Chapter Text
The sky above the ruined city didn’t just crack; it shattered. A hole of the absolute worst emotions of humanity bled into the cursed city, and from its depths, something was violently ejected.
Not something. Someone.
A meteor of flesh and blood fell from the hole of terror and smashed into the ground with the force of a missile.
BOOM!
The impact created a shockwave of dust and air as nearby buildings shattered, falling like a stack of cards blown away by the air.
At the bottom of the newly formed crater, lay a man as still as a statue. The man was tall, a body composed of dense musculature. He had four arms that laid sprawled at his sides. His hair was an unnatural, pinkish red. Black markings, like intricate tribal tattoos, were etched across his pale skin. His face was unnatural, having two distinct sides. The right side had what seemed like a plate made of flesh having two eyes, while the left looked as though it was another face, also adorning a set of eyes. A secondary mouth, filled with sharp teeth, was slashed across his abdomen. His nails, long and sharpened to a point, were painted a deep, onyx black.
Time seemed to crawl at a snail's pace, the world itself seemed to pause. Then, a single twitch. And suddenly.
Four crimson eyes snapped open.
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My consciousness returned to the familiar comfort of my body. This body was mine, not like the vessels I had inhabited like the brat or Megumi Fushiguru. It was mine. I could feel my immense well of cursed energy coil in my gut. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I was whole.
And yet… I was not the same.
A new set of memories had been seamlessly integrated into my own, a full thirty years of a painfully mundane life. It wasn't like a second consciousness was in the back of my head, like how I was possessing a vessel. It wasn't even a secondary soul. It was as though we both were one in the same being, these were my memories.
The last thing I remembered was talking to the patch-faced curse, Uraume at my side as I headed north.
North.
That's right, I had been bested. What a novel concept. A being like me, who had shed every facet of his humanity to reach the peak of existence. My philosophy, built on a mountain of corpses, had been proven flawed by a collective of sentimental fools.
These new memories, they had the one thing I lacked. The one emotion that I had been devoid of to the point I had accepted it as a fallacy. A concept made by the weak to lift themselves up.
Love.
The irony of this was palpable. I had built my life on a single phylosophy–absolute strength achieved through absolute selfishness. But that wasn’t all. There was also a litany of pathetic, sentimental weaknesses. The very things I had spent an eternity shedding in pursuit of my perfect existence. I, Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, now possessed a complete understanding of the petty bonds that chained humans to mediocrity.
The old me would have raged at this psychotic poison. But I won't.
My self philosophy had been broken, beaten. While I had won the battle against the Honored One, I had lost the war.
My lips curled into a humorless smile. This wasn't some divine punishment that I had received, nor was it a curse to my existence. It was the answer to the choice I had made, to try and live a different life.
“Well,” I murmured, my voice a deep rumble, “let’s see where this leads to.
I rose from the crater I had found myself in, my four arms pushing me to my feet. A glint of a familiar metal caught my eye. There, half-buried in the rubble, were what I thought I would ever see again. My two trusty tools that were always by my side–Uraume was more than a tool–Kamutoke the cursed Tokkosho and my favourite, Hiten–the three ponged treasure. With them, I was truly myself. Uraume would be pleased. The thought came unbidden, followed by an echo of sentiment. Annoying.
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I crouched, my muscles overturned like a coil, and then I leaped. The modern- era road shattered into a spiderweb of cracks at the sheer explosive force. I felt the familiar feeling of wind brushing past my face, a genuine smile that I last wore when fighting Okkotsu plastered on my face. I soared hundreds of feet in the air, pushing off the sky as though it was my own playground (air jump).
A minor twist of Hiten pushing the ashy dust of my path, giving me a perfect view of the city below. This level of destruction… It was reminiscent of something I would have done. I landed on the flat roof of a skyscraper, the impact cracking its foundation, and took it all in.
Below, the streets were swarmed with Skeletons, animated by some form of energy unknown to me. A slip of my new memories seemed to surface. Isekai. What a concept. Escapism in its highest form. Yet here I am.
Reborn in another world. What else could it be, unknown energy. Sorcery of some twisted kind. A city cursed to high hell, yet no curses existed.
How marvelous.
New paths to explore. New heights to reach. How could I call myself the strongest if I haven't even mastered everything in existence?
As I watched the skeletons shamble below, another memory flickered. The smell of incense. The somber quiet of a human cremation. The concept of ‘respecting the dead’.
The thought was so pathetic that a dry chuckle slipped past me. What an absurd notion. These new memories were going to be an endless source of this kind of pathetic humour.
These skeletons were beneath my notice. Wasting Cursed Energy on them would be an insult to myself. Instead, I let my senses sweep across the city, past this mindless rabble, searching for what could be the cause of all this.
I stretched my senses miles from my vantage point, looking for anything. Then I noticed something. On the bridge about 5 miles from here, three people standing atop what seemed a ritualistic circle. They were pathetically weak, but one of them had this strange feeling about them. As though they were above human, yet not. A living paradox. Curious.
Then I felt it, a presence blaring itself throughout this cursed city. This one was different. It was an inferno of raw, mindless power, a chaotic storm of negative energy. But deep within its core, beneath what seemed endless rage, I could feel a faint, desperate plea. A soul trapped in a storm, begging to be stopped.
Interesting.
My body moved with but a thought, shattering the skyscraper I launched myself towards the bridge. Ready to find some answers.
Getting a closer look, the three figures were human girls. The strange one with what seemed a parasitic existence attached to her had pinkish-purple hair. Wielding what seemed to be a shield too big for her size that gave a strange feeling. Another, with stark white hair, barked commands despite the terror plain on her face–the leader if I were to guess. The third–wait, what is that?
A thread of power, invisible to the naked eye, connected to the readhead to the shield user., flowing from red seals on the back of the redhead's hand. Fascinating. A welder and a battery
My thoughts were cut short by a roar that shook the very foundations of the city. A building at the far end exploded outwards, showering the girls with concrete. The shield user sloppyly blocked the debris.
Then he appeared. The presence I had felt earlier. A colossal giant made of pure grey muscles, easily a foot taller than me, holding what seemed to be a crude stone axe the size of my torso. Pure, unrestrained power rolled off him in waves. He was a walking disaster, a being who existed only to destroy. He was a challenger.
Who was I to deny a dead man his last wish?
I was about to make my move, to intercept and claim the feast for myself, but the giant moved first. With speed that rivaled my own, it swung its axe at the group. The shield user caught the blow, the shield itself holding firm against the impossible force, but the wielder was too weak. She was sent flying like a stone from a catapult, tumbling through the air.
A weapon with the concept of defense woven into it. Something to note for.
I shot forward, a blur of motion tearing through the air, but I was a moment too late for the other one. The giant’s follow-up was brutal, a careless backhand. It struck the white-haired girl. Sending her cartwheeling off the side of the bride in the muddy water below. Unfortunate for her. Irrelevant to me.
As the giant raised its weapon to bring it down on the last, terrified girl, I arrived.
I didn't bother with a word or a warning. I simply smashed into the giants side with the full force of my momentum. The impact was titanic. The bridge groaned, its support structure screaming as our combined mass was launched over the side, sending us careening through the air, away from the girls, and into the heart of the burning city.
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The world was a screaming blur of motion as the two beings were launched from the bridge. The four-armed man, the initiator of the collision, twisted his body mid-air, forcing his center of gravity down. He landed first in the wreckage of a city street, a controlled impact that nonetheless shattered the asphalt beneath his feet. The mindless giant was less graceful. It crashed through the facade of a ten-story office building, the sound a deafening symphony of tortured metal and pulverized concrete before the entire structure collapsed in on itself.
Not giving the creature a moment to recover, the pink-haired man sent a volley of invisible slashes toward the cloud of dust, carving the building’s corpse to ribbons. A few seconds later, the giant walked out of the wreckage. The shallow cuts across its chest knitted themselves shut, the foul energy that animated it sealing the wounds as if they’d never been there. He was unharmed. In one of his hands, a massive stone axe materialized in a flash of bright motes of light. He was ready.
A savage grin spread across the four-armed man’s face. He settled into a loose stance, his cursed tools, Kamutoke and Hiten, held casually in two of his four hands. He wanted to feel this one’s strength with his own flesh first. The giant roared, a mindless sound of pure rage, and charged. The man met him halfway.
The ground between them exploded.
The giant's axe, swung with enough force to level a mountain, screamed towards its target's head. The four-armed man didn't dodge. He met it with a reinforced right fist. The sound was like a thunderclap. The jagged stone edge tore into his knuckles, grinding against bone, but the force of his punch stopped its momentum cold. Before the giant could press its advantage, the man's other free hand snapped up in a vicious uppercut that rocked his opponent’s jaw, lifting the behemoth a full inch off the ground.
Seeing the stumble, the man pulled his bloody right fist back, the torn flesh and shattered bone knitting back together in an instant, and prepared to drive both his free hands into the giant's chest. But the creature was fast. Its axe seemed to hang in the air, forgotten, as both of its massive hands came up to block the two-fisted strike. The ground cratered beneath them from the sheer force of their collision. Then, just as the giant put its full weight into the exchange, the four-armed man let up completely.
Expecting resistance, the giant stumbled forward, its immense momentum now working against it. In that moment of imbalance, Hiten swung in a low, vicious arc, the trident’s prongs smashing into its knee. Bone crunched. The giant bellowed in pain and crashed to the ground. The man moved to capitalize, but the beast, in a feat of impossible acrobatics, used its massive arms to throw itself into a handstand, lashing out with a kick. The kick was a blur, grazing its target’s chest with enough power to send him sliding back several meters, his sandals carving twin furrows into the broken street.
They both reset, eyeing each other across the wreckage.
This time, the four-armed man brought his weapons to the fore, holding them in his upper two hands. His lower two hands were held back, palms open, ready. The giant seemed to understand the shift in tone. It got into a low running stance and charged again.
It came at him swinging the blade in a high, vertical arc meant to split him in two. The four-armed man caught the haft of the weapon with his two lower hands, the impact sending tremors through the entire city block. The giant was strong. It used its height, towering over him, putting all its weight down through the axe, trying to crush him. His knees began to buckle under the strain.
Smiling, he lashed out with Hiten in his upper left hand. The trident's prongs stabbed deep into the giant’s thigh, punching clean through the dense muscle and pinning its leg to the concrete beneath. The creature screamed in agony and fury, and for a split second, the pressure on the axe lessened.
That was all he needed.
He shoved the axe aside and drove his upper right fist, the one holding Kamutoke, directly into his opponent's chest. A sizzle of black lightning erupted from the vajra. The giant's entire body seized, its muscles locked by the high-voltage curse. With it stunned, he spun on his heel, a roundhouse kick connecting flush with the side of its head with the sound of a wrecking ball hitting a cathedral.
But the beast was not done. Even as the kick sent it stumbling, it reacted on pure instinct. With a roar that shattered the windows of a distant building, it ripped Hiten from its own thigh, ignoring the spray of gore. In the same motion, its other arm came around in a savage backhand. The four-armed man brought three arms up to block, leaving the one with Kamutoke back, but the force was still unbelievable. He was blown back several steps, skidding across the rubble. The giant then roared and hurled the trident at him like a javelin. He caught it with three hands, the kinetic energy forcing him back even further. By the time he had grounded himself, the gushing wound in the giant’s leg had already sealed itself shut.
Both fighters reset for the next round. The giant stood ready, axe in hand, while the four-armed man lowered himself into a low, predatory stance.
The giant charged. The man waited. Just as the beast neared, he slammed one of his free hands onto the street. An invisible blade of Cursed Energy erupted from the ground beneath the giant’s feet. The street cracked into a spiderweb, and the beast, its footing completely destroyed, went tumbling forward. The four-armed man was ready. Reinforcing his lower two arms with the maximum output of his Cursed Energy, he met the tumbling giant with a brutal one-two punch. The first fist was blocked by a hasty, desperate guard.
The second landed flush on the giant's chest. Space itself seemed to distort for a fraction of a second as a flash of black-red energy erupted on impact. A Black Flash.
The giant was sent flying, rocketing backwards through the air like a cannonball. Not letting up, the man pointed Hiten at the airborne figure. A targeted, hyper-compressed gust of wind shot from the trident, a "beam" of pure air that smashed into the giant and sent it soaring even higher. To finish the combo, he held Kamutoke aloft. The weapon cackled with black lightning, and the roiling storm clouds above answered, thundering with sympathetic energy. He brought the weapon down. A bolt of divine lightning, black and jagged, crashed from the sky and engulfed the airborne giant. A blinding flash, a deafening boom.
The first round was decided. The four-armed man leaped into the sky, in hot pursuit of his falling prey.
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For Gudako Fujimaru, the apocalypse had started with cake crumbs.
One moment, she was in the sterile, high-tech command center of a place called Chaldea, trying very hard not to fall asleep during an orientation she barely understood. The next, a sharp slap across her face from the frankly terrifying woman called Director Animusphere echoed through the room.
"Get this buffoon out of my sight!" Olga Marie had shrieked, her face a mask of incandescent rage.
Mortified, Gudako had been "escorted" out. The cute, pink-haired girl from before, Mash Kyrielight, had followed a moment later and guided her through the pristine white halls.
"This is your room, Senpai," Mash had said softly, before leaving.
The first thing Gudako saw upon entering her new quarters was a man with fluffy orange hair lounging on her bed, happily munching on a slice of cake. There were crumbs. On her brand-new sheets.
"Hi there! I'm Dr. Romani Archaman," he'd said with a lazy smile, completely unbothered.
Their conversation was a whirlwind of confusing facts—Romani explaining the "bare-bones" of Chaldea's mission to "preserve the Human Order," a concept so grand it sounded like it came from a cheap sci-fi novel. She was apparently a "Master Candidate," recruited for her "high affinity." It all sounded like nonsense.
Then, mid-conversation, the world shook. A deep, violent BOOM rattled the entire facility. The lights flickered and died, replaced by the angry red glow of emergency klaxons.
"What was that?!" Gudako had yelled.
"That's not good," Romani had said, all traces of his slacker persona gone. He rushed out of the room. "Stay here where it's safe! I have to get to the generators!"
She had followed him anyway. The girl who fell asleep in orientation, the girl who annoyed the Director—she wasn't going to be the girl who just sat in her room while the world ended. She remembered the direction Mash had gone, back towards the command center, and ran.
The pristine white halls were now a vision of hell. Fire licked from shattered walls, and the air was thick with the smell of smoke and burning plastic. It was in the wreckage of a corridor near the command center that she found her.
Mash. Half-crushed under a massive slab of fallen concrete, her uniform torn, her face streaked with tears as she cried softly.
"Mash!" Gudako scrambled over the debris, trying to get a grip on the slab. "I'll get you out!"
She heaved, but it wouldn't budge. The concrete was hot, searing her palms, and she pulled them back with a hiss of pain. It was hopeless. She couldn't move it.
"Senpai..." Mash whispered, her voice weak, reaching out a trembling hand. "Please... don't leave me..."
Tears blurring her vision, Gudako did the only thing she could. She knelt in the burning rubble and took Mash's hand, holding it tight. "I'm right here," she promised, her own voice cracking. "I won't leave."
Then, a brilliant white light. A feeling of being pulled apart and stitched back together in an instant.
She awoke to the acrid smell of a different fire, under a blood-red sky, a city of flames stretching out before her.
Mash was there too, no longer injured, but clad in a strange, form-fitting armor and carrying a massive shield.
"I am a Demi-Servant," Mash had said, her voice now filled with a strange, new confidence. "I will protect you, Master."
Gudako's world had been a cascade of impossible facts ever since. They found the Director, Olga Marie Animusphere, wounded but alive, whose sheer terror was eclipsed only by her screaming frustration. She had barked orders, leading them through the ruined streets. Their destination: the great Fuyuki bridge.
“It’s a leyline!” Olga had explained, her voice frantic. “A place of power! If we can get a connection, we can contact Chaldea!”
The brief, crackling communication with Dr. Romani had only painted a grimmer picture. Chaldea was in ruins. Forty-seven other Master Candidates were in critical condition. “You, and Fujimaru, are all we have left,” the Doctor’s strained voice had echoed from a high-tech bracelet on Olga’s wrist.
The news had hit Gudako with the force of a physical blow. Those forty-seven people… they were dying because they weren't her, because she'd somehow, impossibly, survived. Olga, her face pale but set with a grim resolve, had ended the call.
She knelt, using a piece of sharp metal and a drop of her own blood to hastily scribe a glowing, complex circle onto the bridge’s pavement. “We have no choice,” Olga stated, her voice tight with concentration. “We must call forth a Heroic Spirit—a Servant. A champion from humanity’s history to fight for us.”
Hope, a fragile, desperate thing, had begun to bloom in Gudako’s chest. A real hero? Someone who could actually fight and save them from this nightmare?
As Olga finished the final line of the circle, A building at the far end of the bridge just... exploded. Not a hero. That wasn't a hero coming out of the smoke. It was a monster. A giant thing made of gray muscle, all twisted and wrong. It was holding a huge, jagged piece of stone that looked like an axe. It let out a roar, a sound so loud it felt like it was shaking the bridge apart.
"What… what IS that thing?!" Olga screamed, her face draining of all color.
The giant moved with a speed that should have been impossible. Mash met its charge, her shield held high. The impact was titanic. Gudako watched in horror as Mash was thrown aside like a ragdoll. The monster’s follow-up was a brutal, careless backhand that struck the Director, sending her cartwheeling off the side of the bridge with a scream and a sickening splash.
Gudako was alone.
The giant, the Berserker, turned its burning red eyes on her. It took a single, ground-shaking step, raising its massive stone axe. Time seemed to slow. Gudako was frozen, a small, insignificant thing in the path of a natural disaster. The axe began its descent.
She was going to die.
And then, a blur of pink and black that Gudako couldn't even properly perceive smashed into the giant's side. The two beings were launched from the bridge in a titanic collision that sent a shockwave blasting back at her. She was thrown from her feet, landing hard on the pavement.
She pushed herself up, her ears ringing, and crawled to the edge of the shattered bridge. Down in the heart of the city, a battle of titans was raging. One was the gray-skinned giant. The other... she couldn't see. All she could see were the flashes of their battle, shockwaves of force that continued to rock the very foundations of the city.
Gudako Fujimaru, the girl who fell asleep in orientation, was alone on a broken bridge in the middle of hell. She was alive. A raw, ragged sob of relief and terror tore itself from her throat. She was alive. For now.
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I landed silently on the edge of a deep, smoking crater. At the bottom, sprawled amidst the wreckage of a collapsed skyscraper, was the giant. It rose to its feet, slower this time, a low growl rumbling from its chest. Its regeneration was sluggish now. The charred, blackened wound where my divine lightning had struck was knitting itself together with agonizing slowness, the foul energy that fueled it finally showing signs of strain.
He was slower. Weakened. It was just the opening I needed. I didn’t wait.
The giant roared and charged, a predictable, headlong rush. This time, I moved inside his clumsy axe swing. My lower right hand, a blur of motion, deflected the stone weapon, sending it wide. My lower left caught his other arm, halting his momentum with a wrenching twist. As the blackened flesh on his chest finally sealed itself shut, I drove the bladed end of Kamutoke into the fresh scar tissue, and with a thought, discharged a focused blast of pure Cursed Energy.
Electricity erupted from the inside out. The giant’s body locked up, every muscle spasming uncontrollably. Seizing the advantage, I pulled my lower hands back, planting my feet and driving my two now-free upper palms into his chest in a powerful double thrust. I didn't need distance.
"Cleave."
The word was a quiet command. His chest didn’t just get cut; it exploded, a perfect, donut-shaped hole of absolute nothingness appearing where his heart should have been. The force of the blow sent him stumbling back ten meters, but impossibly, he was still standing, his monstrous vitality refusing to let him fall.
Normally, I would have found this amusing. Commendable, even. Instead, my four eyes narrowed. I had been focused on the raw power, on the flesh, but now, with his body broken and his energy reserves faltering, I could finally perceive the soul within. It was that desperate plea I had sensed from the beginning. It was not a mindless beast. It was a prisoner. The consciousness was trapped, sealed away under a thick, corrupting layer of this world's foul energy, forced to watch as its own body raged.
My mind flashed back to an irritatingly recent memory. Trapped inside the brat's body, a passenger to a fate I could not control.
I knew this feeling.
The new, sentimental memories offered a word for this sensation: sympathy. How utterly distasteful. And yet... the intellectual conclusion was the same. To continue fighting this puppet was pointless. The real opponent, the one who had corrupted this warrior and stolen his will, was not here.
The old me would have kept fighting, would have dissected this creature piece by piece to understand its unique form of immortality. The me that had chosen to go North decided this charade was over.
I planted Hiten into the cracked street, its prongs digging deep. I placed Kamutoke's shaft between my teeth. My lower hands formed a familiar sign—Enma’s palm. My upper right hand, fingers splayed, pointed directly at the still-recovering giant. My two mouths began the incantation.
From my main mouth: “Scale of the Dragon.”
The giant finally finished healing the gaping hole in its chest and started to lumber towards me again, its movements sluggish.
“Recoil.”
Its charge regained some of its mindless fury, driven by the corruption.
“Twin Meteors.”
Just as the giant was about to reach me, my abdominal mouth spoke the final word of the chant: “Dismantle.”
It wasn't a physical cut. The invisible slash I unleashed was a conceptual blade, aimed not at flesh, but at the bonds of power. It sliced through the link between the warrior’s soul and the corrupting energy that shackled it.
The giant stopped dead, its axe clattering to the ground. It began to convulse, a horrifying war playing out beneath its skin. The slate-gray of its flesh started to lighten, returning to a more natural, tanned hue, before the dark corruption began to bleed back in, fighting for control. It wouldn't last. The shackle had been broken, but it would soon reforge itself.
I admired his resilience. His strength was real, not just a product of this curse. “A fine vessel for such raw power,” I said, my voice low and filled with genuine respect. “You were an excellent appetizer. I would have enjoyed a true battle against you, warrior, not this mindless husk.”
Ending his misery was the only logical, interesting thing left to do. It was… a kindness. Another bizarre new sensation.
I pulled Kamutoke from my mouth. My upper left and lower right hands clasped together. As I pulled them apart, my abdominal mouth intoned the command.
“Fuga.”
Cursed Energy ignited, coalescing between my hands. Not lightning this time. Pure, unadulterated flame, condensed into a searing orb, a miniature sun born of my own power. I formed it into the shape of an arrow.
The warrior—the true soul, now momentarily free—stopped convulsing. He stood, broken and exhausted, but his will was his own. He looked at me. And for the first time, he smiled. A warrior's smile, one of acceptance and gratitude.
I took aim. The sun descended upon the city.
The arrow struck, and there was no explosion, only an all-consuming silence as the white-hot energy incinerated everything in its blast radius. The warrior, his corrupt shell, and his trapped soul were erased from existence, a final act of purification.
