#⚠️ Profuse Gore ⚠️

[osunism]

HIGHBALL

"Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat." —Oscar Wilde

🔞 Rating: Explicit ❤️‍🔥 Relationship[s]: Sukuna/Nadja/Toji ⚠️ Be Advised: Gun violence, descriptions of blood and gore, explicit sexual situations [gunplay, torture, and mild exhibitionism], adult language. This is a non-curse AU so there is no jujutsu, but it is still a violent world of organized crime. 🪧 Summary: Sukuna and Nadja are living an idyllic life as former figures in the rotten underbelly of organized crime. When an old contact of Nadja's shows up on their doorstep with a dire warning, the trio must prepare to do what they must to protect their newfound peace.

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🌻 Prelude: The Season of Flowers 🐅 Act I: Idyll's End 🐉 Act II: Exhumed ⛩️ Act III: Legacy

⛩️ AO3 ᪥ OC Masterpost ᪥ Fic Masterpost ⛩️

🌻 Prologue I: Sunflower Woman

     The first time Sukuna met her, she’d been leaned over a flower stall, nose-deep in a sunflower, eyes shut in private bliss at something as simple as beauty and fragrance. Sukuna would never forget that day: she was wearing a jersey-knit dress the color of marigolds, and it hugged her full curves, giving her a lovely silhouette. The rich color was vibrant against her warm, umber skin, and Sukuna recalled biting his lip at the sight of her nipples poking through the fabric, of the swell of her rear’s shape seen from behind. Her hair, a charming profusion of jet-black braids, was piled on top of her head. A pair of golden earrings dangled from her lobes, glinting in the early afternoon sun.

     He watched her chatter with the florist, and her smile was everything.

     Then she turned her head to look at him, her dark eyes snagging on his. Immediately, she smiled at him, averting her eyes almost shyly.

     Sukuna approached, never one to turn down a hunt for worthy prey, greeting her with his signature smirk. He hoped she didn’t mind his tattoos. He wasn’t sure what foreigners’ views on tattoos were, but judging from her shy but interested gaze, and her posture, he’d argue she didn’t mind.

     “Hello, beautiful,” he said to her. “I hope you don’t mind my being forward, but you are the loveliest person I’ve seen today.”

     The woman raised her brows in surprise, and her smile was warm enough to melt butter. He could almost feel the flush of heat in her cheeks as she let out a sultry little laugh.

     “Oh, I bet a handsome devil like you uses that line on all the girls,” she teased.

     Sukuna laughed, taking her teasing good-naturedly. “Only the ones I hope will have coffee with me.”

     She tilted her head, dark eyes sparkling. “Coffee, hm?” She asked.

     “Just coffee,” Sukuna said. “After that, you can continue to indulge me or tell me to fuck off.”

     As it so happened, she did continue to indulge him. She indulged him over coffee, taking a unique and keen interest in his life and of course his appearance. Then, unwilling to be parted, she indulged him over dinner later, and then he offered her an invitation to his penthouse.

     And she indulged him throughout the night. Sukuna had had his fair share of good pussy over the years, but this woman was uninhibited passion in the flesh. It had taken some flirtation—which she seemed shy about—and she finally worked up the nerve to ask him for what she wanted.

     And that’s how she wound up riding him on his couch, her dress hiked up around her waist, her panties tossed somewhere across the room. Sukuna held her, thought he’d have to guide her, but she rode him like she wanted to break herself on him. She took his cock as best she could, he’d give her that, and seeing her split around him was a sight he’d be fucking his fist to for weeks to come.

     All night he let himself be soaked in her sweat, her scent, and she screamed his name when she finally came.

     And then she indulged him some more. They retreated to his bedroom, stripping as they went, and he had her in his bed, fucking her deep and hard until her voice was hoarse, until her body was limp and pliant in his large hands. He bruised her, kissed her where he bruised her [and where he didn’t], and resituated their bodies with a lewd and raunchy ease. He took her in as many ways as either of them could garner the strength until they collapsed, spent and exhausted, dawn coloring the sky.

     Tulani’s sultry voice sounded best when moaning and whimpering his name, he thought. But he found he loved her voice shortly after waking too.

     One night turned into many over the course of several months, and Sukuna could safely say he had never been happier. Tulani was uninhibited, wickedly smart, and she kept him chasing. Somehow, she had divined his predatory nature, and it became a favorite sport of theirs to have him hunt her around the city while they spoke on the phone. They set rules of course: no questionable use of technology, and only restricted to light clues. It was both a way to discover parts of the city to enjoy and to give both the thrill of the chase and being chased. Sukuna had to admit she was good at keeping him guessing. And they’d found no less than five noodle stands that met their strict standards.

     The months turned into a year, and Sukuna began to think that maybe he’d found one person on this planet that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. No, that was a disservice to her. He knew he wanted her for himself. Wanted her forever. His sunflower woman.

     So, when he woke up one morning to her straddling him, a blade to his throat, it didn’t register for a moment.

     “Tulani?” He blinked and she came into focus, and when he felt the prick of the blade at his throat, he was instantly alert. Senses previously dulled by pleasure were honed, and defenses lowered after months of…after months of being worked on, thundered fiercely back into place.

