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im starting to see a pattern between my blorbos (they all have memory issues and at least one identity crisis).

Word Up!

‣‣ COR UNUM: CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | KŌJIN

‣‣ Synopsis: Our tale continues with a King reunited with his Queen, a touching reunion that is painted red with the blood of their enemies. The Queen gives her first decree, and she wishes for the heads of those who had wronged her.

‣‣ Main Masterlist | AO3 ‣‣ Pairing: Sukuna x Reader ‣‣ Word Count: est. 10k ‣‣ Warnings: Blank blogs & Minors DNI. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. Set in the Early-Heian Period, trueform!Sukuna, female reader, cannibalism, death, cursed spirits, fighting scenes, heavy blood and gore, cursed energy usage, starts with Sukuna's POV, vomit, rape mentions.

“There you are.”

Instantaneous relief. A clicking of two puzzle pieces coming together, a deep breath after being submerged in icy water. Sukuna had never known what relief truly was, not until you had been swept away in the middle of the night. He feels that part of his soul blossom when you press back into his chest in recognition of his voice.

Sukuna doesn’t want to linger too much on the state you’re in. He scented your blood before he felt the amount of cursed energy you were putting out. With the arm wrapped around your waist, he can feel the pulse of foreign cursed energy there. You’d been marked by something that would cause even Sukuna to crumble to his knees in pain… and yet here you were, standing and fighting. 

The men who had surrounded you were nothing but mangled flesh and bone on the floor, the sheer pressure of his cursed energy enough to crush them. And so, Sukuna takes a second to glance around the courtyard—if you could still call it that. You had done all of this, he could see the deep lines thrown into the buildings that had managed to survive, the ground had been destroyed before he had gotten here. 

He only feels a flicker of pride before he realises you still haven’t moved in his arms, he manoeuvres you easily enough with his extra arms until you’re facing him. It takes every ounce of his self-control to not roar in anger at what they did to you. The scratch marks along your face had torn deep enough into your flesh that he could see a few of your teeth through the gap in your cheek. 

Your eyes are red, not like his own but rather filled with blood. You’re covered in grime, dirt and other fluids that he’s certain only belong to cursed spirits. Just what happened to you here? He doesn’t hesitate in brushing a hand along your cheek, the whitish glow that follows his fingers heals the wounds there.

Sukuna watches as your eyes flutter to a close when that same healing hand strokes over your eyes, the damage there is more than he realised. You were partially blinded—and so, Sukuna holds his hand over your eyes for a moment longer. He can feel his own eyes sting, a prickling sensation that forms at the back of his head and burrows into the backs of his eyes. 

His own vision blurs, a near-transparent film covering them and he wonders how you had managed to kill so many even when you were unable to see clearly. He blinks, and his eyes are restored. As are your own. He meets your gaze then, and he can see the hurt there. 

But then your face shifts, and it’s almost as if you grew sickly green at the sudden feeling that overtook you. He doesn’t fight back when you push him away, and he can only watch as you wretch and heave. Vomit wasn’t something Sukuna was particularly bothered by, he wasn’t overly fond of it either. The smell, it reminded him of the men he slaughtered on the battlefield who would throw up their breakfasts out of fear.

His eyes dart to the floor at the sound of a… wet thud. And his eyebrows raise.

“Tasted awful.” Your voice is hoarse, and Sukuna snickers. 

“Men do usually taste the worst. It’s why you go for the women.” Sukuna replies as if he were talking about a choice between two articles of clothing. You glance up at him and he sees a glimmer in your eye, a spark of the woman who he had held in his arms so many nights ago. 

“Noted.” Sukuna watches as you turn to glance around the courtyard, perhaps seeing it for the first time after it had died down.

“Uraume is waiting for us.”

“I’m not finished here.” You reply and Sukuna can’t help but smirk at that.

“No? You wiped out a good portion of the Zen’in clan, and you’re drained from just that.” He doesn’t mean it to come off as rude, Sukuna had always been one to state the truth. Especially with you.

“That’s why you’ll help me.” You turn to face him and Sukuna for the first time takes a good look at you.

Something was different. Something had occurred and changed a part of you forever, you hold yourself with a sense of regality. You may be drenched in blood and viscera, and you don’t seem to even notice the fact there’s a strip of human flesh hanging over your shoulder. Or perhaps you do, the finger you had rejected from your stomach seems to tell him enough. 

You were just like him. 

You take his moment of quiet observation to continue, “The Shogun and Sugawara are both still here, and I want them dead.” 

A Queen who has made her first decree. And that makes Sukuna’s smirk grow into a knowing grin. He grabs at you, a firm yet gentle touch that has you close enough that he can smell the lingering scent of death that clings to your kimono—one he did not gift you, and that nearly has his claws sinking into your arms. He’d get his answers to what happened to you, soon. But not now… first…

One of his spare hands slides along your body until it rests against your chest, large fingers splayed out flat against your heart. “Don’t stray from my side, and you’ll be capable of fighting as if you weren’t near-catatonic from fighting.” His fingers hook under your chin, tilting your head back until you stare him in the eye. “Understood?”

You nod, and his hand presses harder against your chest. It’s so reminiscent of when he had first bestowed that vow on you, it feels like a century ago. He wished you knew just what he went through to track you down. He didn’t sleep anymore, he burned down villages that simply got in his way and he can’t recall just how many people he killed; ‘innocent’ or otherwise. 

His own cursed energy greets yours like an old friend, they blend and bond within the swell of your chest and replace what had been stripped away. There’s no physical or mental toll on Sukuna to heal you, to lend you his own strength to ensure you don’t die from exhaustion. 

He feels that part of him within you, that darkness that has consumed a vital part of your body and soul. It welcomes him in, curls around the energy he forces through your body and pulls him in deeper. He feels the scars left on you, the mental ones, he can feel the anguish you went through and also the rage.

