent, did not escape her, but the results. That’s what haunted her. She lifted the head of a limp Hakari, gently brushing dust from his face. She takes him in, accepting his fate quickly, while briefly assessing his state nonetheless.
Broken .
That’s all she can muster, that’s her only diagnosis.
She is tired.
Glancing around, Shoko’s eyes finally fall onto a labored breathing Uraume, Sukuna by their side, silently tending to their wounds.
She rises from Hakari, her legs shaking, The need to heal, the need to be healer, was embedded into her. Hard wired, trained. And so she made her way to Uraume.
“Hmph,” is all that escapes Sukuna as he adjusts himself, silently making room for Shoko as she approaches.
She kneels, her hands gently hovering over her newfound patient.
“Their ribs…” Shoko trails off, mumbling incoherently about different diagnoses, different treatments. She keeps going until she’s content, enough information gathered to heal appropriately.
And so she does, not without question though, not without thought. Her hands shake as they hover over their abdomen, her breath doing the same. Shoko isn’t steady. No, not this time.
And there’s no ci-
She stops, her hands still shaking. Sukuna says nothing as she pulls a cigarette out of her pocket, her other hand fumbling with the lighter. She tries, desperately, to light the last grounding thing she can think of at the moment. She fails though, over and over she fails.
That’s when Sukuna takes the lighter, slowly, with intent. He’s met with a steady flame after one flick. He draws it towards Shoko’s face, towards the cigarette paired between her lips. The warm flame outlines her features, darkens her tired eyes, highlights her youth.
“You are younger than your soul.”
A compliment, potentially backhanded, stumbles from Sukuna. He squints, putting the flame over the cigarette until Shoko puffs. She hesitates, her cigarette catches briefly on fire, She moves it away and blows it out before making eye contact with Sukuna. This time there was a hint, a glistening of curiosity in Shoko’s eyes.
If Sukuna looked far enough back into Shoko’s eyes, he could see that there was something past the grief, the pain, the confusion of their situation. There was something scratching desperately to get out, to keep going. Shoko’s survival instinct. It clung hopelessly to her and pushed, pushed past their current situation and in the direction of tomorrow.
In direction he was headed.
“Come with me.”
A repeated command, one followed. Shoko’s legs shook less after being able to heal, being able to smoke. She wiped the sweat from her palms and onto her pants, cracking her neck and fidgeting with her fingers before taking a step forward.
It was a process, listening to Sukuna. It took more out of her than she expected, but she had to, she didn't have a choice. She didn’t know what was next. He showed no signs of hostility towards her, showed no signs of wanting to kill her, so what did he want? What did he want with this hopeless, hapless healer…
“This way.”
Pushing her back towards reality, Sukuna’s words break the silence that’s nuzzled by Uraume’s breaths. Shoko straightens, then follows. Her heels click across the floor, and when she reaches Sukuna he outstretches one arm, a smirk crossing his face.
He is a winner after all.
Shoko doesn't take it. She leaves his arm hanging mid air, instead taking the opportunity to step around him, taking in some of his form as she does. She avoids his face, keeping her eyes from his. Annoyed, Sukuna grabs Shoko by the chin, forcing her face upward. Their eyes meet.
“Why do you heal?” Sukuna’s eyes trace Shoko’s features as he asks this, taking her in as she does him.
“B-bec-” Shoko pants, unable to break Sukuna’s grasp, she wraps her hands around his as he gently tilts her chin further and further up. Her breathing quickens, her hands on his. Their eyes meet once more, and like a dam she bursts.
“Because they need me,” the words come out strung together, “because they’ve always needed me.”
She collapses into Sukuna, but he does not catch her. Instead she topples to the floor, her palms making contact with the cool ground beneath her, She gasps, pulling in air as she cries out. Noise doesn’t come, just the simple action of lurching forward into nothing.
“They-” she trails off again, remembering the bodies. The way they piled, the way they’ve always piled. Remembering the injuries shouldn’t heal while tracing past scars of the ones she could.
“Why do you fight.” Shoko practically spits it out, out of neither question nor statement, but desperation.
Sukuna laughs, it fills the room, burrows between the moments of silence.
“To win darling, I fight to win ,” arrogance mixed with confidence to match his tone.
He lifts his arms, spreading them wide, taking in the space they occupy. Sukuna places a hand on either of Shoko’s shoulders, then his other two underneath, lifting her like a ragdoll. A soft, low growl escapes him as pulls her up to eye level.
“ Why do you heal?” The words slither out from between his teeth.
Shoko doesn’t start to cry this time, she doesn't think of the pile of bodies or who was attached to them. She shakes her head, she wipes her tears, she keeps her composure.
