Chapter Text
Winter clung to the house like a lover, undone and discarded, easy with frost.
Sukuna hardly felt it. Cold fled before fire, and he had fire to spare. Or maybe it was just the rot, sunk deep enough in his gut to pretend at divinity. Perhaps the gods had punished him with flame, so that he would never know the relief of warmth.
Sukuna didn’t know, and didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Gods could be devoured just as easily as men, if it pleased him.
Today, it did not. Today, nothing pleased him.
It was a chill day. The wind carried the smell of wood smoke, the furl of blood. Promising, if Sukuna hadn’t known how dull the battlefields were in the north. It had been months since he’d fought anyone worth remembering, weeks since he’d fucked a hole tight enough to please him. The days slid together like bones, grinding themselves to dust. Sukuna slept, and ate, and wandered when it suited him.
Boredom, he’d found, tasted like ash.
“Lord Sukuna.”
Sukuna hummed, staring into the snow. There was little to feel.
“I’ve prepared dinner, my lord, if it pleases you.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Deer from the mountains,” Uraume answered, with a bow. It would be good. Everything Uraume made was, and they’d only gotten better over the years.
“Yes,” Sukuna decided, “I’m hungry.”
He turned from the snow, and into the house. There was little to watch, anyway.
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The next day passed much the same. Sukuna slept, ate, and read, lounging across an open door, forcing the snow to amuse him. The wind crawled past his stare, into the room and the halls beyond.
He let it.
The house stayed quiet. Blanketed in snow, and all the colder for it. It didn’t matter. Uraume forged a deeper cold each night, and Sukuna had never felt it, even when they traveled together. The wind could do little, not to them, and no one else came to the main house for long. There weren’t many in the compound. A few scattered servants that had decided to stay, when he’d taken the house on a whim. They stayed away, cowering in the side houses, huddled for warmth.
As they should. Sukuna found most of the servants tiresome, and the need for them minimal. He’d never needed others to survive. For comfort, yes. Sukuna couldn’t weave the fabric for his robes any better than he could fill his own shrines with offerings. But comfort was just a way to pass the time. It didn’t wash the ash from his tongue.
So the main house stayed quiet. Empty, when Sukuna took to wandering. Still, it was a pretty enough place. The den of a monster, Sukuna mused. It was a beautiful den. That amused him, for now. Maybe tomorrow, he’d lose interest. Maybe he’d burn it all.
Winter was long.
“My lord,” Uraume murmured, bowing, as the sun began to set.
Sukuna glanced at them. “Mm?”
“You’ve been invited to the spring festival in the capital.”
Sukuna snorted. “Those cowards.”
“Will you go, my lord?”
Sukuna shrugged, careless. “Who knows? Spring is a long way off, yet.”
The snow was still deep and endless.
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The next day, the same. Winter made for slow days, and slower nights. Sukuna sighed, tossing the scroll he’d been reading to the side. It was good, elegant poetry. One of the lesser known Sugawara, with a deft touch for wordplay.
Sukuna was tired of it.
“I’m getting bored, Uraume,” he said, as the sun set into the snow.
There was a nod, a bow. “I took the liberty of preparing for a journey, my lord. We can leave whenever you wish.”
“Oh?” He looked at them, teeth sharp. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
Sukuna threw his head back, and laughed.
“Good,” he said, and stood, stretching four arms into the dying light. “Let’s go.”
And so they did.
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They wandered.
Mountain gave way to hill, to field, to river. To people, sometimes, small villages cut into the path they walked. There was no purpose, to the journey. He wanted to travel, and so they did, Sukuna following his whims, and Uraume following him.
The food was decent, and the sights refreshing. Sukuna found a few curses worth the name, and enjoyed devouring them.
One was near one of his shrines, a hulking skeleton, clattering in and out of sight like the moon, before clouds. There must have been a village nearby, though it’d be dust and corpses now, Sukuna mused, counting the bones. It made sense. Winter was the time for hunger.
“Oh? It prepared itself for me,” Sukuna laughed, when he saw it, perching, on the steps up.
