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He opens his eyes.
He's taped against a wall. Before him is dim gray, two shapes. Fuzzy. There are sounds, but he can't comprehend them. He blinks. Gradually his vision clears. He's inside, in a room. There are two figures in front of him. People. They're speaking. What are they saying?
"...this one's strong..."
"...looks almost like a human!"
He blinks again. Now he can properly see them. He fixes his eyes on their faces. Two men, one calm and smiling, one jumping around gleefully like a child. They both have stitches on their faces, the childlike man all over his face and the calm man just along his forehead. Something about the stitch along the forehead seems familiar, but he can't remember. He can't seem to remember anything. Why is he here? Where is this? Who are they? Who is he?
The calm man notices his staring and turns to smile at him. He shushes the other man. "Mahito, he's awake now. Good morning!" He can understand their words now. Why does he understand now? "It's nice to meet you! Do you know who you are?" The man looks up at him with great interest.
Does he know? As he thinks that, the answer seeps into his mind. "...I am Choso. The eldest brother of the Death Paintings." The information comes quicker to him than he can comprehend it, but as he says it, his confusion gives way to anger and suspicion as he realizes. "Where are my brothers?"
The calm man laughs. "Ahaha, so family-minded. A wonderful trait for an oldest son!" He has a slightly high voice and speaks in sugary tones. He doesn't seem trustworthy. "Don't worry, they're safe. You can meet with them, but I want to know more about you first. What do you remember?"
Remember? Choso thinks, but he cant place any memories. Only things he just seems to know. He doesn't understand why. He declines the question. "Two of my brothers, Eso and Kechizu. They're nearby. What did you do to them?" It's his first time saying their names, but he knows them. He can feel them, their presence, in his blood. Blood. He's aware of it suddenly, the blood that moves through his entire body without him doing anything.
"Not very friendly, huh?" mutters the childlike man. He's being held back from interfering by the outstretched arm of the calm man.
"We just gave them new vessels. They're just in another room. Like I said, you'll meet them soon. I want to know, do you know what you are?"
What he is? He already answered, the eldest brother of the Death Paintings... What is a Death Painting? Is that what's being asked? He feels like he knows the answer, but he can't place it, as if it's blocked behind a barrier in his mind. His blood tingles. It hurts. It feels like the barrier is made of blood too. He doesn't answer.
The calm man waits for a moment and sighs. "Well, there's still a human part to you. I guess we can't expect self awareness to come as fast as for a curse." "Human" and "curse". Choso recognizes the words, but the meaning isn't quite coming to him. There's too much all at once. His blood is still tingling. The man is still looking up at Choso with great interest, admiration even. "Well, I have one more question for you, before I take you to your brothers. Do you recognize me?"
He's looking at Choso's face with a greater intensity than before, appraising his expression. Choso feels deeply uncomfortable, but he looks at the man. He has long black hair, pulled back partially, and he's wearing the clothes of a monk. What's a monk? Choso can't place it, but in his memory of the concept he feels negativity. They'll hurt you. A shiver runs through his veins. The man has narrow, up-turned eyes and prominent cheekbones. He has a face like a fox. What's a fox? Untrustworthy. He's been smiling the whole time since Choso awakened, but only with his mouth. His eyes, Choso realizes, are dead serious. He has large ears, with thick, pierced lobes. He doesn't know this man. Who is he? But there's stitches running across his forehead. Choso doesn't recognize anything else, but as he looks at the scar, his blood rushes through his veins and arteries as if waves are going through it. The force is intense, and as he focuses on the impossible to ignore intensity, he feels that he can take hold of it. Skin breaks under his eyes and blood rushes out. It cuts his restraints and takes him off the wall, and forms a blade pointed directly at this monk, this man he doesn't recognize. "I don't know you. Who are you?"
The monk stops smiling as he looks at the blade under his nose, before smiling again, more deviously this time. "I'm called Geto Suguru." He gestures with his chin to the other man, who has sat down on the floor and is picking his ear, "He is Mahito. I've provided you a vessel and allowed you to be born into this world, so... hmm, yes. You can think of me as your father."
Father. The word gives Choso a chill he doesn't understand. "Now put that away," says Geto, "And come. I'll take you to your brothers." With complete composure, he starts walking away before Choso withdraws his blood blade. Choso follows at a distance. The other man, Mahito, jumps up and walks close to Geto. "Hey, Geto!" he asks, "Why didn't you ask him if he knew who I was?" Geto doesn't answer.
Choso finally meets his brothers. They're strange looking, both looking very different from both Geto and Mahito, but he loves them, so much, with all his heart, with all his blood, from the moment he sees them. Like Geto and Mahito it is his first time meeting them, but he *knows* them. He feels warmth and comfort. He embraces them both.
Geto watches over their reunion with his usual calm smile. He clears his throat to ask for their attention. "Now that I have you all here, I'd like to tell you why we've brought you here."
He gives them a briefing. Humans, curses, sorcerers and curse users. The struggle for a world where curses live as the true humans. It's a torrent of information for Choso and in truth, he doesn't really have an interest. These are the circumstances of a world he and his brothers have no stake in. Eso and Kechizu glance at Choso's face, watching his reaction, and he loves them for relying on him.