     Sukuna had the reputation of speed on his side. Speed, accuracy, and adaptability. He’d also built a reputation as a particularly ruthless man. It was not the first time someone had held him at the edge of a blade. It was the first time someone he loved deeply had done it, and that hurt worse than the prick of steel on his skin.

     And what Sukuna didn’t know about Tulani revealed itself in the next several seconds. He moved, and he saw her eyes widen as he pitched her aside, taking her offending wrist and grinding the delicate bones until the blade dropped from her nerveless fingers.

     From there it was a war of attrition as Sukuna compartmentalized the shock of betrayal. A preying mantis had slipped into his bed, and he had the nerve to be shocked when she finally sought to be rid of him. Moreover, he had no idea who she worked for. He’d had her followed, and she’d led the most unassuming and mundane life, even worked an unassuming nine-to-five. Everything about her had been soft and ordinary and nothing like the bloody world Sukuna inhabited.

     And it had all been an act. A way to worm her way into his heart and mind, to get him to lower his guard so she could kill him.

     Fury, cold and blazing like a star in the void of space, hollowed in his gut.

     “If you tell me who you work for,” he said from behind a couch, reloading his pistol as quickly and efficiently with a practiced ease. “I’ll make your death a quick one.”

     There was no answer, and Sukuna’s senses strained to hear anything denoting movement. He checked his surroundings and could see nothing.

     The couch scraped just slightly, and Sukuna almost froze before he realized what was happening. He dove aside as two rounds pierced the back of the couch, sliding onto his knees to aim at her but she was already gone, having scrambled off the couch to find cover elsewhere.

     “Suddenly the strong and silent type?” He snarled from behind a stantion. His hearing strained again, and he heard the distinct sound of broken glass crunching. He dared to take a quick look, and barely ducked in time as a bullet whizzed past his face and shattered a vase behind him.

     Bitch.

     He was low on ammo, and Tulani was suspiciously silent. He went over the layout of the penthouse in his head and tried to account for the fact that what he knew, Tulani likely knew as well, if not more. He was her mission, after all.

     Sukuna decided to go on the offensive, moving through his home, cover to cover, checking his corners. He was thorough, and he was stealthy. He checked various places on his way to the dining room. She’d taken whatever weapons he’d had hidden around the penthouse, and he almost wanted to kiss her. She was good.

     “Why are you dragging this out?” He called from the dining room, and then moved into the kitchen. He waited, crouched between the doorway and the fridge, checking the safety on his gun before peering around the corner into the dining room. He saw the muzzle of her pistol lead into the room first and waited.

     Slowly, she lowered her weapon and stepped into view.

     Sukuna’s pistol barked once, and he heard her cry of pain, the sound of metal tearing through flesh as the round hit its mark. There was a smell, faint like heated metal and meat roasting. He saw drops of blood where Tulani once stood, and grinned. It appealed to the hunter in him, and in a twisted sense of irony, reminded him of the “games” they’d played where he would hunt her through the city.

     Sukuna followed her blood trail through the house, and found her in his bathroom, rummaging for supplies to tend to her wound. As he stepped into the bathroom, she held up her gun, pointed at him with a steady arm despite the blood loss spreading on his marble floor like a robust wine.

     “You don’t look so good, doll,” he teased, crimson eyes glittering with malicious glee. Tulani was sweating. He’d nicked nothing vital, but he’d come close to her knee. She was limping already, and he imagined the pain was not her friend.

     Still, her gun arm was fucking steady, but he had one round in the chamber, just for her pretty skull if she decided to test who was more lucid right now, and she knew it.

     “Who sent you?” Sukuna asked. “Was it Kamo? Zenin? That bastard Naobito pissed I’ve got his nephew on my roster?” He eyed her as she refused to speak, reaching for the bottle of alcohol to uncap it.

     “Nah,” Sukuna said, and when he took a step forward, her finger twitched near the trigger. “Hey!” She stumbled, letting go of the alcohol and leaning on the counter for support. Sukuna lowered his gun, went to her unthinking. When she held him at gunpoint, he didn’t even flinch. Instead, he walked right up to her until the barrel of her gun was pressed against his chest, right where it could pierce his heart when fired. He watched Tulani’s eyes widen slightly in disbelief.

     “Do it,” he said. “That’s why they paid you, right? Fucking do it, Tulani.”

     Tulani glared at him, but he could see her hesitation mixed with the pain from her wound. She needed to get the bullet fragments out, something that required a doctor and not her risky battle medicine she was about to engage in. But her gun arm was steady, if warbling just a bit.

     “If you’re not gonna shoot me, at least let me help you get patched up and we can sort out why you’re here.” Sukuna said. He reached up, slowing his movements to a crawl as he gently moved to lower her gun. Her arm shook as she resisted momentarily, but then she complied, looking away sullenly.

     “This changes nothing,” she said in a low voice. Sukuna gave a little derisive snort as he cleaned her wound, taking undue pleasure and amusement in her hisses of pain. The wound was a lot less severe than it initially looked, and he inspected it with an impartial gaze.

