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The world is still wild, when he first meets Megumi. Not yet tamed and only just learning how to bend, reluctant, under the will of men – their hands and their tills, the very earth groaning under the new weight of their rice fields, their fragile villages.
Sukuna has even seen one of them begin to take root at the base of his mountain. Watched, with mild curiosity, as house after house had spread so much like clovers after rain. A neat cluster here, right by where the river starts to curve. Another loose clutch of them there, raised a ways off from the foothills – only a meadow’s worth of space between them and where the border of his domain begins.
Sukuna is not gracious by design, but he allows it anyway.
After all, what are humans to a god? Ants. Amusements.
Little playthings.
“Who are you?”
Indeed, here is one now. Only a mere pup of a thing – a child, as the humans say in their clumsy language. Sukuna lets his feet dangle from the boulder he’s seated on. Peers down at the one audacious enough to speak to him, the first in a millenia.
How to even start? Where to even begin?
“I am what I am required to be,” Sukuna says slowly. “The wind that lifts a goshawk’s wing in flight. The crush of grass under a fox’s foot.” He leans forward now, all the better to see the boy standing so small and brave before him. “I am sharpened claw and bloodstained fang. The beat of a racing heart and the snap of bone between teeth, the first rush of blood and the final breath.”
God of hunger. God of the hunt.
True god of war, before there were humans to ever wage it.
“Oh,” says the child when Sukuna finally falls silent. His eyes are a clear, brilliant green – the colour of horsetails that grow by the water in spring. “I see. But surely you have a name.” And after that, like this is some inane exchange: “Mine is Megumi.”
The sheer cheek of the comment catches Sukuna off-guard. Even startles a laugh from him, the sound of it sweeping loud over the grove.
A name for a name. Very well. He would call it fair.
What was it now, that the sun had whispered to him when he opened his eyes?
“Sukuna,” he says at length. “You may call me Sukuna.”
Megumi smiles at him then and oh, how strange this is:
It reminds him of that very first dawn.
The questions are incessant after that.
Why hasn’t he seen Sukuna before? Has anyone else ever come up here?
Also, what does Sukuna even do with an extra pair of arms?
“You are very curious,” Sukuna observes after too many in a row. “Are all humans like this?”
In the meantime, Megumi has folded himself into a messy heap at the foot of Sukuna’s boulder, taking advantage of how its shadow looms immense across the grass. The heat of the day is still gentle, though it is slowly growing warm enough to make Sukuna languid – perhaps even a little more indulgent than he should be.
“I am not human,” comes the protest. “Not entirely, anyway.”
Ah. How interesting. Sukuna peers down at him, bottom pair of arms folded and his other two arranged so that as one palm cradles an elbow, another holds his chin in thought.
The child is right. He hadn’t been looking for it before, but now that he’s actually seeing Megumi, the truth is as clear as the tail curled around his ankle. As evident as the pointed tips of his ears, rising past that bird’s-nest hair.
Sukuna had recognised him by his real name the first time.
“Wolf-spirit,” he says, amused. “I did not think any of them would stay in one place for long enough.”
Megumi’s ears prick at this, and while his tail doesn’t wag, Sukuna can see the intent clearly enough. No one else has perceived him like this.
“Mother said that’s why father had to go.” Megumi rubs absently at one ear, the soft fur of it sticking up as unruly as his hair when he’s done. “So it’s true, then.”
“It is.”
“And perhaps I will have to leave as well one day?”
Sukuna reaches out to smooth the fur back into place, the touch of it only idle. The call of the hunt will be strong for this one. Sukuna can already see it in his eyes, the way his fangs are starting to show.
“Perhaps you’ll do many things, little one.”
In the cradle of another world or down the path of some other, unknown life, Megumi might have feared him. Fallen to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground, the gossamer thread of his humanity too finespun to bear the sight of the divine.
In this one though, he merely falls asleep at Sukuna’s feet.
Tends to doze in a warm patch of sun with his cheek pillowed on his paws, tired out from yet another morning spent playing in his village and then from running up here to tell Sukuna all about it. What Sukuna will do with this newfound knowledge of childish games he has yet to know, but if this is to be Megumi’s daily offering to him, he will accept it with grace.
There’s a certain sweetness to it, this meagreness. The earnest sincerity of it, Megumi’s words tumbling out of his mouth because his world is still too small to contain them all.
Did Sukuna know he can hide the best out of all his friends? That he can stay so still and so quiet, the others can never find him?
“A fine talent indeed,” Sukuna rumbles at him, approving. A hunter must always know how to stay hidden. “Well done.”
And when there are no more small frivolities to share, Megumi will settle into his usual spot for the rest of the afternoon. Circle the patch of grass right beside Sukuna’s boulder and lie down with a huff, ready to let Sukuna’s voice lull him to sleep.