When the light faded, there was only a molten, glass-lined crater where he had stood. The battle was over. I stood for a moment, a contemplative expression on my faces, and then reached down, pulling Hiten from the scorched earth.
My gaze drifted upwards, to the roiling, blood-red sky of this strange, new world. This... was going to be an interesting life.
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Notes:
Author's Note
Hello everyone, and welcome to the reboot of A Cursed King's Adventure.
First and foremost, I want to address why we’re starting fresh. This reboot is happening for two main reasons. Firstly, as was correctly pointed out by @makensentai1 , the original opening of Chapter 1 shared too many structural and tonal similarities with A Ghost in a Strange Land, a fantastic fic that I admit I drew a great deal of inspiration from. The line between homage and rehash can be a fine one, and in my previous attempt, it felt a bit too much like something generated from a template. This new version is my definitive take on this story's beginning.
Secondly, a note for @yesyesyes1212 and everyone else who felt the same: I will not be making the mistake of repeating entire scenes from another character's point of view. The narrative structure from here on out will be more dynamic and progressive. Your feedback was heard and has been crucial in reshaping the story's flow.
I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to the YouTuber Sensible Saiyan . His in-depth analysis of DBZ fights, focusing on that moment-to-moment choreography, was a huge inspiration for the combat scenes this time around. Do let me know how you feel about the fights in this new version; I tried to make them feel more tactical and visceral.
For my amazing supporters on Patreon, the original A Cursed King's Adventure will remain up for archival purposes, but I will be uploading the first six chapters of this reboot by Friday night. Thank you, as always, for your incredible support. If you'd like to join and get early access, you can do so at: patreon . Com / st_scarface
Going forward, the official upload schedule for new chapters will be every Saturday.
Thank you all for your understanding and for joining me on this new journey.
Ciao.
Chapter Text
MASH POV
The first thing I felt was pain. The giant’s blow had sent me flying with the force of a freight train.
From across the bridge, I could only watch as the Director was backhanded into the river, and the monster turned its attention to Gudako. My Master. My Senpai.
I wanted to avert my eyes, to not see what was about to happen. In that frozen moment, I pictured it: the creature, with a roar, bringing that monstrous blade down upon her.
Yet, that didn't happen.
One second, its arm was raised, ready to strike. The next, a sharp smack of colliding flesh and bone echoed across the bridge. Something had smashed into the giant, a blur of motion that sent both of them hurtling into the city proper, away from my Master.
Ignoring the stinging sensation in my arms, I scrambled to my feet, my shield feeling heavy in my grip. “Senpai!”
Gudako was pushing herself up from the pavement, trembling but alive. “Are you okay?”
“I... I think so,” she stammered, her eyes wide with a terror that mirrored the feeling in my gut.
I had failed. I was a Servant. My entire purpose was to protect, and I had been defeated in a single blow. The Director was gone, and only an unknown being had prevented my Master's death.
“The Director,” Master's shaking voice snapped me from my thoughts, her hand pointing to the edge of the bridge. “We have to—”
Her words were cut off by the sound of splashing water. My gaze snapped downwards. From the muddy river below, a figure was carrying the Director's unconscious body. An enemy? A scavenger? I moved without thinking, an instinct—from the Servant I had merged with—planting myself and my shield between my Master and the newcomer.
The figure looked up, directly at me, then he leaped. It was a fluid, powerful jump that carried him from the riverbank directly onto the bridge.
As he placed the Director on the pavement, I took in his appearance. He was tall, dressed in a blue and white robe with golden accents, over a black undershirt. A wooden staff covered in runes appeared in his hand in a shimmer of light. His long hair was blue, his eyes a piercing crimson. A Servant.
I stood my ground and forced my own shaking to stop. “Who are you?” I demanded.
My attempt at an intimidating posture seemed to fail entirely if his calm demeanor was anything to go by. He offered a lazy, disarming smile. “Relax, girlie. If I wanted you dead, I’d have left your friend to drown.”
Girlie?
He gestured with his staff to where the Director lay. He didn’t seem immediately hostile, but I stayed on guard. “I am Caster,” he said. A Caster-class Servant. One of the seven standard classes. “I was a participant of this Holy Grail War, at least, I was. Now this city is a hellscape. Animated skeletons, shadow Servants stalking the streets… whatever happened to Saber changed everything. Let’s just say I’m a survivor.”
A survivor of the Fuyuki Holy Grail War? And Saber was the cause of all this? He could have answers, but he was still an unknown. A threat until proven otherwise.
He seemed to ignore us, kneeling beside the Director as if we weren’t a concern. I watched his every move, ready to intervene. He let out a low whistle.
“Berserker really did a number on her. A backhand like that probably shattered her arm and her leg on the fall.” He looked up at us. “You are lucky that's all that happened.”
Just as he finished his sentence, the ground shook, a deep rumble echoing from the direction the monster—the Berserker—had been launched.
Ignoring the tremor, my gaze fell upon the Director's body. He was right. If those tremors were any indication, the Berserker had enough strength to have pulverized her on impact. Her right arm seemed floppy, her leg bent at an unnatural angle. But something else was wrong. Utterly wrong. Her vibrant white hair had turned a dull, lifeless grey. There was a feeling about her—the same dead stillness I had felt from the skeletons.
Before I could process it further, the Caster was in motion. He tore strips from the Director's own coat, fashioning them into crude but effective splints. Then he moved his finger through the air above her, as if writing. Glowing symbols—runes, a system of Magecraft I had only read about in textbooks—flared to life over her forehead and on the splints.
When he finished, he looked up at me. “She was too close to death. I’ve placed her in a state of suspended animation. She won't get any worse, but she won’t get any better until a healer can take a look.”
The act was helpful, but it only confirmed his status as a powerful, unknown Servant.
Then, a wave of heat. A scorching heat so intense I could feel it on my skin even from miles away. I looked towards the battle. A light, brilliant and terrifying, bloomed in the distance. For a single, blinding moment, it was as if a second sun had descended upon the earth.
Just as it came, it vanished. The sky went dark again, the wave of heat disappearing as if it had never been.
Moments after, Caster's demeanor changed. The relaxed confidence vanished, replaced by the sharp focus of a predator. He rose to his feet and turned his gaze not to us, but to a distant skyscraper. His voice, no longer casual, cut through the air with a clear edge.
“Alright, you’ve had your fun. Show yourself! I felt the Berserker’s presence vanish, so what’s your game?”
For a long moment, there was only silence. Then a figure launched itself from the skyscraper, the upper half of the building crumbling into dust from the force of its departure. It had to be the one who had saved my Master. If what Caster said was true, this being had just defeated the Berserker that took me out in a single shot.
The jump was a high, long arc that covered miles in seconds. It landed on the far end of the bridge with a ground-shaking BOOM, the force of the impact rattling the entire structure.
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From my vantage point on the skyscraper, I observed the blue-haired man on the bridge. I could feel the power radiating from him—potent, controlled, and entirely different from the mindless rage of the brute I had just dispatched. He was intriguing. I decided to engage, but on my terms.
A memory, one of the human's, flickered—something about first impressions. The old me would have made an impression with overwhelming violence, a casual display of force to establish a pecking order. But the human memories suggested a different kind of logic: violence was a tool, but not the only one. Right now, what I needed was answers, not corpses. Dominance could wait.
I leaped from the skyscraper, landing on the bridge with a ground-shaking impact that sent cracks spiderwebbing through the pavement. The two girls flinched, but my four eyes were solely fixated on the sorcerer. I walked toward their small group at a calm, measured pace. The girls were terrified insects, irrelevant to the conversation that was about to take place. Only he mattered.
As I closed the distance, a silent pressure erupted between us. My own aura, oppressive and heavy with the weight of an absolute predator, rolled forward. His was different; it was sharp, a focused spear point of pure, indomitable will that met my pressure without breaking. Everyone I had ever met buckled when faced with my presence, either surrendering in terror or breaking themselves in a futile attempt to push back. A memory flickered—white hair, six eyes. Almost everyone.
The two girls, caught in the invisible wake of our auras, stumbled. The one holding the shield barely caught herself; the weaker one simply collapsed, her senses overloaded.
We both withdrew our power simultaneously. A tacit agreement. A fight here, now, was not the most interesting outcome for either of us.
The moment our standoff concluded, the sorcerer's demeanor shifted. He went from a coiled warrior to a relaxed guide, though I could feel the readiness humming beneath his skin, waiting for me to make a move. I smirked. He was itching for a real fight, just as I was.
He turned and said something to the girls that made them blush, picking up the gray-haired woman into his arms. The shield of the pink-haired girl vanished as she scooped up the redhead. He looked back at me, gave a sharp nod, and then took off at a sprint. I followed.
As we moved through the ruined city, I mulled over the situation. The first warrior had been a physical equal, a brute with astonishing vitality. This blue-haired sorcerer was different. He was skilled—the glowing symbols keeping the gray-haired woman in suspended animation were proof enough of that. He was powerful, but what truly fascinated me was his nature. Both he and the hulking brute were "containers" for some kind of spirit, but there was a critical difference. I could see the desperate soul of the one I fought, but I couldn't pierce the veil protecting this sorcerers. It was like trying to look into a sealed box. The feeling of being unable to fully dissect something was a novel, and irritatingly fascinating, sensation.
Our journey was interrupted by a streak of light from the distance. An arrow, wreathed in a simple but potent burst of energy, screamed out of the darkness. It wasn’t aimed at me or the sorcerer. It was aimed at the weakest link: the girl being carried by the one with the shield.
Before either of them could react, I was there, appearing in the arrow's path. I didn't dodge. I raised a hand and caught it. The moment my fingers closed around the shaft, it detonated in a violent flash of light and force.
My lower right arm was shredded, the flesh burned away to reveal shattered bone. But before the smoke even cleared, Reverse Cursed Technique knitted the wound shut, my arm reforming perfectly in less than a second. I flexed my pristine hand. An amusing trick, with respectable power behind it. Cowardly, but effective.
My gaze drifted towards the mountain that loomed over the city, the source of the attack. I could feel the sniper's presence nestled there, near a large torii gate at its peak.
I would not let this go unpunished. As another arrow formed in the sniper’s bow, I responded. Lifting Hiten, I aimed not at the sniper, but at his next shot. A thin, hyper-compressed stream of air, invisible to most, shot from the trident's prongs. As the sniper loosed his arrow, my attack met it mid-flight, detonating it prematurely. He abandoned his position, leaping from the gate just as my second attack—a more powerful blast of wind from Hiten—carved a clean hole through the mountainside where he had been standing. The message was clear: I see you. Try that again and see what happens.
We finally arrived at our destination. I couldn't help but look with a degree of professional curiosity. An invisible barrier, different from a Jujutsu barrier, covered the entrance to a hidden bunker. My senses could decipher three distinct layers: an illusion that hid the entrance, a ward that imposed a suggestion to ignore the area, and an alarm. Clever.
The sorcerer descended, placing the gray-haired woman on a simple cot inside. He produced bottles of water from a cache, tossing one to each of us. I caught mine without looking, my eyes still analyzing the intricate runes etched onto the woman. The shield-maiden caught hers while the other girl fumbled, dropping hers to the floor with a clatter.
I took a drink, unconcerned. Poison was a triviality.
I turned to the sorcerer, my four eyes locking onto his. A dozen questions were already forming in my mind.
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I lowered the bottle, turning my full attention to the blue-haired sorcerer. The air in the small bunker crackled with unspoken questions, a silence pregnant with the threat of violence. It was he who broke it first, extending a hand not as a warrior, but as an equal seeking an introduction.
“Caster-class Servant,” he said, his voice level, holding a calm confidence that bordered on foolishness. “Cú Chulainn.”
I met his hand with one of my own, the grip firm and dry. A name. A title. I processed them. The name, Cú Chulainn, sparked a flicker of recognition—one of the mundane human memories, a story from some northern European island. My eyes widened for a fraction of a second, an involuntary reaction that the sorcerer did not miss.
“Ryomen Sukuna,” I replied, my voice a low rumble. I saw no reason to hide my own name. Power has no need for pseudonyms. “The King of Curses.”
Cú Chulainn’s eyebrow raised a fraction. “King of Curses, eh? A lofty title. And you’ve heard of me?”
“I have,” I admitted, a smirk playing on my lips. The memories felt like reading from a dusty scroll, disconnected from my own reality but clear nonetheless. “The Hound of Ulster. Son of Lugh. Trained by that warrior in the Land of Shadows, the one they called a god-killer.” I paused, my gaze deliberate. “What intrigues me is your title. Caster. The Hound was a spearman.”
Before I could press the point, the Caster’s gaze shifted to the comatose gray-haired woman on the cot. He looked back at me, his expression turning serious. “Before we get into that, what about her? I saw you regenerate your arm after that sniper’s arrow blew up. Can your sorcery do anything for her?”
I followed his gaze. The woman was stable, for now, thanks to the glowing runes he’d inscribed, but I could feel something else clinging to her, a parasitic remnant of energy left over from the brute's attack. A corruption.
“Healing her is a trivial matter,” I stated, a simple fact. “What concerns me is this taint clinging to her. A curse of some kind, but crude. I’ve never seen its like. I have no idea how her body will react if I attempt to excise it.”
“I felt it too,” Cú Chulainn admitted, his brow furrowed in concentration. “But I have no way to remove it. You do?”
“I have a way,” I confirmed.
As the Caster was about to speak again, the shield-maiden, Mash, stepped forward, her expression a mixture of desperation and anxiety. “Excuse me, but what are you talking about? Taint? Is the Director…”
Her words died in her throat. I turned my gaze upon her, letting the full, oppressive weight of my presence descend. The air in the bunker grew heavy, the temperature dropping several degrees. Cú Chulainn tensed, but did not move.
“You,” I began, my voice a cold, quiet whisper that carried more menace than a shout, “have not introduced yourself. You are interrupting a conversation between your betters. You are an insect attempting to speak at a King’s table.”
The girl froze, her face paling as she struggled to breathe under the pressure of my aura. The Caster finally moved, stepping between us, a placating hand raised. The pressure did not affect him as it did the girls, a testament to his own will.
“Easy there, King,” he said, his voice losing none of its confidence despite the crushing presence. “The girl’s just worried about her leader. Show a little grace.”
I held my gaze on the shield-maiden for a moment longer before slowly retracting my aura. The Caster was right, in a sense. Her outburst was a product of the human weakness I was now supposed to be studying—loyalty. Still, it was irritating.
I turned back to Cú Chulainn, dismissing the girl as if she were a piece of furniture. “I do not understand what you see in them,” I said, my voice flat. “She is a talking shield with an overinflated sense of duty. The other one couldn’t even catch a bottle of water. They are fragile. Annoying.”
The Caster let out a sigh, then clapped Mash on the shoulder, guiding her and the other, terrified redhead to the far corner of the bunker to speak with them in hushed tones. Left to my own devices, I turned my attention to the true problem at hand, the woman on the cot. My four eyes examined the intricate web of corruption clinging to her, and I began to dissect the puzzle. This new world, with its strange rules and fascinating problems, was becoming more entertaining by the minute.
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Cú Chulainn leaned back against the bunker's cold concrete wall, his staff held loosely in his grip, his crimson eyes never leaving the four-armed being on the other side of the room.
Heh. So the brute's presence really did just snuff out after that flash. The thought came, sharp and analytical. A monster like Heracles, gone in an instant. To pull that off single-handedly... what the hell kind of trump card is this "King" hiding?
He was alive, that was for sure. No Servant felt like that; a being of pure mana was a fundamentally different thing from this creature of flesh, blood, and bone. That changed the entire game. There was no Spirit Core to aim for, which meant you had to destroy him completely to put him down. He wasn’t leashed to some Master’s mana supply, so a war of attrition was out. He was a different kind of problem. A puzzle with none of the usual pieces.
He called himself the King of Curses, and Cú was inclined to believe him—the very energy rolling off the man felt like a pure, weaponized curse. He’d seen the arm grow back from nothing after that sniper's potshot, too. So you couldn't just wound him; it would have to be a battle of total annihilation to put him down for good.
His gaze flickered over to the two girls huddled near the entrance. They were terrified, and rightly so. But they were also liabilities. The Shielder was all duty and no instinct; she'd get herself vaporized trying to be polite to a hurricane. The other one looked like she was just trying to remember how to breathe.
Right, he thought with a grim sense of finality. Play it smart. Keep the brats alive, figure out the monster's game, and try to have a little fun before this all goes to hell. Simple.
Simple enough in theory. Cú let out a low sigh and pushed himself off the wall. He strode over, clapping the Shielder on the shoulder. The gesture had enough force to make the girl flinch. He steered them both toward a corner of the bunker, away from the object of their terror. "Over here," he murmured, his voice low. "Quick chat."
He leaned back against the wall again, staff held loosely, and pinned them with a look that cut straight through the haze of their panic.
“Alright, you two,” he started, his voice a serious murmur. “Time for a quick lesson in how not to die in the next five minutes. Are you listening?”
The Shielder, Mash, managed a stiff, formal nod. The other one, Gudako, just gave a jerky twitch that was probably a yes. Close enough.
“Good. Rule number one: that thing over there,” he said, jerking his chin towards Sukuna without looking at him, “is not your ally. He’s not a Servant you can reason with, and he sure as hell isn’t a hero. Got it?”
He watched them both nod again, the reality of their situation slowly sinking in.
“Think of him like… a wild animal,” he continued, searching for the simplest analogy. “A big, four-armed predator that just wandered into your camp. He’s here because this place is interesting, and right now, we’re the most interesting things in it. The second that changes, the second we become boring, or annoying, or more trouble than we’re worth…” He drew an imaginary line across his throat with his thumb. “...he’ll deal with us. Simple as that.”
He looked directly at Mash, his crimson eyes sharp. “You, with the shield. I get it. You’re the knight. You protect. But you need to understand, your job right now is not to get in his way. You do not talk to him unless he talks to you. You do not question him. Your shield is a powerful tool, but against something like that, provoking him is a death sentence for your Master here.”
His gaze then shifted to Gudako. She was purely a civilian, a non-combatant caught in a war of monsters.
“As for you, girlie… you just focus on staying alive. Stay behind her shield. Keep your head down. And for the love of all the gods, try not to do anything that pisses him off.” He flashed a brief, grim smile. “Consider that the most important mission you’ll ever have.”
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I was observing the way the curse affected the gray-haired woman when the Hound approached, having finished his little talk with the girls. It was amusing; he must have known I could hear every word.
Standing behind my crouched form, he asked the question I knew was coming. “So, King. You said you had a way to fix her. Was that just talk, or can you actually do something?”
“I can restore her physical form,” I stated, not looking at him, my four eyes fixed on the fascinating network of corruption. It was coursing through what appeared to be a secondary nervous system, a set of specialized organs dedicated to this world’s sorcery. How novel. Jujutsu sorcerers used the brain to process Cursed Energy; these people had evolved an entirely different system for their craft. “That,” I continued, “is a trivial matter. The issue is the corruption itself.”
I rose to my feet, gesturing with a lower hand toward the comatose woman. “It is a parasitic curse, quite peculiar in its design. It's not just feeding on her; it’s using her own energy network as a delivery system to taint her very soul.” The spirit within her was seeped in this malevolent energy, its core identity being actively overwritten. A truly exquisite piece of sorcery. “I can heal her body and remove the energy, but restoring her soul to its original state is another matter. Even if I cleanse the physical vessel, the stain on her spirit will remain. And if I were to attempt to purify her soul by force… I have no idea if the taint would fight back. If that were to happen, well...” I let my gaze meet his. "All you would have left is a husk."
“So you can't do it?”
The arrogance. I almost smiled. “Is that what I said?”
Without waiting for a response, I acted. With two hands, I turned the woman's limp body onto her front. With a single, sharp nail, I sliced through the back of her uniform, exposing the pale skin beneath. Then, I placed one of my lower hands upon her back.
The first step was simple. I focused, and the familiar warmth of Reverse Cursed Technique flowed into her flesh. I felt the shattered bones of her arm and leg grind and then seamlessly knit themselves back together. Her ruptured organs mended. Lacerations and contusions vanished. The physical damage was an amateurishly simple problem to solve.
The next step was artistry.
I pushed my Cursed Energy deep into her system, a probe to map the infection. The alien energy of the curse was a living network, using the woman's own "magic nerves" as a battery to funnel its poison into her soul. First thing's first. I focused my will, aiming for the spiritual link itself. With an application of Dismantle precise enough to be imperceptible, I targeted and severed the connection between the corrupting energy and her soul. The moment it was cut, the energy thrashed, trying to re-establish its parasitic bond.
Not on my watch. I flooded her system with positive energy from my Reverse Cursed Technique, the purifying force burning away at the taint. Systematically, I backed the remaining foul energy through her magical nervous system, forcing it to retreat, to coalesce into a single, terrified mass on her back, just below a strange, intricate crest that, I noted with some curiosity, had remained utterly untouched by the corruption, protected by its own ancient, powerful wards.
Then, with a thought, I used a minute Dismantle to open a shallow cut on my own finger. Crimson, Cursed-Energy-rich blood welled up. I dipped the finger into it and drew upon the woman’s skin. I was using her flesh as a talisman, my own blood as the ink. The intricate lines and geometric shapes flowed from a mind that had perfected this art over two and a half centuries. It was a prison, a flawless containment circle.
I rose to my feet and observed her soul. With the source of its infection severed and quarantined, the corruption staining her spirit began to recede, to flake away, until only the faintest discoloration remained. So that was its nature. A self-propagating curse that, if left unchecked, would have converted her own power until she became a willing vessel for the taint itself. An Altered being, a split personality, a shift in alignment… the possibilities were fascinating.
“Examine her, if you wish,” I said to the Hound, my voice cutting through the silence as the woman’s hair returned from a dull gray to its vibrant white, save for a few stubborn, faded strands. “I have sealed the foreign energy. I could purge it completely, but the woman's soul has already been altered on a fundamental level. Reversing it now would be… imprecise. It is better to have a contained sample to study, should we need to restore her fully later.” A live specimen for dissection would provide a much more elegant solution.
Cú stepped forward. I watched as he placed a hand on her back, his own energy probing my work. A moment later, he bit his thumb, drawing blood, and inscribed two glowing runes directly over my own seal. How fascinating. These simple symbols of his were not the raw, overpowering locks of my Jujutsu; they were elegant, sophisticated keys. Like comparing a bludgeon to a scalpel. I could feel their effects: one was subtly amplifying the containment field of my seal, a clever reinforcement. The other was a tripwire, a ward designed to alert him if my seal began to fail. A collaboration, of a sort.
As Cú pulled his hand away, satisfied, a soft gasp came from the cot.
We both turned. The woman's eyes—her golden eyes—were now wide open.
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Notes:
Author's Note
Hey everyone, thanks for reading the latest chapter. It covered a lot of new ground, and I wanted to take a moment to clarify some of the world-building choices I've made for this story.
