Hi, my name is Crimson. (Or Crimzie, Koyo, I have plenty of nicknames). This account will likely be a Jjk fanfiction and fanart account. Though It will primarily be for Sukuna. His character helped me through some hard times so he holds a place in my heart. But truth be told I don't know how to use Tumblr well... And also uh that stuff is hard, so I don't know how often I'll post. This is honestly quite nerve wracking. Additionally, I might potentially write some mature content eventually if I work up the nerve and confidence so minors please stay off my page. Thank you lovelies.
ΝᎪᏙᏆᏀᎪͲᏆϴΝ: Originals, Fanfiction, Art, Master List
ᎡᎬᏟᎬΝͲՏ: Mithridatism Chapter 6
ҒᎪᏙϴᎡᏆͲᎬՏ: Pretty Princesses, Mithridatism
ᏆΝͲᎬᎡᎪᏟͲᏆΝᏀ ᏔᏆͲᎻ ᎷᎬ:
Feel free to comment and ask me questions about any of my works. I really enjoy being in a community. I can talk Jujutsu Kaisen for hours on end, especially Sukuna, but I enjoy other things too. Ask me about the orginal Yu-Gi-Oh! series and Season Zero and I’d be happy. Or you could ask me how I create my poetry or how I go about writing stories. Either way commentary and community is nice, but please be respectful. Love you all. Mwah.
Also please don't use my dividers without permission please! Give credit if you use them.
Has anybody ever thought about just how much this man fucking weighs?
I mean let's think about it.
So someone did the scaling calculations to see how tall he is based on actual real life metrics used in the manga... And they concluded him to be seven three.
All might is 7'2-7'3.
And with the extra arms Imma say Sukuna is a bit bulkier.
In the beginning of my hero academia when deku was trying to clean the beach he said something about how with you sitting on top of it it's 600 more pounds and Almighty is like, "actually I lost some weight. It's 560."
So you can presume Sukuna is at least 600 range...and that's omg that's...imagine if he fell on you and passed out. That would be HORRIBLE.
And like in fan fictions, Heian era, most people have him riding a horse (or war horse.) the poor horse.
Thinking of Sukuna as a dragon cause I'm reading Onyx Storm (I'm so irritated with this book. It's taking too long to read because some of the plot points) and Tairn, Violet's dragon roars and she goes, "was that really necessary?" "No, but I found it amusing," and it made me think of Sukuna.
Sukuna is so dragon, big cat coded. Maybe one day I'll write a story about either or....one day...
anon in my inbox said fanfic writers who wrote about dark and taboo topics were not “real writers” because of what they wrote about.
reblog if you believe anon is wrong and writers are writers, no matter what they write about. no matter how they portray these taboo topics.
reblog if you believe art can be about topics that are controversial, taboo or outright disturbing, and artists who create controversial, taboo or outright disturbing art are as valid as artists who create art of conservative values.
I'm horribly confused how dark and taboo topics make people not real writers...do they not still craft a story?? Do they still not have to work with prose??
Pairing: True Form Heian Era Sukuna x Reader | Explicit | Slow Burn
(I have yet to decide if there will be spice.)
Read on A03
Summary: As long as you can remember Mama has always been good with herbs. They would all call her a healer, and travel far for her mixtures and tonics. You followed in her footsteps. Even the one's that lead deep into the dark.
Poison.
A power in a world you were powerless. Creatures terrorized, and killed. You could see them where you walk, as none others notice. It was your way to be strong.
Nothing is left of her but your memories. Taken too soon. All you want is freedom from the world that took her, and you can get it. All you have to do is kill him.
The King of Curses.
(Be Mindful of the tags. I will probably be tagging as a I go since this story isn't fully devleoped.)
Content Warning: This work contains graphic violence, gore, body horror, and psychological horror. Reader Discretion is advised.
Tags: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. Slow Burn, Power Imbalance, Psychological Horror, Dark Fantasy, Graphic Violence, Graphic Gore, Body Horror, Blood and Gore, Sukuna is a Little Shit, Sukuna is a God, Sukuna is a Monster, Alternate Universe - Heian Period, Reader Does Not Have Technique, Sukuna’s Original Form, Heian Era Sukuna, Historically Inaccurate (probably), Cannibalism, Enemies to Lovers, Past Sexual Trauma, Non-Consensaul Touching
Pairing: True Form Sukuna x Reader | Explicit | Slow Burn
Content Warning: This work contains graphic violence, gore, body horror, and psychological horror. Reader Discretion is advised. CANNIBALISM!
Check Masterlist
Chapter 5 | Chapter 7
Sukuna sits at his throne, head tilting as he ponders.
Jyuria has been on poor path since coming to his shrine, but the girl was honest. When he’d requested her presence she hadn’t been able to maintain eye contact, stupid, it effectively made her blind, and he could have killed her at any time.
That would have been boring. Besides, she was rather forthcoming. She hadn’t know how to lie, and so Sukuna believed her when she explain she had only found out you were leaving the shrine day of, and had begged you not to go.
Sukuna decided he’d leave her alone. This time.
She suffers enough.
There would be no fun in breaking her further, she was already a shattered toy you kept trying to put back together.
Chiyuki and Ryota however.
His lips curl up at the thought of what he would do to them both. The moment you had left his shrine, he knew. Uraume had alerted him without a hesitation, as they always told him of what happens in the walls of his home. He waits for the boy to come. He thinks it was interesting that the boy waits to appear. Was he not afraid of what repercussions he would face?
He clicks his tongue, head nodding in disapproval of the boys foolishness. Tapping a bovine skull his nail drags slowly against the bone with a screech.
The boy would learn just how much of an idiot he was. Believing Sukuna to be unaware of the happenings of his shrine. He would lose a leg for the transgression perhaps, being too slow to bring him the news, or maybe Sukuna would take his tongue seeing as the boy didn’t know how to use it.
A loud scrape pierces the hall, before Sukuna’s nail stops. The door has cracked open. Not Ryota, but one he intends to punish nonetheless. The girl trembles as she slowly creeps into the haiden. Her knees dip into the wood as she brings her body to the floor, bowing deep.
“Chiyuki,” he hums the trembling girls name softly, hiding the hostility all know he’s capable of. “I’m disappointed.”
He tilts his head as his words break a cold sweat along the girls body. Such a chattering bug, oddly silent. It’s curious. Her bowing body rises in shaky breaths, and she does not dare look up at him. Her shape shifts from a bow into that of a child resting in a ball for comfort. It was always a delight to watch. The manifestation of fear.
Some it made into cowards, like Chiyuki before him. Others would push through, body shaking, lips bitten until they leak blood. The truly rare ones were the ones to lash out in fear, guised as rage. It was different for all, and oh so pleasing for him to watch. He remains quiet, to keep the girl on her toes. The only sound, his calm breath compared to her panicked pants pushing past her lips.
“Did you think it wise?” She jolts from the suddenness of his voice in the quiet. It pleases him to see her so scared. A single sentence and she jumps in fear.
“No, My Lord, I was unwise.” His lips kiss at his teeth, a noise of disappointment.
“You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you through the floor, girl.” Chiyuki’s head rises hesitantly, arms wrapping around her torso. Her eyes flaming red from the tears she cannot keep at bay.
“I was unwise. I- I apologize.”
“Why do it?” His brow raises. One set of eyes stares down at her, the other analyzes his nails, picking at the dirt beneath them. “Why risk my displeasure?”
She swallows. Croaks, swallows again.
“Do you understand family, My Lord?” His eyes roll slowly as he scoffs at the question.
“Meaningless concept,” he concludes.
Her throat bobs, her nails dig into her own arms. “Then—I am afraid you will not understand. I value family. When she told me she visits her mother’s grave every year—” her voice dies, turning into a whining Sukuna couldn’t distinguish. It was a pathetic display of her losing her composure she was working so hard to maintain. “It felt wrong not to help her.”
He huffs, both mouths slack with boredom. “You helped her leave because…it felt wrong?”
“Yes.”
A laugh booms from his chest, head falling back against his throne. How truly foolish. He can feel his body rumble with each sound that fell across Chiyuki’s ears like a slap. It fizzles out slowly as he tilts his head back down to look at the girl who still kneels. Her eyes wide, her mouth opened as if he had smacked all thought from her brain.
“And what do you suppose your punishment should be?” He leans back, observing her as she gapes at him. Like he had plucked her from a pond and she has forgotten how to breath.
“You wish…for me, to choose my own punishment?” Her lips roll together slowly, tongue slipping to wet the pink broken flesh. “You’re not going to kill me?”
His hum has her brows furrowing. His finger taps against his throne, a thoughtful expression wrinkling his nose.
“I thought about it,” he tells her with a grin. “It would be easy. But the satisfaction of watching that brat cry about how sorry she is you were hurt is more amusing. You helped her leave, and now—you’ll help me give her unspeakable pain, with your misery.”
“Wouldn’t she cry if I were dead?” Chiyuki’s brow lifts in question, though her voice is timid.
“Sure, but it’s not what I want right now.” Watery tears drips down Chiyuki’s cheeks. Sukuna smiles, pleased. “So, what will it be?”
“I cannot come up with such a thing. I apologize, you can punish me as you wish.” Her head hangs, water dripping slowly to the floor from her cheeks. Her body shudders with her silent sobbing.
“Puh. A weak imagination?” He rises from his throne. She is small as a bug, easily squashed under his feet. It’s disgustingly pathetic really.
He creeps closer, like a dragon coming out of the entrance of it’s cave. The air churns. A thrum builds slowly through the air, following his form like a slithering snake. “If you are useless, I suppose I’ll find a suitable punishment.”
Though, this displeased him as he stopped above her form. Lowering himself, he braces his lower hands against the floor. Another tilts up her chin. “Provide me with some ideas,” he quietly demands the girl. “You had an injury awhile back. What was it?”
She sputters as his fingers touch her skin. She jolts with no thought, making him narrow his gaze at her. “I was cleaning the roof of the shrine, it’s breaking. I fell. Hurt my back.”
He mulls it over, top two eyes flitting up towards the ceiling as he thinks. Annoying. It hadn’t given him any ideas at all. One eye flits to her snotty crying face. Another looks at the arms coiling protectively at her stomach.
Snapping her spine would be no fun. There was a chance she would die.
“Yes, that was why Uraume provided you opium, I remember.”
What to do?
“Still no ideas?” Her lips wobble at the question. So she had found one. “Speak it.”
“You can have three fingers.” His head tilts at this, mouth puckering into a frown while she mutters it in a quiet whisper.
“Mellow don’t you think?” He draws the hand she extends to him closer, with his upper arm. His thumb rubs against the calluses on her skin. Good worker to develop calluses. It has him grunting in thought, muscles flexing as he readjusts his position. He’s closer now, a shadow across Chiyuki’s skin.
“If you take these, my job is harder, she’ll feel more guilty,” Chiyuki says pointing down at her right hands pointer, ring, and thumb. “Though I will probably be slower.” He could tolerate that, if the effects she stated were true. Though, he wanted more. More incentive for not just you to obey, but for her as well.
A sigh escapes his lips. The idea was better than nothing, but he’d have to adapt it somehow. The noise pulls an audible swallow from Chiyuki’s throat, and he finally, after a long span of silence agrees.
“Okay.”
The cuts are quick. Precise as his cursed energy flares, enveloping the room like a choking cloud of ash. Plop, plop, plop. Each finger drops to the floor, a stream of red beginning to coat them. He looks at the severed digits, a smile slowly drawing across his lips.
That’s what I’ll do.
He picks up the thumb, waggles in front of Chiyuki’s eyes. Her weeping eyes. Her screaming open mouth. He jams the thumb in the gap between her teeth. “Chew.” Her head shifts back and forth while he holds her mouth closed.
“Do as I say.” Tears drip across his fingers, mixing with the blood drenching the floor below. He feels it, slow, uncomfortable bites. She obeys, and he smiles, a look not of comfort but of delight. “Good, ready for another?”
“No—please no!” She wails as his hand leaves her face. He coos, low and quiet.
“Come now, you can do it. I’m sure.” The girl looks on the brink of passing out, so he taps at her cheek. “Stay awake. Look, I’ll eat with you.” He grabs the other two fingers lying on the floor. One he slips between her teeth, watching her jaw clench with a whine. The other he brings to his own lips, teeth snapping down with a light crunch. They chew together slowly savoring the fingers. He spits out the bone, letting it thump against the bloody floorboards.
“Was that so hard?” His voice was sickly sweet as he allows Chiyuki to pull back. Her body rocks back and forth as she holds her hand. Quiet little sobs escape her throat, covered by his laughter. He watches her blood and tears drip.
“Chiyuki, you’re dismissed.”
With her scrambling away his immediate amusement drains. He sits back now, arms folding over the frown across his abdomen, and his face draws into a similar pout. It had been fun in the moment, but now all he can think about is how much the experience lacked.
Chiyuki was not like you. She did not lash out at him with mud. She gave in quick, had no bite. No fire. He didn’t like it, the feeling of something lacking.
Something he felt when he was young, and a feeling that slowly faded with time. Until you.
Your nerve had made him feel something. It was odd. Something he didn’t believe he was capable of feeling since that day.
But when you stood up to him, foolish as it was, he felt it. Deep inside his gut a pang of the past would steal the air from his lips. An instant later you would sob, and that uncomfortable familiar feeling would die. He was reminded each time.
You were truly afraid, not like her.
His Butterfly.
Though, it was something he couldn’t ignore. That feeling. He hated it, wished with a passion he could just kill you and never feel it again. But he’d grown to miss it, the fracture of something he once had. Someone he dearly missed.
But it was different. There was a reminder of his past, but also the look in your eyes. It intrigued him. Made him want to prod your mind, see what secrets it held. Why were you so brave. It was annoying.
So deep in his head the door sounds far away, but he hears it. The creak of old wood. His lower left eye peers towards it.
“Sukuna-sama,” the monk greets with a polite nod to their head.
“Uraume.” Sukuna regards the monk as he rises from his seat on the floor. They look back at him, watching silently as he flicks the dirt that had accumulated on the fabric of his hakama. Sukuna’s hands come back from the wet fabric red, and his lips turn downward in a frown.
“He has arrived,” Uraume says finally as Sukuna finishes composing himself. In turn, Sukuna dismisses his servant with a lazy wave of his hand, blood splotching random places with the momentum.
“Very well.”
Ryota’s steps are sticky against the blood of Chiyuki’s finger removal. Each squelch made him wince, lips drawing up to his nose, disgust from the blood seeping into his shoes plain on his face. He peers down at the liquid, his reflection staring back up at him as Sukuna remains silent waiting for him to speak.
The wind snaps against the building, like the thud of Ryota’s heart. Two hours he waited. Disgustingly late for a report. Ryota chews at his lip, and Sukuna wonders what lie shall spew from his mouth at an attempt at safety.
The pause in time that seems to stretch will not save him. The gnawing of his teeth will not save him. He looks up slowly, meeting the narrowing red eyes looking upon him.
“Someone stole a horse.” His hip shifts ever so often as he readjusts his weight from one leg to the other. Eyes drift back, to stare at the bones that line Sukuna’s throne behind him. A queasy look spreads over his face, like he saw something horribly disturbing, or thought it. It leaves a soft curl to Sukuna’s lips.
“When?” Ryota’s pupils shake, small dots rapidly swishing side to side. Fear it seems, was not what had kept him away from Sukuna for two hours. Because Ryota was struggling to get in enough air. His chest was rising too fast and his lips stuck open as he thought of what to say. Sukuna patiently waited, sucking in the scent of metal in the air, from Chiyuki’s blood.
“I don’t know.” Ryota’s words leave him painfully slow, as Sukuna’s head tilts again. The boy could not even come up with a compelling lie? It wasn’t as if he wasn’t allowed plenty of time. It was truly pathetic Sukuna thought as one eye veers to the side looking for something more interesting than the boys display.
“And why is it, that you were not watching the stables, boy?” Sukuna waits for the lie. He knew Ryota had been there, he only waits to see if it will be interesting.
“I fell asleep. My lord, I apologize.” How boring.
“You…fell asleep?” Sukuna’s arms fold over as he speaks. His nose wrinkles in distaste, his lip rising with it. He didn’t even try.
“Yes.” Ryota dips his head low. It’s not enough. Even Chiyuki had the wisdom to give Sukuna proper bow. This boy had no brain in his head, that was clear now.
