the lamb: chapter 1
Sukuna is reincarnated into the modern world, only to realize that being a villain is actually kind of a bore. Now a teacher at Jujutsu High by pure technicality, he’s decided being a “good guy” is way more entertaining, mostly because it still lets him do whatever he wants while everyone thanks him for it. Unfortunately for you, that also means you get assigned to him as a specialist, since your technique is one of the very few things that can smooth out the jagged, overwhelming nature of his cursed energy after he uses it. The problem is… you’re absolutely terrified of him. Every second in the same room feels like your body is trying to shut down, and the idea of having to touch him to do your job makes it even worse. Sukuna, on the other hand, finds that fear hilarious and treats you like the funniest toy he’s ever been gifted.
pairing: sorcerer sukuna x sorcerer f!reader
wc: 5.6k
content: mdni, slow burn, kinda enemies to lovers, objectification, toxic dynamics, power imbalance, manipulation, coercion, possessive sukuna, violence, murder, blood, gore, dubious consent vibes, true form sukuna, yuji's not his vessel (...and probably smut at some point)
chapter 1 ◦ next chapter → main masterlist ◦ series masterlist ◦ banner by @graphic0rn
“Can you pass me the—no, the other file, the one with the blue tab—yeah, that one.”
You look up when you speak, before returning your gaze to the stack of documents spread across your desk.
“It’s always the blue tab,” your colleague, Haruki, mutters from across the desk, a faint smile playing on his lips as he slides the requested file over to you. “You ever notice that?”
“It’s color-coded for a reason. Blue for incidents, yellow for low-grade exorcisms, green for post-stabilization reports.”
“Yeah, yeah. You and your systems,” he sighs, but there's no complaint in the sound. Haruki is the type to keep his entire desk organized by proximity to the nearest coffee machine, so your meticulous methods are a source of endless teasing.
You smile at that and finish writing the last sentence on the current form—a detailed, painfully dull account of a weaving after a Grade 4 curse was exorcised from a local park fountain. Once completed, you flip the blue-tabbed file open.
The regional branch of Jujutsu Sorcerers you work at is, thankfully, a backwater. The only curses that ever trouble this area are usually low grade, minor nuisances that a junior sorcerer can easily handle, earning their required field hours. You’ve always preferred that quiet peace of mind and the slow, predictable rhythm of your daily life here.
It’s nothing spectacular, to be honest. Mornings spent typing reports, afternoons in weaving sessions, coaxing the frayed energy of battered Grade 3 sorcerers, and quiet evenings in a modest, perfectly safe apartment where the loudest noise is usually the neighbor’s neurotic Pomeranian barking at the shadows. Your life might seem desperately boring to a combat sorcerer, but you don’t mind. Actually, you like it that way. It’s safe.
Which is why the longer you read the document in front of you, the deeper the frown creases your forehead. It’s a report on last night’s mission that was originally classified as Grade 3, when an unexpected Grade 1 had appeared and cracked open a young sorcerer's ribs before someone from Kyoto had finally arrived and managed to kill it.
Unfortunately, you’ve heard of no sorcerers with RCT in Japan besides Shoko Ieri, so recovery in cases like this, relying on conventional medicine, is a long, painful process.
“I’m going to the infirmary to check on him,” you say with a deep, weary sigh, pushing back from your desk with a squeak of the chair legs.
Haruki nods, his expression mirroring your own concern. “Give Sota my best. Tell him to stop rushing in like a maniac.”
“I’ll try, but you know he won’t listen.”
The infirmary is on the quiet side of the building. When you walk in, all the hospital beds are empty but one, which is occupied by Sota, whom you came to see. Next to his bed sit his friend and your supervisor, Akiko, who’s questioning them both about the more detailed points of that botched mission. Akiko looks up, and when she sees you, her professional expression softens slightly. She quickly stands, leaves the empty chair for you, and then subtly motions the healthy sorcerer aside, giving you the necessary space to work.
“Can I?” you ask Sota softly, gesturing with an open palm toward his bandaged chest.
He manages a faint, pain-laced smile. “Yeah,” he rasps out, shifting gingerly on the thin mattress.