First, Sukuna's perspective on Heroic Spirits. As you saw, he views them as souls inhabiting a container, which is a technically accurate if brutally pragmatic way of looking at them. On that note, for those of you FGO veterans already in the know, the reason Sukuna couldn't peer into our favorite Hound's soul is indeed a nod to that well-known connection with a certain one-eyed old god. As for why Cú didn't just heal Olga himself, while he is a masterful druid, that level of spiritual healing would require a vast amount of mana over a long period of time—something he simply doesn't have without a Master yet.
Now, for the big one: the seals. Some of you who are die-hard JJK fans will point out that seals in canon don't work like this Fuinjutsu-style application, and you are absolutely right. They are primarily talisman-based. This was a conscious choice on my part. The hard truth is, a canon Sukuna, even with Mahoraga, would struggle immensely against the conceptual, reality-breaking bullshit of the Nasuverse. So, I decided to have this one be from an alternate universe.
This brings me to my core creative choice for this fic. Logically, you could argue that Sukuna simply appeared at the end of the Heian era and became the strongest ever, and that would be enough to cement his legend. It's also said he killed most other sorcerers of his time, which would lead to their history being erased. Both are valid theories, but I mean, c'mon... that's no fun. My take is, what if he was there for most of the three-century-long era? What if he dominated for so long that no one else even registered?
This AU Sukuna is nearly three centuries old. This extended lifespan gave him the time not just to be the strongest, but to master and push every single art of Jujutsu to its absolute limit before he got bored and turned himself into Cursed Objects. I don't want the "Strongest Sorcerer in History" to be defined just by his raw strength, but also by his unparalleled knowledge and mastery. You can't call yourself a master of something until you have learned all there is to learn.
So yeah, if you don't like these changes, I am sorry, but I could see no other way for Sukuna to survive, let alone thrive, in the Nasuverse. On that note, Sukuna will get stronger here. He'll notice it later, but by coming to this new world, the limits to his growth have shattered. Considering the first main boss on the horizon is Goetia, yeah… you can see where I am going with this.
As of right now, chapters up to "Fuyuki 4: The King's Checkmate" are already available on my Pat-reon. The next update there will be Chapter 5, which will feature the final battle of this arc, and that will be up by Sunday. To read ahead or just to support my work, you can follow me at: pat-reon . Com / st_scarface
If you guys like, I could also make an info chapter detailing all the changes to Jujutsu I've made, create a Servant-style stat page for this version of Sukuna, and answer any other questions you might have. Let me know in the comments.
And if you are leaving because of these changes, I thank you for your time and for reading this far.
Ciao.
Chapter 3: Fuyuki 3: The King's Wager!
Notes:
Authors note's at the end... Be sure to check that out!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Olga Marie Animusphere’s eyes shot wide open with a gasp. Her world was gray concrete and dim, flickering light. Her first sight was a nightmare come true: a four-armed demon and a blue-robed stranger loomed directly over the cot she lay. A raw, instinctual terror overrode her training, and she scrambled backwards, tumbling off the cot to hit the cold floor in a tangle of limbs.
From across the room, she heard a sharp "Tch" of pure annoyance. The four-armed being, without a backward glance, turned his back on her and walked to the deepest shadows of the bunker.
That brief moment of being ignored was the only cue Mash and Gudako needed.
“Director! Are you alright?” Mash was at her side in an instant, helping her up.
Olga waved her subordinate's hands away, her own trembling as she pushed herself to her feet. The Director’s mask, her only shield, snapped into place. “I’m fine!” she said, her voice a brittle, high-strung command. Her eyes scanned her own body. Her arm was whole. Her leg was whole. She remembered the crunch of bone, the searing pain. This was impossible. Her mind seized on the blue-robed man with a staff. A healer? A Caster of some kind? This must be his work.
"Report," she snapped, her focus shifting to Mash. "What happened?"
Mash, her usual military composure completely gone, flinched at the sharp tone, her voice cracking as she began. "Director, we were attacked on the bridge! That giant… that monster… it-it took me out in a single blow." She took a shuddering breath, her gaze darting towards Gudako. "It was about to kill Senpai—Master. Her life was in danger, and I couldn't do anything!"
Olga’s blood ran cold. Our last Master. Our last hope… nearly died?
"But she wasn't," Mash continued, her voice dropping to a near whisper as she gestured with a trembling hand toward the shadows. "She was saved. The… the pink-haired man, he intervened."
Olga’s terrified gaze flitted over to the silent, terrifying silhouette. Her mind, a whirlwind of confusion, couldn’t begin to process the contradiction. The demon had saved them?
Before she could demand more details, the blue-robed man interrupted, a lazy, charming grin spreading across his face. "I'm the one who fished you out of the river, by the way," he said casually. "A heroic rescue for a pretty lady like yourself. Doesn't that deserve a kiss?"
“You—you disgusting pervert!” Olga shrieked, her terror momentarily eclipsed by sheer indignation.
He just laughed, the sound echoing in the small bunker. "Name's Cú Chulainn," he continued, completely unfazed. "Caster of this botched little war. The big gray brute that knocked you around was a Berserker. Heracles, if you can believe it."
Heracles. The name, spoken so casually, hit Olga with the force of a physical blow. The pinnacle of Greek heroes, the most known hero in the world.
“And that’s not all,” the Caster continued, his red eyes twinkling with amusement. “After we got back here, the big guy over there,”—he jerked his chin towards the four-armed being—“is the one who fixed you up. Healed that nasty curse that was eating you, too.”
The revelation struck Olga the most. Her mind reeled. The healing wasn't the work of the Caster. It was a casual afterthought for the silent demon in the corner. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her carefully constructed composure was gone, replaced by a raw, naked terror as she stared at the four-armed being.
The storytelling was clearly over. From the shadows, the four-armed being finally turned. His crimson eyes—all four of them—pinned them with a cold, impatient glare that seemed to suck all the warmth from the room.
“Are you done with this meaningless chit-chat?” the demon asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the very floor. The time for answers was over. His interrogation was about to begin.
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My four eyes were as I waited for the real conversation to begin. I had been patient and now it was at an end. I broke the silence. “You introduced yourself as ‘Caster’,” I began, my gaze shifting to the hound. “And the brute... you called him ‘Berserker’. Explain these titles.”
Instead of answering directly, the sorcerer let out a low whistle, a slow, knowing grin spreading across his face. "So I was right," he muttered under his breath. He looked directly at me, his crimson eyes sharp with certainty. "You're not from this world, are you? Oh King of Curses?"
My impassive expression was all the confirmation he needed. Interesting. The people of this world know of others. He took this as his cue and launched into his explanation, his tone that of a seasoned veteran briefing a new, unpredictable recruit.
“It’s all part of the Holy Grail War,” he said, leaning casually on his staff. “A battle royale between seven ‘Masters’ and seven ‘Servants’. We Servants are heroic spirits, copies of warriors pulled from a place outside of time, and summoned into one of seven Classes. The winner gets a prize.” He gestured to the redhead cowering behind the shield-maiden. “The humans, the Masters, bind us with the Command Seals on their hands. They're a mark of their authority.”
A place outside of time? Wait. "A slave's brand," I stated, my voice dripping with disdain. My four eyes gazed at the red sigils on the girl’s hand with open disgust. It was an obscenity.
He let out a weary sigh. “You're not entirely wrong,” he admitted, a flicker of a dark memory in his eyes that I recognized as genuine. “Some Masters do treat it that way. But that's not all they are.” He raised a finger. “A Master can burn one to give us a massive surge of power, instantly heal wounds that should be fatal, or even pull us across the city to their side in a blink. They’re useful tricks.”
The tactical applications were intriguing, but the core concept remained repulsive. "Fascinating abilities for a leash," I retorted. "But the question remains. Why would any true warrior willingly wear it?"
“Some of us, like me, just come for a good fight,” he said with a shrug and a grin. “But most spirits on the Throne... they have regrets. Things they failed to do, people they failed to save. They come for the prize.” He finally named it. “The Holy Grail. An artifact that can grant any wish. Rewrite your past, change your legend, anything.”
My amusement curdled into disgust. Pathetic. If you want something, you take it with your own hands. The desire to erase one’s past is the ultimate weakness. To erase your past is to erase who you are. The past is what makes you ‘YOU’. The girls’ lack of reaction told me this was a commonly accepted truth in their world, but I was certain a prize this powerful had to have a price. There was always a price.
The white-haired woman, having gathered a sliver of her courage, stepped forward. Her voice was still shaky, but firm. "If you are from another world… how did you get here?" She then asked the question that truly mattered to her. "Before you arrived, did you encounter an old man… a magician by the name of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg?"
“Why is this man's presence important?” I asked. Is he someone to take note off.
It was Cú who answered, recognizing the woman was too terrified to explain clearly. “He’s different,” the sorcerer said, his casual tone gone, replaced by one of genuine gravity. “He is a Magician. He wields True Magic, not the parlor tricks and limited ‘Magecraft’ the rest of us use.” He paused, letting the weight of the term settle, his crimson eyes locking onto mine. “What he does… it’s not sorcery. It is a Miracle. The Second Magic. They call it the Kaleidoscope, and it grants him the authority to operate parallel worlds.”
For the first time since waking in this wretched city, I fell completely silent. The sorcerer noted the shift in my demeanor instantly. The woman, lost in her own explanation, missed it.
Miracles. The operation of parallel worlds.
My Jujutsu, the absolute pinnacle of power in my own world, could bend and break the rules of reality. It could command life and death, space and energy. But it was still bound by the fundamental laws of existence. This "True Magic" was something else entirely. It was the power to rewrite those laws. A level of mastery, a tier of power, I had never even conceived of. A burning, avaricious hunger ignited within me, a desire more potent than any simple battle lust. Forget a good fight. Forget the Grail. Knowledge of this world's sorcery was now the true prize.
The woman, mistaking my silence for consideration, pressed what she thought was her advantage. "The Wizard marshal—Zelretch is the only person who can send you back!" she pleaded. "Help us fix this Singularity, and I swear on the Animusphere name, I will use every favor, every resource my family has, to arrange an audience. We will find a way to send you home!"
I began to laugh—a low, dry, humorless sound that startled them all. "Go back?" I asked, a predatory grin spreading across my face. "Why would I ever want to leave a place that has suddenly become so… fascinating?" I let the threat hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “But I will hold you to your ‘offer.’ Perhaps after I am done here, you can arrange for this ‘Wizard Marshall’ to take me somewhere even more entertaining.”
A flicker of a memory: a battle with the six eyes, a fight where my own overwhelming power was not enough. I pushed the irritating thought aside. Perhaps a rematch was needed.
“Very well, woman. I accept.” I paused, my gaze deliberate. “You keep using that term. What… is a ‘Singularity’?”
This opened the final floodgate. The woman, Olga, now feeling a sliver of control, explained everything: Chaldea's mission, observing the timeline, the utter incineration of humanity’s future, and how this "error" in Fuyuki was the cause. She told me of a saboteur, of the loss of their primary Masters, leaving them with a single, "incompetent" civilian in Fujimaru.
“Hey!” came a faint protest from the back.
I processed the information, my world expanding with each word. I had assumed this "Grail" was a local artifact, that these "Servants" were simply this land’s equivalent of Cursed Spirits. But if these humans could observe time, if Cú Chulainn, a figure from mythology, was real... then gods were real in this world. And time travel... a feat even I, in my centuries of mastery, had deemed impossible... these fragile humans had achieved it. The scale of this new playground was vastly greater than I could have ever imagined.
I let out another, louder laugh, this one of pure, unadulterated joy. This was no mere side-show. This was the greatest, most entertaining stage in the multiverse. The new human memories, with their sentimental notion of “saving people,” aligned perfectly with my own hedonistic desires. The path forward was clear.
Saving humanity? Me? The idea was so beautifully, exquisitely ironic, I had no choice. How amusing.
---------
With the fragile alliance set, Olga’s Director persona fully reasserted itself. The first priority was to re-establish a clear line of communication with Chaldea.
“Caster,” she began, her tone sharp and formal, “We are on a leyline, correct?”
“A minor one, but yeah,” Cú affirmed. “It’s why I picked it. I am a Caster, even if not a proper one.”
Olga nodded once, then activated the communication device on her wrist. A holographic screen flickered to life, showing the exhausted, pale face of Dr. Romani Archaman.
“Director!” he exclaimed, his relief palpable. “Your vitals are stable! We were… we were losing you!” He then noticed the two figures behind her, and his professional demeanor cracked into sheer, unadulterated shock, his eyes widening at the sight of Sukuna.
“Romani, report,” Olga demanded.
Romani flinched, his gaze darting nervously away from Sukuna. “Th-the Master Candidates are in cryopreservation as you had asked,” he stammered. “But Chaldea’s resources… eighty percent were destroyed. We are on backup power. Director, the situation is…”
“I am aware,” Olga interrupted. She took a breath, forcing herself to be clinical. “Listen closely. We were attacked on the bridge by a Berserker-class Servant, Heracles.”
“Heracles?!” Romani shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief.
Cú, leaning against a wall, let out a dry chuckle. “Guys a riot.” He pushed himself off the wall and walked closer, now a part of the conversation. “That’s what I told them, Doc. And I’m the Caster for this botched little war, by the way. Name’s Cú Chulainn.”
“Cú Chulainn! Ireland's Child of Light,” Romani said in disbelief.
“The one and only,” Cú replied. “Berserker was defeated by the big guy”—he pointed at Sukuna—“over there.”
“He then... Healed me,” finished Olga.
It was Cú who clarified the most critical point for them. “Hold on now,” he said, his tone shifting from casual to serious as he looked at Olga. “I wouldn’t exactly call you ‘healed.’ He only repaired the physical damage.” Cú’s gaze hardened. “The King is the one who worked on you. He said the curse from the corrupted river is still there, tainting your soul. He put a seal on it, but if you use your own Magic Circuits for more than five or ten minutes, it’ll start to break down.” He then added, “Your Crest should be safer to use, but even that will strain it over time.”
“What?!” Olga and Romani shouted in unison. “Why didn’t he remove it completely?!” Olga demanded.
“You’d have to ask him,” Cú said with a shrug, jerking a thumb towards Sukuna.
Sukuna, who had been observing their pathetic drama with growing boredom, finally spoke, his voice a low rumble. "The woman's soul is tainted," he said, not bothering to look at her. "While I could remove it, the resulting clash of the taint and my craft... Well, let's just say I doubt you'd want her returned as a vegetable.”
Romani, trying to get a grip, seized on the only positive news. “If Heracles is gone, what’s holding this Singularity up?”
The question hung in the air, and it was Cú who answered. “Saber... She’s propping up this whole mess with the Grail.” He shook his head. “She’s hooked right into it, gives her a bottomless tank of mana. Something happened to her early in the war, she started a bloodbath, and somehow revived the Servants she killed to be her puppets.”
Olga’s face was grim. “Do you know her identity?”
“I do,” Cú confirmed. “Anyone who has seen her swinging her sword would know. She’s wielding Excalibur.” He added, his tone turning grim, “I saw her use it once. One swing. It took out three Servants and their Masters and carved a trench in the city clean out to the sea. That's what we're up against.”
The name and the description struck the Chaldeans like a thunderbolt. “Excalibur?!” Romani shrieked. “King Arthur?!” Olga and Mash gasped in horror. Sukuna, however, shifted from bored observer to a state of sharp, focused attention, his four eyes narrowing.
Cú lamented with a sigh, “If I’d been summoned as a Lancer, I might’ve had a shot. Her main defense, aside from that sword, is her Archer guard dog. He’s a real piece of work. Fights up close with two short swords like a Saber, but snipes from a mountain away. An annoyance.”
“Seven Servants,” Sukuna interjected, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. He had been counting. “You are Caster. I killed Berserker. Saber and Archer remain. That is four. What happened to the other three?”
Cú blinked, impressed by the quick tactical accounting. “Right. Assassin I took out myself, early on. Rider was a fool who mocked Berserker’s dead Master, so the brute tore him apart. That just leaves one… a Lancer. She’s still out there.”
With the new information settling in, Gudako, wanting to contribute, finally spoke up. “The plan is simple then!” she said with a burst of naive confidence. “We’ll just ignore the Lancer, and all march to the mountain together!”
A genuine, mocking laugh escaped Sukuna’s lips. Cú just stared at her with a deadpan expression.
“Right,” Cú began, his voice laced with pity. “First, the Archer will see us coming from miles away and turn you two,”—he gestured to Gudako and Olga—“into pin cushions before we get halfway there.”
“And you would leave your backs open to an attack from this ‘Lancer’,” Sukuna added, his tone dripping with condescension.
Cú then raised the final, critical issue, turning to Gudako. “Besides all that, I don’t have a Master. I’m running on fumes.”
Seeing the undeniable logic, Olga gave the order, her voice tight with resignation. “Fujimaru. Contract with him. Now.”
Cú, smirking, pulled up his arm in a fist. Gudako raised her hand in kind. A flash of light later and a new connection was formed between them.
With the team finally, officially, assembled, Sukuna turned to Cú, a sharp glint in his four eyes. “Your idea of a plan, sorcerer?”
“Simple,” Cú replied, now with a Master backing him. “The three of us take down the Archer, create an opening, and then we all face Saber together.”
Sukuna laughed again. “The brute was a decent warm-up. This ‘Saber’… she sounds truly entertaining.” He paused, his gaze sweeping over all of them. “I will fight her alone.”
Olga looked like she was about to have an aneurysm. “Are you insane?! You heard what Caster said—”
Cú silenced her with a sharp, warning look. He turned back to Sukuna, a cunning glint in his eye. “Alright, King. I get it. But you need an opening. Even you can’t fight two top-tiers at once.”
Sukuna cut him off, his gaze dismissing the girls. “And how would they help? The shield-maiden might be a decent wall, if she possesses a strong... what did you call it? Ah, a Noble Phantasm.”
Mash, flinching under his gaze, was forced to admit the truth, her voice a near whisper. “I… I can’t use it. I don’t know the name of the Servant I’ve bonded with… or my Noble Phantasm’s True Name.”
Another laugh, this one cold and devoid of all humor, left Sukuna’s lips. “This,” he said, gesturing to the three terrified women. “This rabble is what you would use to fight the Archer?”
Cú’s grin turned sharp. “Let’s make a wager, then, King of Curses.”
Sukuna’s four eyes narrowed in genuine intrigue.
“We let these three handle the Lancer I talked about. No help from you or me,” Cú proposed. “If they can beat her on their own, you owe me a proper spar when we make it out of this hell alive. If they fail…” He shrugged. “Then I'll owe you one favor. Anything within my power to grant.”
Sukuna considered the bet. A test of the "teamwork" concept. A chance to see these weakling's struggle. The entertainment value was simply too high to refuse. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
“Amusing. I accept.”
---------
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Notes:
Author's Note
Hey everyone,
Just a quick note on this chapter. I know it's a bit of a shorter one, clocking in at just over 3k words compared to the 5k+ of the last two chapters. That was a choice, as this chapter is primarily an info dump to set the stage and establish all the rules and relationships for the rest of this arc. Thank you for bearing with the necessary exposition!
Rest assured, the next chapter will be an absolute banger.
On my pat-reon, the Fuyuki arc has ended. I will add the last chapter by tonight, while I start writing Orleans, I might take a weak or two to prepare by researching some stuff. So, for my pat-reon viewers, I will either make a pat-reon only short story on this singularity with the change being what if it was Yuta who was dropped in Fuyuki? Or maybe Higuruma? Or Kusakabe for the heck of it... Or maybe I could start a secondary story... A poll will be up by tonight so do be sure to check it out.
As always, thank you for reading and for all your support.
Ciao.
Chapter 4: Fuyuki 4: The King's Checkmate
Notes:
Join Patreon (Free tier) to vote on my poll... Next chapter is next Saturday...
Patreon.com/st_scarface
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The air in the ruined commercial district was thick with the silence of the dead. Downtown Fuyuki was a graveyard of skeletal high-rises and burnt-out storefronts, the wind whistling a mournful tune through shattered windows.
Cú Chulainn's briefing had been brutally concise. "She's a Lancer-class. Blindingly fast. At the end of her chain is a hooked blade—some kind of spear-head. She'll use it to control you from a distance before she moves in. Don't let her bind you. But her real weapon is her eyes. The second you see them start to glow, you break the line of sight. Whatever you do, do not let her get a clean look at you."
Olga, her face grim, had quickly inscribed runes onto a pair of flat stones, handing them to Mash. "I have prepared two of Stone A and one of Stone B. Power them only when Fujimaru gives the signal. They are our only surprises. Make them count."
At the end of a long, debris-strewn street, their target stood waiting. The Lancer, Medusa, watched them from beside a rusted, overturned bus, a slow, predatory smirk on her face. The bladed tip of her weapon rested on the asphalt, the long chain coiled patiently at her feet.
Medusa moved first. With a flick of her wrist, the chain dagger uncoiled, a black streak that cut through the air with an audible hiss as it shot straight for Mash's center mass. Mash sidestepped, her movements heavy, planting her feet to let the projectile fly past. But the chain, defying physics, twisted mid-air, its point changing course to aim directly for her exposed side.
It was a feint. Mash let out a small grunt of surprise, just barely managing to swing her massive shield into its path. The hooked blade struck the metal with a high-pitched PING, the force vibrating up her entire arm. The strike was deflected, but the Lancer was already using the moment to her advantage, closing the distance with a terrifying burst of speed.
Two hundred meters away, Gudako's heart leaped into her throat. "Mash!" she yelled, her voice raw with panic. "The ground! Shield bash the ground, now!"
Mash didn't hesitate. Pivoting on her heel, she swung the full weight of her shield downwards in a brutal, smashing arc. The pavement erupted into a massive cloud of dust, concrete, and ash, a thick, temporary smokescreen. She immediately used the cover to jump backwards, putting precious distance between them. A moment later, Medusa strode through the settling dust, her crimson eyes glowing with amusement, her chain already a blur.
A sweeping strike aimed at Mash's legs, followed by a dagger thrust from the right, then another from below. Mash became a bastion of clanging, grunting defense, her shield a blur of parries. But her footwork was clumsy. Clang! She blocked a strike but was forced back a step. Scrape! Another block, but her feet tangled, forcing her to stumble. She was being steadily pushed back, unable to mount any offense at all.
Medusa pressed her attack, her movements fluid and predatory, driving Mash into a corner against the wreck of a collapsed bus. Gudako watched her friend get overwhelmed, her knuckles white where she gripped her own sleeve. Medusa was just playing with her. She had to do something. Then, Medusa leaped, kicking off the bus to gain height, her chain dagger held ready for a devastating overhead strike.
It was an aerial assault. The signal.
"Mash, now! Stone A!" Gudako screamed.