     “Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t,” Sukuna said, clucking his tongue condescendingly. “I imagine the price they paid for you to come for me was steep.”

     Without warning, he struck her with the butt of his pistol, catching her as she crumpled to the floor.

     It was the literal splash of ice water that woke her. Tulani came back to consciousness violently, gasping and thrashing against what she quickly realized were shibari ropes binding her to a steel chair. She frowned, growling and grunting in effort, but she knew the knots were true. Sukuna had bound her many times before this for far more pleasurable reasons. She’d fought hard to free herself on one occasion, and he’d watched in amusement as she brought herself to climax, struggling against his expert ropework.

     Judging from the barren look of the room, the single light, and the implements of pain arrayed on the walls, she guessed this was not a pleasurable shibari session.

     “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Sukuna purred, and grinned at her with a look of malicious glee. The sharp, violent lines of his facial tattoos seemed to warp, lending his handsome visage a more savage and ferocious appearance. Tulani took a deep, pensive breath, and exhaled hard and slow through her nostrils.

     “Cut to the chase,” she said coldly. “You want answers, and all of this,” she gestured with a jerk of her chin to the ambiance of the room: concrete, a drain likely to wash away the blood when it was over, and the implements of torture that had doubtless seen more blood than the Red Cross. “Is to frighten me into giving up my employer.”

     Sukuna didn’t speak, but his eyes, the color of rubies—or droplets of blood—glittered with curiosity and something else. Like a leviathan lurking beneath placid waters, Tulani caught a glimpse of the Two-Faced Demon of Tokyo’s Underworld. The right side of his face was scarred, likely from being burned. Tulani herself had kissed that scar many times. She knew him intimately, and Sukuna was beginning to realize he knew her not at all.

     “That’s part of it,” he said at last as his gaze slithered over her bound form. Tulani was fully clothed, her wound dressed [although the pain of it throbbed in the back of her mind]. Yet, Sukuna’s harrowing gaze made her feel naked. That part had not been an act: the sex had been spectacular, and his eye contact could flay a man alive or make one feel as if they were the only one in the world. There was, perhaps, a tinge of sorrow in her having to deceive him. He was worthy prey for her charms, after all.

     “And the other part?” She asked, lifting her chin a fraction, defiance in her dark eyes like a pinprick of torchlight against the darkness. It made Sukuna chuckle to see it. How proud, his Sunflower Woman, how utterly magnificent she was, even bound in defeat. She had been sent to hunt him directly, and he hadn’t even felt all the hooks she had in him until he tried to pull away. She was brilliant. He almost wanted to know how she planned it.

     But part of him already knew who sent her, and why.

     “I know Old Zenin knows better than to be so bold and direct even though he’s been wanting my territory for some time, but his nephew might be a little bull-headed and make a move…so impatient…” Sukuna remarked idly, walking toward a metal table, where gleaming surgical tools rested in a velvet-lined leather case he’d rolled out. Tulani did not have to strain to look to know that those blades were well-kept and lovingly tended. He would bleed her for information without killing her.

     “And I know Kamo is too chickenshit to ever challenge me,” Sukuna continued, his back to her as he inspected his unsettling array of edged implements. He settled on a paired set of one-sided blades called flechettes, their edges honed to such a fine edge the flesh beneath them would part like gauze.

     “So, that leaves one culprit,” Sukuna said as he turned to face her, smirking at her widened eyes. “Kenjaku is trying for my head. Well, that old bat always did know how to annoy me. But I’m going to send him a message, Miss Hikmat, and you’re going to deliver it for me. Would you like that? Being my little courier?”

     Tulani stared at him with a scowl on her face, trying not to let her gaze slide to the flechettes in his hands, but he knew she was anticipating them. He could practically smell her sweat, could see how she struggled to be subtle when straining against her binds. He almost wished he’d tied his Specialty Knot, just to watch her squirm, but the memories of the joy they’d shared—where he’d thought her just an innocent civilian looking for a dangerously good time—were tainted by her betrayal. He wasn’t even sure Tulani was her real name. A foreigner and a deadly assassin? Kenjaku wanted him dead real bad, huh?

     Ah, well. It had been some time since Sukuna got to send a message like this. Let Kenjaku see how the Two-Faced Demon dealt with assassins and spies.

     Tulani wasn’t sure at what point she had passed out during Sukuna’s interrogation, only that he had tested the very limits of her stamina and resistance. The flechettes he’d brandished had not been designed for severing or even slicing, merely for pain. To maximize their effectiveness, the cutting was usually done very, very slowly. And Sukuna was a patient man. One had to be, to tie such skillful knots in shibari.

     Tulani wasn’t sure how long he cut her, tracing sigils over her naked body while he’d suspended her by a single hook over the unforgiving concrete floor, just high enough that her toes could barely scrape the ground, giving her no real purchase. The drugs coursing through her system had aided in her sluggishness, as had the bullet wound, he’d bandaged while she was unconscious.