You pull the chair close, resting your hands lightly against his warm skin just above the bandages. Focusing, you let the thin threads of your cursed energy slip between the microscopic splinters and cracks in his own, like fingers meticulously combing through snarled, knotted thread. You can’t heal him, but your technique, the Weaving, lets you bind the splinters down and make the energy flow smooth again. It’s not much, but it ensures his cursed energy won’t irritate the deep tissue wounds, so at least he’ll be back on his feet sooner.
Not even half an hour later, just as you feel the worst of the knots loosening, a voice you don’t recognize cuts sharply through the quiet infirmary.
“We’re looking for the Weaver.”
You lift your head to see two men in crisp black suits standing in the doorway. They look entirely out of place in this provincial setting. Akiko visibly jumps to her feet and steps closer to them, and her professional demeanor instantly snaps back into place.
“Oh,” she says quickly with a note of surprise in her voice. “I wasn’t informed you’d be coming today.”
“You weren’t required to be.”
The response is calm and polite in tone, yet completely dismissive in substance. The way her mouth presses into a thin line afterward tells you enough about how this conversation is going to go.
“Is there a problem?” you ask cautiously, still seated by Sato’s bedside, hovering your hand over his chest.
“No problem,” the taller man says, glancing at the injured man in front of you. “Please continue, we’ll wait.”
Right then, Sato winces sharply as your focus slips for half a second under their intense scrutiny.
“Sorry,” you murmur softly, immediately smoothing the jagged edge you’d disturbed. Being observed like this by two silent, intimidating men while working with such delicate energy isn’t helping. “Almost done. Just breathe through it.”
He nods with gritted teeth, and your fingers graze his skin, combing through until you can’t feel any more frays or snags.
“Thank you,” he sighs, before he gently pulls his hospital gown back on with a painful groan.
“We should have one more session tomorrow morning,” you inform him with a reassuring, slightly forced smile, finally standing up. “Then they’ll let you go home.”
As soon as you leave and the door closes behind you, the strangers in suits turn their full attention towards you.
“You’ve been reassigned.”
Your mind stalls right away, struggling to catch up. “…reassigned?”
“To Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School,” the taller one continues flatly. “Effective immediately.”
You blink at him, once, then twice, waiting for it to make sense, for some kind of logical explanation to follow that actually explains the why. Tokyo stands at the center of Jujutsu society, serving as the hub for the entire structure. Secondary branch specialists don't just get summoned there.
“Effective—wait, I—what about my current cases? I have two Grade 3s in…”
“They’ve been transferred. The reports are already being processed.”
“My supervisor—”
“Already notified.”
You glance sharply at Akiko. Something sharp and deeply uncertain settles under your ribs, a sense of betrayal, but she doesn’t meet your eyes, looking away. That somehow feels worse than any outright explanation.
“…for what reason?” you ask slowly, keeping your voice even despite the sudden, escalating panic inside you. “Tokyo doesn’t usually pull resources from secondary branches unless it’s a matter of—”
“A high-priority stabilization case.”
Your heart gives a small, nervous skip against your ribs, a quick flutter of dread. “I specialize in post-injury smoothing,” you press, your voice sounding a touch higher and more strained than you’d like in a situation like this. “Recovery support. That’s not exactly a—”
“It aligns with your technique.”
“Surely there are Seniors who—"
"They were very specific." The second man, who hasn’t spoken until now, holds out his arm with a sealed folder for you to take. It’s stamped with a seal of the Jujutsu Higher-Ups you’ve only seen in textbooks.
You open your mouth to press further, to demand clarification on what kind of case requires immediate reassignment without notice, briefing, or transition period, but the unyielding look you receive from both men shuts the question down before it can fully form. This was never intended to be a conversation or a negotiation. It was an order.
“…when do I leave?”
“Now would be ideal. A car is waiting outside. We’ve already cleared your absence with the local director. You won't be coming back tonight.”
You let out a quiet breath through your nose that’s almost a strangled, disbelieving laugh of helplessness. So both the director and your supervisor, who is still pointedly avoiding your gaze, were fully aware of this, and neither gave you any notice to prepare.
“Can I at least get my things from my office?”