Mash's eyes locked on the descending figure of Medusa as her fingers closed around one of the cold, smooth runestones on her belt. For a split second, her training screamed that this was a gamble, but she trusted her Master. With a grunt of effort, she channeled a small, sharp burst of her own mana into the stone and hurled it upwards. It glowed with a violent, blue light and then detonated—not with a bang, but with a silent flash of pure, blinding whiteness.
Medusa, caught completely off guard in mid-air, let out a hiss of pain and surprise, her senses overloaded. That was all the opening Mash needed. She charged forward, leaping onto the hood of the bus and launching herself into the air with a powerful roar. Before Medusa could regain her sight, Mash was on her, bringing the flat of her shield down in a devastating bash that sent the Lancer hurtling through the glass front of a long-abandoned department store.
Mash landed hard, her knees jarring from the impact, and immediately moved to press the advantage. She picked up her shield and, with a powerful cry, threw it not at Medusa, but at one of the main support pillars of the crumbling building. The shield struck with the force of a cannonball. The entire structure groaned in protest, then began to collapse in on itself in a thunderous cloud of dust and debris.
"Did... did we get her?" Gudako breathed, taking a tentative step forward.
Mash ran towards the wreckage to retrieve her shield, a faint spark of confidence blooming in her chest. They had done it. They had executed the plan.
The feeling lasted for less than a second.
From the ground beneath her feet, dozens of thick, white serpents erupted from the concrete, coiling around her legs and her shield arm, their hisses sharp in the sudden silence. Before she could react, a dagger on a chain shot down from above; Medusa had used the chaos to get into an even higher position. The snake trap had been a diversion. The real attack was from the air.
Mash was forced to wrench her shield up, blocking the dagger strike. It was a mistake. With her shield occupied, she couldn't break free as the snakes tightened their grip and violently hurled her through the air, sending her crashing directly towards the spot where Medusa was now gracefully landing.
She was playing with us, the thought shot through Gudako's mind, a panicked, desperate realization. This had all been a game. There was no time to yell. Gudako focused all her will down the fragile mental link to her Servant, a silent, panicked shout: THE OTHER STONE! STONE B!
Mash, still tangled in snakes, heard the command in her mind. Her free hand scrambled for the second runestone. Medusa, now prepared, her lips curled in a confident snarl as she simply closed her eyes, ready to rely on her hearing to avoid another flash. Mash threw the stone. There was no light. There was only a high-frequency BANG, an explosion of pure sound that shattered every remaining piece of glass on the street.
Medusa cried out, her head recoiling, her senses thrown into chaos. In that one moment of weakness, Mash acted. Still airborne, she twisted her body, kicking off the very snakes that bound her. "Haaaah!" she roared, bringing the full weight of her shield down in a desperate, powerful bash against the side of Medusa's head.
The Lancer was sent flying, this time into a much narrower, darker street. Mash landed hard, disentangling herself from the now-dissipating snakes. From the end of the dark alley, Medusa stood up, a thin trickle of blood coming from her lip. Her expression was no longer one of amusement; she snarled. A moment later, she had to leap backwards as Mash's massive shield was thrown with incredible force, embedding itself in the wall where her head had just been.
Mash charged into the alley, pulling her shield from the concrete. This time, she was the one to initiate, rushing at Medusa with her shield held ready for a final, decisive clash.
Medusa's crimson eyes, now burning with genuine killing intent, snapped open. And they began to glow.
Mash didn't falter. Cú's final warning echoed in her mind. Sight is her weapon. Blind her. In the last second before impact, she slammed the edge of her shield into the ground again. The world was once more plunged into a blinding cloud of dust and debris.
----------
Sukuna and Cú Chulainn watched the battle unfold from the rooftop of a ruined office building, concealed within a simple Jujutsu barrier. From their vantage point, the life-or-death struggle below looked like a sparring match between insects.
Sukuna observed the opening exchange with the cold, detached eye of a master craftsman. "Predictable," he stated, his voice a low rumble. "She fell for the most obvious opening gambit."
"Did she?" Cú replied, a confident grin playing on his lips as he leaned on his staff. A moment later, Gudako's shout cut through the air, and Mash slammed her shield into the ground. "Looks like improvisation to me."
Sukuna acknowledged the tactical retreat with a faint noise of assent. Creating distance was the correct move, but a meaningless one. "An opponent who is overwhelmingly faster renders such tactics futile." He was proven right an instant later as Medusa closed the distance, her chain and dagger a blur of strikes that immediately put the Shielder on the defensive.
As Mash was pushed back, her clumsy footwork on full display, Cú's confident grin began to falter. Then Gudako gave the signal for the first runestone.
"Flashbang," Cú breathed, just as it detonated. He then erupted into a boisterous laugh as Mash capitalized, brained Medusa with her shield, and brought the entire building down on her. "Are you seeing this, King?" he asked, his voice filled with pride. "That's potential!"
Sukuna responded with a simple, annoyed "Tch." A new surge of malevolent energy flared from the rubble below. A predatory smirk returned to his face. "The test is not over yet, sorcerer. Look closer." His prediction came true as Medusa's snake-and-chain trap sprang, ensnaring Mash perfectly. Cú's triumphant laughter cut off instantly.
Just as his grin dropped, Mash threw the second stone.
"A foolish move," Sukuna began. "The same trick will not work twice—"
He stopped mid-sentence as the sonic blast detonated. He watched Mash land another solid hit, driving the Lancer back.
"That," Cú said, his wide, predatory grin now firmly back in place, "is what I was talking about."
As Medusa's eyes began to glow, both observers reacted. Cú's hand tightened unconsciously around his staff. Sukuna's four eyes narrowed in sharp focus. He had seen enough.
The world of the fight below faded as his internal world took over. A rapid montage of memories—the ones he had assimilated—flashed through his mind. The Prodigy, Higuruma, whose blade was the ultimate weapon. The Cheat, Yuta, a sorcerer whose power was entirely borrowed from the vengeful spirit of a dead girl. The Heavenly Restricted one, Maki, a woman born with nothing who had honed her body into a weapon that surpassed his own raw strength. The Simple Domain Master, Kusakabe, who stood his ground against impossible odds. The irritating Swapper. The Brat. Individually, they were all flawed insects. Collectively… their interference had created the conditions for his defeat.
Sukuna closed his four eyes for a long moment, processing the bitter, undeniable truth. Cú was right.
He opened his eyes and turned his back on the fight below, a final act of dismissal. He looked at Cú.
"I understand what you are getting at," he said, his voice flat. I still believe them to be useless liabilities. But...
His spoken words were a simple, profound command. "Go. Finish it."
Cú's grin turned predatory, filled with the thrill of victory. "About time," he said.
In a flash of blue, he leaped from the rooftop with a speed that defied the title of Caster, plunging into the fray below.
----------
Dust billowed through the narrow alley. Through it, Mash saw a terrifying sight: Medusa's crimson eyes, no longer burning with rage, but glowing with an unnatural, sickly green light. Mystic Eyes, activated.
Medusa leaped through the cloud, a predator bursting from the mist. Her skin seemed to pulse with a dark energy as she activated her Monstrous Strength. For a single, fatal split second, her glowing gaze met Mash's.
Mash's body locked up. Her A-rank Magic Resistance fought against the petrification curse, a war being waged on a spiritual level, but the physical effect was instantaneous. A crushing "gravity gaze" slammed down on her, stunning her, freezing her muscles. She was a statue in the making, helpless.
The Lancer was on her before she could even process the sensation, her fist, now amplified with monstrous strength, smashing into Mash's stomach. The blow was a sickeningly dull, brute force impact that bypassed the shield entirely. Mash was launched like a cannonball out of the alley, the wind knocked from her lungs in a pained gasp. Her shield was torn from her numb grip, clattering uselessly to the pavement a dozen meters away.
"MASH!" Gudako screamed, her voice raw with terror, watching from her distant position as Mash crashed to the ground in a crumpled heap. "GET UP! MASH, PLEASE, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Mash tried to move, but her body wouldn't respond. The petrification effect was still warring with her resistances, leaving her limbs feeling like lead. Medusa strode calmly from the alley, her eyes still glowing, her chain dagger held ready for the final blow.
Gudako felt a searing heat on the back of her hand. Her Command Seals began to glow, a desperate, final gambit forming in her mind—
She never got the chance.
A flash of blue. A blur of motion moving with impossible speed. A brutal, audible CRACK echoed down the street as Cú Chulainn, arriving like a thunderbolt, slammed into Medusa's side, sending her flying. He didn't stop. He pushed off the ground, a Caster moving with the speed of a Lancer, and was on her again before her flying body could hit the ground.
Medusa spun in the air from the force of the blow, her gaze locking onto her new attacker. Her eyes glowed with their full, furious power, her violet hair writhing and transforming into a mass of hissing, striking serpents.
She was too late. Cú was already there, his wooden staff leveled at her heart. A single, complex rune flared to life in the air between them, its light so bright it cast the entire street in stark, violent relief.
"Too slow," the Caster said, his voice cold and devoid of all its earlier charm.
The rune flashed. A condensed beam of white-hot fire erupted from his staff, tearing through Medusa. She didn't have time to scream. Her serpents, her curse, her very existence were incinerated in that single, decisive blast. She turned to motes of golden light that faded into the ash-filled air.
The battle was over.
----------
The instant the motes of light from the defeated Lancer faded, Gudako was sprinting, ignoring the newcomer as she scrambled over the debris toward her fallen friend.
"Mash!" she cried, sliding to her knees beside the armored girl. "Are you okay?"
From the far end of the street, Olga marched toward Cú Chulainn, her initial terror now completely replaced by a Director's righteous indignation. "You!" she snapped, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. "What took you so long?! She nearly died!"
Cú just leaned on his staff, a wide, unrepentant grin spreading across his face. "Hey now," he said, his voice laced with theatrical charm. "A hero's got to have good timing, right? Always arrive at the last possible second. It's in the job description."
"Tch. The last moment," Olga muttered, turning away with a huff, but Gudako could have sworn she saw the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
As they reached the others, the effects of the Mystic Eyes were already fading. The gray, stone-like texture that had started to creep up Mash's gauntlets was flaking away. Mash groaned, her fingers twitching as feeling slowly returned to her limbs.
"You three did well," Cú said, his tone now one of genuine, professional respect. "Damn well, all things considered. I knew you had it in you."
Gudako looked down, a flush of shame creeping up her neck. "But we failed," she mumbled, helping Mash struggle into a sitting position. "We lost the wager. We couldn't beat her on our own."
Cú let out a hearty laugh. "Nah, don't worry about that." He grinned, jerking his head back in the general direction of the distant rooftop. "Even if you didn't win the fight, the big guy was impressed enough. You got a passing grade."
The words hit them with a surprising warmth. A smile bloomed on Gudako's face, and even Mash, through her pain, managed a small, relieved smile of her own. For a single, fleeting moment, they weren't just a cobbled-together team of survivors. They had faced an impossible challenge, and in the eyes of their monstrous observer, they hadn't been found wanting.
Suddenly, Cú's entire body went rigid. He spun around, his playful demeanor vanishing as he looked back towards the distant mountain. "Incoming!"
A flicker of light in the distance, followed a split second later by the high-pitched whistle of a projectile screaming through the air. Cú planted his feet, staff held ready to intercept—
But the arrow never arrived. About a hundred meters out, the projectile seemed to hit an invisible wall. It didn't explode. Its trajectory was simply… bent. It was violently deflected upwards, tumbling harmlessly into the blood-red sky.
Cú followed the deflected path, his eyes eventually landing back on the rooftop where they had left their observer. The four-armed King of Curses stood there, one of his lower hands still extended, a finger casually pointed in the direction of the foiled attack. Cú stared for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod of acknowledgment.
He turned back to the girls, his easygoing grin returning. "Alright, ladies, that's our cue to leave before the sniper gets any more bright ideas." He looked directly at Olga, whose face was still a pale white from the near-death experience. "So, lass, what'll it be? Fireman's carry or bridal style?"
Olga's face flushed a brilliant crimson. "Wh-what are you talking about, you oaf?!" she spluttered.
"Bridal it is!" Cú declared cheerfully. Before she could protest further, he scooped her up into his arms. Following his lead, Mash, still groaning but steady on her feet, did the same to her own Master.
"M-Mash?!" Gudako squeaked, her face now a perfect match for Olga's as they were carried through the ruined city, back towards the relative safety of the bunker.
----------
Inside the bunker, Cú Chulainn watched as Mash helped Gudako and Olga settle in. The meal, if you could call the bland military rations that, was a welcome respite. He offered a piece of dried meat to the four-armed man who observed them from a shadowed corner.
"Here, King," he said. "Better than nothing, right?"
Sukuna took the ration, his expression unreadable, and ate it in a single bite. "It is… sustenance," he allowed. A memory, now his own, of a well-cooked meal shared with family, passed through him and was immediately dismissed as an irritating sentimentality. Cú, however, caught the briefest flicker of something other than pure disdain and smiled to himself. His gaze shifted to the girls. They were huddled together, Olga's posture still stiff but her initial terror having finally subsided into a weary exhaustion. Gudako was laughing at something Mash had whispered, a small, fragile sound in the grim silence of the bunker.
Sukuna's calm facade then broke, his focus snapping back to the tactical situation. "Now then, sorcerer," he began, his voice a low rumble. "Your plan?"
"My plan?" Cú countered, his smile turning sharp. "Are you ready to include them in it?" He jerked his chin towards the girls.
Sukuna closed his four eyes for a moment, the images of his own past defeat flashing in his mind—the collective of flawed, weaker sorcerers who had managed to do what no single individual could. He opened them, his expression one of grudging acceptance, and gave a single, curt nod.
"I will face the Saber," he stated. "If she is as impressive as you claim—"
"Damn right she is," Cú interjected.
"—then I cannot be burdened with protecting them," Sukuna finished.
"Don't have to worry about that," Cú agreed. "I'll take the girls and keep the Archer busy. Create an opening for you to get past him." He sighed. "Though just getting to the mountain will be a nightmare with that sniper watching."
A memory surfaced in Sukuna's mind, clear as day. Shinjuku. A battle between the Strongest. He recalled with perfect clarity how he himself had been so focused on the close-range battle that he hadn't perceived the true threat—a 200% Hollow Purple—until it was almost too late.
A slow, predatory smirk spread across Sukuna's face. He looked at Cú. "About that..."
----------
Sukuna stood on the flat roof of the tallest remaining skyscraper in Fuyuki, the wind whipping at his kimono. Beside him, Cú Chulainn leaned on his staff, his red eyes fixed on the distant silhouette of Mount Enzo. An impeccable Jujutsu barrier surrounded them. Woven into its very fabric were a dozen of Cú's elegant, glowing runes, each one designed for a dual purpose: to amplify the barrier's ability to conceal the massive build-up of Cursed Energy within, and to supercharge the very attack that energy would fuel.
"Are you sure about this, big guy?" Cú asked, his voice losing some of its usual bravado. "This is one hell of a gamble."
Sukuna didn't answer. His four eyes were locked on their target. First, the declaration. He took a breath and let his Cursed Energy, his very presence, explode outwards in a wave of pure, oppressive energy that washed over the entire city. It was a King announcing his presence. On the distant mountain, the Archer stood up, his posture rigid, trying to pinpoint the source of the disorienting pressure. It was a challenge, and it was a feint.
With the stage set, Sukuna began.
He clasped his upper two palms together, and his lower two palms together, then pulled them apart. Between each set of hands, a ball of raw energy ignited, not the usual crimson of Cursed Energy, but a brilliant, searing blue. His upper left hand passed its blue flame to his lower left, which already held its own, doubling the orb's size and intensity. He did the same with his right hands. His abdominal mouth began the incantation.
"Kami-no…"
By inputting positive energy from Reverse Cursed Technique into his divine flames, a feat of incredible skill, Sukuna changed the very nature of his attack. No longer just a tool of pure destruction, it became a wave of purification. Combined with the amplifying properties of Cú Chulainn's runes and the power of a full incantation, the output had already reached a theoretical 250% of his...
"FUGA!"
A colossal arrow of pure, blue, purifying flame, the size of a siege tower, was unleashed, erasing the distance between the skyscraper and the mountain in an instant.
From the Archer's point of view, he was still scanning the city when his instincts screamed at him. He abandoned his post without a second thought, leaping from the torii gate an instant before a sun impacted the world.
From Saber's point of view, deep within the cavern, her Instinct skill flared violently. She felt the impossible attack coming. She raised an eyebrow.
Then, BOOM.
The peak of Mount Enzo ceased to exist. An immense pillar of blue and white flame erupted into the sky, so bright it momentarily turned the blood-red night into a pure, clean noon. A full minute later, the light cleared, revealing a new geography. The mountain was gone, replaced by a massive, flat-topped crater two miles wide, its epicenter a caldera of molten rock.
The Archer, having barely survived the edge of the blast, pushed himself out of a pile of rubble. He looked toward the center of the crater. Saber was there, unharmed, the corrupted Grail held protectively in her hand. But for a single, fleeting second, standing in the cleansing light, he could have sworn he saw her in her original attire—blue and silver armor, her blonde hair a lighter, purer shade. The illusion vanished, and she was the same dark king as before.
She was staring into the sky. He followed her gaze. A dot was growing larger, descending from the heavens. It landed a hundred feet from Saber, its impact sending a soft tremor through the molten ground. It was Sukuna, Kamutoke and Hiten held ready, a smirk on his faces. He said something, too far for the Archer to hear. Saber replied.
The Archer raised his bow, nocking an arrow. He had to—he was forced to leap back as a burst of fire exploded where he had been standing. He landed, turning to face his own opponent. The Caster, Cú Chulainn, was there, staff held ready, his expression a feral grin.
"Is the dog scared to be away from its master?" Cú asked, his voice laced with mocking contempt.
The Archer's expression twisted into an annoyed snarl. "I'll be the one putting down a stray dog today," he retorted.
Cú could see the pure, unadulterated annoyance on his face, and his grin widened. The stage was set.
----------
----------
Notes:
Author's Note
Hello everyone, and thanks for sticking with me to the end of another chapter. What a ride this one was.
I want to touch on the main event: the "King's Test." Some of you might have been rooting for the girls to pull off an impossible victory, but I want to be clear—Mash was never going to actually win that fight. The power gap was simply too immense, as I'm sure was obvious. The point of the test wasn't about winning or losing a one-on-one. It was Cú's gamble to prove to Sukuna that even weaker pieces, when used with intelligence and teamwork, can overcome the odds and create a result greater than the sum of their parts.
In the end, you could call the wager a draw. The girls failed to win on their own, but their incredible performance, their improvisation, and their sheer will to survive were enough to make Sukuna concede the point.
Now, for that final scene. I have to say, that mountain-busting sequence was a masterpiece to write, my favorite part of the story so far. The parallels to the legendary Gojo vs. Sukuna battle were, of course, entirely intentional. Seeing Sukuna on the other side of that kind of overwhelming, strategic attack was a blast, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did writing it.
Thank you again for reading. If you have any questions about the choreography, the characters, or where we're going next, feel free to ask in the comments!
The fuyuki arc has ended on pat-reon... A poll is up there for my next stuff, you can join the free tier to vote...
Signing out for now.
Ciao.
Chapter Text
The world was a fresh-made hellscape. Sukuna stood on a newly-formed plateau of cooling, cracked rock, a hundred feet from the corrupted king. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and molten earth. Saber Alter stood impassively near the crater's epicenter, Excalibur Morgan held steady in her hand. Her expression was a mask of cold, simmering fury.
She was the one to break the silence, her voice like grinding glaciers. "You... Anomaly. To use such a vulgar display of power... not for victory, but simply to remake the battlefield in your own image. That is not the act of a warrior. It is the tantrum of a mindless beast."
Sukuna let out a low, rumbling chuckle. "Mindless?" he retorted, a predatory grin spreading across his faces. "No. It was a perfectly logical solution. Your mountain was an inconvenience. So I removed it." He took a step forward, the molten ground crunching under his sandals. "You mistake necessity for a tantrum. A common error for those shackled by the pathetic notion of 'honor'."
"There is only one logic that matters," Saber declared, her voice devoid of all passion. "The strong rule. The weak obey. This world is a chaotic failure that must be brought to heel by a tyrant's unwavering will."
Sukuna's grin widened. He had found the core of her flawed logic. "And there is the flaw in your design," he said, his voice dripping with condescending pity. "You have achieved absolute power, but you still think like a slave. A slave to duty. A slave to purpose. You have the power of a king, but none of the ambition."
Her golden eyes widened for a fraction of a second.
He leveled Hiten in her direction. "A king does not serve an ideal. The king is the ideal." The joy in his expression sharpened. "True strength is the freedom to do whatever you please. And your boring, joyless tyranny... no longer pleases me." His final words were not a shout, but a cold judgment. "Let me teach you what it truly means to be a King."
With that, Sukuna launched himself forward. He crossed the hundred feet between them in a heartbeat; his upper right fist aimed directly at Saber's face. She sidestepped with a fluid, economical motion. As his fist screamed past, she brought the flat of her sword up in a casual parry against his incoming second strike.
CLANG!
The impact was a thunderclap. A brutal jolt shot up Sukuna's entire arm, almost dislocating his shoulder. She had turned a fully enhanced blow aside like it was nothing. Her strength was greater than his. The realization was sharp and cold.
He spun with his momentum, his other two arms whipping around to crush her torso. Again, she was faster. A single, perfectly placed kick to his leading leg disrupted his stance, forcing his attack wide. He leaped back to create distance, an analytical glint in his four eyes. He extended a hand, palm open. A simple Dismantle tore through the air toward her.
Saber Alter watched it approach with contemptuous indifference. She didn't move. The slash struck her armor with a faint ping and simply dissipated, leaving not a single scratch.
Sukuna's smile did not falter. He brought Kamutoke forward and unleashed a focused bolt of black lightning. Again, Saber did not move. The lightning washed over her and sputtered out. Her cold, mocking laugh echoed across the crater.
"Useless tricks," she stated. "My resistance to your magecraft is absolute. You are a sorcerer whose sorcery is worthless. You have nothing."
His primary tools—nullified. His grin widened into something manic. "Then I'll just have to tear you apart piece by piece," Sukuna roared, charging back into the fray.
The next several minutes were a brutal exchange. He abandoned his techniques, his four arms a chaotic storm of strikes. His lower arms jabbed and deflected, trying to create openings. His upper arms brought his cursed tools down in devastating arcs. But for every multi-pronged assault he launched, she responded with perfect, efficient counters. She spun, letting a smash from Kamutoke shatter the rock where she'd been, her own sword rising in a slash. Sukuna was forced to catch the blade between Hiten's prongs, the impact driving him back, his arms groaning. She shoved, creating an inch of space, and her blade became a blur. A low feint forced his guard down, opening his chest for a devastatingly fast thrust. With a snarl, Sukuna kicked her blade just enough off-target that it scored a deep, gouging line across his ribs instead of piercing his heart. The flesh was already knitting itself back together.