     But he cut her, and he didn’t stop cutting her until her skin ran with her own blood, until the marks left on her skin echoed the tattoos on his own. He’d avoided her face, and when she saw where next his blade would go as it traced the taut planes of her belly, she’d begged him to kill her. Sukuna loved when she begged, loved to see the tears in her eyes that he licked away before demanding she give up her employer and give him cause to go to war.

     But Tulani was adamant in her resistance. She gave him other things, things that could only be given up through the maiming of the flesh, but never that. Her reputation was ironclad, and she would not tarnish her flawless record and her discretion for Sukuna’s pettiness.

     In the end, however, he got what he needed: a messenger.

     That was how Tulani found herself turned loose with nothing but the clothes on her back. She knew what Sukuna was about, and so she made fit to vanish into Tokyo’s alley-ridden heart, hoping to shake the tail he’d put on her. It took some days, but eventually the cloying pressure at her nape eased, and her hackles lowered as she saw fit to return to her employer and give them the rather disappointing news.

     Tulani returned to the Zenin One building in Shiodome, having finally managed to make herself look somewhat presentable if a bit ruffled. When she gave her name to the receptionist, and after a tense back and forth over the phone, she was directed to the elevator, which propelled her up to the top floor. Tulani felt like a tame falcon that had been wild for too long returning to her master’s glove. She was irritated.

     The elevator doors opened with a single ding of the bell, and she strolled into the mahogany-colored hallway, lined with soft, ambient lights. Two guards stood at the immense double doors, sunglasses hiding their eyes. Tulani stared at them.

     “He’s expecting me,” she said, trying to will the irritation from her voice. Without hesitation, they opened the doors, standing aside as she walked into the airy office. It had been some time since Tulani had stood here, and she still had to own it was a nice office. Curved, to give a 180-degree view of the sprawling district and gardens, with floor-to-ceiling windows. Silhouetted against one of the windows was her employer.

     “So, after a year, you failed to do the one job I paid you for,” Naoya Zenin sneered with contempt, glaring at her over his shoulder. Tulani resisted the urge to heave a sigh.

     “And now word out on the street is Sukuna is preparing to bolster his defenses and make a move,” Naoya turned on his heel, eyes blazing as he glared at her. “I was told you were the best, Hikmat. Your records alone were the reason I bothered to shell out the money for your asking price. But if this is all you have to show me after a year, then I think it’s time we cut our losses and let you go.”

     Tulani knew what that meant and decided to turn on the charm. It had worked before and even now, as he approached her, she could see it in his eyes. It was a flickering flame in an uncertain breeze: carnal curiosity. Tulani had teased and flirted with the idea of crossing the lines of business and pleasure, and Naoya was leery for her reputation often ended in her giving her prey the business end of a knife or bullet. Tulani had been clear that she only seduced her targets.

     But now, she saw that the hungry seed she’d planted in his head had sprouted. He was angry with her, and willing to cross that line if it meant having her.

     So, Tulani soothed his hackles, appealing to his ego, teasing him with just enough temptation that she could see the outline of his cock through his pants. His hands trembled with the urge to grab her, to kiss her pouty lips, to taste the salt of her sweat. He wanted what Sukuna had gotten for a whole year, and it stung his pride and ego that Tulani refused to cross that line when she crossed so many others to get to her target.

     In the end, the promise of a possible tryst was enough to convince him to extend her contract. Not only that, but she also argued that she had not been given accurate information about the Two-Faced Demon. The threat of him had been downplayed, as had the intel about his operations, which she had only gotten mere glimpses of in order to tell that much. Naoya relented at last, begrudgingly admitting that the dossier had been sparse in some crucial areas.

     Tulani turned to leave, feigning anger and a threat to cut the contract herself if she wasn’t given the full context of the kind of enemy she was dealing with. Naoya, not wanting to lose his chance, reached for her, grabbing her arm. Tulani let him pull her back, feigning a stumble and allowing him to catch her against his body. She looked up at him, widening her eyes slightly, parting her lips just so. She saw color warm Naoya’s cheeks before he gently pushed her away.

     “Let me make it up to you,” he said, his voice rough with desire as he struggled to wet his dry throat. “I’ll put you up in the best digs in Roppongi, what do you say? Penthouse, anything you need. Just…I need this job done. I’ll get my guys to pass along a fuller dossier but just…don’t leave yet, alright?”

     Tulani knew then that he was hers.

     Later, Tulani found herself at the Ritz Carlton in Roppongi, in their largest suite on Naoya Zenin’s Centurion card. The Zenins had a standing agreement with a lot of the hotels in the area, that being one of their laundering rackets, as she learned. The concierge greeted her, and Tulani ascended in the elevator to the 53rd floor, and keyed into her suite. She was used to luxury given her line of work, and it was no different now. Still, she let out a low whistle as she walked around the massive, palatial suite in search of the bedroom.

     Her luggage and belongings had already been brought to the suite, along with a complimentary bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice, a tray of fresh fruit, and a card welcoming her and hoping she enjoyed her stay.

     Tulani passed all of that and immediately went to the bathroom to begin running herself a nice, hot bath in the massive tub. Almost too massive, she felt like she’d be soaking up to her neck in it. There were an assortment of oils and soaps for her to use, including jasmine oil, which had been Naoya’s own personal touch. He’d commented often how much he enjoyed her scent, and she’d let him.