Both of them nod, and you start walking toward the office wing, hoping desperately for a moment alone, but the men are following closely behind. Your colleagues look up in surprise when they notice the two figures trailing you upon your entering the room, but you just offer a weak, reassuring smile and tell Haruki you’ll text him later with an explanation you don't yet have.
You reach for your desk with numb hands, gathering files, closing folders, and mindlessly putting away the small pieces of a routine you hadn’t realized how deeply attached you’d grown to until someone decided to take it away without asking. As you pack your things, your mind races, grasping at whatever vague, terrifying rumors you’ve heard over the last year.
Everyone in the jujutsu world, even in the quiet provinces, knows something colossal happened in the capital a year ago. They spoke of fire and a shadow that turned the sky red, and of a reincarnation—something ancient and terrible, taking root within the city. The Disaster in Tokyo, they called it. But the details never made it into official reports. At least, not to the ones your small branch was privy to.
You had imagined it was a problem for heroes, for men like Satoru Gojo. And it had probably been the case, since the vague rumors had stopped a few months ago, suggesting the monster was either dead or at least pinned under a mountain of seals and restrictions.
This sudden summons has to be something else, but it still doesn’t explain the immediate, emergency reassignment of a specialist in recovery support.
“…this stabilization,” you start, not looking at them as you walk with them toward the waiting car, forcing the words out into the hallway. “Is it a curse?”
For a moment, neither of them answers. The silence stretches as they try to find an approved answer that won't violate any security protocols. Then, one of them finally says, with practiced neutrality, “It’s being handled.”
That’s not remotely what you asked, but the non-answer only confirms that you’re not getting any actual information until you arrive at the Tokyo main campus.
The officials make a quick stop at your apartment, where you’re informed to pack for at least a few days and, most emphatically, to hurry. Inside, you move on autopilot, tossing in a few changes of clothes, your battered laptop, and documents you need into the small suitcase.
The car ride to Tokyo is a blur of passing lights and the heavy, suffocating silence of the two men. You sit stiffly in the backseat, clutching your bag to your chest like a shield, watching through the window as the familiar, quiet world of the province recedes and finally disappears. An official folder from the Higher-Ups sits heavy on your lap, but its contents offer no clarity, only an imposing, formal letter of summons.
As the sedan nears the campus, you notice with some relief that it’s at least outside Tokyo, high in the mountains, and the area looks far more peaceful than you’d ever expected. The car slows, finally pulling to a stop in a broad, paved courtyard. The taller of the two men steps out and silently opens your door.
"This way,” he instructs.
The walk through the Tokyo Jujutsu High campus is an exercise in deceptive normalcy. The grounds are a sprawling mix of modern, functional structures and smaller, elegant buildings in traditional Japanese architecture. On first glance, it resembles a prestigious, if somewhat secluded, private academy.
But no matter how beautiful it looks, you notice subtle, unnerving cracks. They’re small, easy to overlook unless you pay close attention. There’s a thin fissure at the base of a wooden veranda on an older building, and another spidering up a stone pillar near the main entrance—neatly patched but still visible. Under your feet, a hairline fracture runs through the stone walkway. You glance at them as you walk, brow furrowing. Are these construction damage? Settling foundations after an earthquake? The campus is clearly well-maintained, yet these quiet fractures appear in scattered places. You briefly wonder what could cause such precise little breaks in a place that otherwise appears so ordinary.
"Standard maintenance isn't enough when the ambient resonance is this high," the taller man offers abruptly, like that explains anything when he catches you looking around.
The officials keep a brisk pace, and you hurry to match it, pulling your suitcase behind you. As you’re walking past a training field where a handful of students practice, their bright laughter drifts through the air.
Only when you climb the short flight of stairs and step inside the main building does the air begin to change and something begin to press against your senses.
As you proceed down a corridor, the longer you go, the more the atmosphere distorts. It begins as a faint hum just beyond perception. A heavy, suffocating pressure starts to build, pressing on your chest—cursed energy, vast and overwhelming. It’s not sharp or aggressive, but immense, like witnessing the tide pull back to reveal the ocean’s true depth.
