light you left behind | itadori yuji
𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆: he hasn’t seen the sun by drowning into the broken part of the city. black lashing his fist as if erasing curses would also erase his guilt. you lean him a hand through his quiet runaway.
𝘁𝗮𝗴𝘀: 𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝘁, 𝘀𝗳𝘄 // itadori yuji x you, runaway!yuji in season three, slight-depressed!yuji, self-blaming!yuji, zenin with no curse energy!reader, i prefer you finish shibuya arc first before you read, reader can use heavenly restrictions as complete as toji and maki but reader don’t have the same purpose like them.
𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲: basically an impulsive project of me missing my boyfriend since we havent met on feb 2024. my heart breaks to see my baby walking alone after all of these quiet years. i might make more parts of this universe, so every ending might feel cliffhanger. wc: 2.5k
𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝘆𝘂𝗷𝗶 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀
He thinks if he ran far enough, the world might forget him.
He has witnessed a hundred sunrise kiss the dull pavements where his steps left, but none of them touch the deprived trench of his tired inhale. The sun still chases his footsteps, but he only reaches for the dark to loses himself, to becoming a fogging breath on a glass panel that easily disappears before it weeped.
If I don’t look back, he thinks, nothing can happen. That logic comforts him once. Lately, it only makes his pulse sick.
His shoes scuff against the quiet linoleum tiles while the open blue sky felt unwelcoming. Alone by himself, Itadori Yuji didn’t mean to stop anywhere. He only stands on every edge of every broken skyline with arms hanging like wings. The city has sunk him deep into floors that no longer had walls, into the high windows whose glass had shattered open. The world beneath him has open into a stride of wide scar.
Shibuya is left empty.
Glints of sunlight catch how thick his knuckles coats in red. The liquid clings to his fingertips in a glossy slick. The mirror above this sink cracks by the middle, splitting his reflection into two versions that don't quite fog up. He doesn’t know who he's looking at anymore with that huge scar slicing in between the bridge of his eyes.
Every time the cold water jolts his spine, the red flow like forbidden memories. He always deliberatedly scrubs it, erasing it, cleansing it, hoping the time will roll back to the time where warm hands clamp his shoulders with laughter.
While the water turns pink, then red, then fully black in a deep trench of the hole, the color of his skin still refuses to appear. As if the blood refuses to left.
No matter how much he kills, the red still stays.
He doesn’t think while he fights them. The prominent wound inside his chest only splits open when a pack of curses lunges upon a rooftop. His instinct tells him to step onto it, so he steps on it. Another screams, he punches to prevent any feelings from blooming again. Because if he stays still, the guilt will come again.
The time he loses focus, something claws at his side, teeth scraping muscle, pressure blooming hot and wet beneath his jacket. Yuji’s arm nipped inside when he tried to push himself up. For a moment, he doesn’t pull away.
He tells himself, it's okay, you deserve this.
He stumbles, boots skidding on asphalt, back hitting metal hard enough to knock the organs in his ribs. A curse presses down on his chest, hungry with revenge to stab the sorcerer who hadn’t had the chance to save them from changing to a monster like this.
Yuji remembers of all the deaths behind his eyes. This Shibuya, the nonstop screams, the names he never learns. He chokes in hope, desperately, that dying right here might be the answer.
His fingers twitch.
This is what you are for, the dark flame pressed more tightly. It must end eventually by this way.
Suddenly, a voice stung like a tight choke from the inside of his throat. It’s such a sickening poison which scratches the underside of his organs, it coughs him a thick blood.
A voice grumbled through the hollow, “End yourself now.”
The king, the one curled in the deep trench of something Yuji never wanted exists inside of him, a malevolent inferno, has spoken.
“I'll take another vessel.”
There’s no heaven or hell to imprison the voice upon their sacred throne. The universe surrounding him swung in void as if they know the other purpose he hide behind.
Whether Itadori Yuji decides to end himself or not, the thing that lives inside him will still not stop.
The bitten arm flared its pain on his trembling muscles. It stings too much, triggering Yuji to gasp as the air is forced back into his lungs. This is usually the sign of his instinct to take over. But this time, that’s when he sees a figure.