Again, Sukuna knows he’ll get his answers in due time. So he ignores it, pushes past it and lets his energy sink into the vast emptiness of your body. You had to use something big and taxing to cause this amount of drainage—

“You had to use your domain?” Sukuna questions with an eyebrow raised, he knew you were aware that creating a domain was essentially the final card someone had to draw to ensure they won a battle—and to only use it when you were on the brink of dying. That, of course, didn’t apply to someone like Sukuna. He had years of expertise and a greater understanding of cursed energy as a whole.

You’re silent for a beat, and you glance at him with a look in your eye that almost makes him pause. “I had no other choice.” You offer instead, but Sukuna can see that slight gleam in your eye. You’re not telling him the whole truth as to why. In the past, he may have pushed you for an answer but tonight was not the night. 

A buzz thrills itself down Sukuna’s spine, snapping his mouth closed to stop the words that were about to spill from his lips. His body grows rigid in front of you, and he doesn’t move an inch at the sound of a rushing of footsteps that flood from the ruins of the surrounding buildings. 

Before you can react, he wraps two strong arms around you to secure you to the front of his body before he launches himself up into the air. The ground beneath him cracks further from the force he had thrown himself up out of the way, the wind whistles past his ears and he knows you’re watching the ground disappear further and further away. 

The ground down below explodes in a flash of red, the cursed energy that billows outwards from the impact is enough to throw both Sukuna and you in his arms a few feet further into the sky before the inevitable plummet comes. His back scrapes against bare tree branches, and yet he curls his two free arms around you further until you are completely shielded from the onslaught. 

His feet find the ground easily enough, and Sukuna is forced to dig his heels into the ground to stop his body from tumbling over with you in tow. You haven’t moved from his arms, still curled so close he can feel the warmth of your breath brushing against the hairs on his arms still tightly wrapped around your body… and he’s never been more thankful for someone's breathing before.

You shift in his arms and he has no choice but to release you, a part deep inside of him snarls at the prospect of letting you go. But he doesn’t stop you from taking a few steps forward through the destruction of the trees and ground from his descent, all he can do is watch as you stare in the direction you’d come from. 

“Sugawara will want to kill me first.” You don’t glance over your shoulder as you speak, “He tried once already and failed. He’ll do it himself this time.” 

His eyes narrow just slightly, a calculating look landing on the back of your head. Sugawara was a formidable opponent, someone even Sukuna had failed to eradicate for good. His technique had proven difficult to battle against, and Sukuna didn’t have a true firm understanding of Sugawara’s technique either. It wasn’t written in any scrolls or any books anywhere, no one else in existence had ever had such a powerful technique like it. 

And yet, it’s you who had apparently gotten to Sugawara enough to set his sights on you instead of Sukuna. That alone stirs the anger deep in his gut, not because he wants to be the one to fight Sugawara but because it’s you. You’re not weak by any means, Sukuna would never stop you from fighting your own battles but Sugawara was ruthless. 

“He won’t be alone.” Sukuna settles on instead, his upper arms crossing over his chest whilst his lower set rests against his hips. “The Shogun is here too. Sugawara will fight to protect the Shogun.” 

“I know. That’s why we’ll fight them together.”  

You finally turn back to him, and almost immediately his heart thunders in his chest. Such an odd feeling, to feel his heart batter against his ribcage beneath the layers of muscle and skin. You were devastating. With blood painted onto your cheeks, on your lips and chin. It reminds him so vividly of the time he ordered you to eat your own husband's heart. 

It filled him with heat then, and it does now. Even with that look in your eye that tells him you’ll decimate the Zen’in clan before he can, Sukuna thinks he might just let you. 

“Look who found her worth. Being a Queen is becoming of you.” He grins his words, one hand coming up to the side of his neck to crack the tension there before he rolls his muscles loose.

His eyes linger on your lips when they crack in a small grin of your own, the blood on your face breaks along with it. Your eyes still hold a vacant glassiness to them, a dark void of something he cannot quite put a finger on. Your lips part but then you stop, turning your head at the same time he does.

There’s a crush of broken branches and mud beneath feet, a rushing of multiple Samurai all heading directly for both you and himself. He can practically taste the blood in the air, and his stomach growls in joy at the prospect of eating something fresh. His stance shifts, a foot sliding back through the destroyed earth. The muscles in his legs tense— “Keep up.” 

You watch Sukuna’s lips flatten after the grin he tossed your way, his words were to be taken literally. His body vanishes before your very eyes, but not with the use of your cursed technique or even his own energy. Sukuna was fast. A predator, a man designed to be the fastest hunter in the dark to ensure no one ever escaped. 

He throws himself forward, the people who pour out from the darkness of the trees find themselves unable to react with Sukuna suddenly appearing in their faces. It’s like a tidal wave of blood, a wash of red speckles that splatter against the trees and douse the leaves in crimson. He doesn’t stop either, simply running through people as if they were nothing. 

Your chest burns at the distance he puts between yourself and him. He told you to stay close and you’d feel as though you hadn’t nearly exhausted yourself to the brink of death. A binding vow of sorts, not quite as pungent as the one binding your souls together. But more of just a loan of his energy until you return home. 

Home. You’d be going home.

That has your energy shooting through your body, a burst—and you’re gone. You throw your body forward much quicker than you had ever before, the bodies you pass by remain frozen in time until they fall to the ground; slashed and broken. Your blade runs through them as if they were made of wet paper. Your eyes are locked onto Sukuna’s back, so far ahead of you that he’s growing distant with each step.

You’re so focused on Sukuna that you miss the sudden approach of a man from your flank. His blade slams into your side, and it’s with enough force that you tumble out of the streamlined trajectory you had thrown yourself into. The ground comes crashing into you, dirt and leaves sticking to the fresh blood that drips from your hands and coats your face.