Who taught the first sparrow to build her nest? Why is the sky blue in the day and then dark at night?
Where does the cold come from? When does a tree know to stop growing?
How one so young can hold such a vast constellation of questions, Sukuna cannot even fathom. He had been there when the first stars earned their light, but at the rate that Megumi is going, he will be here still, answering these questions, when the last ones fall from the sky.
One might even call it time well spent.
“Do you have any friends?”
Megumi is starting to tire. Head drooping, eyes halfway to being closed. He’ll be fast asleep soon – will only rouse again when Sukuna nudges him awake to send back down the mountain before it gets too dark.
“I do not,” Sukuna says and Megumi’s tail thumps. Once, twice. “Gods have believers, child. We do not have friends.”
“That sounds lonely.” A yawn, then. Megumi is full wolf today. Hasn’t bothered to change back from his journey up, especially since he knows that no matter how Sukuna lectures him for it, he’ll eventually pluck the pine needles from his fur all the same. Smooth his coat down, after. “I’ll be your friend if you want.”
He stretches, claws digging into the dirt before he settles down again.
“Go to sleep,” Sukuna tells him.
And Megumi does, eyes closing in the presence of a god. Tiny paws twitching as he dreams little wolf dreams of running, running, so wild and alive under the pines.
Resting safe in the knowledge that Sukuna will be there when he wakes.
What is time to the one who urged the first snake to strike and the first deer to flee? What is a season, other than a serow’s hoofprints stark against new snow, or the cry of plovers arriving with the spring?
What is a mortal life, but the briefest play of light on the waves?
Sukuna need only close his eyes and open them again in a different age. Pass entire days in the single beat of a heron’s wings, crossing the distance between equinox and solstice in nothing but a thought, a quick-drawn breath.
Perhaps it would stand to reason then, that the opposite might hold true.
Surely, if Sukuna does not take his eyes off the pup, the years might not follow in such quick succession. Indeed, if Megumi remains within his sight, the time he has ahead of him will cease to feel so strangely inadequate.
And yet, night continues to follow day.
The world changes, and so does Megumi right along with it.
“You have grown,” Sukuna observes when Megumi comes to him like he always does. His paws are still too big for his body, but he’s started to fill out the awkward lankiness of his limbs. Now strides up to Sukuna’s boulder with a certain kind of grace – steady, quiet.
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
Such is the blissful ignorance of children. Even now, Megumi remains completely unaware of how Sukuna no longer has to stretch as far anymore, when he reaches down to brush away the stray bits of twig and dried leaves clinging to his fur.
“There is a time and place for all things, little wolf.”
The frown on Megumi’s face makes his nose scrunch up. “How can I still be little when you’ve only just said that I’ve grown?”
“Many things can be true at once.” Sukuna flicks the tip of one dark ear just because he can, Megumi grunting at the harassment but unwilling to further his complaint. “You can grow, and still be small. You can be older, and still never age.”
You can live forever, and still want for more time.
“Just like you?”
Sukuna smiles, serene. Feigns seriousness when he says: “Yes, though unlike some individuals, I have actually grown to be quite large.”
“And very old, yes,” Megumi shoots back without missing a beat. “Some might even say you’re as ancient as dirt itself.”
He ducks away, smirking, before Sukuna can flick his ear again.
Such insolence. Such blatant disrespect.
No one has ever spoken to Sukuna in this way.
(And now a thought, rising unbidden:
Perhaps no one ever will again.)
Sukuna feels it when it finally happens. Is right there with Megumi in that fierce, beautiful moment – the thrill of it singing through his blood and spurring him on, faster and faster until he runs the hare down. Sinks his teeth in and snaps its neck in one fluid motion, the sudden violence of its death disappearing like a sigh into night.
This is who you are, Sukuna whispers into that secret space between them. Somehow, the distance doesn’t feel quite as insurmountable anymore. This is who you were always meant to be.
Panting breath and heaving chest. An ache in his jaw and the taste of iron in his mouth, a growl growing in his throat.
What is this unnamed feeling, this sudden understanding?
What is this joy, so bold and vicious that it sears the insides of his bones? Sinks, like an anchor into the very marrow?
First blood. Clean kill.
A new hunger, unlike any other.
The sky is bright with stars by the time Megumi arrives. He rarely comes up here like this anymore – finds his human hands too soft and feet too cumbersome to make a climb that he can easily cover in a quarter of the time.
Sukuna will welcome him in any form though. Will always know the scent of him and the weight of his footfalls on the dew-wet ground, the cadence of every step.
“You did well today,” Sukuna says in greeting.
There’s a smudge of dirt on Megumi’s cheek, but there’s something about the way he moves that stills Sukuna’s hand. Causes him to look on in interest instead, as Megumi unknots the coarse cotton of the bundle in his arms and gently lays the hare’s small, lifeless body at Sukuna’s feet.