"You heal quickly," she observed, her voice flat. "It will only prolong your suffering."
She pressed her advantage. Excalibur Morgan moved with a speed that felt like it was already there, forcing Sukuna into a purely defensive struggle. He could not land a clean hit. Annoyance began to curdle within him. He feinted a downward swing with Hiten, expecting a parry, while his lower left hand shot up in an open-palm strike aimed at her elbow. It should have worked.
Saber's golden eyes flickered. She abandoned her parry an instant before he committed, letting Hiten crash into the ground. In that same breath, her gauntlet caught his rising lower arm by the wrist. A sickening crunch echoed as she twisted, snapping his forearm with contemptuous ease. Before he could react, a powerful front kick drove into his chest, sending him staggering back.
He healed the break instantly, his four eyes now burning with a cold rage. Every move he made, she had a more efficient counter.
Frustrated by his tenacity, Saber's patience finally snapped. "This farce is over!" she snarled. Red lightning exploded around her form, a violent Mana Burst.
Sukuna recognized the absolute threat. She was no longer just faster; she was a blur of absolute destruction. He couldn't block. He couldn't dodge. He could only perceive. She reappeared directly in front of him, her sword already descending. In a desperate, instinctual act, he dropped his weapons and threw all four arms up in a reinforced cross-guard.
His world exploded. He felt his own bones shatter. He was launched, tumbling end over end for hundreds of meters before crashing through a steel support pillar and coming to a halt in a mountain of rubble. He pushed himself from the wreckage, his four arms mangled ruins. Reverse Cursed Technique flooded them, a furious, agonizing knitting of tissue and sinew. By the time he stood, they were whole again, but the memory of the impact was an irritating thrum in his very soul.
Saber was already striding toward him, wreathed in red lightning. "A shame," she said, her voice dripping with disdain as she raised her sword for the final blow. "I had truly expected more."
Sukuna looked up, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. A conventional assault was impossible. Therefore, he had to change the rules. A slow, insane grin spread across his face. He made no move to defend, instead planting one of his lower hands firmly onto the ruined earth. He could not command her to be cut. But he could command the world around her to fall apart.
"You fight on the ground a king provides," Sukuna's voice echoed, quiet but laced with menace. "But you seem to have forgotten… the ground is mine to command."
Without incantation, he unleashed his Cursed Technique.
DISMANTLE.
The entire battlefield for a mile in every direction simply ceased to be stable. The ground under Saber's feet didn't just crack; it disintegrated into a plunging avalanche. Her expression of arrogant finality twisted into one of genuine shock and fury as the very world fell away into a newly-formed, thousand-foot chasm. The fight was not over; the board had just been violently reset.
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The silence on the two-mile-wide caldera was profound, a dead space carved from the world. Archer pushed himself from the rubble at the crater's edge, his crimson-lined coat in tatters. A mile away, in the molten heart of the devastation, the creature that had done this was already facing the King of Knights. His duty was clear. He drew his bow, nocking an arrow not of simple wood, but of condensed, corrupt energy. His target: the four-armed demon.
He never loosed. A pillar of fire erupted at his feet, forcing him to leap back with an annoyed snarl. Across the desolate expanse of cooling rock and magma stood his eternal rival, Cú Chulainn, staff in hand, a feral grin plastered across his face.
"Is the dog scared to be away from its master?" Cú's voice, laced with mocking contempt, carried effortlessly across the distance.
"I'll be the one putting down a stray dog today," Archer retorted, his voice flat and cold. This new, open battlefield was a sniper's dream. He began his assault, a relentless volley of high-arcing arrows, each one twisted to detonate on impact.
Cú just laughed. He didn't even bother to raise his staff. He stood there as the projectiles struck an invisible wall a foot from his body and were violently deflected into the molten earth. Protection from Arrows. A perfect, infuriating counter.
Archer's eyes narrowed. This was a pointless waste of mana. He turned, abandoning the open ground, and leaped into the shadowy ruins that had once been the base of the mountain. He wasn't retreating; he was repositioning to a battlefield that favored him.
"Running away already, you bastard?!" Cú's roar of pursuit came almost instantly.
Archer landed in a ruined courtyard, twin blades already projected in his hands, just as Cú Chulainn crashed down opposite him, shattering the stone tiles. The hunt was over. The fight began.
"You should have stayed out on the flats, blacksmith," Cú growled, launching himself forward, his staff a devastating horizontal sweep. Archer met it with Kanshou and Bakuya.
CRACK!
Rune-hardened wood met projected steel, a shockwave erupting between them. The close-quarters battle was a maelstrom of violence. Archer's blades were a blur of lethal precision; Cú's staff was a whirlwind of raw power. For every cunning feint Archer attempted, Cú replied with a burst of runic power—a point-blank blast of fire that forced Archer to backflip away; a jagged shard of cursed ice that he had to contemptuously bat aside.
The stalemate began to grate on Cú's pride. He charged, but this time his staff shimmered with a diamond-hard sheen of runic energy. Archer crossed his blades to meet it. The clash was different. Cú's staff did not just stop Archer's blades; it shattered them.
"Hardening your staff with a cheap spell?" Archer snarled, a fresh pair of blades already in his hands. "Still just a dog relying on brute force."
He was cut off as Cú used the opening to drive the butt of his staff hard into his stomach. The wind was driven from the Counter-Guardian's lungs with a pained grunt as he was sent stumbling back.
"It's not brute force," Cú panted, a manic grin on his face. "It's finesse."
"A parlor trick," Archer growled. He created distance and projected a far more powerful weapon: Caladbolg II. "Let's see if your luck holds against this, Dog," he said, the insult deliberate as he twisted the sword into an arrow.
Cú aborted his own attempt to gather power, instead pouring his energy into a desperate, multi-layered shield of glowing, defensive runes. The spiraling arrow tore at the runic barrier, which flared and buckled under the strain, erupting outwards in a hemispherical blast that leveled every remaining structure in the area.
Both men were blown backwards. Cú slid to a halt, his robes singed. Archer landed in a crouch, a trickle of blood on his lip. An infuriating stalemate. As they both prepared to charge again, they heard it.
A heavy, rhythmic, and impossibly fast sound, like a freight train barreling towards them. THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.
Both Servants turned. Archer's expression twisted into a snarl of profound annoyance. His calculated duel was over.
Mash Kyrielight crashed into the courtyard, her massive shield held high. She planted her feet, taking a defensive stance between Cú and Archer. Her voice was a clear, ringing declaration. "Caster! I will be your shield!"
"Another insect joins the fray," Archer sneered. "Hiding behind a girl's skirt, dog? A new low."
"Shut your mouth," Cú shot back, his grin returning. "This is called teamwork. A concept you probably threw away with your soul."
The dynamic shifted instantly. Cú fought with a new, reckless abandon, a pure offensive storm. Mash was his anchor, a moving wall of steel intercepting every high-powered shot Archer tried to make, her movements clumsy but effective. Archer was forced onto the back foot, a position he despised.
A few hundred yards away, Gudako Fujimaru and Olga Marie Animusphere finally arrived. Archer saw them. The Master. The weak link. This was his chance.
"Enough of this," he growled. He leaped backwards, gaining height. His movements became a blur as he drew and loosed, projecting a volley of nameless swords, each one overloaded into an explosive Broken Phantasm in the space of a single breath. A storm of shrieking steel descended, designed to flood the entire area and kill the two humans.
Cú swore, his staff a blur as he batted a dozen projectiles from the air, but more took their place. Mash planted her feet, a bastion against the storm, but she couldn't be everywhere at once. A blade slipped past her guard, then two, then ten.
Gudako looked at the descending sky of swords and made a decision. A searing, brilliant light erupted from the back of her right hand.
"MASH!" she screamed, pouring her will, her desperation, and the absolute power of her first Command Seal down their fragile link.
The power of a Master's ultimate authority flooded Mash's system. It was a key. An awakening. She slammed the base of her shield into the ravaged earth, pouring every ounce of the command's energy into her single, desperate desire: Protect. Her voice was a single, harrowing shout.
"HAAAAAUGH!"
A brilliant, pristine white light erupted from the shield's face. Not a barrier of metal, but a wall of pure, conceptual hope. The shimmering, spectral ramparts of a fortress materialized around them. Archer's storm of death struck the shining white walls and simply ceased to be.
For a single, stunned moment, Archer stared in disbelief. His guard was down. He was completely exposed.
Cú Chulainn saw it. The opening. He slammed the butt of his staff into the earth. His free hand began to trace glowing patterns in the air as the ground groaned, the nascent, skeletal hand of a fiery effigy clawing its way from the soil.
Archer recovered, nocking another arrow, a spiraling monstrosity, aimed to interrupt the ritual.
He was too late. Gudako, tears of pride streaming down her face, raised her hand again. Her second Command Seal flared. Her voice was no longer a plea, but a king's decree.
"CASTER, FINISH HIM!"
The order struck Cú like a bolt of lightning, his ritual completing in an instant. A colossal, twenty-meter-tall giant of burning wicker-man erupted from the ground. A massive hand of flame shot out, its fingers closing around Archer's stunned form. A cage-like door opened in the effigy's chest, revealing a raging inferno within. The giant contemptuously tossed him inside and slammed the door.
The last thing they heard was Archer's single, enraged curse.
Just as Cú Chulainn raised his staff to deliver the final command, the world turned blue.
It wasn't a gradual change. The red sky, the orange flames, the black ruins—everything was instantly washed out by a brilliant, unnatural blue light erupting from the crater miles away. A strange, clean coldness washed over them, a feeling of pure energy that had none of the heat of the city's fires. Gudako and Olga stared, mouths agape, their senses completely overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the light. Even Cú paused his chant for a split second, his eyes wide with a professional warrior's shock at the sheer scale of the power being unleashed.
Then, as quickly as it came, the blue light vanished, plunging the world back into its normal, fiery red. Cú shook off the momentary stun, his expression now a grim mask of resolve. He raised his staff, a new, deeper understanding of the monster he was allied with dawning in his eyes, and snarled.
"WICKER MAN!
The Wicker-Man erupted, a miniature sun of all-consuming fire. When the light faded, there was nothing left but a pile of white ash. The Archer was gone.
----------
For a brief moment, a flicker of respect was in Saber's golden eyes. Trapped and outmatched, her opponent had chosen to rewrite the battlefield. A commendable, if futile, gambit. They fell, the chasm walls a blur. She was a master of this falling world, using Mana Burst to leap from one plummeting slab of concrete to another. Sukuna became a force of chaotic control, using gusts of wind from Hiten to turn the debris field into a weaponized vortex.
A massive support pillar, sent spinning by a blast of air, forced Saber to cleave it in two. In that instant, Sukuna appeared behind her, all four arms swinging. She twisted, her obsidian blade meeting every blow in a shower of sparks. It was still a losing battle. As he healed a fresh crack in his sternum, a final, insane strategy clicked into place. He landed on a massive, floating island of asphalt.
"You wished for a challenger, King of Knights," his voice echoed, distorted and layered.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine."
The world dissolved. Saber found herself in a dark, watery expanse dominated by a grotesque temple of bone. Her Instinct screamed as a relentless, inescapable rain of invisible slashes descended upon her. And did nothing. The blades struck her with the sound of sand scattering against a castle wall, the infinitesimal cuts erased by her regeneration an instant after they appeared.
"Is this it?" she asked, her voice echoing. "The trump card you staked your life on?" She charged. For a hundred seconds, a humiliating brawl resumed within his inner world. He threw four punches; she blocked three and broke the fourth. She swung her sword; he caught it with Hiten, the force sending him skidding. Finally, she smashed him with a two-handed blow that sent him careening into the central structure of the Shrine. The impact was the final strain. The Domain shattered.
Back in the chasm, Sukuna hung in the air, bruised and battered, yet a triumphant smirk grew on his face. As Saber charged again, he formed the sign.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine."
As Saber was pulled back into his reality, she froze. "Impossible…" she whispered. She dismissed her shock. "A desperate gamble."
The slashes were useless. But this time, Sukuna used Air Jumps, exploding upwards, forcing her to look up as he assaulted her from above. Enraged, she decided to end it. She planted her feet and raised her sword.
"EXCALIBUR MORGAN!"
A torrent of black annihilation tore through the Shrine. Sukuna, anticipating this, coated his body in Domain Amplification. He Air-Jumped at the last second, but was too slow. The edge of the beam grazed his left side. The Amplification flared, minimizing the holy energy, but not the raw force. The attack seared away the entire left side of his torso. The Domain shattered.
The wound was grotesque, smoking, resisting even RCT. But as Saber fell from the collapsing Domain, she saw something that defied all reason. Sukuna, wreathed in black sparks of healing, was already forming the hand sign a third time. He was bleeding, exhausted, and smiling.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine."
This instance felt weaker, the edges fraying. The slashes had become negligible. For forty agonizing seconds, he was pummeled, broken, and thrown across his own temple, never once falling, always getting back to his feet, a manic, defiant grin on his bloodied face. Then, at the precipice of his defeat, he stopped.
He dropped into a low stance, clasping his upper two palms and lower two palms together. As he pulled them apart, a flame no larger than a candle's wick appeared. It was not the angry red of Fuga. It was blue. A brilliant, pure blue, born of positive energy.
"Fool," Saber snarled, lunging for the final blow.
She was too late. From his abdominal mouth, a single, booming word:
"FUGA!"
The blue flame ignited. A colossal arrow, the size of a siege tower, was unleashed. It touched the cursed debris from his third Shrine, and in that instant, a chain reaction tore through reality. The metaphysical remnants of the first Shrine, the lingering wreckage of the second—all became fuel. A thermobaric explosion of pure positive energy ripped through his domain. Saber, caught at the absolute center of three overlapping ground zeros, was consumed.
The world shattered a final time. A blinding flash of blue erupted in the physical chasm. When it faded, she was still standing, her armor cracked and melted into slag. And then it began. Her pitch-black armor flashed to silver-blue. Her yellow hair to a vibrant gold. The cold fury on her face to one of confused agony. Black. Blue. Black. Blue.
Sukuna, his chest heaving, saw it for the first time: the dark, spiritual tether flowing from her soul to the Grail. His gamble had paid off.
His two mouths began the incantation. "Scale of the Dragon. Recoil. Twin Meteors." He brought his hand forward. "Dismantle."
The conceptual blade passed through her, severing the chain to the Grail. She let out a raw, guttural scream as her connection to infinite power was snipped away. Her flickering grew more frantic.
Sukuna began the chant again. "Scale of the Dragon. Recoil. Twin Meteors." He saw her turn, a flicker of the original Artoria's defiant eyes meeting his.
He respected it. He honored it. He gave a slight nod. He had been beaten, humiliated, and pushed to his limits. But in the end, there could only be one king. He spoke the final word.
"Dismantle."
This time, the slash did not pass through. A perfect, clean line appeared across her form—through armor, flesh, and spirit. It was not a wound. It was an absolute ending.
And so, the battle was decided.
The KING OF KNIGHTS fell, and the KING OF CURSES reigned alone.
----------
Notes:
Hey everyone,
Just a few quick updates for you.
The next chapter is scheduled for this Saturday, but I might drop it earlier if inspiration strikes.
Also, the poll on Patreon has finished, and the "Yuta in FGO" fic has been chosen! The first three chapters are already up for patrons.
I tried a slightly different style for the fight scene in this chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. If you guys aren't feeling it, I can switch back to the old style. Let me know what you think!
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading!
Patreon: patreon.com/st_scarfaceCiao.
Chapter Text
The white ash of what had once been the Archer settled over the ravaged courtyard. For a long moment, the only sounds were the ringing in Gudako’s ears and the distant, hungry crackle of city-wide fires. The silence felt unnatural, a vacuum left in the wake of overwhelming violence.
Then, it broke.
“We did it,” Gudako breathed, the words a raw, breathless sound, half-sob, half-laugh. “Oh my god, Mash, we actually did it!”
She stumbled forward, throwing her arms around Mash’s armoured frame. Mash, bone-weary but solid as a fortress, returned the hug with a steadying strength that was all Servant. Across the courtyard, Cú Chulainn leaned heavily on his staff, a wide, weary, but deeply satisfied grin splitting his face.
“See?” he said, his voice laced with pride. “Told you brats you had it in you.”
Even Olga Marie, who had stood rigid with terror just moments before, allowed the iron-tight line of her lips to soften. It was a fleeting expression, but one of profound relief. They had gambled, and they had won. They had survived.
“It’s finally over,” Gudako whispered into Mash’s shoulder pauldron, the adrenaline finally draining away, leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its place.
Cú’s grin vanished. His expression turned sharp as he looked past them, his crimson eyes fixed on the glowing, two-mile-wide caldera that had once been a mountain. An unnatural silence emanated from it, a void where the roar of battle had been.
“What is it?” Olga asked, her own relief evaporating at his change in demeanour. “What’s wrong?”
“No, kid,” Cú said, his voice low and serious, answering Gudako’s earlier statement. He gestured with his staff toward the pulsating light at the crater's heart. “That’s over.”
The reality of his words hit them. The main fight. The clash between the true monsters of this Singularity.
Cú moved without another word, scooping Olga into his arms. She let out a startled yelp, her face flushing crimson, a protest already forming on her lips. But the fight had drained her of everything, and with a small, frustrated sigh, she sagged against him, burying her face in his shoulder.
"Mash," he commanded, his tone now all business. "Carry our Master. Let’s go.”
---------------
They arrived at the crater's edge to a scene of profound, quiet finality. There, in the centre of the molten devastation, stood Sukuna.
He was a canvas of seared flesh and torn silk, his kimono in tatters. Blood dripped from a dozen wounds, and his entire body steamed as the faint, visible sparks of Reverse Cursed Technique knitted him back together. Before him, Saber Alter’s form was fading, a perfect, clean line—an impossible wound from which there was no recovery—drawn across her torso.
The dying king’s head turned, her gaze fixing on the newly arrived group. Her voice, thin as glass yet carrying the weight of a collapsing kingdom, echoed across the chasm.
“This was but the first… This is your… Grand Order…”
The words struck Olga with the force of a physical blow. Her breath hitched. “Grand… Order?” she whispered in horrified disbelief. “How…?”
Saber did not answer. The corruption in her form died for a final time, revealing for a single, heartbreaking instant, the pure, unblemished face of Artoria Pendragon. Her gaze met Sukuna’s, her expression not of hatred, but of weary acknowledgment. It was a silent exchange between sovereigns; an understanding of a battle fought to its absolute conclusion.
Sukuna, his four eyes watching her, his face an impassive mask, returned the gesture with a slow, silent nod of his own.
And then, she was gone, her form dissolving into a whisper of golden light that was quickly swallowed by the burning red sky.
--------
A stunned silence hung over the crater’s edge. Gudako and Mash exchanged confused, questioning looks. Grand Order? The words meant nothing to them.
For Olga, they meant everything. The brittle façade of the Director finally cracked, revealing the terrified woman beneath. Her hands trembled as she clutched at her own arms. “Grand Order…” she repeated, her voice a reedy whisper. “How could she know that name? How is that possible?”
The tension was broken by a loud, hearty smack. Cú had strode right up to Sukuna and clapped him firmly on the back, a wide, predatory grin splitting his face.
“Not bad, King,” Cú boomed, his voice echoing in the quiet devastation. “Not bad at all. You took down the big one.”
Sukuna felt the Hound’s hand on his back, a familiar, if irritating, gesture of warrior camaraderie. His four eyes remained fixed on the last fading motes of light. A worthy opponent. To think he would face another challenger of this calibre so soon after the Honored One. A small, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. He did not need praise, but he would not deny the fact.
Olga, still reeling from Saber’s words, forced the confusion down. Protocol took over where relief left off. They had won. “Mash, the Grail. Retrieve it,” she commanded, her voice regaining its sharp, authoritative edge. She turned away, tapping the communication device on her wrist. “Romani, come in! We’ve secured the objective! The Singularity is resolved! Begin preparations for an immediate Rayshift!”
As Mash started forward, Sukuna’s head snapped towards the crater’s centre. The faint smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, dangerous focus. Every instinct, honed over three centuries of absolute dominance, screamed at him.
The battle was over. This place should have been a void, an empty stage. Yet, he perceived a dissonance. A single, unnatural thread of power that did not belong. It was subtle, masked by the residual heat of his own techniques, but it was there.
There, where the Grail should have been, a new figure stood, as if he had been there all along. A man in a simple green suit and a matching hat, holding the glowing, corrupted artifact casually in one hand. He radiated a profound, cloying wrongness.
The man looked up, his gaze passing over Sukuna as if he were a piece of the scenery, and settled directly on Olga. He gave a warm, paternal smile.
The effect was instantaneous. The confusion on Olga’s face dissolved into desperate, disbelieving relief. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. Her voice, when it came out, was not that of a director, but of a lost child.
“Lev…?”
On her wrist, Romani’s voice crackled to life, filled with a joy. “Lev?! My god, you’re alive! How did you survive the explosion?!”
Tears of relief streamed down Olga’s face as she took a stumbling step forward. “Lev! You’re here! We’ve won!”
Lev’s smile was warm as he watched her approach. “Dear Olga,” he said, his voice soft and reassuring. “You’ve done magnificently. Truly, you have surpassed every expectation.”
The praise was a balm on her frayed soul. Just as a genuine, relieved smile touched her lips, Lev’s expression shifted. The warmth vanished, replaced by a cold, flat line.
“Now, all that’s left is to clean up the loose ends,” he said, his voice losing all its warmth. “It’s time for this foolish little rebellion to die.”
The air went still. Cú’s hand tightened on his staff. Mash took a half-step in front of Gudako, her shield held tight.
“Lev, what are you talking about?” Olga whispered, her hope turning to ice in her veins.
“I must admit, I am disappointed,” he said, his tone a bored lecture. “This Singularity was designed to be a self-contained catastrophe. You were all meant to perish here, lost in the flames.” His gaze flickered to Sukuna, and a look of clear annoyance crossed his face. “But I did not account for him. An unexpected player on the board.”
He turned his cold, pitying eyes back to Olga. “And you, Director. The most tragic piece of all.” He gestured to her faded hair. “Did you truly think you survived the explosion? You died in the command room. You are a ghost, and you're fading fast.”
Olga staggered back as if struck, a hand flying to her own hair. The world seemed to tilt, the sounds of the caldera fading to a dull roar in her ears.
Lev held up the Grail, the black mud within it swirling. “But don’t worry,” he said with a cruel smile. “Your spirit still has value. It will make a fine contribution.”
An invisible force seized Olga, lifting her into the air and pulling her helplessly toward him.
That was the trigger.
“NO!” Mash roared, a guttural cry of pure protective fury. She charged forward, her shield raised high. Cú Chulainn was right behind her, his staff flaring with blue runic light.
Before either could reach him, Lev’s free hand shot up, a sphere of dark energy gathering in his palm, aimed directly at Olga’s head.