The blade in your hand skitters across the floor, out of your range to quickly grab it. You twist your body around, ignoring the sharp pain that blooms across your ribcage. Grasping at the loose dirt beneath you, you raise yourself off of the ground just enough to turn your attention to whoever had hit you.

“Hello, little warrior.”

Kiso. He was still alive. 

“Kiso.” You hiss his name, and Kiso frowns. The wrinkles on his face deepen with the years that had passed by since you were taught by him how to wield a weapon. He should be dead, he should’ve died protecting your father—and yet here he is, serving the new Shogun.

“It should have never come to this. Your father—”

“Is dead!” You yell, pushing yourself up from the floor but not without grabbing your katana. “And you should be dead with him.”

“I tried to stop him. I told him it was wrong to kill his own daughter, his only child.” Kiso pleads, yet you don’t miss the shift of his hand to rest against the hilt of his own sword. “I saw you as my own, and when he said he was going to go through with it. I left. I abandoned my honour, my name, and he died. Because I wasn’t there to protect him.”

You don’t want to tell him that he would’ve died regardless. Sukuna was merciless as much as he was strong. Neither of them would’ve survived. 

“And I see you too have abandoned your honour.” He continues, eyes drifting away from your hand on the blade and across the blood that drips from your face. “I thought I trained you to fight something like this.”

“‘Something like this?’” You grit your teeth when you repeat his words back, and then it dawns on you. He was the right-hand of the Shogun, your father, and you don’t doubt your father would’ve told Kiso what the Emperor had said. “You knew from the very start, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Kiso drops his eyes for a second. “I trained you in hopes that you’d be strong enough to make the right choice when the time came and to stop that demon—”

“Choose your next words carefully.” Your fingers tighten around the hilt of your blade, and your chest tightens further at the distance between yourself and Sukuna. Your energy was waning with each passing second. 

“—That demon bastard before he ruined you.” Kiso meets your eyes, a silent understanding that he has come to accept the fact he would fight you. Be it to the death, or worse. “Yet I sense that your cursed energy is not your own. I failed you.”

“You’re wrong.” You shift your stance, one foot just behind the other with your elbows drawn inwards. Your sword pointed directly at Kiso. “Both you and my father claimed I’m cursed, I am anything but.”

Kiso’s eyebrows draw together in confusion. “...Your father? When did you speak with him? I thought you weren’t in contact with him before he died.”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know your father was cursed and locked in the very estate he was presumably staying in to serve your uncle. Your throat tightens at the realisation, Kiso wasn’t the enemy here. He had no idea and he still came out to find you, perhaps in hopes to deter you from the obvious path you had carved for yourself. 

That child he trained so many years ago within you screams when you bolster your cursed energy. No, Kiso wasn’t the enemy here. You were. 

His hands are aged and wrinkled as they wrap around the hilt of his blade, drawing it from its sheath and holding it before him in a similar stance to your own. It’s you who moves first, slow and steady steps through the upturned dirt slowly turning into mud beneath your feet. You make sure to dig your toes in, to ensure you had a solid foothold before—

Kiso strikes when you’re in range. His sword clangs off of your own, enough to force your sword to the side and it’s as if age is nothing to him. He moves just as he did in his younger years training you, with violent grace. A sequence of precise strikes has you defending against his blade, enough to have you taking steps backwards to give yourself a moment to breathe—and to work out the best way to take him down.

He circles you, as you do him. His sword still pointed in your direction, and eyes that were dull with guilt are now sharpened with years of an experienced samurai. He moves first again, the same manoeuvre to force your blade and body to the side. Kiso swings his blade down this time, in hopes of burying it in the meat of your shoulder. 

You’re forced to side-step out of the way and consequently out of your stance, and Kiso monopolises on it. His sword rears back and comes back down in a fluid motion to collide with your neck, you’re forced to put yourself in an uncomfortable stance. Your katana collides with his own, and he forces all of his weight down onto it in hopes of overpowering you. 

Instead, it only brings you face-to-face with him. Your joined swords are a thin barrier between you and the man who pants from just a few movements. He had grown weak in his old age, slower. He knew he had only a handful of movements left before he inevitably died—you just had to beat him to it. 

“I thought I would never cross swords with you again.” He huffs out, sweat beading in his hairline from the effort of holding his sword to yours. Then he pushes against you, forcing you to take a few steps backwards and your sword to lower with the tip pointed to the ground. “How I missed it.”

“I didn’t.” It sounds like a lie on your tongue but instead, it’s the bitter truth. You didn’t miss training with Kiso, you didn’t miss living with your father and you didn’t miss the person you were before you were taken by Sukuna. That woman—that girl, she was nothing compared to who you are now. 

Kiso flares his nostrils, a look of disappointment flitting over his face that only a father could muster. And he rushes towards you, clumsy in his foot placement. You dig your foot into the ground and kick it out towards him, mud flies upwards and into his face. 

Immediately he reels backwards, eyes forced to close and he misses when you shift the blade into one hand and drop your body low to avoid the blind swing of his sword. You slice the blade across his shins, and he falls into the dirt below. Kiso swings his blade at you once again on the floor, an undignified yell following it but you bat his sword away—it falls to the ground a few feet away from him.

You stand over him, staring down at the man who had once claimed himself as your father figure and teacher. Your chest heaves, and the burning at your rib cage pinches with each breath. Sukuna must be too far to share his cursed energy with you, the binding vow digs in deep enough to stop you from healing. 

“You failed me long before now. You failed me when you let my father sell me to that wretched man.” You raise your sword just slightly, and that alone has your arm shaking with the effort. You had to move, and quickly. “I hope when you see my father in the afterlife, he will tell you of how I killed him too.” 