“As is appropriate,” Uraume murmured.
“Come on, then,” Sukuna said, beckoning to the beast. “You know hunger, don’t you? Let’s see if it matches mine.”
It did not.
Still, it was an enjoyable enough fight. The shrine didn’t survive it, and neither did half the forest around them. Sukuna rolled out his shoulders, and looked up, at the stars. He didn’t reach for them.
“Let’s head back,” he decided.
“Of course, Lord Sukuna,” Uraume agreed, and so they did.
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They arrived at the main house in the jaws of a snowstorm. Neither of them cared.
The side houses burned with a muffled light in the darkness. The desperate heat of a fire, holding the snow at bay. The main house was dark. Sealed tight, but cold in the snow. There was no fire to keep it warm. They’d never needed it.
Uraume stepped inside, and turned to Sukuna, bowing. “Welcome home, Lord Sukuna. I can prepare a meal, if you’d like.”
Sukuna let the snow melt on his skin, and waved that away.
“No need,” he said, and burned a path through the snow.
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The next day, Sukuna slept, warm in the cold.
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A few days passed. They were uninteresting.
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The next day, a challenger approached the house.
“Lord Sukuna,” the man said, on two knees and low enough to keep his head, but peering up, insolent. “Please, do me the honor of a fight.”
Sukuna tilted, chin settling on one palm. The doors were open, but he didn’t feel the cold.
“Why?”
“A year ago, you killed my rival. I would measure myself against you, as I can no longer fight against her.”
Sukuna snorted. “Measuring yourself against others only stunts your growth. You should want to kill me for yourself, for your own hunger. Not for a dead woman.”
“I—“
There was a pause. A swallow.
Sukuna asked, “do you want to be strong?”
“Yes,” the man answered, and finally, his eyes were hungry, “I want to be stronger than— I want to beat you.”
“A better answer.”
Sukuna hummed. Looked down, and considered the man. A sword, gleaming with a curse. Promising callouses across the palms, and a decent weft of cursed energy. The man had introduced himself with a clan name, too. A noble, from one of the many houses of the many sorcerers. Unimportant, in all ways that truly mattered, but it meant a technique to look forward to, if Sukuna was lucky.
Yes, he decided. He wanted this.
“I’ve been bored,” he told the man, standing, “so make this worth my time.”
They fought out in the snow, beside the house. The man was decent, but not more than that. Not clever enough to use the full range of his technique even pushed to the edge of death and held there, as Sukuna demanded he grow.
Eventually, Sukuna’s patience ran out.
“Come, now,” he drawled, and ripped off an arm, throwing it to one side. “You can do better than that.”
The man couldn’t, as it turned out.
“Do you—“ a wet, choking breath, near death— “do you remember fighting her?”
“No,” Sukuna said, and it was the truth.
A howl ripped from the man’s throat. Anguished, for a woman long dead. Pathetic.
“You won’t remember me, either.”
“No,” Sukuna agreed, “I won’t. But you entertained me well enough.”
The man smiled, bloody.
“I’ll take pride, in that,” he said, and died.
Sukuna left his body in the snow. The wolves would come for it, in the night.
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The next day, Sukuna rolled from sleep and straight into the crisp winter sun. He stretched, muscles pleasantly warm, despite the chill.
Stretches in the courtyard, he decided. Then he’d put his body through a workout no opponent could match.
He settled into the movement, feeling the strength of his body, the give and stretch of his limbs.
His mind wandered to the day before.
A rival, he mused. What a stupid thing to die for. Sukuna didn’t understand the urge to grow stronger with someone, instead of alone. It was pointless. Life didn’t work like that. Either you chained them into mediocrity, or they chained you.
There was no use for a rival. Not in this world. There was only kindling, and flame.
⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰
The next day, Sukuna took a bow from the armory and went hunting.
It was an interesting challenge, killing beasts without cursed energy, without his bare hands. Not difficult, but nothing was. Sukuna still enjoyed it, in a way. The bow was a tool, and Sukuna its master.
Archery had always suited his nature. In another life, he’d have learned to use a bow before he’d learned to use teeth. It didn’t matter, now.