“How foolish.” His energy sparks with a flick of his fingers. The sound of flesh separating from flesh is all that is heard at first. Then the screaming as Ryota’s leg falls to the floor starts. The boy grabs at the hump as he falls in the opposite direction, clattering to the floor, blood spitting up at his face.
“Shall I ask you again?”
Ryota’s vocals remind Sukuna of that of a squealing pig. The lack of an answer irritates him, bringing him to the decision that perhaps he hadn’t done enough. “Next it will be your tongue.”
“Opium,” he screams, flailing against the floor. “Chiyuki had some left over opium, she promised…she promised.” The howls of agony grates at Sukuna’s nerves. The boy squirms too much, screams too much. It scratches at his ear drums, making him sneer. More blood pools, mixing with the previous spillage and he remembers you.
So bold on the floor like Ryota, refusing to do what he commands. Such a disappointment this all was.
“Be quiet.”
“How am I to be—” A large divot forms in the wood before his eye. Not a request, Ryota bites his tongue. The screams dwindle to almost silent sobs, and Sukuna can think once more.
“So, you risk your life for the equivalent of poppy seed?” Sukuna shakes his head with a chortle on his lips. “Of course. Didn’t you beg for work because your addiction had ran you out of home. Such weakness.”
“You—remember?” Ryota grits through his teeth. He tries not to scream, so he speaks slow, pained.
“Of course I do. I know everything about my shrine. Hope the opium was worth it, you’ll receive no more.” The scent of blood permeates the air as Sukuna strides back to his throne, dropping into his seat.
“You cut off my leg.”
“I won't be feeding your addiction boy. Go, find someone to clean this place up.” He watches Ryota cry out as he wails. His hips shimmy across the floor, the man unable to get up. His nails work into the wood of the haiden, and the blood gives him momentum to skid. It’s wonderful in Sukuna’s ears, and he snickers at the sounds leaving Ryota’s lips in pain.
Uraume re-enters the room as Ryota has finally clawed his way out. They watch the streak of blood that follows him, sighing at the mess that needs to be cleaned. Though, Sukuna is sure they expect nothing less from him at this point.
“Store that leg,” Sukuna points at the lone limb surrounded by blood.
“Of course Sukuna-sama. I’ll make sure it gets done.” The white haired monk remains in the room, quiet a moment. “Shall I go for her?”
“No. Allow her to see this through,” Sukuna responds, head tilting up to stare at the wooden boards making his ceiling. “I have heard that the Kusatta have a found a rare powder since they stole my land.”
Sukuna remembers it all like it was yesterday. The first shrine he had lived. He hadn’t been revered as a God then. But by the time he was done with the people there, who had betrayed him, it was mostly rubble, along with the accompanying town. He lived in the largest home he hadn’t completely destroyed. It was small, covered in the bones of small animals he had hunted on his own.
He remembers when Uraume had joined him. Flowers preserved in ice so that his butterfly may wear them again and again. He sees Uraume running to him to say that men have come to take the land. He was far too weak then. He'd have it back. His land, then he would kill them all.
“This allows them to cross over, see their loved ones for a time.”
“And you want this powder? You wish to see her?” Uraume’s plum eyes widen, their stance faltering for just a moment, before they return to a state that looks impassive. Sukuna knows better. Uraume is thinking of his Butterfly. “It’s been years.” It’s a quiet whisper.
“No.” Sukuna says picking at a piece of Chiyuki’s skin stuck in his teeth. “Perhaps. Maybe it will alleviate this annoying feeling.” The idea pricks at him. To see her. See her and feel her. It was too appealing. All that stops him is that he can picture her face drooping into a frown. She would smack at his face telling him she said let her rest. Such a irritated little thing without her rest.
“What feeling,” Uraume asks, raising their brows at their first friend.
“Longing.” The words are bitter, like Sukuna had swallowed rotted flesh, and it displeased his tongue.
“I see.” Uraume eyes him as his face twists into something uncomfortable, unusual. Disgust.
“What do we know of this powder?” Sukuna’s head rests on his fist. Lip curled in annoyance as he asks. A horrible feeling cloys at his throat from his chest, and he despises it, and more, he despise it leads to you in a way.
“Not much Sukuna-sama. It is a ground substance, consumed or burned. I would ask someone from the clan.” This answer pulls an irritated sigh from his lips. Jyuria was asleep by now, being the first he had questioned. You were gone. That left him only one.
“Tell Tomika that I require her in my chambers. Make sure she’s quick.” With a groan he rises to slink into the room behind the haiden. His private quarters that nobody was allowed in without his permission.
And he waited for the whining whore to step in.
₊⊹
Tomika enters the room, robe already mussed, expectantly. Strands of beautiful multi-colored silk fabric drips across the floor, dragging like a waterfall behind her. She bats her eyelashes at him, before her eyes dip to look down at her breast and her stomach. Her lips curl in a wince.
Her eye flick back up to look into his, into shades of blood. Lips pushing out in a pout, slick with saliva she speaks in honeyed words. “You called for me, My Lord?”
Sukuna curls his fingers towards him with a sigh. She drapes herself upon the space in his lap, looking up at him for encouragement he doesn’t provide.
“How are your scars?” She mistakes his tone for soft inquiry, it’s not. He simply wants to know if she has a use yet.
“Painful,” she whines to him, and he almost tosses her off him right then in annoyance.
How disappointing.
He slides a hand down her shoulder, peeling her robes off anyway. Her skin puckers where his dismantle hit. She frowns as his eyes focus on those lines of flesh. Uncaring about her feelings he sneers as the hurt floods her eyes. He enjoys that until she hits at his chest.
She didn’t understand how this worked. Not yet. He catches her hand on the second blow, his grip tightening as she gasps, jerking back. The fight she brings should have pleased him, but it just made him believe she was idiotic.
He slips his fingers meanly over the first mar on her skin. Watches the color drain from her face and her body go still.
“I don’t like that.”
“I don’t care.” He traced the second one. “The brat and Uraume have tended to you nicely. It’ll just be a scar soon.”
“It’s ugly,” she hisses back at him. He huffs.
“Don’t you like the things I give you?” Pretty kimonos and fancy jewelry he cared little about. Still, it had made Tomika beam to receive such things, and so she shudders now.
“Y-yes but—” she bites down on the inside of her cheek. “This is not the same.”
“Ungrateful,” he spits. Not that he expects the girl to enjoy having scars. He only wishes she would stop whining about them. “Tell me what you know about the powder to see the dead.”
Her eyes widen in surprise at the sudden shift in topics, so he combs a hand slowly through her hair, turning her body slowly into mush. A distraction. A lower hand creeps to her waist, sliding beneath the soft fabric pressing against her skin.
“Why do you wanna know about that?” Her lips puff out, and her hips shift to feel his fingers better. He obliges her wants, observing the way her head tilts back, the pleased expression gracing her eyes.
“Does it matter? I do. So start speaking.” He toys with her. Just enough to have her lips parting out a sigh, but not enough for her to start crying he was too rough.
“It’s uh—common powder among nobility. Maybe their servants. There uh main servants.” He hums in her ear urging her to speak more. Her eyes shift up as she tries to recall something. Then her brow wrinkles with a breathless whine. “Why do you care? So slow.”
Sukuna’s tongue clicks, and his arms draw back, pushing her onto the floor beside his bed. Fine blue silk flies in all directions and she stares up at him cheeks burning pink. She pats herself down, fingers running over golden stitching of vines that span along the sleeves. With a huff she sits up, staring up at him, pulling the garments up. Her lips tremble as she hesitates to say something.
“Now, the powder?” Sukuna nudges her to speak clearly done with the route that would have pleased the girl. Now she can sit, uselessly and speak.
“I used it only once. I didn’t use enough so I didn’t pass over. I saw a flash of the next day instead. It’s effects are based on quantity.”
“Is that all?” he mutters, unpleased with what little that explains things. The girl pouts up at him.
“No,” she scoffs. “It is a ground mushroom. Black—”
“With purple spots that glow,” Sukuna cuts her off, remembering a patch he found in the forest at one time. Tomika’s face plummets with displeasure.
“Yes. Now can we—”
He doesn’t allow her to finish once again. One hand points towards the door.
“You can leave.”
“But I thought we were going to…” she trails off, slowly lifting herself to gather her robe close to her body. She holds an embroidered hummingbird over her heart as she turns dejected.
“Not until those heal. You whine too much about them,” Sukuna rolls his eyes at her disappointment, though he doesn’t truly care.
Another time.
“Okay.” Tomika patters away, and finally Sukuna moves with the intent to find the foolish insect that ran from his shrine.
His nose wrinkles at the blood that still remains in his haiden, but passes it by. Once he makes it out to the stables the air is cold and cutting, but fresh, pushing around the smell of dirt. His horse, the black warhorse, has already been prepped for him. Uraume’s doing, surely.
Following your trail is easy. Your mares hooves marks dig into the dirt, an easy guide for Sukuna to follow. He could easily force you back to the shrine, but he decides to allow you to return home. So he doesn’t use the horses full speed, instead going a leisurely pace. Each minute the air chills further, kissing at his cheeks.
It’s not nearly enough to make him feel the chill your tiny body surely does.
A small part of him is impressed that the prints of hooves keep going. You still hadn’t stopped. Smart girl using the time Ryota took to speak with him to your advantage. He’d expected to see your horse tied up by now, and you slumped, curling into a tree. He supposes you deserve more credit.
The sun rises slowly, draping the world in orange, and still he does not see your form. He doesn’t think you are too far up ahead. But he stops a moment to allow his mount to rest. He doesn’t truly need the break, but he’s sure you do, and if you saw him you’d run.
So he camps around the river, lounging as he waits. He doesn’t know how long to wait, doesn’t understand your brain just yet. Your patterns. Were you asleep, or was your horse running fast back towards the Kusatta compound?
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll catch up when he pleases. For now, he enjoys the deer he has hunted, shooting it in the neck with a dismantle. He strips the fur from it’s skin. He’d bring it with him, it had use for something. Then he roasts the meat on a fire, allowing himself to gorge until midday approaches.
Snow starts to coat the ground. Flakes bunch in his lashes, which he bats away. He extinguishes the fire with a kick of dirt. Climbs upon his horse and he is off once more. The snow is drowning your prints, but that’s fine. He knows where he’s going like the back of his hand. He could probably beat you home if he tried. But he doesn’t.
He follows the tracks until snow removes them. Then he just takes the path he knows. The change from day to night is gradual, and he finds himself pleased with the sound of the forest around him. The padding of an animal on the hunt for food. The skittering of a deer that runs at the sight of him, eyes blank.
The snow is thick once it’s dark. He wonders if perhaps he’d find your corpse. He would be so disappointed. Though the thought does make him snicker. You trying so hard to get home just to die a slow death in the cold. Your fingers purple as they shiver, ice clinging to your skin.
But he doesn’t think it’s going to happen. You’re too smart for that. He’s proven right as he reaches a cluster of trees the next morning. The ground is covered in prints of your small feet, and hooves, not yet stolen by the snow. A hole sits not to far away.
Clever girl.
A smile passes his lips as he feels the warmth against his hand as he presses it into the dirt. Fresh. You’re not far. Neither is the compound. So close. He can’t wait to see your horror. For now he backs away from the dirt, approaching his horse that remains calm the entire journey.
He’ll be seeing you very soon. He’s sure. From there it’s a days ride to the compound, and he camps just outside the the entrance. Far enough not to alert anyone, but close enough to watch you toss your mare’s reins.
He waits.
You don’t come back out until morning. He uses the time to think back. The shrine he knew was gone. Torn down for something bigger, newer, brighter. His face slackens at the thought.
This place disgusts him.
Your need to be here disgusts him.
And he follows far enough away once you climb onto your horse. He stops behind the mare you have tied, drops to his feet holding his own reins.
You untangle your hair, and he pouts. He expected more. You braid a plant into your hair, but this is not what he came for.
You light a brazier and the fire churns purple.
There it was.
He stays away from the smoke that starts to form around you. An infection he doesn’t intend to grant himself just yet. You sit, still as a plank of wood, and he watches from where the horses stand.
You do not move at first. Then you call for your mother. Your body rises up, turning towards him with milky white eyes. Your brows curl, pressing into a wrinkle on your forehead.
Silent his eyes narrow as you call for her again. Ask where she’s at. Each minute you look more disoriented, more confused. He does nothing to help you.
You begin to fumble in the snow. His face curls into a nasty look. This isn’t what he wants. You were supposed to be a flame, to punch and kick at what you face.
But you turn in a circle, head snapping this way and that. He finds his teeth grinding, both sets at this display. You look less like you, and more like a whimpering child. And you drop into the snow. Your cheek devoured by the white frost.
He wants to snap at you to get up, but he refrains watching those milky eyes trace something he cannot see. Your mare stamps in alarm, bucking at the reins keeping it tied down, unable to go to you or flee. He places his hand on it’s neck, feeling the veins beneath his palm.
Your mare is warm, but scared. It’s ears dart, it’s legs buck.
“Shhh,” he whispers to the horse, petting down it’s side until it just sits there nickering quietly.
Then his eyes are on you once more.
“Get up,” he hisses, too low for you to hear. It bothers him you don’t listen, and he starts to approach. The smoke smells bitter, and with it came a noise. It rattles in his brain painting the snow in blood. A small pin lies on the ground. The butterfly twinkles, covered red. He dips down to grab it.
This should be at home.
He ignores the feeling that pulls at him as he stares at the object. Small, delicate. Meant to be in the hair of someone long dead. That must be what the blood is. Hers. From the day she died. Slick against the snow. Painting it red. His grip tightens, his eyes squeeze shut.
“No.” The pin snaps in his fingers, butterfly wings breaking in two. He tosses it away when his eyes open. His teeth rub against each other. How dare this powder remind him? How dare it splash her guts into the snow where he has to see them?
Again.
The searing feeling in his mind tunnels, and he can’t think of anything but that day. When he became who he was. His hands search the dirt for the body, even if he’s aware it’s not real. He’s in a trance hearing her cry out, the gurgle in her throat. You are nowhere near his mind.
“Ryo, why did you let me die?” His head snaps to the voice, and there she stands. Beautiful.
Broken. Body turning to slush.
“You’re not real,” he tells her, watching as she cries out. Tears slide down her face, but their wrong. They’re red.
Like blood.
“You let me die.” His pinky and ring finger curl into his palm, and he points with the others. With a swallow he moves his fingers along the air.
“I know. I’m sorry.” And the vision is gone with a sharp slice in the wind. All he sees is you, coming closer to him.
Hesitant.
Eyes white. So close he can see the rim of gold beneath the cloudiness. You grasp at the nothingness in front of him. He watches your lips part, tears streaming down your cheeks.
“I love you,” you say looking straight at him, but not seeing him.
Peeling his hand back he looks down at you with pity. “Enough.” His hand snaps your face to the side, and the cloudiness in your eyes slowly peels back.
You breathe.
Idiot.
Twitching your hand reaches up. It rubs your cheek bones in slow comforting circles, until your head cranes and you see him. He peers back down at you. The cloud is gone, but you look lost in a daze, wetness across your lashes, snot dripping down your nose.
But for once he doesn’t mind it. Your tears aren’t fear.
Their pain.
It’s quiet.
“Let’s go,” he demands turning back to the horses. His warhorse and your dappled mare.
“N-no.” His neck twists as it turns to look at you.
“What?”
You dash in the snow to the brazier, dumping it completely. The black twists the snow into something dark, like the dead. You don’t seem to mind it, reaching for a container murmuring quietly to yourself. Trembling your fingers scoop out the powder, and he moves.
It splashes across your lap, and you scream as he yanks your wrist.
“What are you doing?” You struggle in his grip. He ignores it, nails biting into your skin.
“Let go of me you bastard. I have to do it again.” He should punish you for that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tilts his head, huffing a laugh. You claw at his fingers, flailing in the air as he drags you out of the snow. It’s not the first time you’ve wriggled like a worm for him, he supposes it won’t be the last.
“You’re not doing that again,” he says in a tone that was final. Someone else would have given in, went limp and said okay. But you—never. It’s what he likes. You kick at his stomach, so he allows his teeth to nip at your skin and you scream.
“I wish you’d die.”
“Cute,” he mutters not phased by the hate you spew. “Most people do.”
“Let go!” It’s the most vicious he’s seen you, and a part of him finds he likes it. So he holds tighter bringing you closer to his face. Your eyes fill with such aggression he almost laughs. As if you could do anything with the rage boiling in the pit of your stomach. “I’m going to kill you.”