It’s become second nature now, to raise your sword and bring it down with enough force to remove a head from someone's shoulders. Kiso’s head lands with a wet thump into the mud, rolling to rest aside his sword. His body drops too, blood bleeding out into the ground. A stain on the world to mark his failure. 

You don’t wait to let the realisation of who you killed sink in, instead you twist on your feet and run in the direction of screaming and laughing. Sukuna’s laughter. With each step, you feel your body grow less lethargic. The wound at your side heals the second you’re close enough to grasp at the cursed energy loaned to you and to tug on it, to wrap it around yourself and disappear from the spot you occupy.

Bursting through the treeline, you find Sukuna in a clearing with what must be over fifty men and countless dead bodies strewn around. He’s doused in red, dripping from the tips of his brushed back hair and the tips of his fingers. A glance at the closest body shows you he hadn’t been using his cursed technique on these men, but rather he was fighting with his body instead. 

As if sensing your return, Sukuna snaps his gaze from the men in front of him to lock eyes with you. His lower set of eyes dart across your hand still wrapped around your blade that drips in fresh blood, and at your side where the gash once was. There’s a flash of concern that quickly washes away when he realises the once-wound was nonexistent. 

And then he grins. The look in his eye is borderline hysterical, a type of bloodlust that only he could muster and control without losing himself. A heat washes over you from head to toe, the pitter-patter of your heart is more like the rhythmic beating of a war drum with the way he looks at you; like he’s truly hungry and you’re the only thing capable of satiating his endless hunger. 

A sharp booming yell and a woosh of metal has your heart seizing in your chest, but Sukuna doesn’t seem to glance in the direction of the man running at him with his sword raised. Instead, he raises to his full height with an easy roll of his shoulders. The man gains ground quickly enough that you wonder if he had used his own cursed energy to propel himself closer, but it means nothing in the end.

Sukuna raises a hand from his side, the entirety of his palm covering the man's face—fingers long enough to nearly encompass his whole head. And then… he squeezes. It’s a crunch and then a loud pop, a sound you’re familiar with now but it was as if Sukuna had put no effort into crushing an entire man's head with just one hand. All whilst staring directly at you with a grin that grows more and more salacious as the seconds pass by.

He tosses aside the man’s body, a dull thump on the ever-growing pile of bodies. Then he’s striding towards you, uncaring for the discarded limbs and piles of viscera he steps through to get to you. Your blood roars in anticipation of his approach, your hand growing sweaty around the hilt of your blade when he levels you with a look that promises your downfall. 

With only a few feet between you, he suddenly halts. Something flies between the two of you, it’s small enough that you can’t quite see what it is exactly but the scent hits you full force. Rot and decay, a curse. Not one from the pit, you realise quite quickly. Those spirits had the scent of desperation and dampness that only came from being locked in a dark hole. These ones were fresh, and wrapped around them was the lingering subtle scent of someone’s cursed energy.

You turn your attention to the clearing, as does Sukuna. A man is standing there, his eyes locked onto you—not Sukuna. Curious. You watch him brandish a hand in front of him, and there in his palm is another small-sized curse that curls into the shape needed for him to launch them at you. Oh, you had no idea people could control cursed spirits with their own cursed energy. 

Sukuna flexes his fingers at his side, lip turning up into a snarl that displays the canines he’s used to rip and tear people apart. 

“Wait.” You raise your hand in Sukuna’s direction, and it must be a surprise to the man wielding curses because his eyebrows raise when Sukuna complies. “I know this one.” 

The unnamed man looks horrified at your words, his nostrils flared in an obvious sign to try and regulate his breathing when you take a single step towards him. The curse in his hand writhes, waiting to be used and yet he seems to be frozen in place when you lock your eyes with his. 

“They thought I was unconscious for most of the time they beat me, tortured me by ripping strips of my flesh… but I was always awake, listening.” You don’t miss the thunderous growl from Sukuna at your words. “This one visited often. Not to visit me, of course. No—he came to visit Sugawara.” 

It’s the truth. This man, whilst you didn’t know his name, had shown his face many times. He was someone who always brought Sugawara his meals, even sat with him whilst they whispered in hush tones. You could never hear what they spoke of, but the general closeness of them was enough for you to latch onto the fact that this was someone dear to Sugawara. 

A friend, perhaps, a childhood friend. Someone he had trained with to become a samurai, or there was always the idea that he was a lover. It mattered not though who this man was to Sugawara, instead you sank your teeth into the fact he was important to someone strong. 

“Isn’t that right? Sugawara was always happier after you spoke to him. He even stopped my torture early because of the good mood you put him in.” 

“No.” The man has the audacity to lie, his voice warbles just slightly and you grin like the wolf who caught the lamb.

“Liar.” Sukuna chuckles to himself at your words, a lazy tilt of his head as he watches you instead of the man who steadies his foothold in the muddy mixture of blood and guts. 

The curse that had been dormant in his hand is thrown with a speed that would catch anyone off-guard—anyone who wasn’t you. As it pushes closer, the flood of cursed energy that rolls off of you slows the cursed spirit to a standstill in front of you. It’s a small bluish-green thing, with wings and small hands. A singular eye. It was hideous and you wonder just what its purpose was meant to be. 

You pluck it from the air, and time crashes back into play. The man before you glares at the cursed spirit between your two fingers, watching as you appraise it like a bug you caught. 

“Ugly. It’s like a fly but with a tiny human body.” You meet the eyes of the man across the clearing, and his face crumples when you burst the fly-headed cursed spirit between your fingers. Was he too weak to throw something stronger at you? A pity. A cursed technique like that could be powerful enough to tip the scales.

The man's breath stutters in his chest when you reappear directly in front of him, your hand still holding the bloodied blade tightening for a second. He’s unable to even grab at his own blade, you slice the sharpened edge of your blade along his right leg from calf to thigh. He stumbles down to one knee in front of you, a caught scream in his throat when you drag the blade upwards.

