"You are going to die."

"Then let it be just me instead of all three of us. Fushiguro-kun, please."

He looks at the curse, clearly having the time of its life, laughing and swaying from side to side, then at Itadori—

—he runs.

The curse watches him go but doesn't stop him, and just grins more widely at Itadori. "Just you and me, now, eh, boyo?" asks Itadori. "—you are a boyo, right? I'm just saying, you got the pecs and all—"

It's too fast. Again. The curse swipes up with one arm, and the wave of cursed energy is enough to throw Itadori all the way across the courtyard to the wall.

Okay, fuck, he might die.

He blinks the dizziness out of his eyes and tries to look at the curse again, only to see it mere inches away from him, one hand glowing with more cursed energy—

—it slams that hand against him, and he's through the wall, and oh now he knows how Fushiguro must have felt the day they met when he was fighting that curse, he thinks idly as his body ping pongs along the floor before skidding to a painful stop. That is far too much momentum, and why is he thinking of his physics lessons at a time like this, he should be—getting up—he can't move, can't open his eyes, can't get up—everything hurts—he can hear the creature's claws clicking against the floor as it slowly walks towards him—it's having fun, the bastard—

—he has to get up, it's charging something, he needs to stop it—he's up, both arms forward, he needs to stop it, he knows how to project cursed energy so maybe if he, if he does that he'll be able to hold on—

—he can't, the energy is too much, it burns, it hurts, it's eating at his fingers, he only has five of them now he doesn't want to lose them too, but the curse doesn't care, it doesn't matter how much he tries to stop it, it burns his fingers are stubs, it burns it burns it hurts—

—he can't—

His black demon dog is still alive, so he can still track Hayashi, fuck being careful he's sprinting, and there he is, there she is—

He hears her laughing before he sees her. It is… more than a little deranged.

“Why are you running, I thought you wanted to play?!” echoes a voice coming down the twisting corridor. A curse comes barreling through the wall, and then a barrage of needles turn a corner to impale it. It starts dissipating, and then Hayashi rounds the corridor.

“Fushiguro-san,” she says, and her smile is unnerving and her voice is coming out measured and business-like. “Oh, good. Itadori-san?”

That... was terrifying and slightly arousing and he would like to stop being a teenager any minute now is fine thanks.

"Buying us time. We need to leave."

There is the briefest of pauses as she takes this in.

“Damn,” she says, in the same tone of voice. “Exit direction? It’s been slippery, and I need to get close. I can only do this once.”

He nods and takes them there. For a mercy the edge is not too far.

She gives a nod, then holds her hands vertically facing each other, one hand over the other, palms and fingers straight.

"Stay close. Domain expansion:

  "Shattered Reflection."

And the world breaks. Around them, everything cracks like broken glass and slides away, in different directions. The bizarre dark industrial architecture is gone, replaced by reflections of reflections of reflections, repeated in the shattered mirror that is their new reality. There is light, there is darkness, there are reflections of them from a thousand different angles. They stand a hundred times over in a broken infinity.

"This way," says Hayashi, and she takes Fushiguro's hand and leads him through the fragmented funhouse. It is like walking normally, and it is like watching yourself walk in a thousand different directions.

Then she releases his hand, releases the technique, and they are back outside. On the other side of the barrier. Reality makes sense again.

He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding then says, "There is no way you're a grade 3." Then he blinks and looks at his dog, who howls, loudly, more loudly than a dog should be able to. "Please don't die," he says under his breath, to no one in particular.

His comment earns the faintest hint of a real smile from her, and then the mention of death has her back to her brutally efficient business mode.

"Ijichi-san," she says neutrally, spotting him hovering anxiously nearby. Oh. Good. That'll sort out her first question.

Then, with much less neutrality, she stalks towards him and grabs him by the collar to drag him to eye level with her and ask in a cold and even voice, "Did you know?"

He looks to be in a panic. "Kn-know what, Hayashi-san?" he stutters.

Hayashi stares him down. She does not release his collar. It might be noticeable that her other hand holds her fan, which is. Very sharp.

"Who sanctioned this fiasco?" she asks, almost pleasantly.

    "P-principal Ga-Gakuganji," he says holding both hands up next to his face in a "surrender" gesture.

"The Kyoto school principal," Fushiguro supplies.

"Ah," she says, releasing his collar. "I see. Expand the perimeter for evacuation, immediately. As far as you can reasonably get it. And call for assistance from a sorcerer equipped to handle Sukuna."

Her face twists and she turns away. "I'm sure you'll mysteriously find that there will be someone right on hand," she snarls, under her breath. "Go. Everybody still here by the time he gets out is going to have a very bad day."

    "Y-yes, Hayashi-san," he says, and sprints.

"You... figured something out."

... He hasn't realized it yet?

"Fushiguro-san," says Hayashi, softly. Almost gently. As gently as she can tell him that their own team just played games with their lives. "Why would anyone send a vessel that is part of a matched set anywhere near a brand new, barely formed curse that has any chance of metamorphosing into a special grade? And what happened the very instant we set foot in that block?"

"...one of Sukuna's fingers is there? And they, what, hoped Itadori-kun would eat it?"

"I have no idea what stupid little games they thought they were playing, or what idiotic lies they told themselves to make them think this was acceptable behavior. I do know that there are some very prideful people that wanted our friend's execution sooner rather than later, and probably didn't like Gojo-sensei countermanding them. Or 'stealing' me. Or you, for that matter. Maybe they thought the risk was too great, that it was smart to trigger the proverbial bomb early, maybe this is some sick demented test of ability, maybe they're throwing a petty tantrum with all of the cool toys they don't get to have.

"I do not care. I do know that every single fiber of my being was screaming from the inside that this did not make any fucking sense, but I told it to sit down and shut up, because I trusted them to want me alive. And I was wrong. Do you think we would have been sent in there if they wanted us alive? Why not a window, to grab everyone and run at the first sign of curses, why not a guard, who fucking works here, why only five people in an entire cell block? Why send young, barely trained curse killers into that fucking viper's nest? Why three extremely valuable, rare sorcerers when everyone knows we are always understaffed? To save five? Why—"

And her voice breaks and she swallows a sob.

"I hope I'm wrong, I hope I look back on this as that time I went crazy and got super paranoid and had a mental breakdown. But I do not think that's what's happening. Do you?"

He squeezes his hands into fists and looks back at the building.

Itadori better fucking survive.