Geto's request is simple. He wants them as allies, on the frontline to create a world that, according to him, would be better for them. After some consideration, Choso and his brothers agree that it might be. Choso doesn't think it's worth the price of risking his brothers' lives, but it seems that simply existing in their current world is also a risk.
Geto often talks to Choso and his brothers. He mostly asks questions. He asks about Choso's memories, and how he knows the things he knows. Choso can't answer. They don't feel hunger or exhaustion, but he asks them to attempt eating and sleeping and interrogates them about how they feel doing so.
"The curse is immaterial made material. It's fundamentally clean, perfect," Geto monologues, "It needs no external input besides thoughts. As soon as others conceive of it, it conceives of itself. It doesn't grow the same way humans do... Humans are sloppy, uneven, dirty, systems constantly breaking. But what are you?" He turns to Choso, who is attempting to eat a convenience store onigiri. "A human's organicness enhanced by the curse! How do they combine? Truly, you may be the future of humanity."
Choso isn't particularly interested in this. He's concerned about his brothers, who are currently out on a mission. He hopes they're safe. He's concerned about the fact that putting something into his body means he will also have to have the strange experience of letting something come out of his body.
Even though Choso doesn't need to sleep, after being made to several times by Geto, he sometimes chooses to in order to pass the time. Particularly after his brothers die, he can't see a reason to stay awake much of the time.
When he sleeps, he dreams. Sometimes his dreams are a fabrication of the reality he knows. He and his brothers live in the world of a board game with Mahito and Geto as their neighbors. These dreams are painful. Other times, he dreams of a reality he doesn't recognize, sitting in a house with tatami rooms, walking on unpaved roads to buildings made of wood. Often these dreams are vague, consisting of simply looking at trees or the sky. They soothe him and give him a sense of warmth in his blood.
He's bewildered when he dreams and sees a severe, tall man with bags under his eyes and markings. A man who moves and speaks to him, and embraces him before saying words that he himself remembers saying as he embraced his brother. A man with unmistakable clothes and tied up hair, a man who is unmistakably him. But in the dream he is Eso, and he feels what Eso feels: fear, uncertainty, then comfort when embraced. Then, a rush of red.
He opens his eyes. Blood is flowing down his face in a steady stream from his eyes and nose, beyond his control. The blood from his nose trickles into his mouth, tasting salty and metallic. It feels like the blood exiting him contains his entire being. It was as if it were a confirmation that his brother loved him, as if he needed one, and why now? It was like putting a knife in a barely scabbing wound and twisting it, with about as much blood coming out. His breathing becomes ragged and he begins convulsing. He barely manages to recognize this sensation as crying. It's something he's never done before, but his entire body is engulfed in the action.
He washes his face and clothes in the bathroom sink of the building where they're staying. He looks at himself in the mirror. The circles around his eyes are a profound dark purple. He vows to never sleep again.
And yet, as if he had cast a spell on himself, whenever Choso is alone he finds himself overcome by heaviness, barely able to stand. His eyes close and he sees a vision, a memory of Eso or Kechizu, talking to him, talking to each other, walking under the bridge where they searched for Sukuna's finger. It's not always as painful as the first time, and in time it becomes less painful as a whole, but nonetheless he wakes up crying blood each time.
Punctuating his brothers' memories are the memories of the place with unpaved roads that he's never seen in his waking life. He's realized now that these dreams are of a time before now, maybe hundreds of years ago. The eyes he's seeing from walk on an unpaved path surrounded by trees to a river, where he simply watches the water travel, never very fast but never stopping. This happens repeatedly, but although the events of the dream are soothing, the more he has the dream the more it seems filled with a lingering unease, the focus on the flow of the river becoming more and more desperate, as if to avoid thinking of anything else. After these dreams, he wakes up crying, not blood, but clear and salty tears.
He knows that these dreams must also be someone's memories, but whose? His human vessel's? No, they're too long ago. He thinks he has another idea, but he doesn't want to admit it to himself.
Usually Choso moves to the room in the building with a large sink before he sleeps, to wash away the blood. One day, Geto confronts him there.
"Have you been sleeping well?" He asks.
Choso doesn't respond.
"It's so interesting," says Geto, "At first you didn't need to sleep at all, but now I catch you sleeping so often... Has it become a habit? A need even?" He crouches down and touches a blood stain on the floor. "You know, blood leaking from orifices isn't something that normally happens to humans while sleeping." Choso flinches. How much has he been watched?
Geto continues, "I thought the inorganic curse could correct humanity's organic flaws, but I may have been wrong. I think the curse has become integrated into the organic system, corrupting both into something entirely new..." He holds his finger up to his eyes and squints. "...but not entirely desirable."
Almost unconsciously, Choso has formed his blood into a blade aimed at Geto. "What concern is it to you?" The anger surprises even him. Why does this man seem to view other's lives as his entertainment? What does he want from him?