“Hold. RIGHT. THERE,” his voice was a cold, sharp command that froze both of them in their tracks. He sneered at their helpless rage. “Make so much as a twitch, and what little is left of your director will be so much ash on the wind.”
He held them there, paralyzed, forcing them to watch as Olga sobbed, completely broken and suspended in the air. His cruel smile widened as he noticed the still-active comms on Olga's wrist. An audience. How perfect. He chose to address the frantic voice on the other end directly.
On Olga’s wrist, Romani’s projected voice roared, a sound of pure, helpless fury. “Lev! What is the meaning of this?! Answer me! Why?!”
In response, Lev Lainur Flauros performed a grand, theatrical bow, a gesture of profound, mocking respect. “You still believe I am a mere errand boy to the Director?” he sneered, his voice dripping with condescending pity. “Romani Archaman, you truly are a sentimental fool. Let me enlighten you. The man you knew is dead. My name… is Lev Lainur Flauros.”
“Flauros…?” Romani’s voice crackled, the rage gone, replaced by a single, hollow mutter of disbelieving horror.
As Lev straightened, his triumphant gaze fell upon the empty space where his captive had been. His head whipped around, eyes widening in genuine shock. There, twenty feet away, the four-armed King of Curses was setting a stunned and broken Olga Marie gently on the ground, his back still turned.
“Your performance was decent,” Sukuna said, his voice a low, cold rumble. “But you made a critical error in judgment… you thought you were in charge.” He turned then, Kamutoke and Hiten held ready in his upper hands. “To act high and mighty in front of a King is one thing,” Sukuna stated, his four crimson eyes locking onto Lev. “But to disrespect me by taking my property was the height of folly. What gave you the gall to even attempt it?”
Lev’s face contorted into a mask of pure rage. “You dare?! You are an insect! An anomaly in a game you cannot even begin to fathom!”
A slow, predatory smirk spread across Sukuna’s faces. “Perhaps,” he rumbled, his voice laced with cold amusement. “But between the two of us, it is you who is the insect.”
The battle ignited in a heartbeat. Sukuna vanished. Hiten screamed through the air in a horizontal arc aimed to cleave Lev in two. The demon reacted with inhuman speed, a wall of dark, geometric energy materializing to block the blow. But the moment his focus committed to the physical parry, Sukuna’s true attack struck. An invisible blade of Dismantle slipped past the barrier’s edge, slicing cleanly through Lev’s outstretched arm.
He let out a grunt of pain and surprise, but Sukuna was already on him. Slamming the butt of Hiten into the pavement, a focused gust of wind erupted, propelling him forward. His lower right hand shot out, grabbing Lev’s other arm—the one holding the Grail—by the wrist. The flesh felt wrong, artificial.
“Cleave.”
The word was a quiet death sentence. Lev’s arm was unmade, shredding from the inside out into a shower of black, synthetic filaments. The Holy Grail tumbled from his ruined grip, clattering onto the cracked pavement. From the stump of his shoulder, a monstrous, black tentacle, studded with unblinking, blood red eyes, erupted with a wet squelch. It whipped through the air, swatting Sukuna with the force of a wrecking ball. He was sent flying, crashing through a rusted bus before skidding to a halt.
“YOU MADE A MISTAKE!” Lev bellowed, his voice a distorted chorus. “You should have stayed a nameless ghost! Now you will face the might of a true Demon God Pillar!”
As Lev boasted, a violent aura—a dark, blood-red mimicry of Saber’s Mana Burst—erupted around Sukuna’s form. His pale skin took on a crimson tint, his muscles aching with an exhilarating strain. He launched himself forward. He appeared directly in front of Lev’s shocked face. His upper right fist was a blur, impacting the demon’s chest. For a fraction of a second, space itself seemed to twist as a flash of black and crimson energy erupted on contact. A Cleave-infused Black Flash.
Lev’s body was blasted backwards, a cannonball of flesh that slammed into the crater wall. He didn’t get up. His form convulsed, melting and reshaping into a writhing mass of eyes and tentacles, an abomination shedding its human shell. At that moment, the entire Singularity shuddered violently, the ground cracking under their feet. A crazed, gurgling laugh echoed from the shifting mass.
“TOO LATE!” the chorus of voices screamed, its glare fixing on Olga. “She is already dead! Her rescue is for naught! You are lucky, anomaly… lucky this world is collapsing…! The age of man is already over!”
With that final, triumphant threat, his form dissolved and vanished.
------------------
Sukuna exhaled, a slow, deliberate breath. Reverse Cursed Technique coursed through him, stitching his last of his wounds shut. The backlash from the copied Mana Burst was a novel sensation. His blood felt like it was boiling, a searing, internal heat, and his entire musculature thrummed with an unnatural, profound ache. He regarded it with a detached, academic curiosity. So this was the exhilarating, if strenuous, price for forcibly adapting a sorcery system entirely alien to his own. The technique needed refinement, but it was a new tool.
The Singularity began to shake with a renewed, violent intensity, the very ground groaning as reality itself started to unravel. Sukuna turned and strode back towards the small group of survivors. He found Cú Chulainn standing protectively before Gudako and Mash, who were knelt beside Olga's catatonic form. Over her wrist, the holographic projection of Dr. Romani’s face was frozen in a rictus of despair as his voice crackled over the comms, a frantic announcement that they had less than a minute before total collapse.
A slow, amused smirk spread across Sukuna’s faces. He directed his gaze towards the projection. “An intriguing gambit, Doctor,” he began, his voice cutting through Olga’s muted sobs with cold clarity. “Allowing these fools to retrieve the Grail, with the full intention of Rayshifting them out while leaving the 'demon' behind.” The ground beneath them cracked, a fissure spiderwebbing towards the group. “An elegant solution to rid yourselves of an unwanted variable. It was your best option, was it not?”
After a long, charged silence, Romani’s voice was a strained whisper. “...It was.”
Sukuna let out a dry, knowing chuckle. “To be expected. Why would you trust me?” His amusement deepened as a chunk of rubble crashed nearby, forcing Cú to sidestep. “But you knew, did you not? That this woman no longer possesses a physical body in your world. That any promise she made to me would become void the instant this place ceased to exist.” He was laughing now, a low, rumbling sound of genuine contempt for their clumsy, desperate scheming. “You allowed her to make a pact you had no intention of honouring.” He turned his four eyes towards Olga’s flickering, semi-transparent form. “Luckily for you, Romani Archaman, I am not yet ready for this farce to end. How about a new pact? I will salvage this woman’s pitiful existence. In return… you grant me passage to your headquarters.”
Another pause, this one thick with the weight of an impossible choice, the roar of the collapsing world growing louder. Finally, Romani’s voice returned, tight with resignation. “...Agreed.”
“I require time,” Sukuna stated. As the world outside their immediate position began to dissolve into a void of pure, white nothingness, he formed a familiar hand sign.
“Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine.”
Instantly, a silent black sphere materialized, a perfect 20-meter dome that encompassed the group. Inside the barrier, the violent tremors stopped. The screams of a dying reality were reduced to a distant hum. Cú could only stare, his warrior’s respect deepening into profound awe at the sight of an ultimate offensive weapon being deployed as the ultimate anchor.
A Binding Vow, made in an instant. By forfeiting the Domain’s inescapable sure-hit effect and reducing its vast radius, Sukuna transformed his Shrine into a temporary, absolute anchor for reality. The sheer cursed energy required for such a feat was impossible for any sorcerer. But Sukuna was not just any sorcerer. Even so, the drain was immense.
Kneeling beside Olga's body, Sukuna placed two fingers on her forehead, and she went limp, forced into unconsciousness. With a flick of his wrist, he used Dismantle to make a small, precise cut on a finger on his lower arm. As crimson blood welled up, he began to draw a complex, glowing circle on the ground around her. The blood-red tint that had stained his skin from the Mana Burst began to deepen, a sign of the immense strain he was under.
“Long ago, when I grew weary of my era,” Sukuna began, his voice a flat, instructional tone as he drew, “I used a technique devised by a far more irritating mind than my own. A method to distil one’s soul into Cursed Objects… pieces that could withstand the ravages of time and allow for incarnation in a new vessel.” He finished the circle and gently placed Olga’s spectral form in its centre, then began to paint a series of intricate seals directly onto her fading form.
A low whistle came from Cú. “You sure have a neat bag of tricks.”
“Live as long as I have, sorcerer,” Sukuna replied without looking up, “and you learn a few things.” He finished the last seal and placed a hand on her head. The world dissolved.
He now stood in a pristine, sterile Director's office. Olga was huddled under the massive desk, a sobbing child whispering about her failures. Sukuna strode to the desk. Hearing his footsteps, she looked up, her golden eyes wide with shock.
“Was all you ever chased the praise of another?” Sukuna asked, his voice an impassive rumble.
Sniffling, she replied, “I just… I wanted to be recognized for what I’ve done. And all I ended up with was… this. A dead failure.”
Sukuna paused. "If you do not value yourself," he stated, "their recognition is meaningless ash." He regarded her for a moment, a flicker of something almost akin to intellectual curiosity in his four eyes. "Your existence is pitiful... but it is not without a certain… utility." He leaned down, his crimson eyes locking onto hers. “I am offering a transaction. A vow. I will grant you the continuation of your existence. In return, you will swear to provide me with all the knowledge of this world's sorcery that is within your power to access, and you will guarantee me an audience with the one you call Zelretch.”
She stared at him, tearful but stunned. Then, she gave a single, desperate nod. She accepted.
The world snapped back to the Malevolent Shrine. Olga’s body was gone. In Sukuna’s outstretched hand rested a single, pale, distinctly female finger, its nail long and painted white, intricately marked with a glowing, crimson Animusphere crest. He looked down at the discarded communication device on the floor. “The pact is made.”
Romani's voice, now resolute, came from the device. "Mash, temporarily dissolve your contract with Fujimaru! You must become his Servant! It's the only anchor strong enough to pull you both through the Rayshift!"
Mash hesitated, looking at Gudako. Her Master offered a shaky but determined smile, nodding once. Trust. Mash closed her eyes and broke the contract. She extended her hand towards Sukuna. He met it with his own. A brilliant blue light flared between them, and a set of new Command Seals burned themselves into the back of his lower right hand. The strain of anchoring reality became fully visible. A sheen of sweat covered his brow, and his hands, holding the new Cursed Object, trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Rayshift commencing!” Romani’s voice cried out.
As their forms dissolved in a column of brilliant light, the Malevolent Shrine shattered behind them. With its anchor gone, the last vestiges of the Fuyuki Singularity collapsed in on themselves, finally erased from existence.
Notes:
Hey everyone,
First off, I'm really sorry for the long delay. The universe seems to have it out for me, because I've come down with COVID.
If you're an old reader, especially from Webnovel, you might remember my story, (Of Aliens, Magic and Superheros). You might also remember that as I was rewriting it, I got into a car accident that nearly killed me and left me with almost no vision in my right eye.
Well, I think I'm cursed. I had just started rewriting that same story again, and now this. So... fuck.
Anyway, what you're reading here isn't the final draft. I seem to have lost that file in the mess. Once I'm feeling human again, I promise I'll get the proper version out to all of you.
Thanks for sticking with me and for reading.
Ciao.
Chapter Text
The Command Room of Chaldea, a fractured shell of its former glory, hummed with a tension that was almost electric. Technicians, repair crews, and the skeleton medical staff stood shoulder to shoulder, their eyes fixed on the central platform where the very air was shimmering. The announcement had crackled through the comms minutes ago: the Fuyuki Singularity was collapsing, the mission a success. For the first time since the world had burned, a fragile, desperate hope filled the room.
Then, the shimmer solidified.
A wave of jubilant relief erupted as two figures materialized: Mash Kyrielight, exhausted but resolute, supporting her Master, Gudako Fujimaru, who looked ready to collapse.
“They’re back!” someone shouted, and the cry was picked up, turning into a ragged cheer. “Mash! Fujimaru! They did it!” The main point of Chaldea’s existence—to preserve the Human Order—had been validated. They had won.
The celebration was cut short. A second, distinct burst of energy crackled on the platform, and a tall, blue-haired man appeared beside them, leaning casually on a wooden staff. Confused glances were exchanged among the staff as the blue-haired man appeared. He wasn't part of the mission. Who was he?
Before the question could even be fully formed, a third, far more violent surge of energy tore through the chamber. The Rayshift system groaned, alarms blaring as it struggled to contain a presence far beyond its designed parameters. And then, he appeared.
The room went dead silent.
The being was a monolith of terror. He stood nearly seven feet tall, a creature of dense muscle and pale skin, his form a perversion of the human ideal with four powerful arms. Intricate black markings, like forbidden scripture, were etched across his body. He had two faces, one on each side of his head, and four crimson eyes that scanned the room with a cold, deep-seated indifference. His kimono was torn to ribbons and soaked in blood, yet there was not a single wound on his perfect, unmarked flesh. In two of his hands, he held alien weapons: a wicked, three-pronged trident and a strange, golden object that hummed with a power they could not comprehend.
The instant he fully materialized, a pressure descended. It was not a feeling; it was a physical weight. The very air turned to lead, crushing the hope in their lungs. A technician near the front dropped his datapad and fell to his knees, his body trembling uncontrollably. Another muttered, "Demon... demon..." A young woman clutched her chest, her voice a reedy whisper as she repeated a mantra of sheer, fundamental panic, "Breathe... Breathe... Breathe... Is it okay to breathe?"
“Everyone, calm down!” Romani Archaman pleaded, his voice thin and lost in the suffocating dread. “It’s alright! They are with us!” His words were meaningless. It wasn't a question of trust; the terror was instinctual, a prey animal’s reaction to the apex predator entering its den.
Cú Chulainn, standing apart from the pressure's most crushing epicenter, saw the effect it was having. The staff were useless, but his concern was more immediate. Gudako, his new Master, was swaying on her feet, her face bone-white from a combination of exhaustion and the oppressive aura. Mash, though a Servant, was also struggling to stand, her own reserves depleted. He’d seen enough.
“Hey, King,” Cú called out, his casual tone cutting through the terrified silence like a knife. “Mind turning it down a notch? You’re scaring the locals, and the girls look like they’re about to drop.”
Sukuna, who had been observing the room’s occupants with detached curiosity, raised an eyebrow. He was genuinely confused for a moment. He then let his gaze sweep over the cowering, frozen figures of the Chaldea staff. He saw the pure, animalistic fear in their eyes. A soft "Tch" of annoyance escaped his lips. Their weakness was an inconvenience.
Instantly, the pressure vanished. The release was as violent as its arrival. The staff members who had been frozen in place collapsed to the floor like puppets with their strings cut, gasping for air they were now certain was safe to breathe. The terror, however, remained etched on their faces. Romani stood amidst the room of broken, whimpering survivors, utterly at a loss, just as the sound of an approaching clatter cut through the heavy silence.
It was Da Vinci, her expression bright and her movements a theatrical flourish, pushing two empty stretchers before her. Her arrival was a complete tonal shift, a vibrant splash of color in a room painted grey with terror.
“Alright, that’s quite enough of that!” she declared, her voice a resounding, charming clarion call that instantly drew every eye. The fear didn't vanish, but it was overshadowed by her sheer, commanding presence. “Excellent work getting them back, everyone. Technical crew, you are dismissed for now. We will re-calibrate later. Go on, shoo! The rest of you know what to do.”
Her orders were not a request. The technicians, grateful for a clear direction, scrambled to their stations to shut down non-essential systems before filing out, casting one last terrified glance at the four-armed being in their midst. Da Vinci then gestured to the two exhausted girls. “You two, on the stretchers. Let the medical team have a look at you.” She then turned to Romani, her expression softening into one of supportive command. “And you, Doctor. These fine people need a healer, not a flustered director. Go on, do what you do best.”
Romani’s shoulders slumped in visible relief. The impossible weight of command lifted from him, replaced by the familiar burden of his true calling. He shot her a look of profound gratitude, mouthing a silent “Thank you.” Da Vinci returned it with a small, reassuring smile and a crisp nod before her attention shifted, focusing entirely on the two powerful figures who had remained silent through it all.
She decided directness was the only viable approach for beings of their caliber. She took a step forward, muttering just loud enough for their enhanced senses to catch, “Best we get the formalities out of the way…”
Her voice then returned to its clear, formal tone. “My name is Leonardo Da Vinci, Caster-class Servant of Chaldea. With the Director… indisposed, I am acting as the assistant director until things calm down. As such,” she continued, her gaze steady and meeting both of theirs in turn, “it falls to me to treat with you on behalf of this organization. I would like to formally offer you our hospitality, for as long as you choose to remain under our roof.”
She delicately extended a hand, not to the more approachable Cú, but directly to Sukuna. A palpable beat of silence stretched, the remaining staff holding their breath. He observed the offered hand for a moment, his four crimson eyes unblinking, before one of his own lower hands reached out and took hers in a firm, dry grip.
A brilliant smile lit up Da Vinci’s face. Curious, she thought to herself, it seems some concepts, like the sanctity of hospitality, manage to transcend even the boundaries between worlds.
“Marvelous!” she said aloud, retracting her hand. “Now, this battered room is hardly the proper venue for a discussion of this magnitude.” She gestured with a sweep of her arm at the cracked monitors and rubble-strewn floor. “If you’d be so kind as to follow me, I have a place far more suitable for our conversation.”
She watched Sukuna, waiting for his assent. After a moment, he gave a single, almost imperceptible nod. It was all she needed. With a confident turn of her heel, her elaborate dress swishing behind her, Da Vinci led the way out of the command room. The King of Curses and the Hound of Ulster followed, a study in contrasts: Cú ambled along with a warrior's easy slouch, while Sukuna moved with a soundless, predatory grace that seemed to command the very air around him.
A brief, wistful thought crossed her mind as they moved through the stark corridors. Under better circumstances, she would have given them the grand tour of Chaldea. She would have showcased the marvels of the Simulator, the depths of the library, the fragile, defiant core of their small community. But much of Chaldea was a testament to their recent losses, a landscape of rubble and repair. A tour now would only be an admission of vulnerability. Pragmatism, and proximity, made the choice for her. Her workshop was nearby, secure, and far more impressive than any damaged facility. It was not a tour of a fortress, but an invitation into the sanctum of a genius—a far more potent statement of confidence.
The reinforced door slid open with a soft hiss. The air within was alive with the scent of ozone, oil paints, and cooling metal. Da Vinci stepped inside and turned, her artist's eyes missing nothing. She watched Sukuna as he took in the cavernous, organized chaos of her domain. She wasn't expecting a gasp, but she was looking for a sign, a crack in his impassive facade. She found it. As his four eyes swept the room, she saw a flicker of reaction so subtle it would have been invisible to anyone else: a fractional widening of his primary eyes, the almost imperceptible tensing of a muscle along his jawline. It was there and gone in an instant, a whisper of shock immediately suppressed by an eternity of control.
An internal, triumphant smirk formed. Got you.
“Here we are,” she chirped, her voice bright. She gestured to a seating area arranged around a sturdy table. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. Just wait a sec while she goes to fetch something from the back.” With a flourish, she turned and glided deeper into her workshop, leaving the two powerful beings to observe, and to be subtly, irrevocably impressed.
—-------—-------—-------—-------
The metal slab slid aside, revealing not a room, but a den. This was the Caster’s personal territory, a space saturated with her power and presence. My gaze swept the area, not with a cursory glance, but with a cold, comprehensive analysis.
The first thing of note was a forge. It was a strange hybrid of old and new. The core principles were familiar—a hearth, an anvil, a quenching trough. But it was not powered by mundane fire. Gleaming conduits pulsed with a faint inner light, feeding the apparatus a steady stream of the world’s energy. Mana, the information of this era world branded into my mind. It was a weapon-maker’s tool of formidable potential.
Then my eyes were drawn to a vast wall, covered in a chaotic mosaic of paintings and sketches. And it was here that my composure had faltered. In my long life, I had acknowledged true mastery only once in the art of painting: a man named Kose Kanaoka. His skill was such that I allowed him to live, for to destroy such perfection would have been a waste. I had considered his portrait of me, a work that captured the very essence of my disastrous presence, to be the pinnacle of mortal achievement.
Here, on a single wall, were a dozen rivals to that masterpiece. A study of some winged beast, rendered with such anatomical precision I could almost map its musculature. A portrait of a woman whose simple smile held a labyrinth of meaning. I saw a tempest captured on canvas, the violence of the storm so palpable I could almost feel the static in the air. Some, I begrudgingly admitted, might even be superior.
A flood of memories, the unwelcome gift of this summoning, provided the context. The Caster… her name was Leonardo da Vinci. The Leonardo da Vinci. The artist behind a work called the Mona Lisa. I glanced at the woman’s retreating form; her face was a living echo of that famous portrait. The records said Leonardo was a man. He recalled the visage of Saber-King Arthur who was, in fact, a woman. He had also seen it himself in his own world, when his most loyal subordinate, Uraume, had chosen a female vessel upon incarnating in this new age. The shape the soul chose for its vessel was of no consequence to him.
My gaze returned to the table where the woman—the Artist, now—had directed us. Three chairs. Two were of a common size. The third was different. It was larger, broader, and reinforced, constructed to a scale that would accommodate my own form without protest.
Surprise was a rare and unwelcome sensation, and I masked it instantly. But curiosity remained. The chair was not merely an object; it was a calculation. This Artist had anticipated not only my arrival but also my temperament. She had assumed a level of civility, assuming I would choose to sit and parley rather than simply reducing her and her workshop to ash.
This was either an act of supreme foolishness or profound insight. She had gambled on my curiosity outweighing my contempt. For now, it seemed, her wager was a sound one. Curious. Very curious indeed.
—----------------—----------------
Da Vinci returned moments later, a masterful hostess once more, gliding towards the table with a tray bearing an ornate teapot, fine ceramic cups, and a crystal decanter of water. The aroma of brewing chamomile and a hint of Earl Grey filled the air.
“Some tea, or water, perhaps?” she offered.
A lazy, roguish smirk appeared across Cú Chulainn’s face as he leaned forward with a charming, flirtatious energy. “Got anything stronger for a thirsty warrior, beautiful?”
Da Vinci laughed, a sound like pleasant bells. “My, my, so forward! Alas, all spirits are rationed for now, handsome. Water it is.” Cú accepted the flask she offered with a theatrical grumble and a wink. She then turned her gaze to Sukuna, whose four eyes observed the display with an unreadable calm. “And for you?”
“Tea,” Sukuna stated simply. Da Vinci poured a cup with a steady, practiced hand and placed it before him. He accepted it with a slight nod, a gesture of archaic, regal courtesy. He raised the delicate porcelain to his lips and took a sip. His brow furrowed for a fraction of a second in thought. “The brew… is acceptable.”