Having been set back down by Sukuna, Shoko has to reach upward in order to show him her hands. She reaches, being careful to keep them together.
“These.” Shoko keeps her hands outstretched. “Because of these.”
That’s when they start to shake, her eyes watering and desperate. Maybe it’s the weight of her words, the weight of the healing she’s had to do, or maybe it’s just gravity. Either way, her hands return to her sides, no longer able to keep themselves held so high. Her eyes start to fall too before Sukuna’s gaze catches them. She lingers, before dropping his gaze, letting her vision skew downwards.
“You haven’t healed.” Through a gasp Shoko comes to a realization that the monster in front of her had a gash, peaking out just barely around his side.
She reaches, her hand hovering over the open wound. Resting her other hand on his shoulder, she turns him, following the wound to his back. Immediately she assesses the depth and field of his injury. It’s large, curved, a gash that takes up a good portion of Sukuna’s back.
“You couldn’t heal this?” She questions him, her eyes still trailing the open area.
A smirk crosses Sukuna’s face. Any fear Shoko had had was gone, replaced by the need to fix things. She had always healed the strongest, what was one more?
“Yes.”
“What?” Confusion strikes Shoko’s face, echoing through her voice.
Sukuna grins, “Yes, I can heal it. But I want you to.”
It comes out as a low growl, ending on a deeper octave than it’d begun with, shaking the core of Shoko while leaving her still.
“A test.” Monotone, whether or not this upsets her is masked, hidden behind her duty.
“A test.” Sukuna confirms.
Shoko begins to look around. The wound covers Sukuna’s back, as well as some of the front. He’s shirtless, without anything to remove and lay on, and Shoko doesn’t have her coat to try to thinly viel the dirt between his injury and the ground either. Her eyes begin to trail, to the hallway, towards the backroom. Where she’d been.
Where they were.
No.
“I healed Uraume. I passed already. Heal it.” Shoko nods towards the gash, her words rushed at first but ending in a light suggestion. “It’ll be faster.”
She was too afraid to demand, but she wasn’t afraid to veer things. She looks up, her arms crossed across her chest, and waits.
“No.” There was a light snicker to Sukuna’s tone, he didn’t laugh, no, but he did exude the arrogance of having done so. “Heal me.”
Shoko sways slightly, like she’d gotten caught in the air for a brief moment, before lurching forward and heading down the hallway. Sukuna silently follows, his shadow casting a warmth around her, hugging her from behind.
It gives her chills.
Reaching the room’s entry, Shoko stops abruptly. Sukuna stops behind her, just as sharply, resting his hands sternly on either one of her shoulders. He presses with enough force to make Shoko stumble forward, into the room that housed the dead. Looking around frantically, Shoko forgets why she’s there. She forgets about the gash gracing Sukuna’s skin, her need to heal it. Instead her mind overwhelms itself, her vision blurring at Gojo, still strewn after surgery, and Yuuta, sitting up against the frame of Gojo’s bed. Light had left both of their eyes.
Everywhere Shoko looked, eyes were closed, lights out. She stumbles forward slightly before turning, becoming aware of the monster behind her.
“Tch. Tch. Tch.” Sukuna is shaking his head, disapproving of Shoko’s outburst. “Why do you heal, Ieiri?”
He asks again, this time clearly for the last. His patience is worn thin, his voice a low growl, an open hand. It teases Shoko to answer, begging her even.
It coaxes one out.
“This world,” Shoko goes from looking at her hands to looking at Sukuna directly,” this world cannot exist on destruction alone. Without creation there is nothing, healing the sick? The wounded? The dead even? It was never a power I asked for, but it’s the power I’ve been given.”
She falls flat, her head hanging limply now. She rolls it, barely making eye contact with Sukuna.
“That is why I heal, Sukuna .” Shoko looks up with more determination now, speaking Sukuna’s name with a carved edge to it.
This time she does make eye contact, fully and without remorse. She looks at him as he heals himself, watches as the wound becomes shallow on his body. The cocky smirk on his face never leaves, two of his arms crossed, the other two in his pant pockets. She looks as Sukuna does, with him being the first to turn away.
One word echoes back down the hall towards Shoko as Sukuna walks away.
Sukuna and Shoko are lowkey a fire pairing- Not for a ship,just for random hijinks. Like Yuji trying to sit with Shoko during lunch because she always sits alone,and Sukuna's prehistoric ass choking and wheezing because his heian era lungs are shriveling up from the smell of cigarette smoke and whatever other chemicals she's covered in. And then Sukuna chanting "Enchain" so he can switch with Yuji and demand her to stop smoking,only for her to blow a smoke ring right in his face,to which he reacts by crashing out and throwing a table across the room.