That does make him laugh. Deep expanding from his belly right in your face. “Yeah right.” He allows your body to fall into the snow as he tosses you away. Then he kneels and grabs the powder.
“No!” You howl at him, shuffling through the snow, throwing yourself at him. In surprise he tumbles. You both roll, with you sitting above him, knees shoved in-between the space where his four arm connect. Your nails cling to the tattoos on his chest. “That’s not yours, leave it alone.”
Spit dribbles down your lips. Feral like an animal. He grins, rolling to push your head into the snow. You buck, kicking uselessly, screaming so much his ears begin to hurt. He surrounds you, covering you with his brute force.
“Shut up.” You bite into his hand in response to his order. Each of his eyes widen, pupils dilating in awe. It’s been so long. Since someone dared to bite him. The last time…
He does not see you for a moment, lost in the past. The girl he looks down at giggles, and his eyes grow soft a moment as he says their name, a name you don't know. One finger trails through their hair, wild and free. He would pull her in soon, pin the butterfly back onto her head. He doesn't want her to be defenseless after all. She needs her shikigami. The laugh twists to a groan and the image shatters.
He looks down at you, eyes narrowing, not the same. Similar, uncomfortably so. But there is something else. Where the familiarity breaks there is intrigue. The urge to push. His grip tightens around your jaw, divots starting to form with the press of his thumb. You press harder, and he can’t help the wicked white teeth of his from smiling down at you.
That's it. Violent, like her.
And it drips, blood slipping down your tongue. But the best part of it all is you haven’t cried. You do not back off this time, you gnaw into him with tiny teeth, eyes wild as an animal cornered. The blood spreads across your lips, until the sensation causes you to gag, you keep his skin between his teeth.
“Behave pet,” he purrs down at you, torn hand sliding down to your throat. “You must know you can’t win.” Another hands thumb comes up to rub away the slick crimson against your lips.
“Please.” You whisper, the fight dissipating as he shushes you. His thumb rubs back and forth slowly smearing the color across your lips. “I have to try it again. It was—”
“Wrong? I don’t care. What will this powder do to your mind?” I won't let you lose it just yet. I’ll need that brain soon. His hand squeezes lightly at your throat, a reminder you follow what he pleases. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance, just not today. We have places to be.”
“The shrine?” you question, and his head shifts from side to side.
“No.”
“Then where?” He pulls back at last, leaving two purpling marks on your face, and a redness shaped like his fingers around your throat.
“I acquired new land while you've been tending to my shrine, I have to visit.” Your eyes narrow, he wonders what you see when you peer up at him. Where the one you remind of him would have smiled, you frown, and it leaves a pang in his chest. “Get up.”
Your eyes widen at the new tone, the one that sounds like knifes sharpening against bone.
“You've put me behind schedule long enough. I don't have time to return you to the shrine.” You're too slow to stand, and the hatred that burns in his chest has him pulling you up, dragging you to your horse. With no effort he throws you on the mare's back listening to you wheeze.
He returns to the snow for a moment, collecting the container of powder, sliding it into a pouch strapped to his horse.
You are silent, only the clomp of your horses hooves present. “What made you foolish enough to leave the shrine?” Sukuna grumbles bitterly, slamming a door on the feeling looking at you permits.
“I just wanted to see my mother,” you mumble quietly, eyes downcast. “We speak on the day she died. There. Where I found her.”
“Didn't hear what you wanted?” he snickers but doesn't get a response. His right two eyes look behind him as his head shifts back. You hold the reins of your horse, devoid. Unpleasant.
“No. That wasn't—” a pause. “That's not how it usually goes. Something went wrong.”
Firs brush along his robe, tugging at the fabric before snapping back into place as his horse passes. “You're dreary.”
“Apologies,” you say back dryly.
His main left eye twitches. His brow along with it. Wrong.
“So what was supposed to happen?” He slows his horse until you are on his right side. You absently pat the mares mane. Jaw chewing the inside of your cheek, slow. Thoughtful. Sad.
“When you have just the right amount you're still in this world. Your body rests peacefully. Your mind wanders the dead. Usually, I come in the snow, or across fallen leaves. But inside the smoke the air is warm. The colors a vivid green spring. And my mother makes us tea, and we talk until the powder burns away.” You stare blankly at the frost in front of you. “She makes good tea.”
You glare at his grunt.
“Do you have anything better to do than mock the emotions of those around you?” That feeling curls around his throat. He tamps it down, giving you a reminder.
“Your tongue runs lose again.”
“My apologies, cold hearted snake.”
“Be quiet,” but he can't bring himself to snap so harshly. He could see you getting along with her. If she was still alive. He can picture her smiling up at him from his own horse telling him that she quite liked you. The spunk was nice. Keep her around.
So he does. Bitterly. Pout on his lips.
The sun dips away, and Sukuna spots a clear area by the river.
“We'll camp here. I'm going to get some food. Stay put.” He dares her to move with a narrow in his eyes as he leaves to explore the woods.
Their is a crunch to his left, and his lower eye twitches to follow it. Small black eyes stare at him. Gray fur parts where two tusks draw up. The boar snorts at him, turning away. Red blossoms across the gray fur as Sukuna flicks his fingers. The creature squeals for a moment, and then is silent.
He drags its limp chubby form back to where the horses stand, and you are nowhere to be seen.
Always such a bad listener.
At this point the idea of cutting off your feet seems appealing. His eyes dart to scan the trees, looking for the red of pants along the white and green of the trees… there you are stumbling, tree branches in hand.
They overflow, and you cuss as one drops on your toes.
“I told you to stay put,” he snaps, approaching, lower arms clenching tightly into fists. “You do not listen.”
“Thought I'd help.” Each time you murmur, voice soft like that a part of him stills. He rips the feelings away, quick, like it's a diseased limb.
“I don't care. Obey me.”
“I'm starting a fire.” He brushes her off to begin cutting up the boar, that's torn a path from where he'd dragged it back.
“Whatever.”
Another day in summer he cuts like this. Uraume blows on meat already tilted towards the fire. And the one beside her is beaming up at the little cook.
“Delicious,” the voice says. “Ryomen, you simply have to try this.” He huffs, discarding the carcass in his lap, stomping to the tiny fire where the little child with white hair holds out a skewer.
The woman bats at his hand at the aggressiveness of which he pulls the stick from the child. “Rude,” she scolds trying not to laugh. “Uraume has made this for you, be kind.”
It's juicy as he chews, the rendering of the meat greasily sliding across his chin. The words had been correct.
Delicious. “It is quite good.” He pats at the head of kid they'd found alone only a couple months ago. “It suffices.”
You seem to be playing with a recipe too.
Though he has the chunks of meat slow roasting you are burning ground berries in a small bowl placed over the fire.
“What is that?” He pokes at the reddened sauce. Brings it to his lips. Sweet.
“A glaze.”
He hums. Watching as you slather if across two thick pieces of meat. It drips down it’s sides and the fire consumes what falls.
“Is it good?” You ask, and he takes a piece to answer.
The meat is juicy and rich like that time, but also a vague sweetness shifts the flavor. Delectable.
“It's fine.” Your lips puff out, and in his head he hears the words telling him to be kind. His butterfly sure was a pest. “It's pleasant.”
“Good.” You respond more chipper now, face drawing in a light smile. You draw aimless lines in the snow with a burnt stick.
Something pokes at his mind. Too sweet. What were these berries? They didn't seem like what was usually eaten at shrine.
“What are they?”
“I don't know. Found them on an evergreen.”
Idiot.
“Don't eat it. It's poison.” The meat drops from your lips, which begin to tremble. Your hands shoot up to your mouth, shaking lightly.
“W-what?” The panic starts to become apparent as you bat your hands at nothing. “What do I do?” He tosses his own food into the fire. Thankfully, not all the meat was ruined. And his reverse curse technique is quick to purify his systems, curing the body of poison with almost no effort at all.
“Purge it,” he says with a shrug, pointing over to the river. “Clean your mouth.”
You skitter, like a panicking deer running from a monster.
“Idiot.”
You don't have time to frown. Only cleanse yourself. Puking and gagging into the dirt. Swishing the water of the river into your mouth.
“Don't you need to do this too? You took a big bite.” He sighs, dragging a hand across his face.
“I’m not a foolish creature like you, so easy to kill. I’ll be quite alright. Rinse again.”
Chapter 5 | Chapter 7
Author's note:
Lowkey just tired of editing it, might not be great sorry it took so long. Enjoy.
Next couple updates might be slow, I haven't planed them, what I did plan before writing I am jumping around with. Bare with me.
Not sure why it's a new trend among fic readers to assume if the fic has not been posted within the week it's inappropriate to comment on it, like the fic has to be hot out of the oven to give feedback for.
I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.
Just comment on the fic. Doesn't matter how old it is.
Pairing: True Form Sukuna x Reader | Explicit | Slow Burn
Content Warning: This work contains graphic violence, gore, body horror, and psychological horror. Reader Discretion is advised. CANNIBALISM!
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Chapter 5 | Chapter 7
Sukuna sits at his throne, head tilting as he ponders.
Jyuria has been on poor path since coming to his shrine, but the girl was honest. When he’d requested her presence she hadn’t been able to maintain eye contact, stupid, it effectively made her blind, and he could have killed her at any time.
That would have been boring. Besides, she was rather forthcoming. She hadn’t know how to lie, and so Sukuna believed her when she explain she had only found out you were leaving the shrine day of, and had begged you not to go.
Sukuna decided he’d leave her alone. This time.
She suffers enough.
There would be no fun in breaking her further, she was already a shattered toy you kept trying to put back together.
Chiyuki and Ryota however.
His lips curl up at the thought of what he would do to them both. The moment you had left his shrine, he knew. Uraume had alerted him without a hesitation, as they always told him of what happens in the walls of his home. He waits for the boy to come. He thinks it was interesting that the boy waits to appear. Was he not afraid of what repercussions he would face?
He clicks his tongue, head nodding in disapproval of the boys foolishness. Tapping a bovine skull his nail drags slowly against the bone with a screech.
The boy would learn just how much of an idiot he was. Believing Sukuna to be unaware of the happenings of his shrine. He would lose a leg for the transgression perhaps, being too slow to bring him the news, or maybe Sukuna would take his tongue seeing as the boy didn’t know how to use it.
A loud scrape pierces the hall, before Sukuna’s nail stops. The door has cracked open. Not Ryota, but one he intends to punish nonetheless. The girl trembles as she slowly creeps into the haiden. Her knees dip into the wood as she brings her body to the floor, bowing deep.
“Chiyuki,” he hums the trembling girls name softly, hiding the hostility all know he’s capable of. “I’m disappointed.”
He tilts his head as his words break a cold sweat along the girls body. Such a chattering bug, oddly silent. It’s curious. Her bowing body rises in shaky breaths, and she does not dare look up at him. Her shape shifts from a bow into that of a child resting in a ball for comfort. It was always a delight to watch. The manifestation of fear.
Some it made into cowards, like Chiyuki before him. Others would push through, body shaking, lips bitten until they leak blood. The truly rare ones were the ones to lash out in fear, guised as rage. It was different for all, and oh so pleasing for him to watch. He remains quiet, to keep the girl on her toes. The only sound, his calm breath compared to her panicked pants pushing past her lips.
“Did you think it wise?” She jolts from the suddenness of his voice in the quiet. It pleases him to see her so scared. A single sentence and she jumps in fear.
“No, My Lord, I was unwise.” His lips kiss at his teeth, a noise of disappointment.
“You’ll have to speak up. I can’t hear you through the floor, girl.” Chiyuki’s head rises hesitantly, arms wrapping around her torso. Her eyes flaming red from the tears she cannot keep at bay.
“I was unwise. I- I apologize.”
“Why do it?” His brow raises. One set of eyes stares down at her, the other analyzes his nails, picking at the dirt beneath them. “Why risk my displeasure?”
She swallows. Croaks, swallows again.
“Do you understand family, My Lord?” His eyes roll slowly as he scoffs at the question.
“Meaningless concept,” he concludes.
Her throat bobs, her nails dig into her own arms. “Then—I am afraid you will not understand. I value family. When she told me she visits her mother’s grave every year—” her voice dies, turning into a whining Sukuna couldn’t distinguish. It was a pathetic display of her losing her composure she was working so hard to maintain. “It felt wrong not to help her.”
He huffs, both mouths slack with boredom. “You helped her leave because…it felt wrong?”
“Yes.”
A laugh booms from his chest, head falling back against his throne. How truly foolish. He can feel his body rumble with each sound that fell across Chiyuki’s ears like a slap. It fizzles out slowly as he tilts his head back down to look at the girl who still kneels. Her eyes wide, her mouth opened as if he had smacked all thought from her brain.
“And what do you suppose your punishment should be?” He leans back, observing her as she gapes at him. Like he had plucked her from a pond and she has forgotten how to breath.
“You wish…for me, to choose my own punishment?” Her lips roll together slowly, tongue slipping to wet the pink broken flesh. “You’re not going to kill me?”
His hum has her brows furrowing. His finger taps against his throne, a thoughtful expression wrinkling his nose.
“I thought about it,” he tells her with a grin. “It would be easy. But the satisfaction of watching that brat cry about how sorry she is you were hurt is more amusing. You helped her leave, and now—you’ll help me give her unspeakable pain, with your misery.”
“Wouldn’t she cry if I were dead?” Chiyuki’s brow lifts in question, though her voice is timid.
“Sure, but it’s not what I want right now.” Watery tears drips down Chiyuki’s cheeks. Sukuna smiles, pleased. “So, what will it be?”
“I cannot come up with such a thing. I apologize, you can punish me as you wish.” Her head hangs, water dripping slowly to the floor from her cheeks. Her body shudders with her silent sobbing.
“Puh. A weak imagination?” He rises from his throne. She is small as a bug, easily squashed under his feet. It’s disgustingly pathetic really.
He creeps closer, like a dragon coming out of the entrance of it’s cave. The air churns. A thrum builds slowly through the air, following his form like a slithering snake. “If you are useless, I suppose I’ll find a suitable punishment.”
Though, this displeased him as he stopped above her form. Lowering himself, he braces his lower hands against the floor. Another tilts up her chin. “Provide me with some ideas,” he quietly demands the girl. “You had an injury awhile back. What was it?”
She sputters as his fingers touch her skin. She jolts with no thought, making him narrow his gaze at her. “I was cleaning the roof of the shrine, it’s breaking. I fell. Hurt my back.”
He mulls it over, top two eyes flitting up towards the ceiling as he thinks. Annoying. It hadn’t given him any ideas at all. One eye flits to her snotty crying face. Another looks at the arms coiling protectively at her stomach.
Snapping her spine would be no fun. There was a chance she would die.
“Yes, that was why Uraume provided you opium, I remember.”
What to do?
“Still no ideas?” Her lips wobble at the question. So she had found one. “Speak it.”
“You can have three fingers.” His head tilts at this, mouth puckering into a frown while she mutters it in a quiet whisper.
“Mellow don’t you think?” He draws the hand she extends to him closer, with his upper arm. His thumb rubs against the calluses on her skin. Good worker to develop calluses. It has him grunting in thought, muscles flexing as he readjusts his position. He’s closer now, a shadow across Chiyuki’s skin.
“If you take these, my job is harder, she’ll feel more guilty,” Chiyuki says pointing down at her right hands pointer, ring, and thumb. “Though I will probably be slower.” He could tolerate that, if the effects she stated were true. Though, he wanted more. More incentive for not just you to obey, but for her as well.
A sigh escapes his lips. The idea was better than nothing, but he’d have to adapt it somehow. The noise pulls an audible swallow from Chiyuki’s throat, and he finally, after a long span of silence agrees.
“Okay.”
The cuts are quick. Precise as his cursed energy flares, enveloping the room like a choking cloud of ash. Plop, plop, plop. Each finger drops to the floor, a stream of red beginning to coat them. He looks at the severed digits, a smile slowly drawing across his lips.
That’s what I’ll do.
He picks up the thumb, waggles in front of Chiyuki’s eyes. Her weeping eyes. Her screaming open mouth. He jams the thumb in the gap between her teeth. “Chew.” Her head shifts back and forth while he holds her mouth closed.
“Do as I say.” Tears drip across his fingers, mixing with the blood drenching the floor below. He feels it, slow, uncomfortable bites. She obeys, and he smiles, a look not of comfort but of delight. “Good, ready for another?”
