"Alright. You've heard my sob story. Fair's fair."
Dante locked eyes with Gojo's blindfold, which was somehow more unnerving than Sukuna's four burning stares.
"How did you two die?"
The question hung in the white void like a challenge thrown down between them.
"Oh?" Gojo straightened, his entire posture shifting into something theatrical. He raised one hand like a lecturer about to explain his magnum opus. "How did we die? Ah, well. That's quite the story."
He turned slightly.
"It was the culmination of everything, really. The strongest sorcerer in history..."
He gestured to himself.
"...versus the most wretched curse to ever exist."
A lazy wave at Sukuna.
"I hit him with a Hollow Purple at point-blank range." Gojo's smile widened into something fierce and proud. "Two hundred percent output. An attack that erases existence itself. Imagine it: a sun born from nothing, right in his smug face."
What the hell is a Hollow Purple?
For just a moment, Gojo's voice dropped all pretense. It filled with pure, unadulterated triumph.
"For a second there... I really thought I'd won."
Sukuna let out a soft chuckle.
"Continue."
Gojo's smile tightened at the corners. He made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, a sharp click of his tongue.
"If you hadn't used my student's body as a shield and adapted with that broken fucker Mahoraga, it would have been over." His voice went flat. "You know it. I know it."
His student's... body?
Sukuna shrugged. "They always say history is written by the victors."
All four of his eyes locked onto Dante with laser focus.
"And I won."
Dante turned to him fully, his mind racing to put the pieces together.
"So... how did you die, then? If you won."
Sukuna's face twisted with genuine offense, like Dante had just insulted his mother.
"I got jumped."
The silence lasted exactly one second before Gojo burst out laughing.
It was loud and genuine and utterly delighted. He bent slightly at the waist, one hand coming up to cover his blindfolded face as his shoulders shook with mirth.
"Jumped! He says he got jumped!" Gojo's voice rang through the void with smug satisfaction. "Oh, you want to know how the Disgraced One, the King of Curses, met his end?"
He straightened, wiping at his blindfold like he had tears under there.
"After I wore him down to the bone, the rest of my students and allies ganged up on him like a pack of rabid dogs! That's how you died, isn't it? Cornered and overwhelmed. Pathetic."
Dante watched Sukuna's expression. Waited for the explosion. The casual violence that had bisected him earlier.
Instead, the teenager just stared at Gojo with those four burning eyes. When he spoke, his voice was flat.
"And yet, here we both are."
The words cut through Gojo's laughter like a knife. The blindfolded man's amusement died instantly.
He sighed, running one hand through his shock of white hair in a gesture that seemed achingly human.
"He's right." Gojo's shoulders slumped slightly. "At the end of the day, we're stuck. Two sides of the same damn coin, trapped in a gumball machine with no one to put a quarter in."
His blindfolded face turned toward Dante.
"Except for you."
Before Dante could process that statement, Gojo moved. Three long strides closed the distance between them, and suddenly a hand was ruffling his hair like he was a kid who'd just done something cute.
What the actual fuck.
"You know, you remind me of one of my students." Gojo's voice had gone soft, almost nostalgic. "All angry and defiant on the outside..."
His fingers stilled in Dante's hair.
The temperature in the void seemed to drop ten degrees. Gojo's entire body went rigid, his hand still resting on Dante's head. The casual, playful energy that had surrounded him like cologne evaporated in an instant.
"...Huh."
That single sound carried more weight than any of his previous words. It was the sound of someone discovering something that shouldn't exist.
Gojo's blindfolded face tilted down.
"Sukuna." His voice had gone completely flat. "Touch his head."
Excuse me?
Sukuna gave Gojo a look of pure annoyance, all four eyes narrowing in perfect sync. But he moved anyway, crossing the distance with that same liquid grace. His hand came down on the other side of Dante's head.
The moment both of their palms made contact, Dante felt it.
It wasn't physical. Wasn't heat or cold or pressure. It was something deeper, like a tuning fork vibrating in frequencies his body wasn't designed to register. Their energies, their essences, whatever the hell these two impossible beings were made of, all of it was pouring through him like water through a sieve.
Oh.
Oh no.
Sukuna's eyes widened. Just a fraction, barely noticeable, but Dante was close enough to see it.
"You feel it too."
It wasn't a question.
The void reacted.
The uniform white around them shimmered like heat waves rising off summer asphalt. Reality, or whatever passed for it in this place, rippled outward from the three of them in concentric circles.
Gojo's head snapped south so fast Dante heard his neck crack.
The whiteness there was resolving into something concrete. A bustling subway platform materialized from nothing, complete with flickering fluorescent lights and the distant rumble of trains. Standing on that platform, waiting with a playful smile on his face, was a teenager in a school uniform. He had black hair tied back in a bun, and his eyes were warm with an affection that made Dante's chest ache just looking at it.
Gojo made a sound. Low. Wounded. Like someone had just punched him in the throat.
"Suguru."
The name came out as a whisper.
Sukuna's attention jerked north. His hand tightened fractionally on Dante's head.
A grand stone staircase rose from the void, ancient and imposing. It climbed up into mist that seemed to glow with inner light. At the top stood a figure, their form indistinct but radiating something that felt like loyalty and devotion made manifest. White hair. A serene, waiting smile.
The tension in Sukuna's body changed. For the first time since Dante had met him, the teenager looked less like a bored predator and more like something desperate.
Dante looked east.
There was no memory. No staircase. No ghost waiting with warm eyes and promises of reunion.
Just a door.
Plain wood. Simple construction. A brass handle that looked like it had been pulled from a hardware store. Closed.
It promised nothing and offered everything.
What the hell is happening?
Gojo and Sukuna turned to look at each other. The rivalry, the mockery, the ancient hatred that had defined their earlier interaction, all of it evaporated. What replaced it was understanding. The same stunning realization dawning on both their faces simultaneously.
Then they both turned to stare at Dante.
The weight of their combined attention was crushing. Like standing under a hydraulic press. Like being the only thing in the universe that mattered.
"Our souls..." Gojo's voice had gone clinical. That analytical tone he'd used when examining Dante earlier. "They're too defined. Too complete. We have a destination, but no way to get there."
"His is empty." Sukuna's four eyes burned into Dante's face. "A vessel. He is the key."
Their auras blazed. Dante felt it this time, felt the raw pressure of whatever power they carried pressing against his skin.
For the first time since he'd woken up in this nightmare, Gojo and Sukuna were in perfect, terrifying sync.
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
Dante tried to step back. Both hands tightened on his head, holding him in place with gentle, inexorable force.
"We have a proposal for you." Gojo's smile was gone. What replaced it was something focused and absolute. "And before you say no, before you tell us to go to hell, understand this."
He leaned in close.
"You're already dead. That door behind you? It leads to your next life. Your reward for dying young and violent. A fresh start."
"But souls like ours?" Sukuna's voice came from his other side. "We don't get that mercy. We're too strong. Too defined. We're stuck here. Forever."
"Unless." Gojo's fingers flexed against Dante's scalp. "We make a deal."
Dante's mouth had gone dry. His heart was pounding even though he was pretty sure he didn't have a heart anymore.
"What kind of deal?"
Both of them smiled.
It was the most terrifying thing Dante had ever seen.
***
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