It emanates from somewhere ahead, dense and thick enough to fill your lungs with every breath. Your steps falter briefly on the polished floor. You’ve encountered powerful sorcerers before, mostly visiting Grade 1s, but this is an entirely different category of existence. It doesn’t flex or flare; it simply is, spreading in slow, relentless waves that raise the hairs on your arms and quicken your heartbeat involuntarily.
You swallow hard, risking a quick sideways glance at the two officials. Their faces remain stoically impassive, but you notice the taller one’s shoulders are a fraction tighter than before. Neither of them offers an explanation, leading you down the sunlit corridor.
Between two branching hallways, a flash of white hair and a tall silhouette turns the corner ahead of you. Your stomach gives a small, instinctive flip of recognition.Of course, Gojo Satoru would be here; everyone knows he teaches at the main campus. Still, seeing the strongest sorcerer alive in the same building where something else radiates an energy that forms a monumental presence that’s as solid as the stone does absolutely nothing to ease the unease already crawling up your spine.
The power grows heavier with each step. It feels old, layered with centuries of existence that no modern sorcerer could possibly carry. Your breathing turns shallow when you realize it dwarfs anything you’ve ever experienced, and it’s coming from behind an ordinary door at the very end of this hallway.
"The Higher-Ups were very specific about your technique," the official states, halting abruptly in front of it. He doesn't look at you, but you notice how incredibly stiff he holds himself while maintaining a respectful distance from the handle. "They believe your weaving method is the only thing precise enough to smooth out the snags without... aggravating the source."
You desperately want to tell him that your work typically involves dealing with battered teenagers and Grade 3 sorcerers, not “sources” that cause buildings to crack. But before you can speak, he opens the door, revealing what looks like an ordinary faculty meeting room—long wooden table, chairs arranged neatly, and sunlight slanting through plain windows onto the wooden floor.
“Go inside.”
The room is nothing that should make the world tilt sideways, but the instant you step through the threshold, the power slams into you like a physical wall. The change in pressure is so abrupt that your body reacts before your mind can even process it. Your breath hitches painfully halfway in your chest as your lungs struggle to expand properly. The air feels thick and oppressively heavy, charged with staggering density of cursed energy that neither dissipates nor settles. It fills the entire room from wall to wall and presses against you from every direction at once.
It’s everywhere, rolling in slow, inexorable waves that seem to seep into your bones and leave a metallic, coppery taste in your mouth. Its vastness drains your strength, causing your legs to falter. The handle of your suitcase groans under your tight grip. A cold sweat blooms across your back, prickling beneath your uniform blouse, while your heart stutters once, twice, then hammers against your ribs with such violence that you are half-convinced the officials can hear it.
This isn’t the crisp, contained brilliance you felt when Gojo Satoru passed by. This is something ancient, pressing down on you until your vision narrows at the edges and your knees threaten to buckle completely.
Even amidst that, your eyes instantly lock on the man, seated calmly at the far end of the long table in a chair that looks ridiculously small against his large frame. He looks completely relaxed, with one arm casually draped over the backrest of a nearby chair, his shoulders at ease, exuding complete, effortless control of the space around him. He's tall, broad, and muscular, and his slightly tousled pink hair is a jarring contrast to the dark lines of ink across his face.
Despite the sheer, terrifying magnitude of the energy radiating from him, he isn’t a disfigured curse; his appearance isn't distorted or monstrous as you might have expected. For a fleeting moment, your mind struggles to reconcile this calm exterior with the intense, overwhelming pressure that fills the room.
Your body refuses to follow any logical instructions, entering a full, paralyzing vasovagal freeze. Your muscles lock tight until you’re nothing more than a statue standing just inside the closed door; your hands tighten even further against the suitcase handle, the sharp edges digging deeply into your palm, desperately grounding yourself in something physical while everything else in the room shifts beyond your control.
The cursed energy filling the space sinks deeper into your skin, sharpening until its vibrations are clearly felt along your nerves. It makes absolutely no sense that it’s contained so effortlessly by the will of the person sitting before you.
The scale of it causes your breathing to falter further. Each breath grows shorter, your chest tightening as your body struggles to find a steady rhythm under the overwhelming weight. Your shoulders tense and your jaw clenches as you attempt to regain control of your breath, but you fail to steady it.