Sukuna felt the edge of his bowstring, and kept walking.
The snow sunk under his heels, compressed until it was reshaped, remade. He didn’t rush. There was nowhere to rush to. The day was quiet, peaceful, and dull. So many days were.
Sukuna wanted a challenge. A bear, maybe, or a boar. He stepped around a tree, wide enough to hold the divine. Only frost clung to its branches. Only snow.
Sukuna kept moving.
And then—
A man, where there’d been only snow.
Sukuna lowered his bow, the wood warm under his fingers. He hadn’t felt an approach, hadn’t even felt a hint of cursed energy. The air had been empty of all but the cold, and then it was filled, taken, claimed.
The snow shifted. The man took a breath, and another, panting. He looked like winter itself had strut down from mountain, and come to play.
He was beautiful. He was also strong.
Sukuna had a good eye for game. He’d hunted since he could remember, starving from the first bloody crawl from the womb. For food, at first. Then for spite, and at last for sport.
The man in front of him was rare prey.
Hair like snow, eyes like the sky’s reflection in ice. Tall enough to scrape his teeth across Sukuna’s shoulder, with a strength to match that hunger— in both muscle and cursed energy. Less than Sukuna, of course, but still a worthy meal.
Not fresh, which was a pity. There was a hint of blood below the nose, a sour taste to his energy. The man had been in a fight, and recently. Sukuna noticed the body draped across one shoulder and ignored it. Whoever the man was carrying was alive. He didn’t care to know more, and it didn’t matter.
All that temptation, and none of it was important. No, what caught Sukuna’s hunger was the energy, smeared across every bit of skin the man had. It was more than familiar— it was impossible.
“What an entrance,” Sukuna said, breath puffing clouds into the cold air. “Teleportation? That’s a rare technique. Where did you come from?”
“Sukuna,” came easy, “I like to make a good first impression. Can’t have you thinking I’m boring.”
So, the man knew him. Well, Sukuna supposed he’d already known that. It was impossible not to. Still, that tone was strange. Light, like wind on a spring morning.
It almost sounded like hope.
Curious.
“As if I could,” Sukuna said, tasting fire. “You’re covered in my residuals. Odd, considering I don’t remember fighting you.”
“Yeah, I’m drenched in the stuff.” A pat to the body on one shoulder. “So’s Megumi, but he didn’t have a choice.”
Interest grew, coals put to timber. “And you think you did.”
“I know I did,” the man corrected, eyes bright as a star, “I’m hard to force.”
“Oh? Let’s find out.”
Sukuna flicked a finger, and sliced the world. He never touched the man.
“Interesting,” he said, watching more closely. He cut again, and again, and again. No change, no blood. Not even the slightest flinch of reaction.
Sukuna found himself intrigued.
In a flash, he stepped in, punch aimed for the tender skin of the belly. His fist never connected. The man was gone, nearly faster than Sukuna’s eyes could track, and Sukuna only just caught the blur of white across the winter snow. That speed… no, it wasn’t just speed.
He turned, grinning.
“That’s a nice technique. Show me more.”
“Much as I love a fight,” the man said, two fingers pointing at Sukuna’s face, “I don’t have time for you to test me. So let me do it for you.”
The world turned red, wild, and explosive. Sukuna dodged what he could, and blocked what he couldn’t. That cost him six fingers, devoured by power with hungry teeth. It would have been more, Sukuna thought, had the man not been so clearly worn from a fight. It would have been much more.
Blood dripped down, into the snow. Drop by drop, spark by spark. For the first time in weeks, months, long days ground and powdered into ash, on his tongue— the blood was his.
It began to snow. Slowly. Sluggishly. Flake by wandering flake.
“Very interesting,” Sukuna corrected, shaking out his healing hands. The feel of blood was sweeter than honey. “The boy dying across your shoulders is your limit, I take it. You haven’t healed him yourself— you can’t, can you? So you must know that I can, and you’ve come crawling.”
“Crawling?” The man snorted, rolling his eyes. “Please. That’d never work on you.”