He had carried it all the way up here, cradled against his body like one would something precious.
“This is yours.” His eyes catch the moonrise when he lifts his head to where Sukuna is watching him, the green of them piercing in the almost-dark. “If you will have it.”
An offering. The first that Sukuna has ever received, though Megumi might not yet have the words to recognise it as such.
“I will,” Sukuna says softly and it must be pride that he’s feeling.
What else can it be?
It is only right that Megumi grows restless after that. Such is the path of the hunt after all, the way of the world. The heart of a wolf and the shape of its spirit, unable to stay tethered to the same place for too long.
Even Sukuna can hear the song of it, carried low on the wind. How it sings Megumi’s name and calls to him in the twilight – leaves him filled with longing for places he has yet to see, trails he has yet to wander.
“Do not fight it,” Sukuna tells him on the days that Megumi cannot help but pace. He’ll wear a groove into the ground soon, from the way he’s stalking back and forth. Ears laid flat and tail held low, unhappiness in every line of his body. “Megumi.”
The sound of his name gives him pause, though it does nothing to stop the whine already starting in his throat when he turns to Sukuna.
“Will you come?” he finally asks.
It’s quiet, this question. Hopeful, even though the answer is clear.
Sukuna holds his hand out and Megumi turns his cheek into it with a sigh, resting in the warmth he’s always known.
“You only need look for me, little one–”
(In the flash of sun that blinds an eye and the shadow of clouds that hides a pelt. In beating heart. In dying gasp. In that swift, sacred moment when one life is given over to the next and you know, you know, with blood on your teeth and the Hunt in your veins, that this is who you are.)
“–and there, I will be found.”
It’s an easy promise to keep, if only because Megumi reaches for his presence so often. Calls out to Sukuna without end, the litany of it echoing across the wide open spaces:
Be with me.
Running, across the empty snowfields and the winter-hard ground.
Be with me.
Crouched, hidden in the long grass that turns golden every summer.
Be with me.
When the dew shines white and the evening cicadas start to sing. When the last frost fades and the first safflowers bloom.
Never leave.
The age of man is still far from its zenith, but the time of the first gods is drawing to a close. Sukuna can feel it, settling inside of him like a bruise that does not heal. A tired ache that stems from knowing that this world is no longer the unbridled place it used to be.
It is harnessed, now. Nearly broken in.
His stewardship must finally be nearing its end.
Fear no master, he says to the hound when he races ahead of horses and tracks a fox’s scent, content to serve the home he’s found beside a hearth.
Feel no shame, he tells the falcon when she bends her head to the hood and takes to the air, not for herself but for the hand that holds her.
And to Megumi–
“No,” he snarls in response, savage enough to make his fangs flash in the dying light. “No.”
Megumi claims to have seen them on his journeys. These…shrines, as humans call them. Places where gods might still linger a while, appeased by offerings. Sustained, by the worship of those who believe.
“You cannot stay,” Sukuna chides, furious. “Listen to me.”
Megumi shouldn’t be here. It’s no good for him – unnatural even, for his kind to remain in one place.
And yet:
“You cannot make me go,” is all Megumi says.
A stalemate. No matter how many times Sukuna tries to warn him of what will happen, of what he stands to lose, Megumi refuses to be moved. Merely picks his tools up with calloused hands and goes back to work, breaking branch and hewing stone.
Foolish boy. Infuriating dog.
Nevertheless, when has anyone managed to bring a wolf to heel?
Let alone one as aggravatingly stubborn as him.
It is midwinter when Megumi wakes him.
Two claps this time, Sukuna stirring to the crisp smell of cypress and the still-warm body of a stag staining the snow before him. A generous offering, though Sukuna need only rest his gaze on Megumi to know that a far larger sacrifice has already been made.
He had stayed.
Despite the cost, Megumi is here.
“Look at me,” Sukuna says softly and when Megumi lifts his head, his eyes are as green as Sukuna remembers. Mortal, in the way that Sukuna had feared. “What have you done, little wolf?”
“Merely what was needed.”
He says it like it’s only a simple thing. Nothing but a statement of fact. Perhaps that’s all it is – what more is there than the truth?
Only humans can offer worship. Only gods can know the true cost of devotion, the inconceivable price of love.
Megumi’s face is still upturned to his when Sukuna leans in, then. Presses his brow to the one who dared ask his name.
Listen, now.
Hear these words as the blessing they will be:
I am with you, always.
(A prayer, a hope. A vision for things to come:
Megumi, proud in his saddle. Sword on his hip and bow slung across his back.
The hymn of battle lifts high into the air and Sukuna feasts anew, ushered from this age into the next.)