It bites into his chest, scoring his skin with a blossoming red line that bleeds into the navy of his kimono. In a fluid move, you bring the katana up and over your head. A move that is largely frowned upon by well-trained samurai, their only job is to sever a man's head from his shoulders. The man on his knee before you widens his eyes in horror, no doubt stricken with fear at the grin only Death herself could wear when gifted such a bountiful kill. 

His skull cracks beneath the pressure of your blade, a burst of your energy down the length of the blade empowers the blade to bury itself down until you meet the top of his spine at the base of his neck. His eyes are wide with horror, blood spraying up and into your face. You spy his brain, sliced cleanly in half and it should make your stomach lurch uncomfortably. A man’s entire life, sliced in half by the use of your blade—but no disgust sets in. 

“Seiwa!” A voice you’ve come to know so well in the days of your capture yells from somewhere to your right. 

“You’re late again, Sugawara.” Sukuna snickers, you’re unsure of what he means by ‘again’ – most likely a battle in the past that had occurred between the two. “You failed at saving someone you care for—again.” 

You plant your foot flat against the man’s—Seiwa’s chest, pulling on your blade at the same time with a slick sound. His body falls to the ground, lifeless, two halves of his head holding on by a thread. You turn to find Sugawara staring at you, his chest rising and falling with a pungent type of rage that taints the air with his energy. 

“No longer hiding beneath the skirts of your Shogun?” Your words ignite a fury within Sugawara almost immediately, his fingers minutely tightening around the hilt of his sheathed blade. He was ready to attack at a moment's notice.

“I should’ve cut off your head the moment I saw you.” Sugawara spits the words, and in return earns a scathing glare from Sukuna who turns to face Sugawara. 

“Yes, you should have.” 

Sugawara’s upper lip twitches, as if he were to snarl at you. Instead, his hand slips free from his blade, and you only have a split second to recognise the stance he takes. A hand outstretched, feet planted into the ground and the buzz of the air becomes thicker almost instantaneously. 

The dark clearing of the forest is bathed in a bright red light, you recognise this technique. It was the one that would’ve killed you when you resided in the first temple Sukuna had brought you to, it destroyed the bedroom you were in before you could register what was happening. And this time, Sugawara wasn’t going to miss.

It zips through the air directly at you, blinding you to Sukuna who sprints directly towards Sugawara the moment he releases his technique. You stare with wide eyes at the red ball hurtling towards you, and all you can think to do is force out every bit of your cursed energy. The ball slows before you, the energy buzzing and snapping just inches from your face. 

You move your feet to the side, ready to bend your body out of the way—when suddenly, the red ball of energy vanishes from in front of you.

Time snaps back in place, and you can see Sukuna throwing his fists repeatedly at the invisible barrier that surrounds Sugawara. You can hear the buzz of the energy starting to give to the pressure from Sukuna’s own energy yet Sugawara continues to stare directly at you – his smile is like that of the cat who ate the canary. 

Sukuna snaps his head in your direction suddenly, all four eyes honing in on you in a wide-eyed fashion that paints him in a rare shade of worry. Something hot and wet trickles down along your leg, soaking into the muddy and torn material of the kimono you had managed to keep intact enough to cover your modesty. 

A glance down confirms that the material is turning into a deeper shade of crimson, the gathering of blood so dark it almost looks completely black. Your muscles twitch—or you think they do, your unarmed hand moves to grasp at the twitching pain in your side. Only to find your hand pressing into destroyed organs, your bones protruding from a perfect circle that had ripped through your body.

You think you hear the sound of Sukuna’s shuddering breath at the state of your body, but it’s impossible to hear anything over the roaring of your blood against your brain. Your fingers press into your partially destroyed intestines, feeling your way up until you can feel the muscles pulsing around the rhythmic beat of your heart.

How strange, to feel the beat of your own heart. It’s wetter than you thought, a thick goo that slips against your fingers when you continue to drag your hand up along your body until you find the mangled edge of where your shoulder once was. 

There’s a loud snap and crackle, energy against energy. You look away from the gory mess of your own body to glance forward. Sukuna has his back to you, all muscles tensed and rippling with the effort of his punches. The invisible shield around Sugawara continues to hiss and snap against the effort of trying to bat off his attacks. You can see Sugawara throwing his own punches back, each of them batted off or dodged by Sukuna.

He moves faster than you had ever seen before, was this his natural speed or was he tapping into the portion of his soul that had forged with your own? It’s breathtaking to watch, both of them on a level far beyond your own. Yet Sukuna holds the upper hand, his moves are coated in a deep and shimmering shade of rage. Sugawara injured what was his.

Sukuna shifts slightly, a hand coming to lay flat against the surface of that shield to then explode with an immense concentration of cursed energy. 

It’s enough to throw Sugawara backwards into the tree line, his body nothing but a blade that cuts through trees. Except, it takes no time for his body to reappear, instantly landing with both feet firmly on the ground in front of Sukuna with his sword raised. Your blood sings at the realisation as to what blade that is; the one that nullified your cursed energy.

You move before you can think anything of it. A warmth washes itself down from the top of your spine and through your body, curling at the edges of your frayed and destroyed organs. Flesh reforms itself in the blink of an eye and you can see the surprised look on Sugawara’s face when he spares a glance towards the sudden movement to the side of Sukuna.

The blade you had been using was obliterated in the first attack, so you improvise. 

You ball your newly remade hand into a tight fist, there’s a surge of energy that blossoms at the surface of your fist before it envelops it entirely. The black and red energy is sharper than usual, like it was made to ensure it hits. Sugawara has no time to react to your speed or the reinforced punch you throw his way. It shatters the shield around him, the energy required to keep it functioning splinters off in all directions. 