     Soon, Tulani groaned as she sank into the tub, letting herself relax for the first time in weeks. She basked, whiling away the hours thinking and ruminating on the past year. Sukuna was ever-present in her mind, never far from her thoughts. His smile, his deep, purring laugh, his voice in her ear: tell me, tell me, tell me. Tulani cared precious little for the Zenin heir, but he was holding her leash and paying her tab so she could not give him up. That and it was simply bad for business to spill at the first touch of a few knives.

     As Tulani scrubbed away the last vestiges of Sukuna’s rough touch from her satin skin, she frowned grimly at the fading lines of his cutting and opted to place a hot washcloth over her eyes and lean back. Eventually, the heat seeped into her bones, relaxing her fully, and her breathing evened out.

     She had just been about to slip into a much-needed nap, a rare moment of true and very private repose, when she felt the intruding breeze against her damp skin. Immediately, Tulani tore the washcloth from her eyes and sat up, glaring at the doorway now filled by one Ryōmen Sukuna.

     They stared at one another, barely a few meters apart.

     Dark, bistre eyes challenged the crimson of his own, and the whole of the past year lay between them. The joy, the flirting, the pure, uninhibited passion both of them brought to the bedroom. Sukuna looked at Tulani as she was, and all murderous intent was somehow doused in him. Tulani looked upon him and there was the shock that he was able to not only find her but gain access to her to the point that she had not realized she’d been hunted.

     It thrilled her.

     The whole of the world took a collective breath as one of the greatest assassins in the world, and the most ruthless and powerful of Tokyo’s Underworld bosses regarded one another with scarcely a few meters apart. Anyone with the good sense the gods gave a rabbit would have called for help. She should have called for help, but even if she did Sukuna would be on her in a matter of seconds, and she was already calculating the level of damage they’d do should things come to blows.

     “I’m unarmed,” she murmured quietly, the sound of water sloshing along the sides of the tub sending the light to scattering and refracting around her as she took a gamble, hoping against hope that she could salvage this mission. Sukuna took her in and smirked.

     “I don’t believe you,” he said and merited a slow grin from her for his trouble.

     Tulani stood up in the bath, slowing her movements to a lissome crawl to avoid triggering violence in him, and Sukuna watched her unblinking, his gaze as sharp as his flechettes. While she stood, she saw the tension in his hands, the slight flex of his fingers, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the thick bands of ink around his wrists, the veins in his forearms and hands more pronounced, poised to do terrible violence should her claim of being unarmed prove false.

     Sukuna had seen Tulani naked more times than anyone, by his reckoning, but even he was never prepared for the sight of her. Perhaps he’d overlooked the telltale signs of the killer in her, likening her well-honed form to a rigid workout regimen. But no, this was a warrior through and through, and he took her in as he had not before.

     Warm water cascaded down those full feminine curves, glittering in the warm worship of the soft light. Her skin which could have taught satin its texture, was glossy and silken from the water and oils she’d used, and Sukuna smelled jasmine thick in the steamy air. She looked like something molten, as if she were straining to maintain this feminine form…and what a form it was. Water slipped down her toned arms, over the curves and slaloms of her breasts, dripped from the tips of her dark nipples, along the carved lines of her stomach, the flare of her hips, and down along the bald swell of her cunt, where Sukuna’s gaze finally settled.

     Tulani’s gaze was amused and a little curious. There had been a turning point in their relationship when she finally revealed her intention and mission. There was the question of whether or not her feelings for him had been playacting, and Sukuna still longed to lash out at her for toying with him, but then there was the matter that his feelings had not been acting. He had genuinely wanted her.

     He still wanted her.

     “Pass me a towel?” Tulani’s voice threaded through the tense silence with a seamstress’ precision and Sukuna’s brows knit, the trishula tattoo on his brow wrinkling as he snorted.

     “You want me to get it and risk revealing a pistol I intend to use on you, then?” Tulani moved with a serpent’s lissome and unnerving grace, cocking one hip to the side as she quirked a brow at him in question.

     “Tch,” Sukuna hissed and snatched up one of the large, plush towels neatly folded on the counter. He knew there was no pistol there. He’d already checked, and she’d hidden them under the pillows of the bed, and a Bowie knife next to it. Her time in the bath had truly been a vulnerable one. He could have killed her with one shot if he wanted and been back home before his next meeting.

     But he didn’t. Instead, he watched as she wrapped herself in a towel and stepped out of the tub, pulling the stopper to drain the water. She gave him a knowing smirk as she passed him, and he grabbed her arm to keep her from walking further, his grip like a shackle. She glanced up at him sharply.

     “Sukuna…” She breathed his name for the first time, and it was anyone’s guess who moved first. He was on her, pulling the offending towel aside, and she was tearing at his silk shirt, heedless of the price tag, knowing he could afford it as buttons popped beneath her onslaught, her hands seeking his hot, tattooed skin beneath. Sukuna hissed as her touch blazed a path and he could get out of his clothes fast enough.

