⛩️ 両面宿儺 - 𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈, 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡, 𝐒𝐮𝐤𝐮𝐧𝐚 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝
The concept of the Ryomen Sukuna, King of Curses, descending into gradual madness when his beloved dies.
It was to be expected, with him being a cursed deity and you being nothing but a human. But Sukuna bargained for your life regardless. However, no matter how often Sukuna went through the cycle of cursing, threatening, pleading with whichever higher power there was above him, death was inevitable for you.
When you had passed away to some place an immortal being like Sukuna didn't have the privilege of ever seeing, he used ink to ground himself.
A steady hand and a brush was all he needed to paint your name across his shrine over and over. The black ink soaked into stone and paper, each stroke nothing short of deliberate.
It was where you belonged, in each of his breaths and every flick of his wrist. Your name deserved permanence.
The first time Sukuna wrote your name was perfect. So was the second. Along the wooden beams of the scaffolding, on the stone steps leading up to his silent abode, on his own body where only he could see it. Sukuna could feel the weight of you on him, even if your physical body had long withered away.
When he wrote, Sukuna could feel the memories flow through his mind as scatterings of parchment surrounded his large form. The way you smiled at him, like he had hung up the moon in the sky for you himself. How there was nothing but love in your eyes when he was so accustomed to fear.
Your name multiplied across the shrine.
Sukuna would sit for hours, days at a time at his altar as the incense sticks burnt out while he continued to write. Your name would leave his lips like a chant, like he was willing you to come back.
But all he was met with was silence.
Time continued to tick by regardless. Decades blurred into many. Civilisations collapsed and grew. The shrine was black with ink and rot, the scent of dust so cloying that Sukuna struggled to breathe. Yet he stayed in his abode and continued to write.
Your name began to overlap in tight spaces. Each letter stacked until the word was rendered unintelligible. Big, small, and smaller still until your name was too hard to read. Sukuna continued to dip his brush in ink, turning old words glossy again with layers of pure devotion.
But Sukuna grew confused, because there was only so much space he could find around him. His memory began to fracture, until he could only remember the way you said his name, and not the way he said yours. His handwriting deteriorated.
The lines which were once curt and neat turned frantic, consisting of nothing but slashes of crazed ink and half-formed symbols that smeared into one streak. Often, Sukuna would lift up a hand and write a single letter again and again until language broke down into nothing.
Your name turned into nothing but noise in Sukuna's head. It was loud, to the point he felt madness creeping in and sinking its claws into his skull. He'd laugh every so often, the sound maniacal as it echoed off blackened walls. If he tried hard enough, Sukune convinced himself, he could still see you, feel you in each ounce of tainted space around him.
Sukuna wrote once more the longer he let his delusion take over. He painted the shrine all over until you had nowhere else to go but back to him.
Eventually, the ink began peeling off the surfaces of the shrine. How long had it been since you left his side? A century? A millennium? He didn't know.
But as the bare slab of stone stared up at Sukuna and he lifted a hand once more to write your name, he hesitated.
For the first time in his cursed existence, Sukuna could not remember how it started.