“No—please no!” She wails as his hand leaves her face. He coos, low and quiet.
“Come now, you can do it. I’m sure.” The girl looks on the brink of passing out, so he taps at her cheek. “Stay awake. Look, I’ll eat with you.” He grabs the other two fingers lying on the floor. One he slips between her teeth, watching her jaw clench with a whine. The other he brings to his own lips, teeth snapping down with a light crunch. They chew together slowly savoring the fingers. He spits out the bone, letting it thump against the bloody floorboards.
“Was that so hard?” His voice was sickly sweet as he allows Chiyuki to pull back. Her body rocks back and forth as she holds her hand. Quiet little sobs escape her throat, covered by his laughter. He watches her blood and tears drip.
“Chiyuki, you’re dismissed.”
With her scrambling away his immediate amusement drains. He sits back now, arms folding over the frown across his abdomen, and his face draws into a similar pout. It had been fun in the moment, but now all he can think about is how much the experience lacked.
Chiyuki was not like you. She did not lash out at him with mud. She gave in quick, had no bite. No fire. He didn’t like it, the feeling of something lacking.
Something he felt when he was young, and a feeling that slowly faded with time. Until you.
Your nerve had made him feel something. It was odd. Something he didn’t believe he was capable of feeling since that day.
But when you stood up to him, foolish as it was, he felt it. Deep inside his gut a pang of the past would steal the air from his lips. An instant later you would sob, and that uncomfortable familiar feeling would die. He was reminded each time.
You were truly afraid, not like her.
His Butterfly.
Though, it was something he couldn’t ignore. That feeling. He hated it, wished with a passion he could just kill you and never feel it again. But he’d grown to miss it, the fracture of something he once had. Someone he dearly missed.
But it was different. There was a reminder of his past, but also the look in your eyes. It intrigued him. Made him want to prod your mind, see what secrets it held. Why were you so brave. It was annoying.
So deep in his head the door sounds far away, but he hears it. The creak of old wood. His lower left eye peers towards it.
“Sukuna-sama,” the monk greets with a polite nod to their head.
“Uraume.” Sukuna regards the monk as he rises from his seat on the floor. They look back at him, watching silently as he flicks the dirt that had accumulated on the fabric of his hakama. Sukuna’s hands come back from the wet fabric red, and his lips turn downward in a frown.
“He has arrived,” Uraume says finally as Sukuna finishes composing himself. In turn, Sukuna dismisses his servant with a lazy wave of his hand, blood splotching random places with the momentum.
“Very well.”
Ryota’s steps are sticky against the blood of Chiyuki’s finger removal. Each squelch made him wince, lips drawing up to his nose, disgust from the blood seeping into his shoes plain on his face. He peers down at the liquid, his reflection staring back up at him as Sukuna remains silent waiting for him to speak.
The wind snaps against the building, like the thud of Ryota’s heart. Two hours he waited. Disgustingly late for a report. Ryota chews at his lip, and Sukuna wonders what lie shall spew from his mouth at an attempt at safety.
The pause in time that seems to stretch will not save him. The gnawing of his teeth will not save him. He looks up slowly, meeting the narrowing red eyes looking upon him.
“Someone stole a horse.” His hip shifts ever so often as he readjusts his weight from one leg to the other. Eyes drift back, to stare at the bones that line Sukuna’s throne behind him. A queasy look spreads over his face, like he saw something horribly disturbing, or thought it. It leaves a soft curl to Sukuna’s lips.
“When?” Ryota’s pupils shake, small dots rapidly swishing side to side. Fear it seems, was not what had kept him away from Sukuna for two hours. Because Ryota was struggling to get in enough air. His chest was rising too fast and his lips stuck open as he thought of what to say. Sukuna patiently waited, sucking in the scent of metal in the air, from Chiyuki’s blood.
“I don’t know.” Ryota’s words leave him painfully slow, as Sukuna’s head tilts again. The boy could not even come up with a compelling lie? It wasn’t as if he wasn’t allowed plenty of time. It was truly pathetic Sukuna thought as one eye veers to the side looking for something more interesting than the boys display.
“And why is it, that you were not watching the stables, boy?” Sukuna waits for the lie. He knew Ryota had been there, he only waits to see if it will be interesting.
“I fell asleep. My lord, I apologize.” How boring.
“You…fell asleep?” Sukuna’s arms fold over as he speaks. His nose wrinkles in distaste, his lip rising with it. He didn’t even try.
“Yes.” Ryota dips his head low. It’s not enough. Even Chiyuki had the wisdom to give Sukuna proper bow. This boy had no brain in his head, that was clear now.
“How foolish.” His energy sparks with a flick of his fingers. The sound of flesh separating from flesh is all that is heard at first. Then the screaming as Ryota’s leg falls to the floor starts. The boy grabs at the hump as he falls in the opposite direction, clattering to the floor, blood spitting up at his face.
“Shall I ask you again?”
Ryota’s vocals remind Sukuna of that of a squealing pig. The lack of an answer irritates him, bringing him to the decision that perhaps he hadn’t done enough. “Next it will be your tongue.”
“Opium,” he screams, flailing against the floor. “Chiyuki had some left over opium, she promised…she promised.” The howls of agony grates at Sukuna’s nerves. The boy squirms too much, screams too much. It scratches at his ear drums, making him sneer. More blood pools, mixing with the previous spillage and he remembers you.
So bold on the floor like Ryota, refusing to do what he commands. Such a disappointment this all was.
“Be quiet.”
“How am I to be—” A large divot forms in the wood before his eye. Not a request, Ryota bites his tongue. The screams dwindle to almost silent sobs, and Sukuna can think once more.
“So, you risk your life for the equivalent of poppy seed?” Sukuna shakes his head with a chortle on his lips. “Of course. Didn’t you beg for work because your addiction had ran you out of home. Such weakness.”
“You—remember?” Ryota grits through his teeth. He tries not to scream, so he speaks slow, pained.
“Of course I do. I know everything about my shrine. Hope the opium was worth it, you’ll receive no more.” The scent of blood permeates the air as Sukuna strides back to his throne, dropping into his seat.
“You cut off my leg.”
“I won't be feeding your addiction boy. Go, find someone to clean this place up.” He watches Ryota cry out as he wails. His hips shimmy across the floor, the man unable to get up. His nails work into the wood of the haiden, and the blood gives him momentum to skid. It’s wonderful in Sukuna’s ears, and he snickers at the sounds leaving Ryota’s lips in pain.
Uraume re-enters the room as Ryota has finally clawed his way out. They watch the streak of blood that follows him, sighing at the mess that needs to be cleaned. Though, Sukuna is sure they expect nothing less from him at this point.
“Store that leg,” Sukuna points at the lone limb surrounded by blood.
“Of course Sukuna-sama. I’ll make sure it gets done.” The white haired monk remains in the room, quiet a moment. “Shall I go for her?”
“No. Allow her to see this through,” Sukuna responds, head tilting up to stare at the wooden boards making his ceiling. “I have heard that the Kusatta have a found a rare powder since they stole my land.”
Sukuna remembers it all like it was yesterday. The first shrine he had lived. He hadn’t been revered as a God then. But by the time he was done with the people there, who had betrayed him, it was mostly rubble, along with the accompanying town. He lived in the largest home he hadn’t completely destroyed. It was small, covered in the bones of small animals he had hunted on his own.
He remembers when Uraume had joined him. Flowers preserved in ice so that his butterfly may wear them again and again. He sees Uraume running to him to say that men have come to take the land. He was far too weak then. He'd have it back. His land, then he would kill them all.
“This allows them to cross over, see their loved ones for a time.”
“And you want this powder? You wish to see her?” Uraume’s plum eyes widen, their stance faltering for just a moment, before they return to a state that looks impassive. Sukuna knows better. Uraume is thinking of his Butterfly. “It’s been years.” It’s a quiet whisper.
“No.” Sukuna says picking at a piece of Chiyuki’s skin stuck in his teeth. “Perhaps. Maybe it will alleviate this annoying feeling.” The idea pricks at him. To see her. See her and feel her. It was too appealing. All that stops him is that he can picture her face drooping into a frown. She would smack at his face telling him she said let her rest. Such a irritated little thing without her rest.
“What feeling,” Uraume asks, raising their brows at their first friend.
“Longing.” The words are bitter, like Sukuna had swallowed rotted flesh, and it displeased his tongue.
“I see.” Uraume eyes him as his face twists into something uncomfortable, unusual. Disgust.
“What do we know of this powder?” Sukuna’s head rests on his fist. Lip curled in annoyance as he asks. A horrible feeling cloys at his throat from his chest, and he despises it, and more, he despise it leads to you in a way.
“Not much Sukuna-sama. It is a ground substance, consumed or burned. I would ask someone from the clan.” This answer pulls an irritated sigh from his lips. Jyuria was asleep by now, being the first he had questioned. You were gone. That left him only one.
“Tell Tomika that I require her in my chambers. Make sure she’s quick.” With a groan he rises to slink into the room behind the haiden. His private quarters that nobody was allowed in without his permission.
And he waited for the whining whore to step in.
₊⊹
Tomika enters the room, robe already mussed, expectantly. Strands of beautiful multi-colored silk fabric drips across the floor, dragging like a waterfall behind her. She bats her eyelashes at him, before her eyes dip to look down at her breast and her stomach. Her lips curl in a wince.
Her eye flick back up to look into his, into shades of blood. Lips pushing out in a pout, slick with saliva she speaks in honeyed words. “You called for me, My Lord?”
Sukuna curls his fingers towards him with a sigh. She drapes herself upon the space in his lap, looking up at him for encouragement he doesn’t provide.
“How are your scars?” She mistakes his tone for soft inquiry, it’s not. He simply wants to know if she has a use yet.
“Painful,” she whines to him, and he almost tosses her off him right then in annoyance.
How disappointing.
He slides a hand down her shoulder, peeling her robes off anyway. Her skin puckers where his dismantle hit. She frowns as his eyes focus on those lines of flesh. Uncaring about her feelings he sneers as the hurt floods her eyes. He enjoys that until she hits at his chest.
She didn’t understand how this worked. Not yet. He catches her hand on the second blow, his grip tightening as she gasps, jerking back. The fight she brings should have pleased him, but it just made him believe she was idiotic.
He slips his fingers meanly over the first mar on her skin. Watches the color drain from her face and her body go still.
“I don’t like that.”
“I don’t care.” He traced the second one. “The brat and Uraume have tended to you nicely. It’ll just be a scar soon.”
“It’s ugly,” she hisses back at him. He huffs.
“Don’t you like the things I give you?” Pretty kimonos and fancy jewelry he cared little about. Still, it had made Tomika beam to receive such things, and so she shudders now.
“Y-yes but—” she bites down on the inside of her cheek. “This is not the same.”
“Ungrateful,” he spits. Not that he expects the girl to enjoy having scars. He only wishes she would stop whining about them. “Tell me what you know about the powder to see the dead.”
Her eyes widen in surprise at the sudden shift in topics, so he combs a hand slowly through her hair, turning her body slowly into mush. A distraction. A lower hand creeps to her waist, sliding beneath the soft fabric pressing against her skin.
“Why do you wanna know about that?” Her lips puff out, and her hips shift to feel his fingers better. He obliges her wants, observing the way her head tilts back, the pleased expression gracing her eyes.
“Does it matter? I do. So start speaking.” He toys with her. Just enough to have her lips parting out a sigh, but not enough for her to start crying he was too rough.
“It’s uh—common powder among nobility. Maybe their servants. There uh main servants.” He hums in her ear urging her to speak more. Her eyes shift up as she tries to recall something. Then her brow wrinkles with a breathless whine. “Why do you care? So slow.”
Sukuna’s tongue clicks, and his arms draw back, pushing her onto the floor beside his bed. Fine blue silk flies in all directions and she stares up at him cheeks burning pink. She pats herself down, fingers running over golden stitching of vines that span along the sleeves. With a huff she sits up, staring up at him, pulling the garments up. Her lips tremble as she hesitates to say something.
“Now, the powder?” Sukuna nudges her to speak clearly done with the route that would have pleased the girl. Now she can sit, uselessly and speak.
“I used it only once. I didn’t use enough so I didn’t pass over. I saw a flash of the next day instead. It’s effects are based on quantity.”
“Is that all?” he mutters, unpleased with what little that explains things. The girl pouts up at him.
“No,” she scoffs. “It is a ground mushroom. Black—”
“With purple spots that glow,” Sukuna cuts her off, remembering a patch he found in the forest at one time. Tomika’s face plummets with displeasure.
“Yes. Now can we—”
He doesn’t allow her to finish once again. One hand points towards the door.
“You can leave.”
“But I thought we were going to…” she trails off, slowly lifting herself to gather her robe close to her body. She holds an embroidered hummingbird over her heart as she turns dejected.
“Not until those heal. You whine too much about them,” Sukuna rolls his eyes at her disappointment, though he doesn’t truly care.
Another time.
“Okay.” Tomika patters away, and finally Sukuna moves with the intent to find the foolish insect that ran from his shrine.
His nose wrinkles at the blood that still remains in his haiden, but passes it by. Once he makes it out to the stables the air is cold and cutting, but fresh, pushing around the smell of dirt. His horse, the black warhorse, has already been prepped for him. Uraume’s doing, surely.
Following your trail is easy. Your mares hooves marks dig into the dirt, an easy guide for Sukuna to follow. He could easily force you back to the shrine, but he decides to allow you to return home. So he doesn’t use the horses full speed, instead going a leisurely pace. Each minute the air chills further, kissing at his cheeks.
It’s not nearly enough to make him feel the chill your tiny body surely does.
A small part of him is impressed that the prints of hooves keep going. You still hadn’t stopped. Smart girl using the time Ryota took to speak with him to your advantage. He’d expected to see your horse tied up by now, and you slumped, curling into a tree. He supposes you deserve more credit.
The sun rises slowly, draping the world in orange, and still he does not see your form. He doesn’t think you are too far up ahead. But he stops a moment to allow his mount to rest. He doesn’t truly need the break, but he’s sure you do, and if you saw him you’d run.
So he camps around the river, lounging as he waits. He doesn’t know how long to wait, doesn’t understand your brain just yet. Your patterns. Were you asleep, or was your horse running fast back towards the Kusatta compound?
It doesn’t matter though. He’ll catch up when he pleases. For now, he enjoys the deer he has hunted, shooting it in the neck with a dismantle. He strips the fur from it’s skin. He’d bring it with him, it had use for something. Then he roasts the meat on a fire, allowing himself to gorge until midday approaches.
Snow starts to coat the ground. Flakes bunch in his lashes, which he bats away. He extinguishes the fire with a kick of dirt. Climbs upon his horse and he is off once more. The snow is drowning your prints, but that’s fine. He knows where he’s going like the back of his hand. He could probably beat you home if he tried. But he doesn’t.
He follows the tracks until snow removes them. Then he just takes the path he knows. The change from day to night is gradual, and he finds himself pleased with the sound of the forest around him. The padding of an animal on the hunt for food. The skittering of a deer that runs at the sight of him, eyes blank.
The snow is thick once it’s dark. He wonders if perhaps he’d find your corpse. He would be so disappointed. Though the thought does make him snicker. You trying so hard to get home just to die a slow death in the cold. Your fingers purple as they shiver, ice clinging to your skin.
But he doesn’t think it’s going to happen. You’re too smart for that. He’s proven right as he reaches a cluster of trees the next morning. The ground is covered in prints of your small feet, and hooves, not yet stolen by the snow. A hole sits not to far away.
Clever girl.
A smile passes his lips as he feels the warmth against his hand as he presses it into the dirt. Fresh. You’re not far. Neither is the compound. So close. He can’t wait to see your horror. For now he backs away from the dirt, approaching his horse that remains calm the entire journey.
He’ll be seeing you very soon. He’s sure. From there it’s a days ride to the compound, and he camps just outside the the entrance. Far enough not to alert anyone, but close enough to watch you toss your mare’s reins.
He waits.
You don’t come back out until morning. He uses the time to think back. The shrine he knew was gone. Torn down for something bigger, newer, brighter. His face slackens at the thought.
This place disgusts him.
Your need to be here disgusts him.
And he follows far enough away once you climb onto your horse. He stops behind the mare you have tied, drops to his feet holding his own reins.
You untangle your hair, and he pouts. He expected more. You braid a plant into your hair, but this is not what he came for.
You light a brazier and the fire churns purple.