Never in your life have you felt even ten percent of the power this man is deliberately letting you see.
One of the officials clears his throat, the sound painfully small and fragile in the charged silence.
"This is Ryomen Sukuna," he starts, keeping his voice carefully neutral, as though the name itself doesn’t carry the weight of centuries of nightmares. "Special Grade sorcerer.”
The name hits you like a physical blow, sending ripples of pure dread straight through your chest. You know the legends—the King of Curses, the strongest sorcerer in history, the calamity that had turned the Heian era into a slaughterhouse painted red with the blood of sorcerers and civilians alike. A man who nearly wiped out civilization.
Hearing that name spoken aloud here, in this room, in the 21st century, instantly turns the terror coursing in your blood to ice. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle line up with what your eyes are seeing, and the true extent of it sinks in now that the presence has a name.
“He works as a teacher here at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School."
You’ve always chosen to believe those stories were just half-myths, exaggerations designed as horror stories to keep young, ambitious sorcerers humble. But even if they’re true, he’s supposed to be dead. He’s meant to be only a record, a story explaining limits that no one dares to push anymore. Yet he’s sitting right in front of you, and, what is somehow worse, he’s an official part of the faculty.
The reality is more terrifying than anything your mind could ever imagine. Your hands begin to shake visibly, the tremor running through your fingers so violently around the suitcase handle that you can feel the plastic biting sharply into your palm. Your feet remain firmly planted, your body still, despite every instinct screaming at you to turn and run.
Across the room, Sukuna hasn't moved since you walked in. He looks profoundly, dangerously bored, almost like any other teacher enduring a tedious meeting, with his head resting languidly on one hand, his elbow braced on the table. The fingers of his other hand lazily drum once on the back of a chair next to him. The tiny motion sends another slow, immense wave of that cursed energy rolling outward, and you feel it brush over you, sliding across your bare nerves.
The room seems to physically shrink around his seated form; the sunlight itself feels dimmer, thinner, almost like his cursed energy is actively drinking the light, leaving only a heavy pressure that makes your teeth ache at the roots and your stomach twist into a cold, nauseating knot.
You’re about to feel sick and faint, standing here trembling with uncontrolled terror before he’s even looked at you. A distant, hysterical part of your mind wonders whether the Higher-Ups, presumably watching from behind the panels on the side, are watching their sacrificial lamb’s face pale and shoulders stiffen, as calmly and clinically as they must have watched every other person they’d sent before you.
Then his head tilts toward you lazily, and his eyes—four of them, you realize with a fresh, sickening spike of horror—settle on you. The movement is subtle, but it instantly heightens your awareness of the contrast between his vast cursed energy and his concentrated focus.
He assesses you, tracking your chest hitching with shallow, useless gasps and your hands shaking hard. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but something far more menacing: the faint spark of curiosity as he spots an intriguing new toy on the floor.
Then, he decides to play. He slowly rises from the chair, his powerful body unfolding to its full, staggering height in one motion that somehow instantly shrinks the room around you even further. The difference in scale becomes immediate, and your line of sight is forced up as your eyes follow him, your body remaining locked where it stands.
Your heartbeat suddenly pounds loudly in your ears. He calmly takes the first step toward you, hands in his pockets, and the dread that had already been suffocating you doubles, then triples, becoming something living, squirming, and writhing in your chest.
Sukuna intentionally floods the space with his energy, letting you feel the full, ancient enormity of what he is wash over you like an unstoppable tide with no intention of receding. The presence expands, tightening around you as he moves, with the pressure rising in direct proportion to the narrowing gap between you. The vibration under your skin sharpens further, irritating your lungs and making your breathing stutter again as your chest fails to keep up with the change.
With every step he takes, the air grows denser and heavier. Your hands shake so badly that the suitcase handle rattles against your thigh despite your effort to hold them steady. Sweat trickles down the small of your back, and your vision tunnels until the only thing left in the world is the approaching figure.
Thanks to your technique, the closer he is, the easier it is for you to feel the clear, sharp splinters flicker at the very edges of his power. It’s like static electricity dancing along a live wire, yet even those splinters are nothing compared to his sheer paralyzing presence.