Da Vinci’s grin widened. “Only the best for my guests,” she replied, a twinkle in her eye. She took her own seat, sipping her tea with a refined air. “Now, as much as I would love to make small talk with a legendary being from another world and Ireland’s Child of Light, I believe we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
Her expression shifted, the playful hostess receding to reveal the serious director beneath. She looked directly at Sukuna. “You were promised certain things in return for your assistance by Olga Marie—specifically, that Chaldea would use all its resources to secure you an audience with the Magician known as Zelretch.” Da Vinci frowned, her next words delivered with a carefully neutral tone. “Unfortunately, at this present moment, that is impossible.”
The shift in the room was instantaneous. Sukuna’s eyes narrowed, and a sudden, crushing pressure descended upon the workshop, so immense and suffocating it felt as if the very laws of physics were being rewritten. The teacup still in Sukuna’s hand did not just crack; it disintegrated into ceramic dust from the sheer force. Nearby, a beaker on a workbench shattered with a sharp CRACK!
Da Vinci didn’t flinch. In the same beat, she raised both hands in a placating gesture, the one wearing her intricate golden gauntlet held slightly forward—just in case. “Please,” she said, her voice strained but level, “allow me to explain.”
There was a long, terrifying pause where the only sound was the hum of a dozen half-finished projects. Then, the pressure receded as quickly as it had come. Taking that as her cue, Da Vinci lowered her hands and began.
“We are not reneging on our agreement,” she said, her voice firm. “But circumstances have changed drastically. You were told our future was in peril, that this Singularity in Fuyuki was the cause of a catastrophe a year from now, yes?”
She saw Sukuna’s slight nod.
“That assumption was fundamentally wrong,” she stated. “The Singularity wasn’t the cause of the catastrophe. It was merely a symptom of a plan that had already succeeded.” She leaned forward, her expression grim. “The calamity has already happened. While we were in Fuyuki, every living being outside of Chaldea was instantly incinerated. Humans, animals, even the germs… all reduced to ash in a moment.”
The statement hung in the air, heavy and absolute. After a moment of silence, Sukuna’s low rumble cut through it. “You just stated that humanity is gone,” he pointed out, a single finger gesturing vaguely in the direction of the command room. “Yet I saw humans when we returned.”
“They—we—only survived because of the protections Olga Marie’s father built into Chaldea’s foundations,” Da Vinci explained.
Another silence stretched, this one broken by a dry, humorless laugh from Sukuna. “So,” he mused, looking around the incredible workshop, a symbol of their advanced power. “With all of this technology, all of your knowledge… you lost the war before you even knew you were fighting.”
Da Vinci’s lips curled into a wry smirk, as if he had just spoken the key to unlock her final argument. “Oh, but we haven’t lost’ yet.”
Sukuna paused. Even Cú Chulainn looked at her as though she had gone mad.
“We were working from an incomplete picture,” she continued, her voice gaining a fervent energy. “There wasn’t just one Singularity. We were wrong. There were eight.”
“Eight?” Cú interjected, his lazy demeanor gone, replaced by a warrior’s sharp focus. “Morgana’s teats, do you have any idea what kind of being you’re fighting here?” he demanded. “The power to change history once is the kind of feat that gets you a seat on the Throne. To do it eight times without the Counter Force, or a paradox, or a hundred divine spirits intervening… Who the hell are we fighting?”
Da Vinci threw her hands up in dramatic frustration. “I wish I knew! Whoever they are, they subverted one of our highest-ranking personnel, rewrote eight points in history, and then used that as a ritual to wipe out humanity itself.” She leaned forward, her eyes blazing. “But they made one mistake. They tried to take us out before the Incineration. A preemptive strike.”
A look of dawning comprehension crossed Cú’s face. “…Which means they aren’t all-powerful.”
“Exactly!” Da Vinci exclaimed, practically bouncing in her seat with intellectual excitement. “If we were truly nothing to them, they wouldn’t have bothered with a mere ant house in their backyard!” A grin, sharp and predatory, spread across her face. “So that means if we can restore the Singularities, we can unravel their plan and set this right. That’s why there are Servants defending them—because they know we can undo it all.” She sighed, the excitement dimming slightly. “But that task… is nearly impossible in itself.” Her hopeful, determined gaze fixed on Sukuna. “Unless, of course, we were to have the help of the King of Curses. Then, well…?”
A profound silence descended upon the workshop, heavier and more suffocating than even Sukuna's earlier pressure. Cú Chulainn had fallen completely still, his usual easygoing posture replaced by the tense coil of a warrior awaiting a verdict. Da Vinci leaned forward, the hope in her eyes a fragile, brilliant thing, every ounce of her genius and bravado staked on this single moment. All eyes were on the King of Curses.
Sukuna remained silent, his expression unreadable. He was not overwhelmed. He was… enthralled.
The grand schemes of Kenjaku, a plan that took a millennium to orchestrate, now seemed like the clumsy, brutish work of a child playing with mud. This enemy, this unseen mastermind… they had not merely tipped the game board; they had reset reality itself to their liking, playing with the fabric of time as if it were a toy. A low, almost inaudible hum of interest vibrated in his chest. This was the work of a true master. For the first time since the golden age of the Heian era, a flicker of genuine excitement ignited within him. This new world wasn’t just a bigger cage; it was an entirely new ladder to climb, from the very bottom. How could he truly call himself The Strongest if he had not dominated every reality?
A dry, almost silent chuckle escaped his lips, a sound of profound irony. He, Ryomen Sukuna, was being asked to save humanity. He remembered the face of the brat—Itadori Yuji—and his naive, self-sacrificial drive. He remembered the infuriating way he would have unhesitatingly accepted this impossible burden. Those were the very ideals that had led to his defeat, and to this… this change. This new path.
He looked at the Artist before him. She was not showing desperation, but he could perceive the fragile, glittering hope in her eyes. It was a gamble. A choice. Perhaps this was North.
“Very well,” Sukuna rumbled, his voice filled with a newfound, terrifying purpose that made the very air in the room feel heavy once more.
“I have decided. I will aid you in this endeavor.”
—-----------------—-----------------
Steam, thick and white, coiled in the still air of the bathing chamber, the silence a stark contrast to the cacophony of the recent battle. Sukuna sank into the dark, shimmering water, a welcome heat seeping into muscle that still held the phantom ache of a fight well fought. He closed his four eyes, allowing the sequence of events to play out behind them. His choice to go "North." His awakening in this burning city. The convenient appearance of this group of survivors. The word chance was an insult to his intelligence.
He had always understood that Fate, in his old world, was a tangible force, a current that could be navigated but never truly ignored. His final choice had been a declaration of intent, a deviation from his path of pure hedonism. He had no illusions of being "guided" by some benevolent hand; rather, he viewed this situation as the logical, almost sarcastically literal response from reality itself. It had presented him with the very embodiment of his new path—a quest to "save humanity." A low rumble of amusement vibrated in his chest. The exquisite irony of it all was far more entertaining than any victory.
He rose from the water, the drying cloth rough against skin that still remembered the satisfying impact of his blows. The feeling of his flesh knitting itself back together led his thoughts to the fight. The corrupted King's physical strength had been superior—a simple, interesting fact, not a slight to his pride. The true challenge had been her absolute resistance to his sorcery. His core Cursed Techniques, the very foundation of his power, had been rendered useless. Even if the Hound's theory about a "Grail" amplifying her was correct, it still confirmed the existence of conceptual defenses in this world, a variable he had not previously accounted for. This meant his old methods were insufficient. It meant he had to evolve.
And he had. His adaptation of Mana Burst had been crude, a forceful translation that had come with a series of telling flaws. The internal, boiling heat was a sign of instability. The deep, pervasive ache that settled in his muscles afterward, an indicator of its unrefined, stressful nature. It lacked the explosive power enhancement he had witnessed. But it was a proof of concept. It demonstrated that his Jujutsu was not a static art but a fluid science, one capable of dissecting, understanding, and repurposing the principles of this world's Magecraft. It was the first step on a new path of mastery.
The Hound’s own sorcery was another piece of the puzzle. The glowing symbols he had placed upon the white-haired woman’s flesh were fascinating. In his experience, Jujutsu seals were designed for containment, a sophisticated but ultimately limited art of imprisonment. Yet the Hound’s runes had been used for attack, for support, for amplification. It was as if "sealing" was not a distinct art at all, but merely a single, brutish application of a far grander, more versatile system that had been left untapped. This new world was not just offering him stronger opponents; it was offering him an entirely new grammar of power to learn.
He walked to the simple cot where a new garment had been laid out for him. It was a dark, unadorned kimono, a work of the Artist. He slipped it on. The fabric was as comfortable as any he had worn during his life in the golden age, yet possessed a resilience that was a clear testament to its creator's skill. His mind turned, then, to his one true regret. He felt a flicker of genuine shame—not for the hard-won victory against the Saber, she had been a fine meal. The shame was for the grander battle he had been denied. Kenjaku's magnificent Merger, a new form of humanity evolved into a single, divine entity… that was the opponent he had truly wanted to face. To have been robbed of that glorious conclusion by a group of sentimental fools was the only true failure. But now... a new possibility presented itself. If the Artist was right, if a single entity was responsible for the incineration of all mankind, then perhaps he had not lost his ultimate challenger. Perhaps it had simply been waiting for him here, in a new world.
As he turned, his senses registered an approaching presence. Familiar. The Hound.
A sharp, confident knock echoed from the heavy metal door. “Yo, King! You decent in there?” Cú Chululainn’s voice called through, laced with its usual easygoing energy. “There’s a cafeteria in this oversized bunker. Figured I’d see what passes for grub in this day and age. Might even be able to talk the pretty inventor into giving us a sip of the good stuff.”
------------------------------
From outside the heavy steel doors, the low murmur of tired conversation and the clatter of utensils offered a fragile illusion of normalcy. The moment Sukuna and Cú Chulainn stepped through, the illusion shattered.
The doors hissed open, and the room went dead silent. A fork, dropped by a startled repairman, hit the floor with a clatter that echoed like a gunshot. The diners froze mid-bite, their eyes wide, gazes locked on their plates, instinctively avoiding direct eye contact with the four-armed being who now stood in the doorway. The kitchen staff, who had been laughing a moment before, went rigid. One cook gripped his spatula like a weapon, his knuckles white.
Cú took it all in with an amused smirk. Sukuna registered the reaction as nothing more than the appropriate response to his presence and strode towards the serving line. They were serving burgers tonight, with mounds of crispy fries and a side of some sort of cold, chopped vegetable salad. Cú’s face lit up with genuine delight.
“Gods above, real cooked meat!” he exclaimed, grabbing two plates enthusiastically. “You have no idea how good this is after weeks of cold rations.”
Sukuna, however, merely observed the meal. His four eyes scanned the components: the mass-produced bread, the ground and pressed patty, the crisp vegetables. The memories supplied by this world provided a name, “burger,” and a context, “comfort food.” His own senses registered it as… industrial. Fuel, not cuisine. A faint, unreadable expression crossed his faces, and for a moment, the terrified cooks held their breath, certain he was about to voice his displeasure.
Instead, he let out a near-silent sigh. He would not go hungry, but he would not be satisfied either. While his new memories whispered that this was a delicacy, his own palate longed for something more refined—failing that, human flesh would suffice. Still, he took a single plate. As he turned away, a flicker of a thought crossed his mind. The fear from the cooks was palpable, yet he had no desire to harm them. He remembered Uraume. He remembered the artistry, the mastery of a true chef. He respected that craft, however crude this version of it was. Artisans, like the painter, were worth leaving alive.
They found a table in a far corner, away from the prying, terrified eyes. Cú lamented the lack of anything alcoholic but dug into his meal with a gusto that spoke of genuine appreciation. Sukuna took a single, analytical bite of the burger. It was edible. The texture was passable. But it lacked the soul of true cuisine. His mind flashed with a brief, sharp memory: the perfect, exquisite balance of a dish Uraume had once prepared for him, a meal made with absolute dedication for him. He sighed again, a quiet, almost imperceptible sound of disappointment.
“Not to your liking, King?” Cú asked around a mouthful of food. “‘Cause I’ve got to say, this is hitting the spot.”
“It is not the worst thing I have consumed,” Sukuna replied, his tone flat. “It is merely… different from my preference.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your preference then? What do you usually eat?” Cú asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“Whatever they prepare.”
The plural was a simple choice of word, but it hung in the air. “They?” Cú pressed.
Sukuna looked up, and for a fleeting moment, a distant look entered his eyes, as though he were gazing back through centuries. “My servant,” he stated, the word delivered with a cold, simple finality that carried the weight of absolute ownership and unwavering loyalty.
Cú’s easygoing posture tensed for a split second. He was a Servant himself, but he understood instantly that the word meant something profoundly different to Sukuna. He had just brushed against a clearly marked boundary and had the good sense not to push. He immediately switched to a safer, more professional line of questioning, the language they both understood best: battle.
“So,” C-ú began, his tone shifting as he leaned forward. “Now that you’ve fought a top-tier Servant like Saber, how does she stack up? Did you have a better fight in your own world?”
Sukuna considered the question. A slow, predatory smile spread across his faces, the first sign of genuine pleasure he had shown since entering the room.
“There was one,” he rumbled, his voice holding a note of rare respect. “A modern-day sorcerer. Gojo Satoru.”
Cú blinked, the burger pausing halfway to his mouth. A modern-day sorcerer? The concept was so absurd he almost laughed. He was a Heroic Spirit, a legend brought to life. He knew the fundamental truth of this age: the decline of Mystery had rendered modern magi into pale shadows of their ancestors. No magus of this era, no matter how skilled, could ever stand on equal footing with a proper Servant from the Age of Gods, let alone win. Yet Sukuna, a being who had just dismantled one of the most powerful Servants imaginable, was casually stating that a modern practitioner from his world had been the superior opponent. It didn't make sense. It violated every fundamental rule of power he had ever known.
Before he could demand an explanation, a new voice cut through the cafeteria.
“No, Romani, you are not going back to the lab!” Da Vinci declared, her cheerful scolding turning every head. She was steering a sleep-deprived Romani by the elbow towards a table. “You will sit. You will eat something that isn't from a vending machine. I will not have my acting director collapsing from malnutrition, it’s bad for morale!”
“Over here!” Cú called out, a familiar mischievous light returned to his eyes as he waved them over, the perfect opportunity to both distract from his shock and deliberately stir the pot. “Join the party!”
A genuine smile touched Da Vinci’s lips at Cú’s boisterous invitation. “A party? My dear Caster, considering the atmosphere, it looks more like a wake,” she bantered back, gesturing with her head to the other silent, terrified diners as she and Romani reached the table. She slid the trays onto its surface, the contents a perfect visual summary of her philosophy—a towering monument of indulgence for herself, a carefully balanced meal of necessity for her charge. With a gentle but firm hand, she nudged the still-distracted Romani down into a chair before taking her own seat.
A new silence fell over the table, heavier than the first. Cú’s playful gambit had succeeded in bringing them together, and now he leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk, watching to see what would happen next. Da Vinci was about to open with a pleasantry, but she paused, her keen eyes noticing Romani’s state. The doctor wasn’t eating. He wasn’t even looking at his food. His hands were clasped so tightly on the table his knuckles were white, his gaze locked on Sukuna with an intensity that bordered on obsession. The events he had witnessed through the comms—the betrayal, the transformation, the impossible solution—were a raging storm in his mind. His duty as a doctor, and as the acting director, finally overrode his fear. He had to know.
“Sukuna,” Romani began, his voice tight with a doctor's professional anxiety. “That… object. The finger. Is the Director truly… stable in there? I saw what you did, but I don’t understand the process. Medically, thaumatergicaly… it’s impossible. I need to know her condition.”
In response, Sukuna reached into his kimono and placed the Cursed Object—Olga Marie's finger—on the table between them. Da Vinci’s gaze was instantly riveted to it, her eyes alight with an intense, almost rapacious glint of intellectual curiosity.
“I was familiar with a technique,” Sukuna explained, his voice a low rumble, “devised by a sorcerer from my world to distill one’s soul into an object, for future incarnation. I adapted it.”
“You wish to examine it?” Sukuna asked, a flicker of amusement in his eyes at the Artist’s barely contained fervor.
She nodded eagerly. He slid the finger across the table to her. As she produced a strange, multifaceted lens, Romani, still grappling with the impossible, spoke again.
“But is it viable? Can a soul be restored from this?” he pressed.
Sukuna let out a low chuckle. “Do you believe I am wrong, Doctor?”
Romani stammered, “N-no, that’s not what I meant, it’s just—”
“You are right to question it,” Sukuna cut him off, his voice flat. “Were we in my own world, I would have absolute certainty. But your world is alien. This network of nerves you call Magic Circuits… it is a concept my world lacks. Still,” he concluded, his confidence absolute, “a soul is a soul. The principles remain. This will work.”
Da Vinci looked up from her lens. “You need a vessel?”
“Indeed,” Sukuna nodded. “Simply feed the object to a compatible host, and the woman will awaken.”
“A homunculus, perhaps?” Da Vinci mused.
Sukuna’s eyebrow raised. Cú picked up on his confusion. “Artificial humans,” the Caster explained. “Designer bodies, grown in a tube.”
Sukuna’s four eyes widened slightly. Artificial bodies. A tide of regretful annoyance washed over him. The sheer indignity of being a passenger in that brat’s flesh… it could have been avoided.
“Marvelous!” Da Vinci declared, carefully wrapping the Cursed Object. “This will be my personal project.”
With Olga’s soul now a "project" for Da Vinci, Romani’s mind shifted to another part of the initial debriefing that had seemed equally impossible. He looked at Cú. “Mash’s report was… frantic. She mentioned that before all this, Sukuna had also healed the Director’s physical wounds. The ones from the Berserker. What exactly happened?”
Cú nodded, his expression serious. “Healed is putting it lightly,” he confirmed, leaning forward. “Her arm was noodles. There was a nasty curse from the Grail mud tainting her, too. I put her in stasis, but that was just keeping her from getting worse. He just… put his hand on her, sealed the curse, and put her back together. Like fixing a dent in a pot.”
Romani’s breath hitched. Driven by Cú's blunt, firsthand confirmation of a second miracle, his gaze fixed on Sukuna, wide with a desperate, burgeoning hope that eclipsed all fear. “Just how good is your healing?”
Sukuna regarded the doctor with a flat, impassive gaze. “I can regenerate any flesh, mend any bone. Anything short of absolute death is a triviality.”
Romani heard the words as a key, a solution to the nightmare that had defined every waking second since the explosion. The 47 souls wasting away in cryo-stasis—it all boiled over. Professionalism and caution were incinerated by a single, desperate spark. The words tumbled out, a raw, unprofessional plea from a doctor pushed to his absolute limit.
“Could you… could you heal someone for me?”
A heavy silence fell over the table. Sukuna slowly turned his four crimson eyes onto Romani, an expression of sheer, condescending disbelief twisting his faces. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Romani instantly realized his catastrophic mistake. “I-I'm sorry,” he stammered, his face flushing with a mixture of terror and shame. “That was out of line, I shouldn’t have—”
“What Romani means is, the theoretical applications are simply fascinating—” Da Vinci began, jumping in with a bright, false smile.
She was cut off by a low, rumbling chuckle. The sound was devoid of all warmth but rich with a cold, deep amusement. Sukuna stopped them both cold.
“I can,” he said.
He let the single sliver of hope hang in the air before he followed it with the hook. “But why should I heal someone for no reason?”
Romani was frozen, caught between an impossible hope and the terrifying reality of the being he had just pleaded with. Da Vinci, ever the strategist, saw the opening. She picked up on Romani’s true intention and expertly reframed his desperate plea into a business proposition, her voice smooth as silk.
“What would it take,” she asked, her eyes meeting Sukuna’s, “to heal forty-seven people?”
A slow, profoundly predatory grin spread across Sukuna’s faces, a look that promised a terrible, but very interesting, bargain. He laughed, a genuine sound of pure, triumphant amusement that echoed through the quiet cafeteria.
“Now,” he declared, “you are speaking my language.”
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Notes:
No real note this time. For those who want to know. I have recovered enough to be able to write again. So pat-reon supporters will now start getting a better schedule.
By the end of the day, A Stranger's Vow will finish on patreon with roughly 30k words. The schedule for patreon going ahead will be as follows:
Monday: 1 chapter of "A Cursed King's Adventure"
Tuesday: 1 chapter of "Of Aliens, Magic and Superheroes"
Wednesday: 1 chapter of "A Cursed King's Adventure"
Thursday: 1 chapter of "Of Aliens, Magic and Superheroes"
Friday: 1 chapter of "Of Aliens, Magic and Superheroes"Thank you for reading.
Ciao
Chapter Text
The air in the auxiliary cryo-bay was frigid and still, thick with the sterile scent of coolant and the low, monolithic hum of the generators next door. Dozens of coffins, gleaming white pods containing the broken bodies of Chaldea’s Master Candidates, were arranged in solemn rows. Emergency lighting cast long, distorted shadows across the floor, making the chamber feel less like a state-of-the-art medical facility and more like a tomb.
Romani, Da Vinci, and Cú Chulainn stood in a tight, expectant cluster, their breath fogging in the cold. A few meters away, Sukuna stood before a single, open pod. The young woman within was a canvas of catastrophic injury, her body covered in a lattice of severe burns and deep lacerations—a casualty of the command room’s fiery destruction. Hope, a fragile, brilliant thing, shone in Romani’s eyes.
Sukuna observed the body with a detached, academic curiosity for a moment before placing one of his lower hands on the woman’s chest. He said nothing. A stark, white energy, so intense it seemed almost transparent, flowed from his palm. It did not glow with warmth; it shimmered with a cold, clinical power. Before their very eyes, a miracle unfolded. The blackened, charred skin smoothed and lightened. Gaping wounds wavered for a moment under the transparent distortion before knitting themselves shut, leaving not so much as a scar. In seconds, the body was whole again, a perfect, unblemished vessel.
“It’s… it’s working,” Romani whispered, a tear of pure, unadulterated relief tracing a path down his tired face.
But as the shimmering energy dissipated, Sukuna’s brows furrowed. He tilted his head, his four eyes narrowing as he stared at the healed form. There was a stillness to her, an absence. He moved to the next pod, a young man this time, his chest crushed from fallen debris. Again, Sukuna placed his hand, and again, the white, clinical light bloomed. Bones audibly snapped and ground back into place, flesh mended, and the body was made pristine. But the same unsettling void remained.
“What’s wrong?” Cú asked, his warrior’s senses picking up on the shift in the room. “Why aren’t they waking up?”
“It’s the cryo-preservation,” Romani said quickly, his voice high with excitement as he began to approach a control panel. “We just need to reverse the process, get him stimulated—”
“He will not wake,” Sukuna’s voice, low and flat, cut through Romani’s hope like a scalpel.
Romani froze. “What… what do you mean?”