Sukuna smirked. “It might. You’d look good on your knees.”
“And I’d bore you as soon as I got there. Keep up, Sukuna. Time limit, remember? Let’s keep the posturing short.”
“Don’t rush me,” Sukuna warned, “or I’ll let him bleed out in the snow. The sun’s barely hit its zenith, little sorcerer. There’s plenty of time before dark to watch him die.”
There was a moment, then, when he thought the man would attack. Those eyes watched and watched, divine sinew uncoiling from bone. They looked like the heavens, Sukuna mused. He wanted to destroy them. He wanted to reshape that beauty around his teeth.
The man sighed.
“If he dies, I’ll kill you,” and then, “but fine. Say whatever you want.”
He made a gesture, with one hand. Nearly beckoning, as if inviting Sukuna to continue. Insulting. Sukuna had never needed an invitation.
“That’s better,” Sukuna purred, smirking. “Obedience suits you.”
The man twitched, mouth twisting. It made Sukuna’s smirk grow. Thoughtful, he looked over the man, over the long limbs and the strength, the beauty.
“You know me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Know you?” The man shrugged, readjusting the body across his shoulder. His hands were gentle. “No, not really. Understand you? Yeah. I’m the only one who ever will.”
Sukuna felt rot burn in his gut. “You expect me to believe a lie like that? How stupid.”
“Good thing it’s not a lie.”
“So, what? A delusion? Just as foolish.”
“Not that either,” the man said, and those eyes were looking to unmake Sukuna, somehow. Strange. “I’m the strongest,” and that came like it was easy to say, before Sukuna, like it was true, “and you act like you don’t believe me, but I know you do. It’s not just the residuals. You can feel it in your gut,” a wide, vicious smile, “beasts understand beasts.”
“Beasts can be prey,” Sukuna dismissed, “and you’re nothing but meat to me. Still, you’re daring, I’ll give you that.”
“And you’re interested.”
“I’m going to enjoy devouring you,” Sukuna said, light, pleasant, but it came straight from his marrow.
“Good,” the man replied, grinning. “That means you want answers, doesn’t it? I’ll make this easy. Heal him,” the man tapped the body on his shoulder, “and I’ll answer three of your questions truthfully.”
“Do you usually beg for help after firing a cursed technique at someone’s face?”
“Only with you,” came with a baring of teeth. Sukuna liked the look of it.
“I could just take what I want from you.”
“Even if you managed to kill me,” the man said, like it was in doubt at all. Fascinating, “you still wouldn’t have any answers.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Sukuna drawled. “Pain is a good motivator.”
“Not good enough for me.”
Sukuna hummed, considering. That could have been a lie, and could have been truth. There were men who could keep their mouths shut even as their guts were spilled to the floor and smeared like ink. Sukuna should know. He’d done plenty of smearing.
The wind shifted, and the snow shifted with it, catching at the edge of the world and dusting out. It didn’t touch the man— it stopped, caught in the air, frozen when it should have melted.
Yes, Sukuna decided, tasting nothing but promise. He was curious enough to indulge.
“From the desperation on your face, that boy is worth more than three.”
“I’ll throw in a fight, too,” came drawling, “on the house.”
“Eleven questions,” Sukuna said, “and you stay where I want you until they’re answered. The fight, you’ll challenge me for later. You look worn out. I want you fresh.”
“Oh, you’ll be the challenger. But sure, I’ll agree to that. You heal him, and I’ll stay close enough to annoy you.”
“Punk,” Sukuna said, all teeth. “You’re bold, for a man that came to beg.”
“You wouldn’t respect anything else. And I’m not the type to roll over.”
Sukuna laughed. He was amused, he realized. Oh, eager to put the brat in his place, and happy to devour him, but amused, too.
“You’ll learn,” Sukuna said, smirking, and then, “very well. I agree to those terms.”
He felt a pact settle across his skin, binding, with sharp teeth. It was warm. Like jaws, closing around his throat. He let them close. Let the teeth sink in.
It was familiar.