Geto holds both his palms up and smiles. "Now, now, no need to get violent. I just want to know more about the people around me." He walks away from the blood blade as if it bears no threat to him and walks past Choso out of the room, too quickly and casually for Choso to react. When he's right behind Choso, he suddenly grabs the back of Choso’s neck and presses firmly on a specific spot. "Sleep well," is the last thing Choso hears.
Almost instantly, Choso is asleep. In the dream, he is at the river again, watching its endless flow. His heart is pounding desperately. He is afraid, but if he can focus on the river long enough, she can become the river. Always in motion, because no situation is permanent. Even if she dies like this, her soul will flow on like this river, eventually reaching peace.
This brief, vague calm can't continue for long. He hears footsteps behind him. That man has found him. He wears Western clothes, and his face can't be made out. The dreamer's eyes refuse to look at his face. "So this is where you were," He says. He places an overly familiar hand on the dreamer's shoulder. She shivers at his touch. "You like this river, don't you? You're always coming here." His voice is sweet, too sweet, it's disgusting. "But it's almost time, so come."
She follows him on the dirt path to the temple. She's made to lie down on a mat on the floor in one of the prayer rooms. The man leans over her and she instantly shifts her gaze to the ceiling, the tessellation of wood slats, and the framed sutra on the wall behind him. She can't read it; it's all in kanji and written so messily that the characters would be barely recognizable even if she could read them all. But she focuses so intensely on each character nonetheless, in hopes she can understand it enough to reach satori and instantly be exited from this situation. She doesn't feel her legs being opened. She doesn't feel her pregnant stomach being stroked by that man. No blood is coming out and she's not crying, and his vision isn't becoming redder, and redder, blood flowing down endlessly like the river
Choso opens his eyes but can only see blood, he can only feel blood, flowing out of his nose and up his throat in such an intense stream that he's forced to open his mouth and let it seep out, out from his ears, from underneath his fingernails. His legs are still forced open and he feels blood seeping out from between them, lukewarm and slimey, violated in a place that's not in his waking body. The bloody tears won't stop, and before he knows it every single pore in his skin is bleeding. He's covered in blood like a protective slime, with no boundary between the inside and outside of his body. He can't move, but he feels himself drifting in the pool of blood that surrounds him.
He hears the man's voice still, and the dreamer's cries, distorted by the liquid surrounding him. "...the cursed spirit... organic meeting inorganic... the key to... anity's full potential..." It's a different voice but the same tone, the same words he's heard before.
And then, as if the bubble popped, the blood he was suspended in falls to the concrete floor his waking body is lying on. The blood from his eyes is flushed out by tears. He feels sticky, and notices that he is naked, and the blood covering his entire body is beginning to dry. His breathing is heavy.
He has no doubt anymore that that was his mother's memory. He had just dreamed of his own birth. The man, the detestable man, had to have been his father. But through the whole dream he never saw his face, because his mother refused to look him in the eyes. Even now the memory of the whole thing seemed to grow fuzzier, perhaps to protect his mind.
But he knew that his father could never be forgiven. There was only one other person nearly as detestable to him, the young man he saw repeatedly in the dreams of his brothers' memories, the image of his face eternally intertwined with their dying fear.
The man he'd still be able to get revenge on. Itadori Yuji.
He hasn't slept or had a dream since that fateful vision of the family picnic with Yuji.
How blessed he is to still have family! He wants to appreciate every second with his last remaining brother. Even as Yuji sleeps, he watches him. Yuji appears fully human, fully needing to sleep and eat, but unlike his father's words, he feels that the organic Yuji is perfect. As he watches him, he feels as if the rush of his blood is spiralling into a typhoon in his veins, and if he put even a little less effort into holding it down, it would all explode out of him in a rush of exstacy.
Yuji stirs. He looks up with his eyes half-open. "Choso...? What are you doing...?" Choso doesn't move. A few heavy blinks come to Yuji's eyes. He turns to the other side and yawns. "You should go to sleep too..." With an absentminded flap of his arm he pats Choso's shoulder, and then falls back asleep.
Choso takes the advice and lies down flat on his back. He looks directly at the sky above them and feels no propulsion to close his eyes. He focuses on the sound of Yuji's breath. Did he sound like this when he slept? His brothers those few times, too? His mother, too? He doubts his father ever slept. He tries to sync his breathing with Yuji's. With each inhale oxygen enters his blood through his heart, and with each exhale it circles around his body, through every vein and artery. The flow is steady now, at motion but calm, like the river his mother watched.
He reflects on those memories. If he were to sleep now, would he see Yuji's memories as well? Or is that Yuji's exclusive privilege for as long as he's alive, just like he didn't see his brothers' memories until after their deaths? If that is the case, then, when his father dies, if it ever happens, would he see his memories? The thought breaks his calm. He would have to die as well before that happens to avoid it. When he dies, would Yuji see his and his brother's memories in the same way as him? Maybe then Yuji would understand him fully. They could all live on through Yuji. It seems pleasant somehow.
As he thinks that, his focus returns to Yuji's breathing. Regular, cyclic, at rest but alive. Even without feeling tired, he decides to close his eyes anyway, to focus only on mirroring those breaths. He lies there, eyes closed but awake, thinking only of the breaths and the blood that connect him to Yuji, dreamless.