     There was only the sound of silk tearing, of a belt buckle coming loose, and clothing being tossed aside. Sukuna’s hands found Tulani’s hips, relishing the feel of her soft skin under his touch again. He gripped her hard enough to leave his fingerprints, and she relished the roughness of his touch, eager and wanting.

     Not a word was spoken between the two even as he shoved her onto the bed, face first, dragging her hips up and spreading her thighs to get a good look at that cunt he missed way more than he’d ever admit—even to himself. Without preamble, he leaned in, and spit directly in her, watching it mix with her slick and drip down onto the sheets.

     Sukuna’s free hand wrapped around his cock, and he watched as Tulani shot him a sultry look over her shoulder, grinning as if she were hiding a secret. He stroked himself a few times, dragging her to the edge of the bed and shoving her down into an arch that most would call rather cruel.

     And in one thrust, he sheathed himself inside of her.

     The sound Tulani made during that contact was nothing short of utterly obscene. A loud, throaty moan that saw her hands curling into the duvet, her pretty profile contorted in a strange ecstasy. Sukuna relished that sound, wished he could do it all over again just to hear her moaning like a whore for his cock.

     He punished her with a brutal pace, pulling her back and forth along his cock as if she were nothing more than a toy for him. Tulani moaned like a wounded animal, a savage animal at the end of its rope, cornered and pinioned by the cunning hunter. The bed was sturdy enough that it didn’t groan in protest against Sukuna’s powerful thrusts, but the proximity to the front door was rather dangerous. Anyone who strolled by would hear the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin, the occasional heavy-handed slap of a palm against what could only be Tulani’s rear, and her answering moan of pleasure.

     He fucked her like he wanted to kill her, because he did. And he didn’t. It was complicated.

     Tulani buried her face in the line of her arm, hissing and moaning curses and pleas of beseechment. Sukuna was focused on the sensation of Tulani’s beautiful little pussy wrapped around his cock, which stretched her so tightly that when he pulled back, he could see her struggling to let him go, her walls fluttering and tightening as she struggled to maintain control.

     “Isn’t this your job?” Sukuna demanded, dragging his nails along her hips as if he wanted to leave claw marks on her. To mark her in such a primal way almost made him come on the spot.

     “Isn’t this how you get your marks, you little slut?” Sukuna demanded in a growl and Tulani moaned her assent, not even sure what he was asking or what she was agreeing with. Only the sensation of his cock filling her to the point of pain, his heavy balls slapping against her clit, his hips bruising her backside in a relentless, pounding stroke that had her seeing stars. Her vision sparkled, and before she knew it, she felt a strong hand fasten around her throat, choking off her next moan.

     Sukuna drew her up against him, never slowing his thrusts, forcing her to spread wider. He wished the headboard had a mirror so he could see himself moving in and out of her, so he could watch as he rubbed her clit and fucked her harder than he’d ever fucked her.

     Fucked her harder than she had tried to fuck him.

     Tulani wasn’t sure at what point she lost control of the situation but if she had to guess it was somewhere between the moment she saw him, and the moment his hand fastened around her wrist.

     The hand on her throat traveled upward, cupping around her mouth and muffling her cries.

     “Shh shh shh,” Sukuna cooed, his voice limned in tender cruelty. “Don’t want Naoya’s posse to hear who’s making you come, do you? I just know the boy will be devastated when he learns I’ve come inside you again and he can’t even get a hug from you. Isn’t that right, Tulani?”

     Tulani didn’t answer—she couldn’t answer, because his hand was clamped around her mouth, and she was so close there were tears in her eyes. Sukuna slowed his pace, torturing her with long, agonizingly slow strokes. And just like he planned, Tulani’s moans changed too, muffled but he could hear how drawn out they were, and he was sure they’d sound slurred if he took his hand off her mouth. She was shivering in his embrace, and not from fear.

     “What’s the matter, Tulani?” Sukuna taunted. “You gonna come? You gonna squirt all over my cock? You want the Zenin brat to see you like this? Oh, I bet you do—look at you, shivering and moaning like my personal whore.”

     And then he stopped fucking her and relished the sound of her desperate whimpers. She’d been close, he knew, but there was still so much more he wanted from her. He pulled his cock out of her, delighting in the wet sound, but less delighted in the air-conditioned air hitting his soaked cock. He had to put it back inside her, so he ordered her to turn around on her hands and knees. She divined his desire and without a second thought, opened her mouth to take his cock inside, angling her head to take him down her throat.

     Sukuna looked down at her and watched as she struggled to suck down his entire cock, big as it was. But she sucked him off anyway, head bobbing along the length of him, cheeks hollowed out, and her eyes on him just like he liked. She may have struggled to throat him, but he would never admit that Tulani gave the best blow jobs he’d ever had in his life. The woman sucked his dick as if she’d invented the act. She was indulgent, licking along his shaft, sucking one of his balls into her mouth and then the other, all while she stroked him. When he grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her forward, he relished the sound of her gagging, the wet and painful cough as he shoved his cock down her throat and fucked her pretty, duplicitous mouth as if it were her cunt.

     Tears spilled from her eyes, down her cheeks, and she looked at him plaintively, desperate for air he refused to give her. No, she’d take it, and she’d take it as long as it took him to come.