There it was.
He stays away from the smoke that starts to form around you. An infection he doesn’t intend to grant himself just yet. You sit, still as a plank of wood, and he watches from where the horses stand.
You do not move at first. Then you call for your mother. Your body rises up, turning towards him with milky white eyes. Your brows curl, pressing into a wrinkle on your forehead.
Silent his eyes narrow as you call for her again. Ask where she’s at. Each minute you look more disoriented, more confused. He does nothing to help you.
You begin to fumble in the snow. His face curls into a nasty look. This isn’t what he wants. You were supposed to be a flame, to punch and kick at what you face.
But you turn in a circle, head snapping this way and that. He finds his teeth grinding, both sets at this display. You look less like you, and more like a whimpering child. And you drop into the snow. Your cheek devoured by the white frost.
He wants to snap at you to get up, but he refrains watching those milky eyes trace something he cannot see. Your mare stamps in alarm, bucking at the reins keeping it tied down, unable to go to you or flee. He places his hand on it’s neck, feeling the veins beneath his palm.
Your mare is warm, but scared. It’s ears dart, it’s legs buck.
“Shhh,” he whispers to the horse, petting down it’s side until it just sits there nickering quietly.
Then his eyes are on you once more.
“Get up,” he hisses, too low for you to hear. It bothers him you don’t listen, and he starts to approach. The smoke smells bitter, and with it came a noise. It rattles in his brain painting the snow in blood. A small pin lies on the ground. The butterfly twinkles, covered red. He dips down to grab it.
This should be at home.
He ignores the feeling that pulls at him as he stares at the object. Small, delicate. Meant to be in the hair of someone long dead. That must be what the blood is. Hers. From the day she died. Slick against the snow. Painting it red. His grip tightens, his eyes squeeze shut.
“No.” The pin snaps in his fingers, butterfly wings breaking in two. He tosses it away when his eyes open. His teeth rub against each other. How dare this powder remind him? How dare it splash her guts into the snow where he has to see them?
Again.
The searing feeling in his mind tunnels, and he can’t think of anything but that day. When he became who he was. His hands search the dirt for the body, even if he’s aware it’s not real. He’s in a trance hearing her cry out, the gurgle in her throat. You are nowhere near his mind.
“Ryo, why did you let me die?” His head snaps to the voice, and there she stands. Beautiful.
Broken. Body turning to slush.
“You’re not real,” he tells her, watching as she cries out. Tears slide down her face, but their wrong. They’re red.
Like blood.
“You let me die.” His pinky and ring finger curl into his palm, and he points with the others. With a swallow he moves his fingers along the air.
“I know. I’m sorry.” And the vision is gone with a sharp slice in the wind. All he sees is you, coming closer to him.
Hesitant.
Eyes white. So close he can see the rim of gold beneath the cloudiness. You grasp at the nothingness in front of him. He watches your lips part, tears streaming down your cheeks.
“I love you,” you say looking straight at him, but not seeing him.
Peeling his hand back he looks down at you with pity. “Enough.” His hand snaps your face to the side, and the cloudiness in your eyes slowly peels back.
You breathe.
Idiot.
Twitching your hand reaches up. It rubs your cheek bones in slow comforting circles, until your head cranes and you see him. He peers back down at you. The cloud is gone, but you look lost in a daze, wetness across your lashes, snot dripping down your nose.
But for once he doesn’t mind it. Your tears aren’t fear.
Their pain.
It’s quiet.
“Let’s go,” he demands turning back to the horses. His warhorse and your dappled mare.
“N-no.” His neck twists as it turns to look at you.
“What?”
You dash in the snow to the brazier, dumping it completely. The black twists the snow into something dark, like the dead. You don’t seem to mind it, reaching for a container murmuring quietly to yourself. Trembling your fingers scoop out the powder, and he moves.
It splashes across your lap, and you scream as he yanks your wrist.
“What are you doing?” You struggle in his grip. He ignores it, nails biting into your skin.
“Let go of me you bastard. I have to do it again.” He should punish you for that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tilts his head, huffing a laugh. You claw at his fingers, flailing in the air as he drags you out of the snow. It’s not the first time you’ve wriggled like a worm for him, he supposes it won’t be the last.
“You’re not doing that again,” he says in a tone that was final. Someone else would have given in, went limp and said okay. But you—never. It’s what he likes. You kick at his stomach, so he allows his teeth to nip at your skin and you scream.
“I wish you’d die.”
“Cute,” he mutters not phased by the hate you spew. “Most people do.”
“Let go!” It’s the most vicious he’s seen you, and a part of him finds he likes it. So he holds tighter bringing you closer to his face. Your eyes fill with such aggression he almost laughs. As if you could do anything with the rage boiling in the pit of your stomach. “I’m going to kill you.”
That does make him laugh. Deep expanding from his belly right in your face. “Yeah right.” He allows your body to fall into the snow as he tosses you away. Then he kneels and grabs the powder.
“No!” You howl at him, shuffling through the snow, throwing yourself at him. In surprise he tumbles. You both roll, with you sitting above him, knees shoved in-between the space where his four arm connect. Your nails cling to the tattoos on his chest. “That’s not yours, leave it alone.”
Spit dribbles down your lips. Feral like an animal. He grins, rolling to push your head into the snow. You buck, kicking uselessly, screaming so much his ears begin to hurt. He surrounds you, covering you with his brute force.
“Shut up.” You bite into his hand in response to his order. Each of his eyes widen, pupils dilating in awe. It’s been so long. Since someone dared to bite him. The last time…
He does not see you for a moment, lost in the past. The girl he looks down at giggles, and his eyes grow soft a moment as he says their name, a name you don't know. One finger trails through their hair, wild and free. He would pull her in soon, pin the butterfly back onto her head. He doesn't want her to be defenseless after all. She needs her shikigami. The laugh twists to a groan and the image shatters.
He looks down at you, eyes narrowing, not the same. Similar, uncomfortably so. But there is something else. Where the familiarity breaks there is intrigue. The urge to push. His grip tightens around your jaw, divots starting to form with the press of his thumb. You press harder, and he can’t help the wicked white teeth of his from smiling down at you.
That's it. Violent, like her.
And it drips, blood slipping down your tongue. But the best part of it all is you haven’t cried. You do not back off this time, you gnaw into him with tiny teeth, eyes wild as an animal cornered. The blood spreads across your lips, until the sensation causes you to gag, you keep his skin between his teeth.
“Behave pet,” he purrs down at you, torn hand sliding down to your throat. “You must know you can’t win.” Another hands thumb comes up to rub away the slick crimson against your lips.
“Please.” You whisper, the fight dissipating as he shushes you. His thumb rubs back and forth slowly smearing the color across your lips. “I have to try it again. It was—”
“Wrong? I don’t care. What will this powder do to your mind?” I won't let you lose it just yet. I’ll need that brain soon. His hand squeezes lightly at your throat, a reminder you follow what he pleases. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance, just not today. We have places to be.”
“The shrine?” you question, and his head shifts from side to side.
“No.”
“Then where?” He pulls back at last, leaving two purpling marks on your face, and a redness shaped like his fingers around your throat.
“I acquired new land while you've been tending to my shrine, I have to visit.” Your eyes narrow, he wonders what you see when you peer up at him. Where the one you remind of him would have smiled, you frown, and it leaves a pang in his chest. “Get up.”
Your eyes widen at the new tone, the one that sounds like knifes sharpening against bone.
“You've put me behind schedule long enough. I don't have time to return you to the shrine.” You're too slow to stand, and the hatred that burns in his chest has him pulling you up, dragging you to your horse. With no effort he throws you on the mare's back listening to you wheeze.
He returns to the snow for a moment, collecting the container of powder, sliding it into a pouch strapped to his horse.
You are silent, only the clomp of your horses hooves present. “What made you foolish enough to leave the shrine?” Sukuna grumbles bitterly, slamming a door on the feeling looking at you permits.
“I just wanted to see my mother,” you mumble quietly, eyes downcast. “We speak on the day she died. There. Where I found her.”
“Didn't hear what you wanted?” he snickers but doesn't get a response. His right two eyes look behind him as his head shifts back. You hold the reins of your horse, devoid. Unpleasant.
“No. That wasn't—” a pause. “That's not how it usually goes. Something went wrong.”
Firs brush along his robe, tugging at the fabric before snapping back into place as his horse passes. “You're dreary.”
“Apologies,” you say back dryly.
His main left eye twitches. His brow along with it. Wrong.
“So what was supposed to happen?” He slows his horse until you are on his right side. You absently pat the mares mane. Jaw chewing the inside of your cheek, slow. Thoughtful. Sad.
“When you have just the right amount you're still in this world. Your body rests peacefully. Your mind wanders the dead. Usually, I come in the snow, or across fallen leaves. But inside the smoke the air is warm. The colors a vivid green spring. And my mother makes us tea, and we talk until the powder burns away.” You stare blankly at the frost in front of you. “She makes good tea.”
You glare at his grunt.
“Do you have anything better to do than mock the emotions of those around you?” That feeling curls around his throat. He tamps it down, giving you a reminder.
“Your tongue runs lose again.”
“My apologies, cold hearted snake.”
“Be quiet,” but he can't bring himself to snap so harshly. He could see you getting along with her. If she was still alive. He can picture her smiling up at him from his own horse telling him that she quite liked you. The spunk was nice. Keep her around.
So he does. Bitterly. Pout on his lips.
The sun dips away, and Sukuna spots a clear area by the river.
“We'll camp here. I'm going to get some food. Stay put.” He dares her to move with a narrow in his eyes as he leaves to explore the woods.
Their is a crunch to his left, and his lower eye twitches to follow it. Small black eyes stare at him. Gray fur parts where two tusks draw up. The boar snorts at him, turning away. Red blossoms across the gray fur as Sukuna flicks his fingers. The creature squeals for a moment, and then is silent.
He drags its limp chubby form back to where the horses stand, and you are nowhere to be seen.
Always such a bad listener.
At this point the idea of cutting off your feet seems appealing. His eyes dart to scan the trees, looking for the red of pants along the white and green of the trees… there you are stumbling, tree branches in hand.
They overflow, and you cuss as one drops on your toes.
“I told you to stay put,” he snaps, approaching, lower arms clenching tightly into fists. “You do not listen.”
“Thought I'd help.” Each time you murmur, voice soft like that a part of him stills. He rips the feelings away, quick, like it's a diseased limb.
“I don't care. Obey me.”
“I'm starting a fire.” He brushes her off to begin cutting up the boar, that's torn a path from where he'd dragged it back.
“Whatever.”
Another day in summer he cuts like this. Uraume blows on meat already tilted towards the fire. And the one beside her is beaming up at the little cook.
“Delicious,” the voice says. “Ryomen, you simply have to try this.” He huffs, discarding the carcass in his lap, stomping to the tiny fire where the little child with white hair holds out a skewer.
The woman bats at his hand at the aggressiveness of which he pulls the stick from the child. “Rude,” she scolds trying not to laugh. “Uraume has made this for you, be kind.”
It's juicy as he chews, the rendering of the meat greasily sliding across his chin. The words had been correct.
Delicious. “It is quite good.” He pats at the head of kid they'd found alone only a couple months ago. “It suffices.”
You seem to be playing with a recipe too.
Though he has the chunks of meat slow roasting you are burning ground berries in a small bowl placed over the fire.
“What is that?” He pokes at the reddened sauce. Brings it to his lips. Sweet.
“A glaze.”
He hums. Watching as you slather if across two thick pieces of meat. It drips down it’s sides and the fire consumes what falls.
“Is it good?” You ask, and he takes a piece to answer.
The meat is juicy and rich like that time, but also a vague sweetness shifts the flavor. Delectable.
“It's fine.” Your lips puff out, and in his head he hears the words telling him to be kind. His butterfly sure was a pest. “It's pleasant.”
“Good.” You respond more chipper now, face drawing in a light smile. You draw aimless lines in the snow with a burnt stick.
Something pokes at his mind. Too sweet. What were these berries? They didn't seem like what was usually eaten at shrine.
“What are they?”
“I don't know. Found them on an evergreen.”
Idiot.
“Don't eat it. It's poison.” The meat drops from your lips, which begin to tremble. Your hands shoot up to your mouth, shaking lightly.
“W-what?” The panic starts to become apparent as you bat your hands at nothing. “What do I do?” He tosses his own food into the fire. Thankfully, not all the meat was ruined. And his reverse curse technique is quick to purify his systems, curing the body of poison with almost no effort at all.
“Purge it,” he says with a shrug, pointing over to the river. “Clean your mouth.”
You skitter, like a panicking deer running from a monster.
“Idiot.”
You don't have time to frown. Only cleanse yourself. Puking and gagging into the dirt. Swishing the water of the river into your mouth.
“Don't you need to do this too? You took a big bite.” He sighs, dragging a hand across his face.
“I’m not a foolish creature like you, so easy to kill. I’ll be quite alright. Rinse again.”
Chapter 5 | Chapter 7
Author's note:
Lowkey just tired of editing it, might not be great sorry it took so long. Enjoy.
Next couple updates might be slow, I haven't planed them, what I did plan before writing I am jumping around with. Bare with me.
Pairing: True Form Sukuna x Reader | Explicit | Slow Burn
Content Warning: This work contains graphic violence, gore, body horror, and psychological horror. Reader Discretion is advised. CANNIBALISM!
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Chapter 4 | Chapter 6
“I don't know why we're planting,” Jyuria mumbles to you. She's leaning over your crouching form as you push chilled dirt off to the side.
“It would have been ideal for my body to heal during a different season,” you grumble. The chilling air of autumn had been nice for the pink flesh, that always seemed to burn. That time, much like the rain has passed. Now, you had a puckering scar that Uraume had removed the bandages to, and the silk cord holding the skin together.
It wasn’t healed. You’d been wrong. It was slower than you were used to, stuck in just another stage of healing, where it was purplish and bruising. The hope for it not to leave a scar would be unanswered. You shake the thought off for now, even as the puckered skin tugs with each shift of your arms. You missed your mother’s tonics. “The man who gave us the seeds, he gave us plenty of bulbs. I think he gave us seeds for autumn and winter and is meant to give us more for summer and spring.”
The ground pushes over the bulb, encompassing it, so it can survive winter and sprout later in the spring. “What do you know of planting?” Jyuria asks opening a new hole, plopping another bulb to be covered. Her hands are more steady now. She still fumbles often, but not like when she first lost her eye. The bulbs she plants are a little skewed but a garden is supposed to look irregular anyway. You wish you had the strength in your hands that she is so hesitant to use.
“I know a little. My mother…you know my mother?” It's quiet. Only the shivering of your bones in the air while Jyuria forms her response.
“Yes. I know your mother. My father bought her tonics.” Jyuria’s lips purse for just a moment before continuing in a quiet whisper. “She is a life missed.”
“I miss her.” You disdain the crack in your voice, and the trail of tears you refuse to let fall. You brush away the liquid with your right hand, before shoving it back into the bag of bulbs. “I would follow her around. I’d fall tripping over her robes, playing in the dirt.
“She’d hand me seeds and I would drop them into the ground. It was…” you trail off.
“I miss her.”
A hand creeps over yours, red tinged and shivering. Not quite winter, not entirely autumn anymore. The autumn seeds you'd planted as soon as the curse was killed had begun to sprout. Red spindling flowers poke from the earth, beautiful, but most avoid their clusters. Their name was given because their petals poke in long stranding spikes like a spiders legs.
They elicit unease. The red spider lily. You see Sukuna's eyes in them. They're beautiful, a warning of death, something you haven't been able to separate the man from.
He has ignored you since the curse was killed, but that was okay. The first poison you'd grown had come. It wouldn't be enough to do anything to the man you were sure. You'd have to harvest every sprouting flower just to give the man a tummy ache. So you left them alone, to flourish. Now you were planting things more poisonous, but also beautiful trees and harmless bushes and flowers. This shrine wasn't supposed to be a field of only poison and death, you wish more of it. Regardless, the more poisonous plants were supplied rather lightly in comparison to the filler flowers.
“Are you going to visit her grave this year? I think you did back home.” Jyuria fumbles with her fingers, but she doesn't cry over it like she used to. It's an improvement you think. Maybe one day soon she would abandon your garden and go back to the kitchens.
When you joke she would just murmur a low, not yet. Her confidence is not there. You can see that when the question has her turning away every time, to the point where she is blind of you.
