I feel as though Vessel has a lot of missed potential as a character. Not only is he built solely around Black Flash when it comes to combos, but he only represents the earliest parts of the series, despite being made up of both the main character AND main antagonist! We only get Shibuya era Yuji, who's only good at boxing and Black Flash, with Sukuna existing as the hidden demon within him. Yuji deserves his own awakening that shows respect to his unique Shinjuku abilities, and Sukuna deserves to be more than a grab bag of moves slapped onto another character's awakening. Now, I don't currently have any ideas for reworking base Vessel or making a balanced TZE style Sukuna moveset, but I have some for a Yuji awakening. Here are my ideas.

Awakening attack

The awakening bar would be named "Sparks of Black", and similar to Naoya and Mahito stage 2, you'd need to land an attack to activate the awakening. This move would be his Maximum Output Black Flash as he used it against Mahito, and it would be a Falcon Punch esc move in that you would stop moving and enter his charging stance before unleashing the attack. This windup, both the charging and the very swift start of the swing, would total around 1.3 seconds in length, but maybe you could hold it to delay it a bit. Once the attack is unleashed you would dash forwards and Black Flash, activating awakening if it hits, with text panels appearing that say: "Under a shower of black sparks, Yuji Itadori awakens." I could imagine this move being similar to Brothers or You Weren't Invited in terms of rhythm, and I imagine that you could set up your combos to lead into a sneaky Black Flash. Any normal setup would always be green though, giving the enemy one last chance to predict where you're gonna dash and try to avoid it. I'm also considering that maybe, to make it more unique than just a simple dash, it could have Todo teleporting you to the location of your crosshair, within a certain range. Teleporting feels inconsistent to me though, so idk.

Passives & Special

I'm not particularly sold on any ideas for passives, but I might have some. Firstly, appearance-wise, we could have the Demon Claw Gauntlets appear on your hands as an indicator that you're awakened. But unlike Yuta's gauntlet, I can't think of where these might come from. Maybe they just materialize out of cursed smoke. But if we do end up including them, M1s that parry could be a cool passive. Alternatively, we could have M1s dash forward slightly, while also having them knock the enemy slightly forward to match. Ultimately I'm not sold on either of these, but they're still interesting to me. There could be some options for what R-Special could be, such as Blood Stitching/RCT, but I'm considering keeping Combat Instincts. This could work with the mobility provided by some of these planned moves.

First move: Blood Connection

I want this moveset to showcase the Cursed Techniques that Yuji awakened during Shinjuku, and first of those is Blood Manipulation. This move would reference both of the times he used it in the final battle, first when he was grabbed and cleaved within Yuta's domain and spat exploding blood in Sukuna's face, and later when he leglocked Big Suksuk to land a point-blank headshot Piercing Blood. I say it references both times, but it's really just that second time. When you use this move you would start running for a beat before leaping forward. If we go with Combat Instincts remaining the R-Special, this leap could be feintable to get some nice, low to the ground, forward aerial speed. If you connect with a player during this leap, you would enter a grab animation where you wrap your legs around them, lean back and make the Piercing Blood sign with the classic sound effect, and unleash a headshot that deals good damage and explodes their head on kill. This move would also poison the enemy, although I can't decide if the poison would be DOT, Black Mucus debuff or some kind of paralytic. I'm not thinking this move would have an aerial variant.

Second move: Cutout Cleave/Shrine(?)

This second move is inspired by the moment in chapter 257 where he first shows off Shrine by cutting out a pillar as he flies past it and throwing the chunk at Sukuna. This would be a "Direction" move, capable of going forward or backward just like Severance Kick. If you go forward or stand still while activating, you would do a single handplant frontflip forward that sends you a good distance and can be canceled for the mobility. If you go backwards, you would do a single handplant backflip. Either way, a scissor-and-line decal would appear similar to Nanami's Sharpening move, and a big chunk of the ground would be removed with a cleaving sound as you wheel around from the flip, tearing it from the earth and flinging it forward. This is a large unblockable projectile very similar to Ground Pitch, although it would be lower in damage and wouldn't be able to scoop people up. This move would also have an aerial varient. When used in the air you'd jump forward just like aerial Crushing Blow, and it could be canceled in the same way, but you'd jump farther. Like an in between of Crushing Blow and Nanamin's Collapse. Once you land, if there's a person below you, you'll slam them to the ground and Cleave them for some damage. If there isn't, you'd Cleave the ground for a small Earthquake-esc move.