     At one point, he hauled her against the wall, taking her on every surface he could find. She was as eager as he was, and by the time he did finally come, they collapsed onto the bed, their bodies slick with sweat, heaving and panting. They lay like that for a while, settling back into the skin and bone of their bodies, vision hazy with pleasure.

     “So, I take it you’re not here to kill me,” Tulani said, laughing to herself as Sukuna fixed her with a sardonic look.

     “How much to tempt you from the Zenin brat?” He asked. “And don’t say it’s bad for business, nobody even knows it’s you behind these assassinations.”

     Tulani rolled onto her stomach, pillowing her chin on her arms, her expression pensive.

     “It’s not that simple,” she said. “It’s not me who decides, ultimately. It is the agency who holds my leash.”

     Sukuna’s expression turned shrewd. “Ah, so the serpent is a tame one, is she?” It was his turn to laugh as she turned a sour look on him.

     “How did you find me?” She asked, not wanting to broach the topic of her agency. Sukuna stared at the ceiling, his expression distant, his eyes cold.

     “It was easier than I expected, but still rather difficult. I had you followed but you vanished according to my men. When I checked your apartment, I could tell you hadn’t been through there recently. So, I had contacts search further back. You’ve been embedded in Japan for three years, Nadja.”

     She sat up, caution overriding passion like a wind over her own grave. Sukuna gave her a simpering and smug smirk, her own pistol already trained on her from under her pillow.

     “I think the Zenin brat underestimated my reach,” he said laconically. “I’m not going to kill you, Nadja. You’re…you’re one of the best I’ve seen. Had you not slipped away from me the first time this conversation would have gone very differently. But now that I know who you are, and more importantly, who actually loaned you to the Zenins, I am going to let you slink back to the shadows that birthed you and then I am going to destroy the brat and his entire bloodline.”

     Nadja narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

     Sukuna raised a bored brow. “Why let you go? Because I could no more kill you than I could shatter the roseate of Notre Dame. You are a work of exquisite art, and your origins interest me. As do your unique set of skills.”

     Nadja dipped her chin, dark eyes shrewd. “You want me to work for you.”

     Sukuna sat up against the headboard and beckoned her with one hand. Nadja did not move, her gaze flicking to the Glock and then to him. Sukuna’s smirk never wavered. Begrudgingly, she crawled into his lap, straddling him. An electric shiver coursed through her as she felt the cold metal of the gun’s muzzle pressed against her ribs, just over her heart, beneath her breast.

     “Now,” Sukuna said, still smug and superior. “I’ve been hunted by assassins before, but none quite so lovely and unlikely as you. Usually, I would send your head back to your master as a warning, but…”

     He traced the gun upward, circled her nipple with it just to watch her clamp her teeth and stiffen, fighting her body’s betrayal. He chuckled darkly and traced the gun to her other breast to do the same thing.

     “I’m going to give you a chance to get clear of the fallout, Nadja,” Sukuna said. “A rare gift from me, only because you did manage to get closer than anyone has. You have a day to clear Tokyo, and when I am finished with the Zenins, I’ll find you.”

     Nadja’s gaze was fierce and defiant. “Are you so sure you can?” She challenged.

     “Nadja, there is nowhere you can hide from me,” Sukuna said. “It’s only a matter of time before I find you again.”

     His eyes cut to the door, and Nadja barely suppressed her alarm as she heard the Glock’s safety click off in his hand.

     An insistent knocking shattered the tense silence.

     “Ah,” Sukuna murmured, tracing the now safety-unlocked gun downward against her abdomen, grazing just below her navel. “Your employer wants to make sure you’re staying put in your pretty little cage. Be a good girl and tell him to fuck off for me, hm?”

     In the end, Nadja took Sukuna’s offer. Not because she saw it as a defeat, but because he was so much more than she could have dreamed. There had never been worthier prey for her to hunt than this Two-Faced Demon of Tokyo’s pale underbelly, and there never would be. So, she watched, from her rented apartment across the garden, as Sukuna’s men took out the Zenin One tower. She watched with cold and distant eyes, as impassive as a goddess. Tokyo’s neon skyline threw its smattering of colors all over her as she watched through the scope of her sniper rifle as the Zenins were cut down. She wished she could see Naoya’s face. Sukuna kept one former Zenin clan member on his payroll and doubtless they were at the forefront of the slaughter.

     No one else knew about the massacre, and she was sure when the receptionist clocked in for work in the morning, it would be all over the news.

     And in the end, Sukuna did exactly what he said he’d do: he found her. Not that she had been trying to hide, anyway. Rather, she had to reconcile with the fact that she had chosen to fail her mission on purpose, and that she felt nothing when her employer was slaughtered in the process. As far as the agency was concerned, she had been paid to assassinate Ryōmen Sukuna, not protect Naoya Zenin. Had he wanted her as a protection detail, he should have specified in his contract request.

     It was just business.