Your fist collides with his chest, a hard enough punch that the ground shudders beneath you and the mountains in the distance rumble. Sugawara crumbles beneath the pressure, his knees finding a home in the bloodied mud beneath him. His sword dropped next to him, the glowing inscription fading until it was nothing but a simple katana — whoever had gifted him that sword made sure only he could use it.

“H-How?” Sugawara spits the words, blood dripping from his lips and rolling free from his nose. 

“You missed.” Sukuna comments from just over your shoulder, and you can feel the warmth of his energy curling itself delicately around you from the briefest of touches. A gentle hand to heal what you may have overlooked in your haste to ensure Sukuna survived. “You should’ve tried harder. It’s a shame. That, in the end, you’re nothing but a flopping fish. Waiting for mercy.”

Sugawara’s breath comes in short wheezes, each one wetter than the last. You take your place before him, staring down at him like he were nothing but a peasant bowing at your altar. His eyes are a brilliant shade of blue even in the moonlight, they swim with a presence only that a God could possess. These eyes were something else, a gift bestowed upon a man who bowed to that of a mortal human. How disappointing. Perhaps in another life, Sugawara would’ve been a great ally.

His skin is cool beneath your touch, no scars mark his skin and no blemishes. A man untouched by the harshness of the world, and yet you hold his face so delicately. 

“You had a chance to stop this from happening. You could’ve helped me escape and I would’ve left you alone—” Sukuna grunts at your words, clearly displeased. “Yet you chose to be the lapdog of a man who would’ve killed you simply because he could. Sugawara Michizane, you truly were a disappointment.” 

“Then kill me already. Be done with it.” 

“No.” You stroke your thumbs over both of his eyebrows. “You did show me small mercies in the face of men who wanted nothing more to rape me. You kept me clothed, you protected my cell at night from men of my own blood.” 

Sugawara stares up at you through his lashes, watching when you tilt your head to assess the situation once more. He looks nervous, no doubt because Sukuna is starting to growl deep in his chest at the words that continue to pour from your mouth.

“If only that were enough for me to forgive you entirely.” You smile when Sugawara jolts in your grip, your fingers curling into the side of his head and your thumbs come to rest over his eyes. “These eyes—a weapon that you could not yield. Such a waste.”

You press your thumbs inwards, and Sugawara immediately screams at the pressure. You can feel the cursed energy within his eyes, bulging beneath the crushing of your thumbs into his eyes. “These eyes will be the curse of your family. Until the end of time itself, those who are blessed with these eyes—they will die. Be it by my hand or another.”

Sugawara continues to writhe beneath your hands, your fingers squish further into his eyes until you hear—pop. They burst beneath your fingers, the flood of blood that comes after is enough to form a veil over Sugawara’s face.

“Don’t forget my words. It’s no longer a threat, nor a promise. It’s a vow.” You draw your hands back, fingers painted in the blood of a man fallen. Sugawara covers his eyes, scratching at his skin uselessly as if that would be enough to heal what had been done. But it doesn’t—his eyes, unable to reform and lost until the next generation. 

“Now leave.” Sukuna growls, and one of his hands skirts along your back. “Before I change my mind on allowing the mercy that has been given.” 

Sugawara scarpers to his feet, uncaring for the blade he left behind before he turns towards the direction he assumes is the correct way. He trips and falls, a tedious effort to watch until he fades into the shadows. A man gone and lost, in exile until the day he dies. 

“He may return one day.” Sukuna turns his attention to you, and you glance up at him. “There’s no guarantee that he won’t still kill you.”

“He won’t.” You glance away when Sukuna frowns, instead bending down to pluck the forgotten blade from the ground. The engraved words remain dull. “He knows my word to be true.”

Sukuna pulls the blade free from your hand, and you watch him inspect it a little closer. “A cursed tool I’ve never seen before. Its energy is almost non-existent.” 

“It’s the same one he used to nullify my senses, to cut me off from the part of me that’s connected to you. That's why I nearly died.” You brush a finger along the sharp edge, it cuts and yet it does nothing. “It would’ve killed you. Whoever gave him this is something entirely different from Sugawara.” 

Sukuna doesn’t dispute your claim about his near-death encounter, his eyes are calculating. Dancing back and forth along the inscriptions as if he could see the very hand that engraved such a potent amount of cursed energy within a blade. 

“It belonged to the Emperor.” He flips the katana over in his hand before he points the hilt in your direction, letting you take it from him. “Only he possesses cursed energy like that. It’s enough to wipe someone from existence.” 

“Someone that powerful exists?” You ask, glancing up in time to see Sukuna furrow his eyebrows softly. 

“You forget yourself, little one.” A finger tucks itself beneath your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze as he lowers into your space. “You’re just as powerful now. Don’t forget that, ever.”

His words warm you from the inside out, to be praised by the man who sat atop a throne made of those lesser than he. You hadn’t realised it at the time, but you yearned for that. That feeling of acceptance, of being the source of someone’s pride—it was something indescribable. 

A snap of a twig in the distance has your head turning that way, peering into the darkness… yet nothing is revealed. 

“The Shogun is still out there.” You comment, leaning into the warmth of the hand that cups your cheek. 

“He’s been hiding in the shadows for some time,” Sukuna confirms, straightening himself up to his full height and dropping his hand from your face. You try not to mourn the loss. “A coward even moments before his death. How he came into a seat of power—”

“You did kill my father, or tried to.” You point out. It’s true—Sukuna is the reason your uncle has the title now. 

“Tried?” Sukuna exclaims, eyebrows drawing together when you meet his gaze. “What did they do?”

“Cursed him. I killed him myself, for good this time.” Sukuna’s eyebrows relax the moment he registers your words, nodding his head just slightly as if the puzzle in his mind has finally come to fruition.