“I want to. Sukuna did not grant me permission to leave.”
“Oh.” An apology is on her tongue but you do not allow it to come.
“I'm going anyway.” Her single eye grows wide in alarm. Her arms still as she stares at you. You cannot bring yourself to look. To see the emotions on her face, though you still can through the slivers of hair draping your face. You chew the inside of your cheek, guilt blossoming in your stomach as Jyuria sloppily grabs at you. Dragging you to see her face fully, unconcealed.
“That is unwise, I plead you, do not do so.” Her eye looks shimmery with the water that starts to line it. “Do not leave me, please.” Your brows furrow when her crying makes her quake. You brush the hair hiding that healing socket where her other one would be. She pauses a moment, quick to shake your hand off, but drawing silent.
“I wouldn't be gone long.” Her head shakes back and forth, frantic once more. It has you looking at her pitifully, as her words come out quick, a plea you knew you would have to refuse.
“He will kill you. He has been lenient with us, but we are not allowed to do as we please. If you run he will kill you! Don't leave me. Tomika has been…cruel as of late. I need you—you're my friend.” You suck in the icy air, let it back out.
“Tomika is lashing out because she is in pain.” You tell her, ignoring the stab in your chest at the word friend. Tomika much like you no longer wore the wraps, skin purple and puckering where the strands of silk used to be. Having them pulled had been strange, a tightness following behind the string. But that tightness in the skin is what leads Tomika to further bitterness.
From what you had heard from the servant gossip Sukuna refused service from her. Said she whines to much when he was too rough because she was healing. Why he let her complain instead of cutting off her head you weren't sure.
You understood the feeling. Your own skin draws horribly tight with any movement of your upper body. You also didn't care. Tomika had made herself clear every week she believes herself to be better than you. Trauma does odd things: it brings people like you and Jyuria together, or pulls them apart until they are bitter and alone, like Tomika. “She hasn't been in Sukuna's good graces lately.”
Jyuria hums quietly, an unpleasant noise that is more a whimper. “Please don't go.” She turns her body away from you. Hiding you away from her sight, while she asked for something you could not give. The wind blew the hair covering her face, and snaps her coiled braid to the side.
It almost tickles your nose as the breezes rattles through you. You yearn to take her by the hands, tell her she will be alright, and watch as her body stills, nerves gone. But she cannot see the way you pull in your lip, how your hand reaches out, shaking and pulling back at the last second. You turn from the sight instead.
“I'm going home. Very soon. Keep tending to the garden. Make sure everyone else takes care of the plants properly. I trust you.” She calls your name as you wipe down your clothes. The crumbling sound of her vocals almost root you in place. So you pat down the heavier clothes again. Built for colder months you are wrapped in a robe and then a white haori. The layers make your cut itch, the cold unkind against your marred skin. You yearn to scratch, you don’t, so you slap the skin below the cut in hopes it'll alleviate the urge at least a little. It doesn't.
You have to ignore her. It's the only thing that keeps you from telling her to come with you, but that was unfair. You could hardly handle the journey alone.
With the ice lashing at your hands, making your not quite healed wrist ache. You couldn't do that to her. Too many people were already willing to help you risk everything by getting out, you wouldn't subject Jyuria to more of Sukuna's suffering by being even more selfish.
The sun was already coming down. It was time to move.
Chiyuki had been more than willing to help you with your plan. She split her time as a maid to help you in the garden. She peels from the dirt with a nod of your head. Meets you just outside the stables. She convinced the stable man to let you into the stables once the sun traded places with the moon. The moon twinkles in the sky, not yet dark, but no longer light.
“I don’t know what you walk into there. The stable man is kind to me, but rather temperamental. I don’t know if I did enough. Stay on guard.” She pushes a bag into your arms. She hasn’t changed much since you have met her, she still makes you wary with chatter, but she knows when to turn it off. “I packed you some food a friend snuck me from the kitchens. You won’t be going far so I hope that is enough. Stay safe.”
You don’t want to cry in front of her, so you blink away the condensation. “Thank you. W-why do you help me?” You had started off rude and in pain, and she had shared opium with you. Now she is helping you escape with nothing to gain.
“I think you’re brave. I wish I was more like you.” You go to tell her she is brave too, but she is already pushing you into the stables, turning to run the other way. “People here fear too much. You shine like a star.” It’s barely heard as you crash into a pile of hay.
You creep around the other piles, ears on high alert for any noise. The hay stuck to your clothes prods at your limbs, an irritation you decide to ignore. You didn’t have time for comfort, you needed to focus. Your good arm collides into something when you hear a shuffling. It's a man. A little taller than you. He holds his chest where your punch had knocked the air from his lungs.
His hair is pulled back into a tight bun, you can watch him shiver as the cold air presses along his neck. The stall behind him smells atrocious, fresh manure wafting the air. Your nose curls from it, as you train your eyes on the man. No weapons, but big enough to win in a fight.
“Who are you?” you hiss quietly, ready to strike again if things go wrong.
“Ryota. The stable hand. Calm down. Calm down.” The man, Ryota brings his hands up in placation, soft grin on his lips. “I have to alert Lord Sukuna after you go.”
You surge to attack him again. Chiyuki didn’t do enough you think in a panic. You have to knock him out and run. Sukuna could not be immediately on your tail. There was no way you'd make it home then. But the man gives you a lazy smile, holding both your hands. It makes your left ache. “Come on, you can't expect me to get myself killed over a stranger. Chiyu said you were brave. I see that.”
“Let go of me.” He does immediately, but something about him has your hair raising. You can't place it. He just…acts strange.
“Now this is a favor to Chiyu because she let me have some opium. But, allow me to be clear. You get on that horse and gallop fast.” Ryota's arms fold over his chest. One hand comes up to show you two thin fingers. “I'll give you two hours before I alert Uraume. Then you're on a time limit, Lord Sukuna will then come for you fast. Disobedience is not something he ignores.”
“Okay.” You come to your horse. The animal nuzzles into your nose. Her mane has been carefully braided into a dozen small strands, her dappled white and black coat washed of dirt from your journey that feels so long ago.
The horse beside her is a war horse. There are at least three. One black, staring at you in curiosity. Another one, deep brown chews on some hay, and you turn from it not paying attention to the third. “Are you ready to go Hayate?” You make sure the bag is tied around your horse as she nickers and push up on your hands to climb over her back.
You’re sliding, left wrist holding no weight, bending to the side. “Damn it,” you curse. In reply Ryota snickers at you, offering his hand. You take it, frown lacing your lips. His hand seems to brush up your arm before he finally let’s go.
“I'll help you up.” A queasy feeling comes over you as Ryota grips your thigh. This wasn’t what you expected. You had imagined him giving you a boost from bracing his palms around your knee and pushing up. His fingers didn’t do that, instead they pull you up by your thighs, hand lingering on your ass for a moment once you were in the kura. His body was lean and strong, and that was a way to help someone in the saddle, maybe it was earnest, but you didn’t like it either way.
“Don't do that again,” you warn as you bunch the rein into your good hand. The words pierce like blades in your head, but the man looks as if you are speaking a silly joke. Ryota laughs as you tap the side of your horse, galloping off into the cold night.
Your haori flaps in the wind with your speed as you leave the outer fencing of the shrine. The rest of the land around you has begun to grow, from the breeze caring plant seeds across the dirt. It's the natural way plants develop, human hands were never a necessity.
As you run from the shrine you cannot help ponder it, the necessity of humans. The world would flourish without them. There would be no negative energy to create a curse to leech the ground, and there wouldn't be large structures barring the growth of plants. At times you wonder if humans should even exist. You hate how the thought has you wondering what Sukuna believes. Did he kill and eat others because humans were a plague to the world, or was it all truly pleasure for the man.
You brush the thoughts off, leaning down against your horses mane to combat the cold crawling over your cheeks. You have to guide with your right hand, your left tucked under your chest, lest your wrist ache in the cold. Your chest feels tight, and each shift in the kura reverberates into the healing scar. You wish it healed faster, you wish that all that was left was the silvery scar you knew was going to remain. It would have healed better if you had mother’s tonics.
You had to just deal with it though. It could be worse. There could be a curse nearby. You were traveling the expanse of trees, instead of the path leading to the shrine. It had been a good idea when you had thought it, but now that you were alone in the dark and in the cold, it feels stupid now.
“Come on Hayate, go faster,” you whisper into your mares ears. They twitch and the speed of which you move gets faster, but only by a little. Each snap in the forest has you bracing against Hayate, as you peer through the shadows in the trees. Was it Sukuna? A curse? The eyeball?
You are unable to see anything but leaves and darkness, not even an animal graces your sight. Your nerves pulse in your throat as you shift in the kura. How far are you?
You could no longer see the shrine? Could you stop? No, not with the possibility of Sukuna finding you on the forefront of your mind. You guide Hayate with a series of clicks and a tug of your right hand, your left beginning to throb in the weather.
You want a fire, but you do not dare stop and light one. Tree branches lash at you for that decision, and you grit your teeth from the pain, but still you go. Until the sun dapples orange, and you can see the patch of grass before you. Slowing to a stop you reluctantly drop into the green, lapping at your feet.
“You need a break girl?” you ask Hayate, as you pet the splotch of white across her head. Dirt has plastered against her legs and those braids have untwisted into messy strands once more. She nickers at you nudging your side until you turn. A river as clear as the coming frost sits before you. “Go ahead.”
You were unsure if camping out for even an hour was wise, but you might have fallen off the mare if you’d remained in the saddle. She dips her head drinking deeply. You take the time to fill a small pouch with water, taking just enough to wet your mouth. Then you tie it back onto her side, fingers reaching for the bag of food.
Chiyuki wouldn’t have given you something you couldn’t eat, so you trust the dried meat. It’s salty as you take your time to slowly chew, as you rest against a tree. It’s tough and sticks in your teeth, but you are glad you feed yourself something. As soon as Hayate finishes drinking you rise. You step up on a large rock to help you push up over the kura despite your hand. If you could have given your mare a longer break you would have, so you pat her neck in apology.
You had never rode this hard, with only small breaks at a time. Mizuki had whined far too much the last time you made the journey. It was a struggle, the wind pressing into each inch of your clothes that were too thin. The urge to itch your chest was so strong, you wanted to peel away the cloth and drag your hand over the scar until relief came.
It drove you to ride harder instead, focus on the path before you. The forest hummed, bugs skittering past your face, surprising you, though with the weather they were rare. The random stillness on occasion is what truly scared you. It was when you could imagine Sukuna, head tilted, pout on his face mocking your attempt at escape. You’d wipe the vision away with a shake of your head.
White begins to flick at your eyes, small crystallizations sticking to your skin during midday. Your first thought is that Uraume has found you. Sukuna had not come himself, and Uraume has come to collect you, and they will freeze you until you can no longer feel anything. But the ice was coming from above you, not behind. It was the sky, hiding away your tracts in the dirt.
A blessing maybe? A nuisance as well. You lean into the warmth of Hayate’s mane, allowing your chest and left hand to feel the heat. The sky is a pale blue, fracturing in shades of white and gray, like ash. The cold licks at your skin as you ride on, and it does not stop even when night arrives.
You shiver under a small compact hole of dirt, a burrow long abandoned. A fox might have resided here, and it was almost too small. You force yourself to roll in a tight ball to remain warm. You left Hayate tired to a patch of trees nearby, and you take a moment to glance up at them. They remain as loyal as ever, and with a sigh of relief you duck back into the dirt.
You had eaten a couple hours ago, a ball of rice and some nuts, but you were anxious to be a glutton and run out of food, so you refused to eat anymore, at least until the sun rises. Allowing yourself only water you sip slowly before you fight the chill in order to sleep.
You shake, cheeks red, body curled like an infant. The forest surrounding you has the clap of hooves, and the pad of paws. Animal life, nothing like the shrine. Perhaps, your garden would bring animals to the doors of the old beaten land come spring and summer.
When sleep comes it is a violent splash of the river, the black invading your veins. It mellows once you chew, and mother brings you to the Kusatta clan. You aren’t staying in China anymore, it is time to make Japan a home.
You wish it had never happened even in a dream you are aware of one fact. If Mama had never worked underneath the Kusatta then she would be alive now. The memory of your mother is all that keeps you warm.
You chew on some dried fruit when you wake, use water in hopes to keep the sweetness against your tongue as you ride again. At this rate you will arrive late into the night, something you weren’t sure you liked.
Curses crawl around you, and you ignore them. You were no interest to these small creatures, weak things by their looks. They killed animals, tearing them apart like rabid dogs, desperate for anything they could handle in their path. You did not question why they did not look to you as a source of food, but you watch them through the corner of your eyes.
Everything was cast in a blanket of white, the sun burning the reflecting color back into your eyes until it was hard to make shape of anything. All you want is to rest, but all you manage is to lay over your horse. The kura aggravates your hurts, making your lower back ache, and all you feel is agony. But the Kusatta compound was so close you could taste in the air.
You ride up to their stables, the man brushing the horses gasping. He tells you that you were not expected, and you do not respond. You merely throw him your reins, drank once deeply and wonder past the shrine, and the place the young children were taught. You came to the estate, where a private servants quarters sat. Your home, Mama’s home.
You hear your name. You ignore it, until someone is yanking, rough on your arm. Then you stumble, turning to the one holding you. “Let me go.” If they refused you would scream until your body ached. Make the scene of your life.
It is Akiko’s mother, and she does as you ask. “You are not expected. Did you kill him?”
“No.” You drone. “I did not.”
“And you dare show your face?” Her own is in a snarl, but her words were only a irritating noise cloying in your head.
“It is the anniversary of the death of my mother.” Well, it would be tomorrow. When the sun rose again. “I am going to honor her as I always do.”
“Fine then. What is your progress?” You do not want to entertain this conversation, but you must. Hollow you respond.
“I have done nothing. Half of us—no, more than half were killed the day we stepped foot in the shrine. I am still healing from my own wounds inflicted by that monster. His land was a wasteland, I had nothing to kill him with. I intend for spring.”
“So you plan to make me wait?”
“I am not magic Lady Kusatta. I can not make poison appear into thin air. Do you wish for me to use my skills or rush into something I can’t accomplish with force alone?” Lady Kusatta lets you go with a growl. She pinches at the bridge of her nose, lips curling in annoyance.
“No. The timeline is merely frustrating. I thought that he would have his own poisons.”
“Probably.”
“You did not look?” She speaks incredulously, so you send her a glare that alludes to the stupidity you fear she has, that your brain lashes at you to voice. Before she is able to retaliate against it you speak slow, as if you are teaching a child.
“There was none in the infirmary. I checked, twice. He or Uraume probably has a hidden storage, but it is much easier to grow what I need than sneak around and die.” That shuts her up. “I’m gonna go honor my mother. Stay away from me.”
A smack reverberates across your cheek. It feels like a kitten batting a butterfly compared to what Sukuna has done to you, what he might do once you return. You hardly feel it.
“Has spending time in his shrine made you forget your manners? I could have you killed in an instant.” Maybe before that would have scared you, but now you just laugh. A loud windful rasp from the cold. It won’t subside, you just laugh and laugh as your skin and belly pulls tight.
You cut yourself off with a cold gaze, no humor left in the air. “You won’t. You need me.”
“You can be replaced.” Her back is pin straight, strong stance. But you can see the wrinkle in her brow. The tension that has her swallowing just slightly.
You lean up to whisper.
“No I can’t.”
Then you turn. Walk into your old quarters, it smells of herbs, dead, but home. It smells of your mother, because she always smelt of dirt and dried plants. It’s the first time you let your tears fall since you decided to come home. The apparition you made up does not appear, but you don’t need it. You would be seeing her very soon. But for now you allow yourself to crumble into your old bed, her old bed. You allow her to coat your senses, tears slide down your cheeks and across your throat.
“I miss you.” This was not your home, but it feels like it in this moment. Where you had lived in Japan for so long. Where you would open the door and display what plants you had found. She would pat your head, show you the process of leaving them to dry. “Why did you have to die?”
You already know. And it was unfair. Sleep is slow to come, but you let the scent lull you.
Light has just risen when you peel from the bed. Drenched in sweat and tears, you rub at your eyes. Hollow and numb your look through the room, looking for a pot filled with powder. You find it, half empty, black as coal, shimmering purple in the light. You re-enter the frost of the day. Akiko greets you, slippery smile on her lips.
She calls your name, voice hinting her malice.