He doesn't feel you step in, he only hears the exploded curses. Something arcs overhead, dark against the sky like it belongs to the limbo.
The time a curse on top of him explodes, the weight on his chest vanishes. The street opens up with free air. It doesn’t feel like a rescue. It feels like an interruption, a revenge cutting the thread before the anger can finish unraveling.
Yuji rolls onto his side, coughing, heart pounding hard as his muscles bleed open. It isn’t just his physique, the sensation also slices his chest open. Searching for an answer, he looks up, dazed, just in time to see you pull your weapon free.
A compact, practical, short-bladed polearm, weighted close to your grip. Meant for leverage rather than reach, the kind of tool designed to end things quick.
You stand in the centre of the bridge, let the sound of the river sprinkle beneath your military boot. Blurry with sand amongst the gust. The problem of all this is, his energy doesn’t detect your entrance a bit.
You just killed a curse, but no cursed energy running inside your veins.
“How dare you let them kill you?”
•••
You lead him inside as the sky changes. Orange bleeding into gold, light pooling amongst the colorful-catedral-like tinted glass of abandoned hotel, like it’s looking for somewhere to settle. You both stop in a big hall or lobby by a giant staircase waiting for something to fill their silence.
He should say thank you.
For taking him to this warmer air. Where the staircase rug curves under his shoes. Where he stands for a moment, unsure what to do with this unexpected situation of his silent runaway suddenly having another company. Let alone a stranger, a girl.
Blood has dried dark along his jacket sleeve and the the edge of his jaw. It looks worse that the danger has passed. Injuries always do.
You set your weapon against the railing. When you turn back to him, the yellowish shimmers glint the pale crimson of his eyes. The color mixed under the soft pastel damp hair plastered on his forehead. Some dirt clung to an open scar of his nose, also a thin scratch on his lips.
You want to ask everything but you stay silent. Instead, you sit in the centre spot of the huge stairway, then offer him a sign of your palm tapping beside your thigh.
“Can I?” You smile by calling him closer. "See your wounds?"
The gesture is so simple for someone like him to melt without hesitation. In fact he’s never skeptical about the world that much. Even after thinking about it, he plops himself right beside you anyway.
“You don’t have to, it's okay.”
“You’re not fine.” You set your medium sling bag on your lap. It’s worn when you pull out gauze, antiseptic, and tape from inside. Yuji has something in his mind by watching it, never in his high school life watches his friends or seniors as prepared as a normal person like this.
Having an aid kit along with their battle, you look like someone who comes from afar and knows what will challenge your journey.
You let your black t-shirt cling on your curve while big cargo pants full of food supply to relax as you reach for his fists. “You’ve been fighting for a few days, why suddenly let them bleed you?”
He flinches, then stills, watching you from the corner of his eye as you clean the red scrape on his knuckles. Your touch is firm and practiced in a way that doesn’t make a show of kindness.
“Have you,” Yuji unintentionally stammers, “have you been around this zone for days?”
Your deep dark gaze found his pastel iris. A stranger must keep to themselves away from this place, a civilian must step their feet out of the zone. That's all he knows where curses have taken the part of this city as their home to linger.
“I don’t feel any curse energy from you,” Yuji continues, “how’d you have a weapon to banish one?”
Every room drinks the light greedily, while your glare melts from his curiosity. You've heard about him. An Itadori who had the biggest duty amongst the sorcerer, now, the problem is:
How do you explain how you know everything as an outsider?
Your voice sounds rougher than you expected. Like it’s been unused for a few days. “I apologize, but can you take your jacket off as I explain? It looks worse from outside, I’m afraid it's …”
He didn’t take two seconds to shrug his jacket off. The thin yellow t-shirt clings to his muscle like a second skin, it directs your eyes right to the open wounds of teeth shaped on his arm. The upper biceps was open, but he’s calm. As if the curse is a wild animal you don’t need a special lens to catch their presence.
“I don’t have a Reverse Curse Technique, that's why it look worse.” For a second, your hand freezes on a thin towel bleed red by his wound. “Unlike my sensei.”