“I did find it strange that they didn’t spring to action when I dislodged the heart from your father's chest. They must’ve planned for it.” Sukuna glances away from you, staring into the treeline over your head. “We’ll discuss this later. The Shogun is approaching.”

“He bears the same technique as my father.” You step away from Sukuna, turning to face the direction footsteps grow louder from. You hold the katana in your hand tightly; it still does not buzz to life with that cursed energy belonging to the Emperor.

“A shame. I heard the Zen’ins harnessed the shadows, and yet I’ve never witnessed the greatness of it.” Sukuna cracks his neck with a quick roll, shifting his arms slightly to ease up the muscles. It didn’t look like he was nervous or afraid this fight would be tough—in fact, he looked like he was preparing for a grand feast.

Shadows—you’ve read the same. In fact, in your youth, you remember a young boy with hair of black. He owned two dogs, black and white and they were always by his side. At the time you had no idea they were born of shadow, but admittedly you did find it odd when they’d appear out of nowhere. They were only small and no larger than pups — if only you knew the power that boy possessed. 

The clearing around you grows silent, a tension that forms just moments before the inevitable break. You can feel eyes watching you, grazing across your exposed flesh for any weaknesses… but they don’t strike. Sukuna seems to notice it too, as he runs a blood-soaked hand through his hair with a broadening grin on his face.

“They’re hesitating. I can smell their fear, what did you do to them?”

“Nothing they didn’t deserve.” 

Sukuna laughs, dropping the hand from his hair to hold it just before him. Two fingers raised, and his thumb tucked close. “That Samurai spirit in you still lives I see. You give them too much mercy, they deserve to die like the dogs they are.”

Two things happen almost instantaneously; birth and death. The birth of a cursed technique that only Sukuna could muster, and the death of those surrounding you.

You can feel the sudden burst in Sukuna’s cursed energy, as if he had put a dampener on it for the sake of being close to you. It floods the area, and it’s potent enough that you can feel your knees threatening to buckle—to bow to the man and give him the respect he so clearly deserves. 

The treeline before him becomes nothing but splintered bark and torn leaves, the blood that sprays from the bodies eviscerated by the long-range dismantle is like rain. It warms your skin, slinks its way into your pores and burrows itself as if the blood had found its new home. Sukuna only smiled further, all his teeth on show — he was enjoying himself.

There’s a clear path directly before you both. A deep slash through trees and the ground alike, a direct cut towards your target. The Shogun stands at the other end of it, just a dot of a figure in the distance with firelight outlining his body. You recognise his armour, a grand Kabuto helmet and layers upon layers of beautifully woven iron and tatami—it wasn’t his.

It belonged to your father, and his father before him. It was a family heirloom in the hands of a man who had overseen the torture of his niece and cursed his own brother. 

“He dies tonight.” 

“Then we’ll feast on his flesh and pick our teeth with his bones.” Sukuna lowers his stance just slightly, all four arms splaying out—and then he disappears in an instant. 

A familiar pulse tightens behind your eyes, and you watch in fascination as Sukuna moves, unlike anything you’ve seen before. He’s fast, faster than anything you’ve ever seen. He moves as if the world was designed for him to conquer, like a predator who knows he’s at the top of the food chain. 

It’s enough to cause you to spring into action. You follow his trajectory, chasing him through the mud and viscera, it squelches beneath your bare feet and sticks to your already filthy skin — but it’s not enough to stop you from pushing yourself forward with every drop of cursed energy you can use. 

Naturally, it’s Sukuna who reaches the opening filled with the most elite members of the Shogunate, minus Sugawara. There’s an obvious space next to the Shogun where he should stand, and immediately Sukuna notices it. He strikes his way through the men in front of him, tearing them asunder with just his bare hands and teeth. He grins in delight when said men scream in agony when his claws sink into armour that was designed to prevent their deaths.

But nothing in this world could stop the natural disaster that is Sukuna Ryomen. 

You follow after him, the katana in your hand comes second to the slicing with your own hand. You enjoy the warmth of fresh blood seeping into your skin, how it curls around your fingers and dries beneath your nails. Their screams are muted against the whooshing and roaring of your own blood, how that darkness within you sings in delight at each life you take with the bareness of your own hand.

It even purrs when you use a sword that isn’t your own. It may not come back to life with the cursed energy imbued by the Emperor himself but it doesn’t need to. Your own energy wraps around it like an old friend, it slices through more than just the fabric of their clothing and the fat of their flesh. It’s as if it cuts at the very surface of the world itself; nothing can stop you.

You lose sight of both Sukuna and the Shogun amid the dance with your blade. The blood sullies your vision, it drowns out the fact you’re outnumbered ten to one — the numbers mean nothing to you when each pulse of energy that rushes through you is like that of a caress from Sukuna himself. He purrs at the back of your mind, grinning in delight at the small Angel of Death he had curated with his very own hand.

It isn’t until you realise you’ve massacred your way through a lengthy portion of the awaiting army that you’ve also made your way closer to Sukuna. He’s made his way through a much larger portion of the wall between himself and the Shogun, bodies are torn and ripped apart around him. One hand is wrapped tightly around what must be someone’s leg, a large chunk of it missing as his stomach chews thoroughly. 

He notices you approaching, his lone eyebrow raising in amusement at the state of your being. You can feel blood in places it shouldn’t be, your hair is matted and flat to your head as if you’d dunked yourself in it. It soaks and settles in that dark deep place of yourself; the blood of your family and the innocents who served their Shogun blindly continues to taint your dwindling soul. 

“He isn’t attacking.” You comment, noticing the Shogun still hidden behind three men who must be deemed his strongest. His sword is drawn yet he doesn’t make a move. Truly a coward until the very end. “It’s not unexpected, however. He could only hurt me when I was bound and useless.”

