He Took a Cursed Blade For Me, And Confessed His Love While Bleeding Out In My Arms

The air was thick and wrong, clinging to the back of my throat like smoke. Every step we took toward the abandoned shrine felt heavier than the last, the ancient cedar trees groaning around us as if in pain. Their branches were twisted into unnatural shapes, clawing at a sky the color of a bruise. Even the usual lighthearted banter between us had died a few hundred meters back, suffocated by the oppressive weight of the curse’s domain.

“This is way stronger than a Grade 2,” Megumi said, his voice low and tight beside me. His dark eyes scanned the decaying torii gate ahead, missing nothing. The usual sharp, analytical tone was there, but it was frayed at the edges. He was on edge, and that put me on edge.

“So, a miscalculation from the higher-ups? Shocker,” I tried, forcing a grin that felt alien on my face. I nudged his shoulder, hoping to get some kind of normal reaction, a sigh or an eye-roll. Instead, he just shot me a sharp look, his jaw set.

“This isn’t the time, Yuji,” he said, his use of my first name feeling less like familiarity and more like a warning. “Stay close and don’t do anything reckless.”

We passed under the gate, the wood slick with moss and something that felt colder, slimier. The main hall of the shrine was ahead, its roof sagging, paper screens torn and fluttering like wounded birds. The cursed energy was a physical presence here, a low hum that vibrated through the soles of my shoes and made the hairs on my arms stand up. I could feel Sukuna stir within me, a low thrum of amusement at the palpable fear in the air.

“I see it,” Megumi whispered, stopping so suddenly I almost ran into him. I followed his gaze. A shadow detached itself from the deeper darkness within the dilapidated hall—a grotesque thing of too many limbs and a glistening, wet-looking hide. It was bigger than we’d expected, its form shifting and contracting as if it couldn’t decide on a single shape of terror.

“Okay, let’s go!” I said, my knuckles turning white as I clenched my fists, ready to charge.

“Wait!” Megumi’s hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. His grip was like iron, his fingers cold against my skin even through the fabric of my uniform. The contact sent a jolt through me that had nothing to do with the curse. “We don’t know its technique. We have to draw it out, analyze—”

He never finished the sentence. With a deafening crack, the ground beneath my feet gave way. It wasn’t an attack, not directly. It was tactical. The rotting floorboards of the veranda we stood on splintered, and I fell through with a choked cry, landing hard on the damp earth below. Above me, the main structure of the shrine groaned, and a massive section of the heavy-tiled roof crashed down between us, sending up a blinding cloud of dust, splinters, and hundred-year-old decay.

“Megumi!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet and coughing, my eyes stinging. The rubble formed a solid wall where he had just been standing. I was alone in the suffocating darkness beneath the shrine, and the sound of something heavy dragging itself across the dirt floor toward me was the only reply.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, useless drumbeat in the sudden, suffocating silence. The air was cold and tasted of wet soil and rot. From the deepest shadows under the shrine, the curse slithered into the faint light filtering through the floorboards above. It was a shifting mass of slick, black limbs and a single, enormous, milky-white eye that fixed on me with an intelligence that was far worse than mindless aggression. It knew what I was. A cold dread, entirely separate from the usual thrill of a fight, settled deep in my bones. I could feel Sukuna’s irritation flare within me, a silent sneer at a threat that targeted him through my soul.

“Yuji!” Megumi’s voice was a desperate shout from above the wall of rubble. “Get back!”

I couldn’t. My feet felt rooted to the ground. The curse’s single eye narrowed, and the cursed energy in the air condensed in front of it, coalescing into a sharp, obsidian needle of pure malevolence. It wasn’t aimed at my body; I felt its focus like an icy pressure against my very being, a direct threat to the core of me and the monster I held inside. This wasn’t something I could block with cursed energy reinforcement. This was an attack I couldn’t survive.