He stops directly in front of you, towering over your smaller frame and casting a shadow that swallows you whole, forcing your gaze up fully. Your focus narrows as the details of him fill your vision: the texture of his skin, the lines of the tattoos across his face, and the steady, unaffected rise and fall of his chest, completely unbothered by the pressure he’s filling the room with. Up close, the tattoos give the illusion of pulsing against his skin, stretched taut over muscle that could snap you in half without the slightest effort.
Sukuna lets even more of his cursed energy surface. The sensation floods your entire awareness, intensifying into something that borders on pain without crossing into it, making every nerve ending in your body scream in terror. It’s so intense that your very skeleton might shatter under it.
Behind you, one of the officials takes an involuntary half-step back and stumbles awkwardly, unable to withstand the suffocating spike in tension as Sukuna leans down, closing the last of the distance.
The sorcerer’s gaze flicks past you for the barest fraction of a second, acknowledging the official’s cowardice with a look of complete, detached boredom, before it returns to you with the same terrifying intensity. Your breathing breaks entirely for a second before returning in short, ragged, uneven gasps that do nothing to ease the pressure crushing your chest.
Your fingers twitch uselessly, while your mind screams at you to move, to run, to do anything, but you can only stand there, frozen, as his face comes so close that you can feel the hot breath ghost over your skin. Your heart is hammering so hard you’re certain it will burst through your ribs.
Those four eyes study you with curiosity, drinking in the details your body fails to control. They track how your pulse flutters wildly at the hollow of your throat, how your shoulders tense so tightly they ache, and how you’re shaking so fiercely that your vision blurs at the edges. He just looks, letting the weight of his presence settle over you like a shroud.
A low and deep chuckle rolls out of his chest, dark and rich with profound amusement as he takes in your reaction in full.
Then, at last, he straightens back to his full height, but he doesn’t look away from you even as he addresses the panel behind where the Higher-Ups sit in silence.
"I’ll take this one," he rumbles.
The silence holds for a moment before the unknown voice from behind the panel responds with a brief confirmation.
“Understood.”
Sukuna lingers a second longer where he is, his attention still on you, amused by how your body stays locked in place despite the absence of any direct contact. His lips curl slightly, pleased that the pressure he exudes is more than enough. His gaze leaves you only when he decides he’s done observing. Suddenly, he moves, walks past you, slides the door open, and leaves the room without another word.
That pressure doesn’t vanish with him, though. It lingers, clinging to your skin, leaving you swaying on your feet until your knees finally threaten to give out entirely. A low, helpless sound escapes your throat before you can clamp your jaw down and swallow it back.
One of the officials, the shorter man, steps forward quickly, his face pale with something akin to alarm. He steadies your elbow carefully, his own hand shaking slightly.
“Breathe,” he says under his breath. “It gets… easier. Marginally.”
Behind you, the second man exhales quietly, then adds after his colleague, “You’ll adjust.”
Your hands are still shaking uncontrollably, and you stare down at your right palm. There, where the rough plastic handle you’d been gripping had pressed, a deep, angry-red welt is already visible. Then you realize you’re still gasping for air. Your lungs hitch and burn, struggling to remember how to expand now that the weight of his cursed energy is no longer physically pressing against them.
The reality of what just happened crashes over you. Ryomen Sukuna. The King of Curses. A living nightmare now walking these corridors as a teacher.
"You should count yourself fortunate," the taller man says, though his voice lacks any real conviction. "He hasn't shown that much… interest in a specialist since his arrival at this campus. In fact, he hasn't accepted any of the previous candidates we presented.”
You look up at him, your vision still slightly tunneled at the edges. Swallowing again, your throat still unbearably tight, you try to force a coherent question out past the lingering fear.
“Fortunate?" you rasp, your voice sounding like dry paper. "He looked at me like I was... a thing. A toy."
The official pointedly ignores your remark and the barely suppressed tremor in your voice, smoothing down his suit jacket with fingers that, despite his attempt at composure, are visibly trembling.
"Regardless of your personal feelings, the decision has been made. Sukuna has accepted you. From this moment forward, you are assigned directly to him."