His sudden change of tone gives you tiny gag. The way he's so open about your tiny request to help and to take off his jacket is still throwing a lump of unreal dream inside your chest. You’re relieved he’s open to you this easily, but talking about a teacher?
Does he mean the sorcerer who is currently trapped by the incident-
The second his gaze dropped to the darker spot across the lobby, another sliver of warmth burns your skin by this harsh topic. “And your weapon.”
He glances at where it rests against the railing. The blade is dull in the light. “I’ve seen stuff like that.”
He hesitates, then adds, almost vibrating, “From Zenin-san.”
The name lands like a stone on a lake, You don’t move at first. Your heartbeat picks up where it rests on top of your throat, fingers curled around your bag like it might slip away if you let go. The lobby hums faintly, the building settling inside you.
Zenin.
It doesn’t hurt the way it used to. Back then, it would require a lump of sharp ears, and whatever you left behind dulled itself years ago. The name rises as a heaviness, a pressure behind your sternum like something that you learned to silently erase.
“You’re similar to her,” he keeps the light tone. “I couldn’t sense you at all. I thought, you’re a civilian before that weapon,” Yuji glances at you with tied brows. Now he waits, shoulders hunched forward like he’s afraid to step somewhere fragile. “It kills like how my senior did.”
He’s thinking of the same name as you, the presence you are no longer in touch with. Of her absence, her anger, the way her presence used to feel like something forbidden in a place you’ve forgotten its shape.
“You mean a weak girl who always wears glasses?” you ask back with a thin chuckle. Your voice is steady without anymore shivering, it surprises even you.
The big incident that had been announced and created a big wave of shock across Japan. The incident that destroyed one of the important districts amongst Tokyo in one night, it was the main reason you came this far.
Yuji blinks, then nods. “Yeah, her name’s Maki.”
The confirmation settles between you. The same feelings when the first wave of shock slices through the entire nation about the news. You can’t say you’ve been searching for those twin who’s mentioned as part of the news. You came here to check them from closer. Closer into what they had been walking on a path different from yours since the war began.
You just need to see Maki, whether that maniac already got what she’s been heavily ambitious about. You want to check on Mai, whether she’s still happy with the path that broke her as another person a long time ago.
You miss walking and bouncing along beside them, where the sisters are always holding hands whenever Mai started being a cry baby. Whining about an ugly shaped monster waiting to eat her across a bridge.
The monsters you and her older sister can't see.
Back then, you’ve just laughed at Mai's scaredy cat, then a new swelling on your forehead formed from Maki’s thick fist after you made fun of her little sister.
You missed those times when none of you girls knew anything about the world.
You already rolled Yuji's sleeves up to his shoulder and let a big towel wrapped on his wound. Your hand has worked precisely. Eyes drifting up to where his breath warms your cheeks. Your distance is tight, both of your breaths can mingle under the dust caught under the light. Close enough to soften the memory which had been left in the dark corner.
“Our last meeting,” you explain, “was when we were all nine.”
His gaze on yours when you shift to avoid it adds, “She and her sister are my long relatives.”
It does catch Yuji’s breath. He hadn’t expected the distance between worlds to fold into a closed box like this. Someone connected to his senior, sitting beside him, warmly bandaging his hands like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“That,” he starts, then stops. “That means-”
“I don’t live with my family anymore,” you whisper gently, cutting the softness before it can grow teeth. “I don’t choose sorcerer path.”
The answer hangs heavy and light at the same time.
“Then where have you been?”
His arrange of words sounds like it been throw for someone he's been missing for a long time, as if he unintentionally slip into your path of lifeline and become one of the hands that wraps to accompany your runaway.
“I’m in a police academy of Osaka.”
He swallows. The sunset deepens, gold slipping toward something blue. The building becomes colder as the evening has come, but it's still on hols as if the dawn is listening to the sunset.
“Somewhere I can live rent free just by having strong arms.”
For the first time in a long while, Yuji doesn’t feel like he’s being hunted. No chase by the bright sun which only wants to drag him into an execution room, nor alone in a run off a chance to live a normal life.