“Mother tells me you’re lazy. Just what I expect from the river rat.” You brush her off, passing her by. You do not have the energy to deal with the girl. “How rude. Don’t act as if you are allowed to disrespect me.”
You scoff, heading towards the stables until you hear the words, “Hawks, she stops for five minutes.” You hear the click of metal against her thumb and your body turns rigid, unable to shift. “Good, now that you have to listen,” she whispers lowly coming to tangle her hand in your hair. Your neck comes back painfully from the tug.
“Mother puts a lot of faith in your capabilities, I do not. You are lucky I follow her word, or you would be in a grave now, just like your Mama.” Your fingers beg to reach for her throat, but they do not move. Your body radiates with tension each muscle screaming to wrap around her throat until her body stilled. “Anyway, tell your Mama, I said hello.”
You jerk, body finally shifting as the final minute ends. You slam into the snow, body unprepared to act on it’s own. You hear her laughter rain down on you as she walks away. You debate going after her, but you want to see your mother, so you walk to the stables instead. You pet Hayate. “Ready to go?”
She trots slow through the snow. You welcome the cold. Now it reminds you of death. Of mom. It didn’t matter if Sukuna had caught up, you were already here. All that was left was to honor her. He would have to wait. He could punish you then, or kill you. This time was for Mom.
The river her body was dumped in all those years ago was slush. You remember finding her head upside down in this very spot. You’d watched her be killed, but they hadn’t allowed you to see where they tossed her body. They let you find it. Let you fumble in the snow until it felt like your fingers would snap.
How fitting it was in a river by a wisteria tree. It was dead now, but you take it’s vines, and a pod. You left a brazier here the first year to never forget the spot. Where you screamed your lungs dry. Where you wept and pleaded for the world to frost over you. Where you clung to a ghost begging it to come back. The ghost whispers at your ears gently dragging you closer with a need to see what you came for. Mother.
You crack.
The tears do not stop running as you pull your mats from your hair. Each strand pulls gently through a tangle as you watch the snow blow in the wind. You bend the wisteria vine along the length of one strand. You ignore the throb in your left hand as you fold the hair over each other. Side to middle, repeat. Then again. You pull the braid into a bun low on your head, pinning a pod with a branch.
You drop the powder you had taken into the brazier. You light it up, letting the scent of ground mushroom take you away. A strong hallucinogenic, gifting the ability to see into the future and speak to the dead. The fire is a light purple, something you had never understood, no matter how many times you light the powder. It feels too thick. It doesn’t make sense.
The snow falls away. You’re sitting in a shroud of white dust. The fire is gone. Everything is gone. Hayate’s footsteps are not heard from where you sit on your knees. You no longer exist. Not in your world. You sit frozen, eyes clouded over, crossed to the other side, where you walk to find your mother.
You feel like your skin is twitching. Something seems wrong, but you cannot focus on what it is. Your breath is echoing in your ears while you call out.
“Mother?” It echos the expanse of smoke. You pant, the world feels like it’s spinning slowly around and around. Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother.
“Where are you?” Where are you? It laps at your skin poking at your mind.
Was the powder measurements wrong? No. Couldn’t be. You’d done this enough times that you could pour it blind. Mama was usually here by now. What was going on? The echos turn to hissing, angry whispers lacerating your mind.
It was all wrong. Mama was supposed to be here. You should see her now, smiling at you. You were supposed to talk.
It reminds you, of the first time you burned Maboroshi Bloom. It had been too much, had jumped from a tool for seeing things and for speaking to the dead to a poison to deliver nightmares.
It wasn’t possible. But nothing else made sense. You feel as if you hadn’t crossed, like your body moves when it should be at rest. Had you made a mistake?
“Mistake.” You turn with a gasp.
Mama looks down at you like you are nothing. Her eyes are cold, her hair is undone. It isn’t what you’ve come to expect. Each year you would use the bloom, dead wisteria in your hair, and she would sit with you for the night, live wisteria draped in two braids. Now it’s just a mess of knots while she repeats herself. “Mistake.”
“Mama, no I—”
“I should have let you die,” she walks away, evaporating into the white.
It’s not real.
“Oh, it is.” You hear the hiss behind you. Sharply, you look in the direction. She sits, skull dangling from her fingers. “You were so weak.” The head is so small.
“So young. I was sooo desperate, and for what?” The words slither wet along your spine. She’s gone. “A failure.”
Bony fingers grab at your jaw turning you to stare a rotting face. Bugs crawl from her eyes, dropping onto your clothes. A spider pops out of her eye, slowly wiggling out from her lower lid. You push and scream. As you are falling to the floor a smaller voice mutters to you.
“We should be dead.” You don’t remember looking like this. But the girl is leaning over you, staring you dead in the eyes and it feels like a reflection.
Her veins are black. Skin drawn tight over bones that poke. “Why do you try to live?” You watch both forms from your place on the ground. The ice licks at your neck, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Not as you watch both their feet make icy prints in the snow.
Mother’s voice is a wet rattle, nothing but bones. “Your father wanted to meet you. I’m glad he didn’t.”
You push up. You’re thrown aside. The smoke hides the bodies from you. “Why are we alive?” The child appears an inch from your face. Their voice is quiet, confused. Their lids bat back lashes covered in goop.
“We don’t deserve it.”
“Mother stop this.” The woman becomes more mangled with each second.
“Stop what?”
“This. I miss you.” You whisper while your mothers throat grinds in a laugh. Bone rubbing over bone. Skin disappears from her body, slowly peeling away to muscle drained of blood. That muscle disintegrates before your eyes and you watch the process of death before you.
Mama is rapidly depleting, finger bones falling to the dirt, morphing to dust.
“I died for you.” You watch her die again.
“I’m sorry,” you croak, walking to where her bones start to drop and disappear. The other you is gripping tightly to your leg. Asking questions you don’t know how to respond to, all of them spoken over the other in quick voices carrying in the vortex of smoke.
Why are you alive? Why did father never meet us? Why did he die? Why does everyone we love leave? Why are we alone?
“I love you,” you grasp at the remains of bones falling between your fingers. She does not respond. All you hear is a rhythmic thump. She turns to dust as your head snaps to the side, the skin tingling, burning hot. The smoke is gone.
Chapter 4 | Chapter 6
Author's Note: I'm sorry this has come out so late. It was written and needed to be edited but I was trying to get some chapters written for a potential prequel of this story. It's a Sukuna x Reader with a different reader. Once I edit the next chapter I am a little scared to post it because uhhhh I am scared to add this story line and it blow up in my face... Anywhooo, lemme know in the comments if I should start posting that story while I write this one or wait until this one is done. (That will probably take a while...) Also with another story I have started to write that is modern au.
Pairing: True Form Sukuna x Reader | Explicit | Slow Burn
Content Warning: This work contains graphic violence, gore, body horror, and psychological horror. Reader Discretion is advised. CANNIBALISM!
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Chapter 3 | Chapter 5
It's an impossible task.
The rain has stopped sprinkling the sky with its tears, but it left behind mud.
Heavy, thick mud. It paints your feet and hakama brown, with a thick layer of grime.
You dig.
What are you digging for? If Uraume didn't know where the curse was, if Sukuna didn't know where the curse was, how were you supposed to find it?
You could feel it. A sense of power emanating from the soil. A wrongness that feels like slime across your skin. Still, there is no place to pinpoint it. It was like looking for a grain of salt amongst sand.
Forearms cake with the wet dirt, and you sink them in deeper. Deeper.
You don't know why. Your brain does not process what it does. You only know you search deeper in the dirt, until all you know is the feeling of the cold. The wet. The slick.
Your brain may not know why it digs, but your soul does. Something inside you tells you that this is what you needed to do. You could feel it in the tingling of your fingers and the swirling in your belly. You do not ask, you just know.
Roots brush against your palm, and you gasp in wonder. If the shrine is dead, then how have you found roots? It feels unsettling. They coil around your fingers and a tiredness overcomes you.
A warning comes as a churning in your gut, and every inch of your body is telling you to run. But you can’t, it’s too hard. You feel so tired. The lids of your eyes cannot stay open, and you can no longer hold yourself up. There was nothing to stop you from falling against the dirt and letting the darkness take you.
It starts the same as it had those weeks ago. When you had first arrived in the shrine.
You are on the side of the river bed while your mother frantically searches the water. Her eyes look sunken in on her cheeks as if she forgotten what sleep was. The bags are so deep they do not even look purple. They are black. Why is her bun out? Why is she scared? You reach for her the questions on your tongue.
They do not come. Black spittle runs down your mouth as coughs ravage your insides. It feels like death, if one could try to describe what that feels like. You’ve never known it, so how could you be sure?
You feel heavy and vile, like your body is made of dirt and slime.
You taste the ground as she forces you to part your lips. Her words are scrambled, you don’t understand.
You chew what she has you swallow.
Light blossoms. You can feel it inside you, pulling away the pain. Death relinquishes his claws from you. It’s saving you. A far away thought tells you to remember, but the thought floats away.
Thump. Thump.
Each beat pours more power into your veins. Lashes fluttering you look up. Tears dribble down Mama's face. Her bun is loose, and a tangle of wispy strands cling to her cheeks, and plaster her forehead. Her thumbs against your face are a gentle pressure, that bats away the last attempts of disease aiming to seize you.
A wrinkled face and a waterfall of tears has never seemed more beautiful to you. Mama was always beautiful. Even though she looked a little gaunt, and her eyes were scattered with too many fragmented thoughts with blackness encroaching upon her skin. So beautiful.
All she does is hold you. Tight, like she cannot bare the thought of letting go. Her words of apology escape your head before a thought of a response can form.
Everything felt so light.
The air a gentle breeze. The water warm through your clothes. Even the sun shines a little brighter. Your chest no longer aches, the blackening of your veins recedes. It fills back with the usual blue. Birds chirp welcoming you back from the jaws of death. Water shifts back and forth as Mama rocks you.
“Where are we?” There is no cough and no croak. In fact your words sound as if they are spun in silk. Soft, delicate, and beautiful.
At first your mother smiles and prepares to answer.
But then the expression shatters. A dark look covers her face, clouding the light from her eyes.
“Something is wrong. Wake up.”
Nothing is wrong. You try to assure her. But her head careens from side to side. Voice rough as shattering rocks she just keeps repeating.
“Wake up.” Wake up.
WaKe Up. WAke uP.
WAKE UP!
Peeling from the mud you feel your body tense on high alert. It's no longer day. The moon greets you, and the roots around your hand remain glued to you. You yank away. It feels like hands grasping you.
And your body feels so weak. All you can manage to do is slip through the dirt. It is an unusual feeling. Not just tiredness, yet it was a feeling you recognized. Death, kissing your fingertips, coaxing you into the dirt. Swirling around you like hands holding someone beloved.
It flashes in your mind. The river. Only it doesn't feel like a dream. A reminder? It itches at your brain, but you cannot remember. It’s just a dream. But the remnant, of the feeling of death was unmistakable. Why?
The roots grip is harsh tugging you, angry. How dare you wake while it takes your soul? You can feel it’s emotions so well, it’s almost as if it speaks. This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to wake up, it hisses at you dragging your arm into the dirt until it kisses your shoulder blade.
Hungry.
Eat. Sleep.
You fall back into the earth, those fingers gripping at your forearms, clinging to your skin.
Eyes slip, the world fades black again.
Mama is not there to tell you to wake up. You are nowhere, just lost in a nothingness. A haze makes thoughts a slog. You know something isn’t right here, but you cannot place why. When you poke at the recesses of your mind to find what felt off a buzz would swim beneath your eyes.
A whisper in your ears promises you’re alright. But you know. How you aren’t sure, but you know that it is lying to you.
You were wilting. Of that you were sure. How you knew intrinsically what death felt like you couldn't possibly know. You just knew that this was it. Not a quick ordeal, but something slower, unnoticed.
Like poison seeping slowly through someone's body, destroying them from the inside.
Sapping.
Sapping. Like the curse stealing from the plants.
That's what it was.
It was stealing from you. But what could you do? Self aware you were being stolen from, unable to do anything to stop it. At least if you survived, you'd learned something.
But it was unlikely.
A pressure builds around your midsection. Eyebrows crinkle as you try to decipher what it could be. Still, you swim inside the blank void, garbles splinter your ears. Intangible. The buzz battles with the warble. Twisting and chittering you grab for something to understand, but you don't understand.
The pressure feels tight, warm. You don’t understand it, it feels like it’s dragging you away, but from what? The expanse of nothing you float through?
You don’t want to go. Nothing felt good. No expectations. No mission. No fear.
Bliss.
The pressure tugs and tugs. You struggle against it. You don’t want to leave. Staying makes things so easy, and you can see your mother smiling out in the distance. Head tilted to the side, face etching a smile. So close you can almost smell her. Lavender and an array of other herbs permanently dried into her scent. You try calling her name. She only smiles at you. Her arms open wide, and you want to swim to her embrace and never let go.
You hear your name, disgruntled, said in panic. A whisper. A yell. Another, desperate. Wake up. No. Stay here. Don’t go. One voice pulls you in deeper, the other pleads you wake up. You didn’t feel like you were asleep. You want to stay asleep.
The expanse breaks on a scream. Against your will you are torn from that place, your mother disintegrates into smoke. Rain patters as clumsy arms haul you from the ground. The roots hold tighter, feeling like nerves in fingers. The person pulling you back slips in the mud and you drop backwards, but it was enough.
The roots squeal as they snap. A shrieking pathetic sound of a thousand voices, or you suppose curse roots screaming as their meal was ripped off.
You understood now. The reason the curse was hard for even the strongest to pinpoint was because it was everywhere. Reverse roots stealing the nutrition right from the source of where a plant should draw it. And it played with your mind, promised something you wanted and couldn’t have. Your mother, you’d have to die.
The shoulder you lean into was your savior. Too small to be Sukuna, too warm to be Uraume. An almost blistering heat bleeds into your shivering bones. Bandages of the one wrapping their arms around you, scratch along your cheekbone. Soft hair you had braided just this morning tickles your neck, Jyuria’s. When she had looked at the other servants hair she had expressed she missed her braids and they were now to difficult to do. She had thanked you.
“Thank you,” you whisper to her, gratitude spilling through your tired voice.
“What were you doing?” The words morph into something far away, and you do not respond. The tiredness drags you under. Your breath falls in soft rises, as you are carried away.
₊⊹
“Is she finally awake?” Something is in your face. It is entirely too close. It’s pissing you off. You shove it away and hear a familiar whine. Chiyuki you acknowledge, turning with a grumble.
“Get her up.” That rumbling growl has you jolting up. Everything smears with the speed that your eyes open, and there he is. Inside the servants quarters. He is in a plain hakama, with his lower arms folding over his chest. Both of his mouths sneer back at you as you stare.
Your skin feels slick with sweat coating every inch. Your chest was wrapped, but it was tighter than usual, so it meant you didn’t do it. Uraume then. But why?
“What’s going on,” you ask, voice like rocks jumbling together. Why did it sound as if you did not speak for days?
“Your weeks up.” That wasn’t possible. You had discovered the curse on day four. Only you couldn’t remember what happened after that. No recall brought the answers to your head. The only thing that could have happened—
“How long have I been asleep.” Jyuria turns her head to Chiyuki, who looks at you and then to the floor.
“Three days.” The girl you associate with being chatty and having opium mumbles. It made sense, but it still had your body reeling. Three days? How much life had that damn thing sucked from you? The building feels like it’s drawing in on you, everything feels horribly hazy as you suck in rapid breaths. All the things that could have been done in your absence. The seeds that could have been planted by now.
“We had a deal. No curse. You know what that means.” It’s not framed as a question. Sukuna’s left hand raises, his pinky and ring finger curl into his palm. The signal you recognize from your first day in his shrine. “I’m disappointed.”
He does not grin, he expresses no emotion actually. Words strangle your throat, mouth parting and clasping in shock. No, this couldn’t be the end. You have so much more to do. You have to bring life back to the shrine.
You have to kill him. No.
Where was that idiotic ability to ignore danger and speak? Has it abandoned you when it’s what you need?
“Wait.” It is only a mere squeak, but it’s enough. His head tilts a minuscule amount, brow perching a centimeter higher. “I know where it is.”
“Enlighten me.” The playful lilt of his voice when amused is devoid. It is only a cold brittle sound pressing into your ears. It has you rattling on your futon, the fabric falling further down your legs with each shudder.