“I see.” Sukuna growls, a deep rumble deep in his chest and his eyes are narrowed towards the Shogun. He still doesn’t know the true extent of what you had gone through and yet he bares his teeth as if he had been the one nearly drowned on a flat table, as if he was the one stripped bare whilst they whipped at your skin with blunt wooden objects and flayed you for the world to see.

One man steps forward out of the formation they’ve created around the Shogun—and he vanishes into nothing but a pile of mush; a single flick of Sukuna’s hand had secured his death. The Shogun visibly flinches, and that’s when it dawns on you… he has never faced Sukuna. 

It was your father, and the men before him. Your Uncle would’ve been hidden away in the estate, kept safe and secure beneath the cloth of his mother's dress. He was outmatched, and he knew it.

“Face your death like the Samurai you are.” Sukuna snaps, his fingers curling around the leg in his hand until it breaks with a loud crunch. “Or I will pluck you from the ground you stand upon and make you beg for death.” 

You both watch in silence as the two remaining guards exchange a glance with each other, a clear look of anxiousness for what their Shogun might say or do. General Jien, the Shogun, only deepens his scowl as if Sukuna had thrown mud at him instead of offering him a chance of an honourable death. 

…He does not step forward to face his death.

Sukuna all but smiles, and he vanishes in the blink of an eye. Two of his hands press against the remaining guards, and they too have only a nanosecond to realise their death has come to them. Slices appear on their skin—and then the bodies fall to the ground. Their swords sink into the mud and flesh, their armour now empty husks.

The Shogun reels back at just how quickly Sukuna moves, and he attempts to swing his blade. You can taste the sourness of his cursed energy behind the swing, it buzzes and lashes out in an attempt to fight but ultimately loses out in the battle of dominance against Sukuna’s own. Sukuna moves his hand to grab ahold of the blade, his black claws scrape loudly against the material until he has a firm grip.

Then… he simply shatters it into a million different little pieces. 

“Pathetic.” Two of his hands grab ahold of the Shogun’s arms, holding them up and out of the way. Before a third arm shoots forward, his fingers all together to form a tight fist—and then it bursts through the stomach of your uncle. He screams, the wetness of his voice is something you’ve wanted to hear for a long time.

Sukuna pulls his speared arm back through the stomach of your uncle, and you can hear the rip and squelch of something before he pulls free the length of his intestines. They fall flat to the ground in a growing pile, and with each passing second your uncle grows paler and paler. His hand, now free of the intestines, shoots forward again. 

His claws sink into the armour covering the Shogun’s chest, ripping apart the iron as if it were nothing to him. Perhaps it is nothing to a man-made monster like Sukuna. Your Uncle's scream is silent this time, his mouth agape and eyes threatening to close for good when Sukuna grabs ahold of his ribcage… and pulls it free from his body.

The half he snapped clean off falls to the side, dripped in flesh and thinly stretched sinew. It makes your heart pulse in your chest. His hand dips back into the opening now to the side of his body, and you watch as Sukuna takes his time to pick and choose which organs to pull free from his body… as if he knew what would prolong his death before he inevitably died from blood loss.

“Wait.”

Sukuna stops once he throws what must be the kidney to the stomach that’s waiting for more food to feast on. He glances over his shoulder at you and he looks wild. Beyond it, even. His pupils are pinpricks, the skin and second face he wears is coated in glittering crimson red and he almost looks like he may attack you out of instinct.

“I want to make him suffer too.” You say, taking a step forward to Sukuna who’s muscles bulge with tension and veins that pop along said muscles. He’s holding himself back. “Please. Allow me.” 

His upper lip twitches before he relents, he releases both of the arms he was holding to hold the Shogun high enough to rip him apart tooth and nail. Immediately, Jien crumbles to his knees on the floor, sinking into his own intestines and other bodily matters. He looks like he’s dancing the fine line between life and death, but you haven’t granted him that privilege yet. 

Your fingers wrap around the grand horns of the Kabuto helmet, lifting it free from your uncle’s head and wordlessly Sukuna takes it from your hands. You finally see your uncle bare in the moonlight, his face is gaunt and his eyes unfocus the longer he stares up at you. 

“Do you remember what you said to me?” You ask, but no answer comes. Your uncle's tongue lays dormant on the floor next to your foot. Sukuna had torn that out with just two fingers when your uncle started to squeal like a pig.

“You called me a filthy pig and a whore. You let your men fantasize about raping me. You sold me to Sugawara like a broodmare.” You don’t focus on the growing sound of thunderous snarling behind you. “Death is too good for you, General.”

You swing the blade still in your hand, the head of the Shogun thumps to the ground and his body remains kneeled before you. His death should squash that pain within you, it should quell that rage and still… you feel nothing but anger, a raging type of storm that bubbles deep in your gut and tightens your throat. 

Sukuna says nothing when you bury the tip of the blade into the ground next to your uncle's now still body, nor does he comment when you pick up his dismembered head. Only to plant it atop the hilt of the blade, his mouth agape and eyes wide with the fading image of his executioner. 

“It’s done.” Sukuna softly speaks into the night, the screams of the dead die out when his hand lays against your back. “Home awaits us. A hot spring too.” 

Your eyes flutter when you turn to look up at Sukuna, and he peers down at you with what might just be a flash of empathy. But then it’s gone when you blink again, the dots that fill your vision blot out his face. His hands grasp at you, two large arms holding you up against his chest when your legs can no longer hold your weight fully. 

“Home.” You whisper, weakly brushing your bloodied and bruised fingers against Sukuna’s face. He visibly leans into the touch. “Take me home.”

“As you wish.” And for the first time since he had found you, he presses his lips against your forehead. It’s a lingering touch that has your mind blanking and eyes closing fully, a warmth that races down from the top of your head all the way to your toes… a welcome sleep after all that you have endured. 

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