Through a gap in the splintered wood and debris, I saw a flicker of movement. Megumi’s hands were a blur of signs, shadows pooling at his feet. “Divine Dog!” he yelled, his voice strained with effort. The white wolf burst from the shadows on his side of the barrier, but it was too far. We both knew it instantly. The dog was fast, but the shard of energy was already humming, vibrating with imminent release, aimed directly at my chest. There was no time.

I braced for an impact I couldn’t comprehend, my entire body rigid with the certainty of my own end.

Then, a blur of motion to my right. A hand slammed into my chest, shoving me with a force that knocked the air from my lungs. I stumbled backward, my feet tangling, and fell hard onto the damp ground. As I twisted, my wide eyes caught the last, terrible second of the action. Megumi. He had scrambled through a hole in the wreckage, his face pale and strained with desperation. He stood exactly where I had been a moment before.

The black shard of cursed energy struck him with a sickening, wet tearing sound. It punched through the dark fabric of his uniform at his side, burying itself deep in his shoulder and torso. His body went rigid, arching back with a silent, choked gasp. His eyes, wide with shock and agony, were locked on mine. For a horrifying, endless moment, he just stood there, impaled by the pure, soul-tearing energy meant for me, before his knees finally buckled.

A strangled noise tore from my throat, a sound of pure denial. Time seemed to warp, stretching the moment into an eternity of horror. The curse, its single eye wide with triumph, began to retract the energy shard. But Megumi wasn't finished.

Even with the black spike of energy protruding from his body, he moved. A shudder wracked his frame, and dark blood, almost black in the dim light, spilled from his lips. He coughed, spraying a fine mist of red onto the dirt floor. His eyes, glazed with an impossible amount of pain, found the curse. He lifted a trembling hand, his fingers clumsy as he formed the familiar shadow puppet sign.

“Nue,” he breathed, the word barely a whisper, lost in a wet, rattling exhale.

The air above him crackled. From the shadows still clinging to the underside of the shrine, his shikigami tore itself into existence. Nue manifested not with its usual intimidating presence, but with a desperate, screeching cry. It was enormous, its feathered wings beating frantically, stirring up dust and debris. Lightning, raw and violet, crackled around its form before it dove, a bolt of pure retribution, striking the distracted curse. The creature shrieked, a high-pitched sound that vibrated in my teeth, and then it simply dissolved, collapsing into a puddle of black ichor that sizzled and vanished into the earth.

As its cursed energy faded, so did Nue. The shikigami flickered, its form becoming transparent before it dissipated into nothing, its duty done.

The last of Megumi’s strength went with it. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he crumpled, falling forward onto the damp ground with a heavy, final thud.

The spell of paralysis broke. “Megumi!” My voice was raw, scraping my own throat. I scrambled across the few feet that separated us, my hands shaking so badly I could barely get a grip on his uniform. I rolled him onto his back, my heart seizing in my chest at the sight.

The wound was worse than I could have imagined. The obsidian shard was still embedded in him, running from his upper ribs clean through the flesh of his shoulder. It pulsed with a faint, sickly purple light, a remnant of the curse’s technique. Dark, thick blood poured from the entry and exit points, soaking through the dark material of his uniform and pooling beneath him on the ground. It was too much blood. His face was a ghastly white, his lips already tinged with blue.

Panic, cold and absolute, washed over me. I fumbled for my phone, my fingers slipping on the screen. No signal. Of course. We were miles from anywhere, cut off. Gojo wasn't coming. No one was coming.

"No, no, no," I muttered, the words a frantic prayer. "Megumi, stay with me."

His eyelids fluttered, but he didn't respond. He was limp in my arms, a dead weight. I couldn't leave him here. I had to get him inside, somewhere clean. Somewhere safe. Hooking my arms under his, I pulled him up. He was heavier than he looked, and his unconsciousness made him difficult to move. I gritted my teeth, my muscles straining as I half-dragged, half-carried his body through the opening in the rubble and into the main hall of the shrine. The sacred space was dusty and filled with debris, but it was better than the damp earth below. I gently lowered him to the wooden floorboards, my mind a blank slate of terror as I stared down at the boy who had just sacrificed himself for me.