### The Full Circle**
The world had narrowed to a single, agonizing point: the next footfall.
Yuta Okkotsu dragged himself through the ruins, each movement a fresh lesson in pain. His right arm was a ruined thing, hanging limp and useless, the bone shattered by a casual backhand from Sukuna that felt like a lifetime ago. His breath hitched in his chest, a wet, rasping sound that spoke of broken ribs and internal bleeding. The world swam in and out of focus, the descending crimson web painting everything in hellish shades.
But he moved. One foot. Then the other. A grim, determined pilgrimage.
Behind him, flickering like a guttering flame, was Rika. Or what remained of her. The magnificent, terrifying Queen of Curses was now a translucent phantom, her form straining, unraveling at the edges. The Great Encompassing was pulling at her essence, draining the immense cursed energy that had defined her existence for years.
*"Yuta… it… hurts…"*
Her voice was a faint whisper in his mind, a thread of pure feeling—confusion, fear, and a deep, aching desire to protect him. It wasn't the petulant whine of the cursed spirit, but the scared whimper of the girl he'd loved. The girl he'd failed.
"I know," he breathed, the words a ragged exhale. "I know. Just a little further. Hold on."
He wasn't just speaking to her. He was pleading with himself.
His destination was a scar on the landscape—a collapsed government building whose sub-basement had been reinforced by the Jujutsu Higher-Ups in a more paranoid age. Shoko's last refuge. The journey was a blur of shattered concrete and the silent, accusing stares of the dead. He passed a place where the earth was stained black with blood and the residual heat of Unlimited Void still baked the air. He didn't let himself look. He couldn't afford to think of Gojo now.
All he could think of was the plan. Shoko's calm, horrific logic.
*Fuel.*
He understood. It wasn't just about power. It was about *willingness*. A reverse curse on this scale required a sacrifice, not an extraction. It required a heart offered freely, not a heart torn out. Kenjaku's engine ran on stolen life, on betrayal, on the forced conversion of hope into despair.
Their answer had to be its absolute opposite.
He finally reached the blown-out entrance to the basement, a gaping maw of rebar and shattered concrete. Ui Ui was there, his small face pale and terrified, but his eyes sharp. He didn't speak, just gestured frantically for Yuta to follow.
The descent into the cool, dimly lit bunker was like entering another world. The strobing red lights and frantic hum of equipment were a stark contrast to the silent, open grave above. And in the center of it all, waiting for him, was Shoko Ieiri.
She looked ancient. The weight of the world's diagnosis had carved new lines into her face. Her eyes, dark and endlessly weary, met his. There were no words of greeting, no false comfort. They were far past that.
"Okkotsu," she said, her voice a dry rasp. "Are you sure?"
Yuta didn't answer with words. He just nodded, lowering himself painfully into the chair she had prepared. It looked like a dentist's chair, if a dentist planned to perform a soul extraction. Leather restraints hung loose on the arms. Wires snaked across the floor to a bizarre machine cobbled together from medical and ritual equipment.
His gaze found Rika. She had condensed her form, trying to appear solid for him, but she was like smoke, swirling anxiously around the chair.
*"Yuta… what are we doing?"*
He reached out with his good hand, not to grasp her, but to let his fingers pass through the ethereal space she occupied. A chill, like touching mist, was all he felt.
"We're saying goodbye, Rika," he whispered, his voice thick with an emotion too vast for tears.
Memories, unbidden and piercingly sweet, flooded him. A sunny day on a playground. A small, shy girl with a bright smile. The clumsy, profound promise of children: *"Let's get married someday, okay?"* The squeal of brakes. The crushing silence after. The years of loneliness that were a deeper, colder pain than any curse. And then, her return. Not as the girl, but as the storm—a raging, protective, loving monster shackled to his grief.
She had been his curse, his weapon, his shield, his friend. She was the proof that his love could bend the very rules of life and death. And now, she was the key to saving the world that had only ever caused them pain.
It was the most grotesque joke imaginable.
He looked at her, really looked, seeing not the monstrous queen, but the ghost of the little girl trapped within.
"You've protected me for so long," he said, his voice gaining a fragile strength. "You've been so strong. You've been so good."
Rika's form stilled. The anxious swirling ceased. She hovered before him, listening.
"It's my turn to protect you," Yuta said, a single tear finally tracing a clean path through the grime on his cheek. "I'm going to set you free."
The meaning washed over her. Not an end. A release.
*"Free?"* The thought was a wave of confusion, then a dawning, hesitant wonder. *"Together?"*
Yuta's heart shattered. "No," he said, the word the hardest thing he'd ever had to speak. "Not together. You go on ahead. You can rest now. Really rest. No more curses. No more fighting. Just… peace."
He poured every ounce of his love, his gratitude, his unbearable sorrow into the next words, the final command of their cursed contract.
"It's okay. You can go now. Thank you… for everything."
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Rika began to change.
The monstrous angles of her form softened. The raging energy calmed, smoothing into a gentle, brilliant light. The helmet-like skull dissolved, and for one breathtaking second, Yuta saw her—not the curse, not the ghost, but the memory of the girl. A smile, bright and clear and free of all pain.
Her form dissolved not into nothingness, but into a million points of soft, golden light. They swirled around him once, a final, gentle embrace that felt like a warm breeze and smelled like childhood summers. A feeling of profound peace filled the room, so potent it made Ui Ui gasp and brought a rare sheen of tears to Shoko's eyes.
Then, the light coalesced. It condensed above the strange machine, no longer a cursed spirit, but a pure, calm, and immensely powerful orb of energy. A star of willing sacrifice.
Yuta Okkotsu let out a long, shuddering breath. He felt hollowed out, scraped clean. The constant, comforting pressure of Rika in his mind was gone. The silence was deafening.
He looked at Shoko, his eyes empty of everything but resolve.
"It's done," he whispered. "Now finish it."
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, ready to become the Fuel.