Sukuna had made a habit of pacts, over the years. Bounds on his power for a challenge, deals to push the edge of his strength, sand turning to glass under his flame. Pacts were entertaining. One spark of interest in the wasteland of apathy. He had a feeling this one would be particularly interesting.
He stepped forward. The snow sunk beneath his feet, pressed down to ice.
Step, step, and then Sukuna was there, before the man, claiming the space between them. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t shift. There was no fear, in those eyes. Only a cold rage.
Sukuna liked the look of it.
And then—
Blood, dripping down the man’s face. A thin red line from the nose. It was gone as fast as it appeared, wiped away.
Sukuna raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? Don’t tell me you can’t use reverse cursed technique. That would be pathetic.”
“Please, I’m better at it than you are.”
“Mhm. And yet, still bleeding from the brain.”
“You know why,” the man said, with sharp eyes, and he was right. Sukuna had a guess, and that guess was almost certainly correct. It was also nearly impossible. Many things seemed to be, around this man.
“Very well,” Sukuna decided, following a bloody whim, “you first.”
He reached out. His fingers caught in the air, held in the space between snow and skin.
“Now, now, Sukuna,” the man said, “touching me wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Release your technique or I’ll force my way through,” Sukuna drawled. He could have activated domain amplification. He didn’t. Not yet. “I don’t care which you choose, but you will choose. Delaying will delay healing the boy.”
There was a moment, then, of quiet. Of snow.
Then the man sighed.
“Fine,” came like a cataclysm, “you want to heal me first? Be my guest.”
The technique vaporized, steam, burning before flame. There was a wild glee in those eyes. It looked like madness.
Sukuna put two fingers to the man’s forehead. His skin was cold. Burned, by the snow, Sukuna mused, and forced energy to boil through the man’s body— only to pause, blinking.
This was…
“What a mess,” Sukuna said, tapping his fingers. Beneath that pristine skin was a body ravaged. The brain alone was bleeding in a thousand ways, running hotter than Sukuna’s flame. He’d expected damage. He hadn’t expected this.
“It’s astonishing you can use your technique at all, little sorcerer.”
“It shouldn’t be. I’m the best, after all.”
That was less absurd than it’d seemed, a moment ago.
It was still wrong.
Sukuna said nothing, feeling the damage. It was strange, severe, and fascinating. Sukuna wanted to pick it to pieces. He healed it, mending the strain with a deft touch.
“There,” he said, and moved his hand to the boy. “You behaved well. Good job.”
“Complimenting me already? I thought I’d have to work for it.”
Sukuna snorted, and forced his cursed energy across the boy’s wounds. There were more than he’d expected, for the amount of blood, but—
Ah, yes. Sukuna understood now. The energy shimmering like mist over the boy, tight against the skin. A technique, of some kind. Not healing, or the smell of blood wouldn’t be so fresh, but it was certainly doing something.
Again, curious.
The body didn’t shift, as he healed it. The boy— on the sharp edge of a man, maybe 15– was cold, still, and quiet. Sukuna narrowed his eyes, and looked closer.
“His soul is—“
“I know,” the man cut in, all teeth.
“So,” Sukuna drawled, and pulled his hand away. The boy was physically healed, now. The soul was another matter entirely. “I did this.”
It wasn’t a question. The man still answered.
“You did, yeah. Bit pathetic that you kept possessing teenagers, you know? Thought the king would pick someone a little bigger.”
“Oh? More than one, then.”
“You’ll have to ask me to find out,” the man chirped, bright as a star.
Sukuna chuckled, smirking right back. “No need. I don’t care who I used.”
The man scoffed. “You wouldn’t.”
“This is going to be an interesting story,” Sukuna mused, and turned away. “Follow me.”
He didn’t need to look. With the pact, the man was helpless but to obey. Sukuna shifted his bow to another hand, fingers moving across the wood. It was cold. Much of the world was. He paused, in the snow.
“What’s your name?”
“Satoru,” the man said, and then, “you wasted your first question on that? Seriously?”
“They’re mine to waste,” Sukuna drawled, “and so are you.”