     And so Nadja found herself standing before Sukuna, with his white dress shirt still splattered with Zenin blood, Naoya’s severed head on the table between them. His lieutenants, Toji Fushiguro [formerly Zenin], and Uraume, stared at her. Toji had the look of a lean wolf about him, all fangs and wrinkled muzzle. His green eyes were wickedly cunning, and he eyed Nadja with appraising interest. Uraume on the other hand, was as cold as ice, their profile no more emotional than a cameo as they looked to Sukuna for orders.

     “Well, I think you should hire her,” Toji said at last, crossing his large, muscular arms over his broad chest. He was a mountain of a man, much like Sukuna, but he knew a fellow killer when he saw one. Nadja was small and slight, but as deadly as any of them.

     “And have a serpent loose at our backs? We’ll feel her bite come morning.” Uraume challenged with a snarl. “She already tried to kill him once, who’s to say she won’t try again?”

     “Because the contract is null and void now that the Zenin Group has been decimated,” Sukuna interrupted, not once breaking eye contact with Nadja. Something simmered between them. Unfinished business.

     “Isn’t that right, my dear?” He asked. Nadja took a deep, withering breath, filled her lungs with fear, and then exhaled.

     “True enough,” she said, not missing how Uraume gave her a withering stare. They were Sukuna’s right hand in most things, but in this they were staunchly against his wish to bring the deadly serpent into the fold. Not only was she duplicitous and available only to the highest bidder, but she was a foreigner to boot. She had no place in their world as anything more than a hired gun. Toji thought she had nice tits.

     “So, just how much would it cost me to take you from them?” Sukuna asked. Nadja glanced down at Naoya’s severed head, his expression in death looking exhausted and bewildered all at once. Like as not he hadn’t been expecting Sukuna to retaliate with such ruthless efficiency, nor did he expect his older cousin to be the one striking the final blow.

     It was more than deserved, if anyone asked Nadja.

     “That’s not how they work,” Nadja responded after a span of pensive thought. Sukuna snorted.

     “Then stay,” he said. “Work for me, I’ll pay whatever your asking price was—triple it. But stay.”

     Toji and Uraume exchanged glances. It was clear to them what was going on, but apparently not to either of the other two. Nadja looked around, smiling and there was a hint of wistfulness to it.

     “I know what your men say about me,” she said. “I am a foreigner with no place in the yakuza way of life. Some even think me an affront to their sensibilities because of the fact that I’m a woman. What do you think, Sukuna?”

     Sukuna was silent in the wake of her words. Uraume’s mouth opened and then shut, and Toji grinned as if he knew a secret the others weren’t privy to.

     “I think you’re a beautiful creature, Nadja, who needs a home that isn’t predicated on whether some gangster brat is pulling your purse strings. If you work for me, I can give you purpose but more than that…you’d be free.”

     Nadja looked up to meet his gaze again.

     Free?

     She wanted to laugh. That was not a word she had ever experienced in truth. Every move she made was for one mission or another: be it the destabilization of nations, the altering of trade routes, the assassination of rivals.

     “Free?” She repeated, her voice highly amused.

     “Free.” Sukuna affirmed with a nod. “You can be my knife in the dark, or whatever you choose. But only if you stay.”

     For a long while there was only silence save for the drip of Naoya’s blood on the marble floor of the office. No one breathed, it seemed, and Nadja thought of the possibilities of choosing a life outside of wet work. She thought of what she could possibly be outside of a killer.

     “No,” she said. Uraume sucked in an affronted breath and Toji’s brows went up in surprise. Sukuna’s brows furrowed.

     “No?” He echoed. “You understand that when you walk out of that door, you’ll be marked for—”

     “No,” Nadja interrupted. “I won’t be free with you. But I can learn to be. Until that time, I will be your…knife in the dark, as you so poetically put it.”

     Sukuna considered her words and then grinned slowly, his face tattoos warping their shape to frame his predatory grin.

     “Good,” he said. “Very good.”

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[susielesbianism]

been wondering abt that gruesome hc you mentioned you had about the ring of thorns and I must say I'm deeply curious abt ur thoughts

Oh boy. Here we go.

⚠️TW FOR MENTIONS OF BLOOD AND GORE AND GRAPHIC INJURY⚠️

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So, the longer you wear the Ring of Thorns (this amount of time gets hastened if you cast a powerful spell with it, like say, Snowgrave), the more it starts to coil around your finger and the more the thorns start to dig into your skin until it's completely wrapped around your finger and the thorns have burrowed themselves all the way into your skin. By that point, once the ring's on, it's on. You could try and remove it with a sharp implement like scissors, but then you'd have to deal with trying to removing the thorns deeply embedded in your finger and the profuse bleeding that would ensue. But by then it wouldn't even noticeable because the ring induces a Trance effect when worn. You could be walking around dazed with a broken, bleeding finger and never know.

I'm not sure how this headcanon would translate to when Noelle wakes up in the Light World, though. Perhaps she wakes up with a broken, heavily scarred finger and barely even notices as the Trance effect of the ring of thorns is just wearing off by that point? And since Dark World items become mundane objects in the Light World, I'm not too sure what the ring of thorns would become. Maybe a tied piece of itchy twine? Maybe a few splintered pieces of wood? I'm still filling in the blanks on that one.