He begins to pace the small area between the table and the door, his eyes darting everywhere but meeting yours.
"Your primary duty is to manage his cursed energy. Sukuna’s power is... immense. After his missions, his energy becomes more volatile, jagged, and overwhelming than usual. If it builds up—if those snags are not addressed and smoothed out by someone with your unique capabilities—his energy continues to bleed uncontrollably into the environment and…” he pauses, searching for a bureaucratically acceptable word to describe unchecked destruction.
“...incidentally damage to campus infrastructure,” the shorter man helpfully offers, gesturing toward the window, toward the campus you walked through only mere minutes ago. "The fractures you noticed in the stone, the splintering foundations—that is what happens when he’s left unmanaged. The school can no longer keep up with the repairs. Your job is to ensure his energy stays contained and regulated entirely within him. You will weave and smooth it whenever he returns from the field."
"And when he doesn't need me?" you ask, your voice barely a ragged whisper. The thought of being in the same room with him for an extended period already makes your stomach churn.
"When he isn’t in need of your services, you may be called upon to assist Shoko Ieiri in the infirmary. But make no mistake: your priority is him. Daily sessions. And if he calls for a session outside of that, you drop everything else. Am I clear?"
Daily sessions with him. Alone. You manage a shaky, nauseated nod, though the motion feels strangely disconnected from your body. Then, the reality of your technique finally settles into your mind. Your Weaving isn't a distance-based ritual; it requires direct, skin-to-skin contact to smooth out the energy. You realize, with a sudden spike of lightheadedness, that you aren't just going to be sitting across a table from the King of Curses. To do what you were brought here for, you’re going to have to reach out and actually touch him.
“Come with me,” the shorter official says after a moment, turning toward the door. “I’ll show you your office.”
He leads you out of the meeting room and down the corridor in the opposite direction Sukuna had taken. After a few tense steps, he glances back at you, his professional mask finally cracking, softening into something that looks like genuine, if detached, pity.
“You aren’t the first we’ve sent, you know. The Higher-Ups tried everything to regulate his energy. Binding techniques, suppression methods, and direct intervention. They sent many sorcerers who showed even a slight ability to detect and manipulate irregularities in cursed energy.”
He looks down the hallway, checking to see if the walls are listening.
“Sukuna doesn't need to actually act to exert pressure. His mere baseline output is more than sufficient to break most people.” You understand that much already, painfully so. "He didn't even have to lift a finger against any of them. He simply sat there, much as he did today, allowing his cursed energy to overflow and saturate the room. The sheer, suffocating mass of it..." He trails off, the memory clearly disturbing even him, then finishes in a low murmur, “They either withdrew or were quickly reassigned for their own safety.”
The words sink into you like heavy lead, bringing a sudden, hollow ache to your chest. Your reassignment isn’t a promotion; it’s merely a reckless gamble by men who have already lost every other bet.
If Grade 1 sorcerers couldn’t survive working with him for more than a few days, what chance do you have? You, who spent your mornings color-coding files and your afternoons smoothing out the cursed energy of Grade 3 and 4 sorcerers?
The official stops before a row of unmarked wooden doors, slides one open, and gestures for you to enter first. "This is your office. It has been fully equipped for your work.”
Inside, the space is a modest but entirely functional office, bathed in the soft light of a spring afternoon. There is a wide desk already stocked with fresh stationery, a comfortable-looking chair, a small couch against one wall for your sessions, and tall windows overlooking the main training fields.
“Living quarters on campus have also been arranged—nothing extravagant, but secure and close to both this facility and the infirmary. Your belongings from your previous residence will be collected and delivered by this evening. The Higher-Ups were quite… insistent on speed.”
The official lingers in the doorway. “Take some time to settle. Sukuna will likely find you when he needs you. Until then… try to rest. You’ll need your strength.”
He offers a shallow, almost sympathetic bow, then closes the door behind him, leaving you alone in the sudden, ringing silence.
Your suitcase slips from your numb fingers and thuds against the floor. You stand there in the middle of your new office, new life, hands still trembling at your sides, the memory of four eyes and that low, amused chuckle burning behind your eyelids.
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