Cú Chulainn, now peering intently at the second healed body, saw what Sukuna had. He saw the flawless skin, the steady, machine-assisted rise and fall of the chest. He saw a perfect doll. He then looked back at Sukuna, a grim understanding dawning in his eyes. “King… you’re seeing it too, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice losing all of its earlier excitement. “There’s nothing there.”
“Nothing?” Da Vinci repeated, stepping forward, her curiosity piqued. “What are you two perceiving that we are not?”
“These are not people,” Sukuna stated, his tone one of finality. He gestured with a dismissive hand to the row of pristine bodies. “They are husks. Their flesh is alive, yes, but their souls are gone.”
The words hit Romani like a physical blow. His jaw opened, a silent, horrified gasp.
“Gone?” Cú muttered, his brow furrowed in thought. “Like how the Director’s soul was pulled into the Rayshift? Maybe they were just… scattered. Unlucky.”
Da Vinci, her scientific mind now racing to process this new, horrifying data, shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice sharp with certainty. “For one soul to be an anomaly is a statistical possibility. For all forty-seven to suffer the exact same fate? That's not a malfunction. That's sabotage. It’s a targeted attack.”
“The mind, the body, the soul,” Sukuna explained, his voice taking on the instructional tone of a master lecturing his pupils. “They are a trifecta. Damage one, and the whole may yet survive. Remove one entirely…” He looked at the row of coffins. “…and you are left with this. An empty vessel.” He paused, a look of cold, analytical respect entering his eyes.
“This was not a scattering. This was a precise extraction. Someone plucked their souls out.”
The group fell silent, the chilling implication of his words sinking in.
“The mastermind,” Cú finally breathed, his voice a low growl.
“Porca miseria,” Da Vinci whispered, her usual brilliance eclipsed by a grim fury. “If you are right, then we have underestimated them. They prepared a countermeasure for our last hope. They had Lev sabotage every single Master Candidate to ensure that, even if we could heal their bodies, there would be no one left to fight.”
Her final words hung in the frigid air. The hope that had blossomed in Romani only moments before withered and died. He stared at the row of pristine, empty bodies, his expression going blank. The datapad he was holding slipped from his numb fingers and clattered onto the metal floor.
Da Vinci reacted instantly, a firm, supporting hand on his arm. “Roman,” she said, her voice sharp but not unkind. “Breathe. We are not done yet.” She then looked to the two warriors. “I’m taking him to the infirmary. Don’t break anything while I’m gone.”
With that, she guided the shell-shocked doctor out of the cryo-bay, leaving Sukuna and Cú Chulainn alone in the silent tomb.
The silence stretched for a long moment, broken only by the low hum of the coffins. It was Cú who finally shattered it, a low chuckle echoing in the sterile room. He turned to face the four-armed being, a wide, challenging grin spreading across his face.
“Well now, King,” he began. “If I recall, we had a wager back in that burning city. And if my memory serves me right, I won. You accepted the girls as part of the team, didn’t you?”
Sukuna’s four eyes, which had been observing the coffins with a detached interest, shifted to him. They widened ever so slightly in recognition.
Cú’s grin widened in triumph. His runed staff materialized in his hand with a soft shimmer of light, and he leaned on it casually. “So, the question is,” he pressed, “when do I get that spar you owe me?”
A slow, predatory grin mirrored Cú’s on Sukuna’s faces. “Your memory is flawed, Hound,” he rumbled. “The wager also stipulated that you would not intervene in their battle. Yet you were the one to land the final blow.”
“Not so fast, King,” Cú countered, his grin turning sharp. “The wager wasn't just 'can they win.' It was 'can they prove themselves.' And you were the one who gave the order to 'Finish it.' That was your concession. That was you admitting they passed the test. Me stepping in wasn't a violation of the terms; it was me acting on the result after I'd already won the bet.” He leaned on his staff, smug. “A technicality, maybe. But I'm still right.”
“So it seems we have reached an impasse,” Sukuna said, his grin never faltering.
“That we have,” Cú laughed. “How about this? We both broke the rules, so we both lost… and we both won.” He straightened up. “I get my spar. And since I’m a man of my word, I’ll owe you one favor. Anything within my power to grant.”
Sukuna considered the offer for a moment, his crimson eyes gleaming with a strange light. “Teach me your Runecraft.”
The Caster’s confident expression was replaced by one of genuine surprise. He blinked, genuinely taken aback for a moment. “Heh, you want to learn my runes?” He let out a short, sharp laugh, shaking his head. “I have to admit, King, that's not what I was expecting.” He paused, a look of dawning understanding crossing his face. “Then again, it makes perfect sense. I've seen you work. A master of so many different crafts… of course you wouldn't leave a stone unturned.” He nodded, a new level of respect in his eyes. “You're direct, I'll give you that.”
“I am not too proud to seek knowledge,” Sukuna stated. “Nor was there ever anyone in a position to deny me.”
Cú’s surprise melted back into that feral grin. “Alright then,” he said, his knuckles whitening around his staff. “But first things first.” The very air around him began to crackle with contained power. “Are you ready?”
Sukuna’s own grin widened until it seemed his face was about to split. In response, a heavy, suffocating pressure slammed back into the room. A fierce, blue battle-light flared to life in Cú’s eyes as the floor beneath them began to vibrate. The metal walls of the chamber groaned under the strain of their clashing auras. Alarms began to flicker, and then the entire facility shook with a deep, violent tremor—
“I know you two are excited,” a voice, bright and utterly exasperated, cut through their building power.
The door hissed open to reveal Da Vinci, her arms crossed, with a worried-looking Mash standing just behind her. She pointed a stern finger at the rows of coffins lining the walls. “But not here. Have you forgotten where you are?”
The pressure from both beings vanished in an instant.
Cú let out a theatrically long and frustrated sigh. “You just had to go and ruin all the fun, didn’t you?”
“There is a place for this,” Da Vinci replied, her smile returning. “A training room, though I must insist you do not go all out. I’d rather not have the entire facility vanish from existence because you two got carried away.”
Cú’s excitement immediately returned. “A dedicated room for sparring? Well, what are you waiting for? Lead the way, beautiful!”
Da Vinci laughed, a sound that finally seemed to chase the last of the room’s grim shadows away. “Very well,” she said, turning with a swish of her dress. “Follow me.”
And so, the new and frankly terrifying heart of Chaldea’s fighting force followed the Universal Genius from the tomb of their fallen hopes, eager for a battle to begin.
----------------------------
The room Da Vinci led them to was not the grand, reality-bending Simulator bay, but a cavernous, reinforced hangar clearly repurposed from storage. Heavy metal plates lined the walls, and the floor was a single, seamless slab of reinforced concrete.
“Apologies for the less-than-opulent arena,” Da Vinci announced, her voice echoing in the vast space. “The primary simulators are still down for power conservation. This is the sturdiest, most isolated room we have. Now,” she said, her expression turning from apologetic hostess to stern proctor, “the rules are simple. Try not to bring the entire facility down on our heads. I’ve taken the liberty of reinforcing the observation room, but my protections only go so far.”
She gestured to the walls, where the faint, blue glow of Cú Chulainn’s runes could be seen humming faintly. A single, iron nail lay innocuously on the floor near the center of the room—Sukuna’s much cruder, but no less effective, contribution to containing their battle.
“Ready when you are, handsome,” Da Vinci chirped, before she and Mash sealed themselves behind a thick pane of magi-tech glass in a small observation booth.
Sukuna and Cú Chulainn faced each other across a hundred feet of open floor. Cú held his wooden staff loosely in a two-handed grip, a lazy, predatory slouch in his posture. Sukuna stood relaxed, his lower arms crossed over his chest, his upper arms hanging loose at his sides.
“Don’t hold back because I’m a Caster, King,” Cú’s voice cut through the silence, his grin sharp. “I’d hate for our first dance to be a boring one.”
“Show me if you are worth the effort, Hound,” Sukuna rumbled in response, a slow, predatory smile of his own spreading across his faces.
The quiet standoff lasted only a breath. Then Cú moved.
He didn’t charge; he flowed. He closed the distance in a series of blurring, angular steps, his staff becoming a phantom that left afterimages in the air as he tested Sukuna’s defenses. A high thrust aimed for the throat. A low sweep meant to buckle a knee. A sharp, snapping strike at the temple. It was a masterclass in controlling distance, using his weapon’s superior reach to keep his opponent on the defensive.
Sukuna met the assault with an economy of motion that was unnerving. He did not retreat. He did not dodge. His four arms moved with inhuman, independent coordination. His upper left hand would deflect the staff’s tip with an open palm. In the same instant, his lower right would slap the weapon's shaft, disrupting Cú’s follow-up. He was a fortress of flesh, turning aside every probe with contemptuous ease, his feet remaining planted on the floor.
Frustrated by the impenetrable defense, Cú changed tactics. Feinting another high strike, he instead planted the butt of his staff on the floor and used it as a pivot, his body spinning in a vicious roundhouse kick aimed at Sukuna’s midsection. At the same moment, the rune on his palm flashed. A contained, invisible wave of pure force erupted from the kick, designed to blast his opponent off his feet.
Sukuna saw the flash. Instead of bracing, he did the last thing Cú expected; he took the full force of the blow. The invisible blast smashed into him, shoving him back a single, sliding step, but in that same instant, all four of his arms shot forward, closing like a cage around Cú’s extended leg. He had tanked the magical blow just to trap his opponent.
A spark of genuine surprise flared in Cú’s eyes. Before Sukuna could exert his monstrous strength and shatter the captured limb, the Caster reacted on pure instinct. The staff, held in one hand, slammed back down onto the floor, and he used it to vault himself upwards, his captured leg wrenching free from Sukuna's grip as his body contorted in a feat of impossible acrobatics. He landed silently twenty feet away, the lazy grin back on his face, but a new, sharp respect in his eyes.
“Clever,” Cú admitted, rolling his shoulders. “Not many would eat a rune-shot just to get a hold.”
“Your tricks are mundane,” Sukuna replied, a flicker of genuine pleasure in his four crimson eyes. This was more interesting. The Hound had instincts.
This time, Sukuna was the one to initiate. He exploded forward, his speed a jarring match for the Caster's own. He closed the distance instantly, unleashing a ferocious barrage of hand-to-hand strikes. It was not a flurry; it was a storm. Four fists, a relentless piston-like assault, targeting Cú’s head, chest, and legs simultaneously. The air crackled with the sound of his blows displacing it.
Now their roles were reversed. Cú became a whirlwind of desperate defense, his staff a spinning shield. He blocked a punch aimed at his face, the impact a thunderous crack that sent a shudder through the rune-hardened wood and numbed his entire arm. He used the shaft to parry two more strikes aimed at his ribs but was forced to abandon his staff to a single-handed grip as he brought his other hand up to slap away a fourth jab. He was being overwhelmed by sheer, multi-limbed volume. With a snarl of effort, he dropped low, sweeping his staff in a wide arc that forced Sukuna to leap back, giving him a precious moment to breathe.
“Four arms is just cheating, you know that?” Cú panted, though the grin on his face was wider than ever.
They began to circle each other, a silent agreement passing between them. The initial probing was over. Sukuna’s relaxed stance tightened, a clear, palpable killing intent now rolling off him in waves. In response, Cú’s staff began to hum, the runes etched into it glowing with a soft, blue light. He spun the weapon once, and as it came to a rest, a shimmering, contained sphere of unstable energy coalesced at its very tip, no larger than a fist.
Sukuna saw the energy gathering. He recognized it as a focused, potent attack. His own stance shifted. A watery, translucent shimmer distorted the air around his body, a visible field of power that seemed to warp the light itself. It was Domain Amplification. As he settled into this new state, a low, sharp snikt echoed in the room. His fingernails elongated, sharpening and hardening into black, claw-like talons.
Both men had unveiled a new weapon. Both were ready for the next stage.
Cú exploded forward again, a blue comet streaking across the concrete. His staff was not held for a swing or a jab; it was leveled like a lance, the shimmering ball of energy at its tip aimed directly at Sukuna’s abdomen. He wasn’t trying to out-maneuver him this time. He was banking on a direct, decisive blow.
Sukuna did not dodge. He met the charge head-on, his lower two arms crossed over his chest to take the brunt of the impact, his upper two held back, his new talons glinting in the hangar’s dim light, ready for his own counter.
The two forces met in the center of the room.
The sphere of energy at the tip of Cú’s staff struck the shimmering veil of Sukuna's Domain Amplification. For a split second, it was not neutralized, but dampened. The volatile magical energy of the rune sizzled and fought against the invasive field, its explosive potential being actively degraded by Sukuna’s technique, reducing its raw output. The rune-ball still detonated in a deep, concussive BOOM that shook the entire hangar, but its power was a fraction of what it should have been. The Amplification flared, absorbing the worst of the weakened magical blast, but the sheer physical impact was still immense.
In the single, violent instant of the explosion, before the shockwave could even blast him backwards, Sukuna’s upper right hand lashed out. His sharpened claws, reinforced with Cursed Energy, became four distinct razors. They sliced across the Caster’s face, a movement of surgical, vicious speed.
The concussive force of Cú’s attack sent Sukuna skidding back a full thirty feet, his sandals carving deep furrows into the reinforced concrete. He came to a halt, the front of his kimono singed, but a low, pleased rumble vibrated in his chest.
Cú, for his part, stumbled back only a single step, a thin, crimson line of four perfect scratches now drawn from his cheekbone to his jaw. A single drop of blood welled up and traced a path down his neck. He raised a hand, touching the wound, a look of shocked delight on his face. He brought his fingers away, looked at the blood on them, and then back at Sukuna.
Both men were grinning, a shared, feral expression of profound, violent joy. This was what they had been waiting for.
They launched themselves at each other again, two blurs of power and purpose meeting in a clash that promised only the beginning of their true battle.
----------------------------
From behind the magi-tech glass of the observation booth, the world had been reduced to a silent, violent ballet. Da Vinci stood beside her, completely engrossed, her eyes alight with an intense focus as she analyzed every impossibly fast exchange. Mash, however, saw something else. She saw a benchmark. A level of power and purpose so absolute, so far beyond her own reach, that it felt like staring into the sun. The sound was muted, but she could still feel the impacts through the floor—the deep, shuddering thuds of flesh meeting flesh, the sharp, cracking reports of Cú Chulainn’s staff intercepting a blow.
With every blur of motion, her own memories of the Fuyuki Singularity played out in stark, humiliating contrast. It had all started with that light, with the sensation of being reborn into fire. The power that had flooded her system was overwhelming, a gift from a knight whose name she couldn't even recall. It came with a purpose as solid and unwavering as the great shield that had materialized in her hands: Protect. It felt like a promise, not just to her new Master, but to herself. A promise that she, Mash Kyrielight, the girl who had known nothing but the sterile white walls of Chaldea, could finally be useful.
It was a promise she had broken almost immediately.
The bridge. The image was burned into her mind. She could still feel the bone-jarring impact of the Berserker’s blow, the sensation of being thrown through the air like a discarded toy. She had been defeated in a single, contemptuous strike. Her failure had a cost. She had watched, helpless, as the Director—Olga Marie Animusphere—was swatted from the bridge, her scream swallowed by the muddy water below. She had watched, paralyzed, as that monster turned its crimson gaze upon Senpai. Her Master was going to die because she was too weak. Because her new power, her entire reason for being, was meaningless against a true catastrophe.
And then, he had arrived. Sukuna. He hadn't saved Senpai with a heroic charge. He had simply intercepted the disaster, smashing into the Berserker with the casual force of a rival predator clearing its territory. He hadn’t done it for her. He had done it because the Berserker was an interesting challenge. In that moment, Mash understood. She wasn’t the shield that stood between her Master and death. She was merely a momentary inconvenience on the path to the real fight. He had done in an instant what she, a Servant designed for protection, had utterly failed to do.
That feeling of utter inadequacy had only solidified in the darkness of the bunker. She remembered his presence, a weight that made it hard to breathe, that made the very air feel cold and thin. She had only tried to ask about the Director, a simple question born of concern. His response wasn't a rebuke; it was a classification. "You are an insect," he had said, his voice quiet, almost conversational, yet it had struck her with more force than the Berserker's axe. It wasn’t an insult; it was a statement of fact from his perspective. Even with the power of a Heroic Spirit thrumming in her veins, to a being like him, she was still just a bug trying to speak at a king's table. And the worst part was, she believed him. Her actions had proven him right.
That was why the battle with the Lancer had felt so important. It wasn’t just a mission; it was a chance at redemption. A chance to prove to Senpai that her trust wasn’t misplaced. A chance to prove to the Doctor, her quiet, gentle father figure, that she wasn’t a failure of an experiment. A chance to prove to Olga Marie, wherever her spirit was, that she could be the soldier she needed. And maybe, just maybe, a chance to prove to Sukuna that she was more than an insect.
For a moment, it felt like she had a chance. Senpai’s strategy, the Director’s runes… they worked. The blinding flash, the triumphant feeling of smashing her shield into the Lancer, of bringing that entire building down upon her—it was a fleeting, glorious moment of success. She had been useful. They had been a team.
The feeling turned to ash in her mouth when the Lancer emerged from the rubble without a scratch, her expression one of pure, predatory amusement. She had been playing with them. Cú Chulainn’s arrival wasn’t a triumphant reinforcement; it was another rescue. Once again, she had been unable to finish a fight on her own. Once again, someone stronger had been needed to clean up her mess.
But then… then came the sky of swords. The Archer’s ultimate attack, a storm of death that she knew, with absolute certainty, she could not block piece by piece. Senpai’s voice, a desperate, final command fueled by the burning light of a Command Seal. And in that moment, something inside her had answered. The power had flooded her, and with it came a name, a concept whispered into the core of her soul. A fortress of white walls, a bastion of unwavering hope. For one shining, perfect moment, she had done it. She had been a hero. She had saved them all.
And what good had it done?
The image of Lev Lainur holding the Director in the air, a cruel, mocking smile on his face, returned with sickening clarity. Mash had stood there, her heart hammering against her ribs, the power of a conceptual fortress still buzzing in her arms, and she had done nothing. She had been frozen. A perfect, impenetrable shield is useless if you are too naive, too slow, too weak to raise it when it truly matters. It had been Sukuna, again, who had acted. It had been him who had saved the Director, however temporary that salvation had turned out to be.
The powers of a Demi-Servant… they hadn't changed a thing. She was still the same girl who had lived her entire life in the sheltered, sterile halls of Chaldea. The strength of a Heroic Spirit, the legacy of an unknown knight, the ultimate shield… it all felt like a borrowed suit of armor, far too big and heavy for the frightened child wearing it.
A sudden, deafening silence from the hangar jolted her from her spiraling thoughts. Beside her, Da Vinci let out a sharp, audible gasp. Mash's eyes snapped back to the sparring floor, focusing on the scene that had brought their furious dance to a halt.
The fight was over. A haze of steam and ozone hung in the air. Cú Chulainn was on the ground, one knee driven into the cracked concrete, his staff lying several feet away. Sukuna stood over him, his own posture a testament to the battle’s intensity. Angry, red energy burns, like fresh lightning scars, sizzled across the right side of his chest and down one of his upper right arms. But he was the victor. One of his lower hands was braced on Cú’s shoulder, pinning him in place. And his other hand, its fingernails elongated into black, vicious claws, was resting with an almost delicate pressure against the pale skin of Cú’s throat.
----------------------------
Sukuna held the position for a beat longer, a silent acknowledgment of his victory, before the pressure from his lower hand vanished and the claws at Cú’s throat retracted. A predatory grin remained on his faces as he extended his now-unblemished upper right hand—not a gesture of mercy, but of respect from one warrior to another.
Cú took the offered arm, and Sukuna hauled him to his feet with an easy strength. The Caster clapped his shoulder, dusting himself off with his free hand.
“Alright, alright, you win this round,” Cú conceded, his own grin returning, wide and unbothered by defeat. “But let’s be honest, King, this wasn’t a proper battle, now was it? Neither of us even came close to going all out.” He let out a theatrical sigh of lament. “Gods, it’s a shame I’m not a Lancer.”
One of Sukuna’s eyebrows arched in genuine interest. “Would that have changed the outcome?”
Cú’s smirk turned sharp and proud. “Changed it? It would have been a different fight entirely,” he declared, launching into a familiar, boastful tirade. “As a Lancer, I’d have my own spear, for one. A weapon that knows my grip, one that has a nasty little habit of seeking the heart. My body would be stronger, tougher. And the speed…” He shook his head, a look of true yearning in his eyes. “Heh. As I am now, you and I are a decent match in a footrace. As a Lancer? The wind itself would have trouble keeping up. I’d have finished that whole Singularity myself before you even woke up.”
A look of faint, almost imperceptible surprise crossed Sukuna’s faces. He could tell, with the certainty of a being who has judged the souls of countless men, that the Hound was not lying. He wasn’t delusional. The power he spoke of was real.
“Intriguing,” Sukuna rumbled, his tone laced with a familiar, condescending amusement. “In that form, perhaps you would have been a slight challenge.”
“You don’t even know the half of it, you bas—,” Cú started to retort, his laugh booming, but was cut off by the sound of hurried footsteps approaching from the observation booth.
Both warriors turned. It was Mash. She ran onto the hangar floor, stopping a few feet before them. Her expression was a mask of pure, desperate resolve. Without a word, she lowered herself into a deep, formal bow, her forehead nearly touching the concrete floor.
Her voice, when it came out, was trembling but clear, ringing with a conviction that cut through the lingering battle energy in the room. “Please,” she began, her head still bowed. “I need your help. Both of you.”
She looked up then, her violet eyes meeting theirs, raw and pleading but completely devoid of fear.
“Please… train me. Help me become someone worthy of this power.”
Sukuna’s expression was impassive, his four crimson eyes observing her with an unreadable, analytical stillness. Cú Chulainn, however, broke into a wide, warm grin. He rested his staff on his shoulder, a new, genuine respect in his eyes as he looked down at the kneeling girl.
“Heh,” he chuckled, the sound deep and approving. “Got some fire in you after all, huh, Shielder?”
He looked from her determined face to Sukuna’s silent form, his grin widening.
“Alright,” he declared, speaking for the both of them. “Don’t see why not. Could be fun.”
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Notes:
Thank you for reading the chapter, everyone!
This was a decently longer one, at around 5,000 words, so I appreciate you sticking with it.
I'm sure a few questions might have popped up, so I want to address the most significant one: the soulless Masters. To give a simple explanation, this was done to avoid a situation where Chaldea has 48 Masters and Servants, which would make the story's challenges far too easy. Beyond that, there is a lore-based reason that will be explored later on. If you'd like to know now, I have discussed the details with some people over on the Questionable Questing site.
More content for both this and 'OF ALIENS, MAGIC AND SUPERHEROES' available on patreon.com/st_scarface so be sure to check that out.
As always, feel free to leave any other questions you may have in the comments below. Your feedback is very helpful, so please leave a review and point out any errors you spot.
Ciao!
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Last Edited Fri 15 Aug 2025 07:39PM UTC
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