“It’s under the shrine.” Chiyuki’s laugh bubbles nervously, throat bobbing. The looks she sends your way is pleading with you to be serious, but you don’t laugh back. You remain stone faced, avoiding the horror that crosses their face.
Sukuna only quietly mulls your words over. The tilt of his head deepens as he rests it against his pointer finger. His thumb hooks under his chin, and his lower eyes slit almost looking closed. The pools of red exposed churn with a thoughtful expression before he speaks.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” You repeat uncertain.
“Show me.” There is not a moment to decline, because he’s already dragging you by the collar. The mud squishes beneath his oppressive form, and you slide in the dips he makes.
Flinging you forward Sukuna watches you stumble through the muck. You splash into the puddles where rain had overwhelmed the dirt, face kissing the ground. The earth tastes bitter on your tongue, and you spit to expel it.
Bastard.
Pulling yourself up, your left arm aches, but not nearly as bad as the last time you tried. Only enough to cause teeth to grit. Being stronger was a good thing, but the way he looks at you has you feeling weak. Like the lowest animal on the food chain.
“Well?” His arms cross again, and he stares at you expectantly. A part of you is prepared to explain as he commands, but the other part is swirling with rage at his disrespect. Throwing you into the dirt? Not a lick of apology on his face or in his tone is making you seethe, boiling beneath your skin. All he grants you is a look of cold observation.
You wobble, slipping in the dirt, legs weak from days of rest and no movement. It feels like walking on rickety stilts instead of muscle wrapped legs, not that you had much muscle anyway. Mud slathers your palms and you grasp the clay that clumps over them.
Thwack.
Swinging your arm aimlessly the thick brown substance slathers his eyes with a squishing noise. You use the moment he takes to wipe them clean to slam your fist into his chest. His sternum was hard as stone, and you were sure the hit hurt you more than it had him. The tilt of his head and a low grunt confirmed it.
The regret was immediate. As your feet dip into the mud, coating your ankles you find you struggle to pull back. All he does is brush the arm away, like swatting a mosquito. Nails twist through your hair until the grip is tight enough to sting. He uproots you, mud squelching as it protests the sudden removal. The sound that breaks through your lips is a mixture of agony and desperation, and you start to flail.
“Idiot.” The grip tightens until water lines over your lashes painting Sukuna’s face in a blur of colors. “What were you aiming to accomplish? A more painful death?” His eyes burn a wild violent currant, each one wide with what you presumed was anger. But it wasn't anger, not really, more of a incredulousness.
Strands of hair snap as they draw too taunt. “Don’t you think you should have let your fragile body heal before picking a fight with me?” The brown on his face crusts and crinkles with each shift in his expression. He flings you once more, the chill spreads where mud leeches into your clothes. Pain spreads through the bones of your shins as they collide, and the water drips across your cheeks.
You’re so tired of crying.
He should just die. You wouldn't cry anymore then.
His expression shifts to one of disgust, and his head shakes. “You can barely stand. Pitiful.” He spits, saliva browned from the dirt across his face.
You wonder why he only crosses his arms. Why does he not bring his hand up in preparation to cleave or dismantle you? You ponder this as the air scatters your hair. It feels like the sky is swallowing you. But your still here, and Sukuna only stares down at you, and your shedding tears. The disgust he feels overwhelms his face, curling his lip and nostril, narrowing his eyes. He watches you, as if it is the ugliest thing he had ever seen.
“You’re pathetic.” It worms into your ears, curls down your throat and wraps around your heart. “Each moment I believe you might be interesting to keep around you disappoint me.”
You can’t stand it. That look that doesn’t see you, but defines you. The gaze makes you feel small, reminds you of being a little girl hiding behind your mothers leg, while she sold things in a market. It makes you question who you are, and why you continue to persist in existing. You force yourself to stand, as his hand finally comes up.
“It’s in the dirt.” His fingers twitch. Not an activation, a hesitation “Everywhere. It acts like roots, it leeches the life from the plants.” You pause for a moment, words forming too slow in your brain. How does one explain that it sucks life from any living thing?
“Only it’s not just the plants it steals from. It’s anything that lives in any capacity.” You span your arms out in front of you bringing them in a wide arc to the side. All that is exposed is wet dirt and clay. “Everything that should be flourishing here rots because it’s food source has been corrupted.”
“How do you know?” His arms relax, his posture shifting to something more unperturbed. His tension is not gone, only subdued. The buzzing from three days ago is soft in your ears as you look down at your arms. Tendrils of cursed energy slip across your skin. Hardly perceptible, but you knew he could tell.
It’s then that your brain starts to turn slowly. It mulls over everything you knew. He could see the lingering of cursed energy, he had to if he was the strongest. Uraume probably could too. They are both highly intelligent individuals so it makes little sense for them to truly not know. To need a non-sorcerer to seek out something killing their land. So the words come out a little more hesitant than you like. Your unsure why he wouldn't already know.
“Cause the roots stole from me.”
Finally, a smile spreads slowly over his lips, jubilation coating his eyes. His words confirm that he has been toying with you. He’d known where the curse had been all along. He was testing you.
“I know.” The humidity makes his skin sticky. If it bothers him he doesn’t show it, instead he migrates to the center of the shrine, and you follow along like a puppy eager to see it’s owner.
The thought is nauseating. You, a good dog.
In the center of the shrine he stills. The air stills with him. All there is left is hot clumping dirt, hot air and no breeze. He turns to you, sucking in a deep breath. You watch his chest expand and slowly deflate.
“Let’s get to work.” Huh? Let’s? As in you both?
“What do you expect me to do?” The glare he sends you holds your body in place, unwilling to even shift in any way.
“To shut your mouth and do as your told.” His knuckles on his lower fists crack one by one, the bones shifting and air popping. Then he makes the same motion on the higher set. His head rolls with a grinding noise you could hear from where you stood paces away. “You are going to expose the curse, and I will kill it.”
Sweat drips over your eyebrow, skipping over your eye down your cheek.
“What?” He could not be serious. However, you knew that he was. It makes your pulse run. “No—I don’t want to do that.” A growl rumbles from his throat.
“Then I’ll kill you. Do you want that?” You stay silent a moment. The buzz in your ears is particularly disinclined for either idea. You wish you could swipe it away, give yourself the silence to think. But it stays.
“No.” He has to strain his ears to hear, but when he does you watch his lips loop in a grin.
“Good.”
“How do you intend to kill it?” You ask, as you drop into the mud, parting through the dead branches and the weeds that desperately cling on. How fitting that weeds were the only things trying to stay thriving. The buzzing snaps against your temple in a repetitive flicking motion, it doesn't like what it's sure is coming. It's trying to make you stop, you know that with every strike.
“That clan of yours really sent you in here with no information didn’t they?” Not an answer. You go to tell him just that but he’s already shushing you. “Sorcerers find that sharing their technique gives them a boost, I find it unnecessary. I am strong enough. However, to appease your simple mind I shall explain.”
He pats at your head, watching you look for something in the soil. His lower pair of eyes search too, but the others are locked on your irises. It's quite an odd feeling. Knowing he's staring at your face and your hands all at once. You wonder what it's like to see behind his eyes. Does it hurt? Maybe once he's dead you could study his body, it was probably quite the ingredient for poison. Fine specimen, but using humans was sort of distasteful, even to you.
“My technique cleave scales to the power of it’s target, but it requires physical contact.” So cleave was not what had been used against you. “Do you understand, or do I need to dumb it down for you pet?”
Lips twisting back you snarl at the name. “I am not a pet.”
“You are whatever I say you are.” No. You weren't.
You were a poisoner.
And once the garden had started to flourish and you had access to poison, he would be a malformed skeleton buried in the ground. It was possible surely, but it was hard to imagine. A being so large and all consuming reduced to a pile of bones. Unless you scavenged him for material. You were still unsure you really wanted to do that. It made you feel deprave, a human tearing apart another human for parts of their flesh? For poisons when you had a dozen others you could make from plants alone? No. You'll turn him into a skeleton and let his body feed the earth.
It has you grinning privately to yourself. While you dig he prowls back and forth and you pause. The underside of your nails are black and brown filled with good soil, perhaps after this the shrine could flourish? It has you asking a question, something you don't understand if he's so strong.
“Why do I need to help you? You don't need me.”
“Maybe I like how you look on your knees.” He chuckles at the pinkness overcoming your cheeks. Heat flashes all the way down your spine. The dirt is mush against your legs, sinking into it as you kneel, you shovel with the cup of your hands.
“Disgusting.” Deplorable. But what else was there to expect, he was a man with a collection of concubines. Fingers twist deeper. The faster you find this curse the quicker you can leave. “If you're going to say such things at least say it to Tomika.”
“Who says I don't?” He leans down head inches above you, as you cock your head back to look up. A devious smirk lances his lips at the sight of you, pink and embarrassed. The skin around his eyes crinkle, and a part of you wants to reach out. Maybe you'd smack him? But you swallow that part of you down, not letting it come back up. “She is quite good on her knees. Good listener too. Very eager.”
“I don't need to know.” You keep your speech as bland as possible. If he isn't gaining amusement from the exchange perhaps he'll let it go?
“You brought her up woman.” His voice is a sinful purr against the drum of your ears. “Jealous?”
“No.” He snorts at your derision. He shifts to the side slightly, observing you. Looking for something that will make your well crafted mask crack by the look in his eyes. They search for a weak spot, like a knife searching for the perfect strip of skin to slip into.
“I don't believe you. Not with such a bitter look on your face.” He tilts your chin up with one claw, and you pull away from it. His brow dips down and a wrinkle pulls the muscle of his forehead. “You could be a good listener too you know. Maybe she could teach you?”
“That bitter look is because your mouth is as filthy as the dirt I sit in. I would never lie with you.” His lips pucker into a frown as he raises to his full height. His mouth shifts to a pleasant smile, as if you hadn't insulted his speech. But the thought of learning to act like a concubine was nauseating, if he sent Tomika to you… you would jump into the river just to get away.
“Your loss little one.” That name doesn't rub as wrong as little girl, so you hold your tongue. “I am rather endowed.” You can feel the skin of your face shifting in rapid succession, unable to choose what emotion to land on. Disgust, appallment, shock. Ever shifting he chortles at you. Laughs that come deep from within the gut resound in the air surrounding you both.
“I don't want to know that,” you snap at him, tempted to lob mud back at his face.
“You wield your disgust like a shield.” He says with a tilt in his head, “but you just imagined it didn't you?”
You don't respond.
“But nonetheless, I could never want a bug like you. Fun to play with yes, but your so…” his lips curl, “Boring. You wouldn't know what to do.”
I do know what to do. You wanna spit the words out at him, but it was stupid. You didn't need to sleep with him, who cared if he didn't think you were capable? Get it out of your head.
Shaking your head with a frown you focus back in on your task. A tingling sensation creeps into the pads of your fingers. A fizzling noise drowns him out, like you wanted. A hand is grasping at you from deep within the soil, while a you hold a pulsing object. It’s branch like, yet seems to mold across your palm, humming into your ears.
“You found it.” The deep voice sounds so far away, but that didn’t make sense. He was so close to you that you could see the russet adhering to clothing. It was getting darker, browns and reds deepening to black. White hakama shifting to gray.
“I—”
“Found.”
“It.”
“Let go.” He was commanding you, but you couldn’t obey. Sight was deteriorating. Death coming, whispering it was your time to go. It was okay, you would be put to good use.
You feel his palm curl in your kimono in one instant, the next you were staring up into the sky. The sunlight was warm against your cheeks, the earth, cold underneath your hair.
You relax into it, the buzzing in your ears unpleasant but consuming.
The roots were screaming.
Screaming.
He was mutilating them, without so much as a laugh. Not even a snicker.
And the buzzing was bleeding into your brain, until there was simply nothing left. Just the whispers of a breeze. The feeling of rot encompassing the shrine dispels in the silence. Gone. Like that. So quick? You hadn’t been able to force your body back up to see what he had done.
But the entire atmosphere has shifted. The only dangerous force left was him, who just looks—bored.
“That was a drag.” He pats his pants dry lifting from the hole in the ground. He looks down at you, resting where you had fallen from his toss. “That curse was weak. Get up.”
You can’t.
“It hurts.”
“You’ve handled worse.” The words prod at your ribs. Something about the blunt assurance latches to a part of your brain that wanted to be complimented. Not that this moment was the same, but it was the best someone would probably get from him.
“Have I?”
“You’ve handled me.” Oh. You suppose in a way you have. You had the weak hand to prove it, the cut along your chest.
He had dismantled you and yet you were still breathing. You had handled the King of Curses, even if it was more of a stroke of luck. So he had taken it as proof you were stronger than you thought you were.
“That was luck.” He didn't seem to listen, except for the twitch in his lip, which dissipates as his hand dips towards the ground. It was strange, watching him lend a hand to you. But you grasp the veiny hand if not hesitantly. He hauls you to your feet, You thump into his chest, then slink away slowly.
“I’ll admit, I’m impressed you stayed awake this time.” Though you felt hollow, you stay on your feet. A ghost clinging to it’s host, at least until you had your rest. “Next time you will figure it out on your own.”
“What?” You blink at him. He does not look back at you, in your haze his four arms look like a dozen. A bundle brushing at the duplicates of his skin, wiping away dirt. “What yu—” you pause your words a slurring mumble. So you blink again, digging your palm into the side of your head in an attempt to wake up the brain. “What do you mean?”
“The curse.” He speaks slow, it makes you feel like he thinks your dumb. “You will handle the next one alone.” Woozy you turn away from him.
Rubbing hands against your eyelids, irritating your lashes you shake your head. “I won't be handling curses,” you mumble staring down at the dirt. A hand claps the middle of your upper back and you hiss.
“Speak properly, I can't understand you.” You bat at the hand poking at your head. “Are you a kitten?” He responds to the action.
“No,” you grumble. “I'm going back to the servants quarters. Leave me alone.” You hear the huff of a laugh, more a breath of air than anything else. The earth dips, or is that you? You stumble forward, and your sure it has to be you as you quickly approach the dirt.
Arm hooking under you, you feel the warmth of a body. The body hums in amusement, and you can feel each step it takes, though you only dangle. “I'm sure you will, or perhaps you'll just face plant into the dirt. Do you need me to help you?”
“No.” The arm unhooks and you splash into the mud. Whining you push up and your body tells you no. That's okay, you'll just take a nap here. Only… a foot nudges you. Again and again. “Stop it.”
“You seem to be getting quite far,” he snickers down at you. You sort of like it, his playful teasing. It's better than the fear he ignites daily. Nothing would come of it though, but the smile in his voice was annoyingly pleasant to the ears. “Oh! Is that the servants quarters there? So close.”
You peel your face from the mud glaring up at him. The sun shines just right, twinkling into the pink of his hair, his face is in shadow for the most part, but his smile wide. It stops the words from coming to your lips.
He's divine.
You remind yourself he has to die. “You know we have not moved an inch.” He yanks you up by your clothes again. Not high enough that your legs don't drag, but enough that your no longer slumping into the ground.
“You need a bath.” He's not dragging you back to the servants quarters. You have no idea where he is dragging you. Until your flung and the water has you yelping, clawing back out of the hot spring.
“You can't fucking do that?” His upper half shifts in a shrug.
“Clean yourself.” With him here? No. You stay on ground just outside the pool of warm steaming water. “I won't be with you. I have my own hot spring idiot.” He kicks you back in while he passes you by.
“Lord Sukuna.” He pauses.
“Yes?”
“What's the date?” His answer has you biting at your lip. Jyuria can plant those seeds. You trust her. The anniversary of your mother's death is coming up. You should be healed by then.
“When my chest heals I will be traveling back home for a couple days.” He raises his brow at you.
“No. You won't.” You do not argue as he strides away.
But like uh I watched Jjk before bleach and now I'm experiencing Grimmjow and oh my my. Like Sukuna is my King 👑 but this guy has also got me by the throat.
And I haven't been watching the sub... But I learn they have the same Japanese VA's HELLOOO
I have a story line that would link to a prequel to Mithridatism. It doesn't have Mith's reader. It's a different one, but I'm struggling to write that prequel story but I'm kinda scared to add in its plot line to Mithridatism. I don't know how people would feel about it.
(and unfortunately I thrive on people liking my stuff...) but it seems interesting to me.
Man... I'm worried y'all will get frustrated with my fic because she hasn't immediately poisoned him. As much as it would be cool, it just hasn't made sense yet. Ya know.... yeah uh... I'm lame I know, bye bye.