Third move: Soul-Splitting Blows

This move would be probably the flashiest one in the kit: the Eightfold Black Flash Chain. This would be an attacking sequence similar to Rapid Kicks, Cursed Strikes, basically any move that locks the enemy in and does a combo after the first hit like that. Although, maybe it could also be like Execution, Foresight or "This is what dessert is like!" where it's an animation that has the enemy fighting back. Nonetheless, this would be a Black Flash minigame, but different from the one we're familiar with. Once you use the move you'd just unleash one attack, and you have to time this one like a normal Black Flash. If you do, it starts the cutscene, and you have to press the button additional times right before each of the eight hits. If you ever miss a Black Flash, Yuji would instead just grab the enemy and hit them with a Soul-Splitting Dismantle at reduced damage, double-criss-crossing scissor lines and all. If you hit all eight, the final one does bonus damage, just like normal Black Flash. But! The key is, you have to hit them all flawlessly in a row. If you miss one, the streak ends there, and the Soul-Splitting Dismantle launches them away while leaving you in a long endlag. You have to get the whole sequence.

I'm thinking that this sequence would, obviously, closely follow the real panels. This would also give it variations in the timing between hits. It'd go:
Right cross->right jab->right elbow/shoulder bash(whichever looks best with simple roblox arms), left hook->right cross, right jab->left cross->right leading uppercut. So, a tempo of 1 2 3, 1 2, 1 2 *3* Then again, since the first hit of that chain is in a separate chapter and is counted separately by the narrator, and since our awakening starts with a Black Flash(and has the text that follows that first Black Flash of the chain), we could instead have it be a seven-hit combo to add up to eight. So the awakening Black Flash would be the right cross, and then this move would go:
Right jab->right slam, left hook->right cross, right jab->left cross, uppercut. 1 2, 1 2, 1 2, 3.

Regardless, I know that this explanation is getting complicated. There's just one last detail, two or three. I think that, while this move would do great damage, it shouldn't JUST be a high damage move. I'd like if, in exchange for toning the damage down so that it's not like Hollow Purple level, we could give it a special ability referencing the way the soul damage disrupted Sukuna in the fight: every hit that you land drains a little bit of the enemy's ultimate gauge, with Black Flash hits dealing not just more damage than the failed SSD versions, but also draining more meter. Each Black Flash would drain 3% of the enemy's meter, with the final hit draining 4% for a total of 25%. If you ever miss a hit, it would end the chain there with a hit that drains just 1%. As someone who plays Choso against Naoya a lot and gets my meter stolen by bleed, let me tell you that losing just 12% of your meter can be DEVESTATING, especially in a situation where you need to pop ult NOW. I think that it could be awesome to implement here, just watching your meter get knocked down with every hit, just BEGGING for the opponent to miss a Black Flash.

Finally for this move, the finishers. I'm thinking that if you kill the enemy with any of the missed SSD hits they just fall down dead, but if you kill with any of the normal Black Flashes they'll get launched away a normal distance before being chopped up by dismantles, Sukuna style. Finally, if you kill the enemy with the final uppercut, it'll go down just like chapter 268. The criss-crossing scissors will flash on screen, maybe with a red or white background but I don't want to cause epilepsy problems, and they'll be blown away as a screaming mass of cursed flesh errupts from them and follows behind. This would be handled as a particle effect with no physics interactions for performance, but the chunks would be so big as to merge together. There'd be neutral flesh chunks in there, but also some eyeballs and maybe a massive Body Repel-esc mouth. And with that, we're finally on to:

Fourth move: Memories that Don't Exist

This would be Yuji's Domain Expansion, and it'd have some unique properties. Firstly, both its outer barrier size, initial capture radius, and inner dimensions would be MUCH larger than a normal domain. The inside would even have walls to parkour on, half being a snowy park with the rest being a street and some buildings nearby, although only half the buildings would fit in the invisible walls. To aide in this parkouring, the inner invisible walls would be rectangular, no random curved surfaces with low ceilings to get in your way. Next, and this could be funny but also potentially cause bugs, the domain would force everyone there to wear the caster's outfit. This means I could force people to be a furry, lol. It wouldn't change body type or skin color though. While in this state where they're wearing your look, they cannot attack at all. But, the moment you land an attack on them, they regain their old look and can fight once more. This means you could single out teamers with this ult by only attacking one of them at a time. Finally, the sure-hit effect. It's simple: every time you hit an enemy, they get hit by a follow-up scissor attack a beat later. This extends their hitstun, but doesn't do any knockback, and does some damage to their health and meter, but cannot kill.

The third and forth moves would have cooldowns long enough that they could usually only use them once per awakening, unless you guys think otherwise. Once the awakening ends, if we do go with the gauntlets as a visual indicator, they would shatter into pieces. Please let me know what you guys think about this idea, I really do LOVE game design and character design and I hope I've made my thoughts here nicely readable. I'd love some feedback or engagement even just confirmation that someone likes it, my ultimate goal is both to be recognized for my autistic creativity AND to prompt a fun discussion in a subject I think is both interesting and in need of love! Thanks for reading this far, bye bye!