#ch: kenjaku

[osunism]

Daughter of Disgrace

"Is there any place where Heaven's bastard daughters are welcome?"

Rating: Mature to Explicit [for future sexual content and graphic depictions of violence]. Pairing[s]: Satoru + Sundari || Nadja + Sukuna Warning[s]: Smut, graphic depictions of violence, major character death[s], as well as some toxic relationship elements. Spoilers for the manga, so if you only watched the anime, turn back. Summary: In the aftermath of Satoru Gojo's sealing, Sundari must choose rebellion in order to free him. Lucky for them both, rebellion has always been her preferred modus operandi.

🪧 Be Advised: This is the sequel to BeastofNoNation. It's recommended that you read that fic first to get the context of this one.

𓃰 AO3 || OC Masterpost || Fic Masterpost 𓃰

𓃰 Chapter Five: Inversion

November 17, 2018, Tokyo No. 1 Colony

     Sundari, at her core, has always been a creature of sharp and unerring instinct. From the moment she was born, she was made painfully aware of how different she was from quite literally everyone around her. Not just in terms of appearance and power, but in how she chose to view the world. To her, there was never a question of whether to act, she simply saw a problem worthy of her attention and attempted to solve it.

     It was a happy coincidence that many of those problems could only be resolved with spectacular displays of violence and artistic amounts of bloodshed.

     She’s always had a keen gut instinct for trouble, and Sundari knows when a situation has gone tits-up.

     It’s why she’s entering one of the colonies for the Culling Games, now.

     The first thing that assaults her senses is the strange little creature that appears before her. It calls itself Kogane, and it asks her if she wishes to become a player.

     “Yeah,” she says tersely. “Yeah, whatever, I’m a player; let me in.”

     She can’t be credited with too much patience, but she’s pressed for time. Something is wrong, her gut is churning, and this little irksome shikigami creature is announcing to presumably everyone that she’s entered the game. That’s fine, she can handle whatever comes her way.

     “Sundari Hikmat’s life is worth 5,000 points!”

     Sundari is halfway to Shinjuku when she hears this announcement, and the echoes of it from other Kogane creatures nearby. The sentence bounces around in her skull like an endless refrain, and she allows herself an exhausted and defeated smirk before she turns her face to the sky.

     “Fuck you,” she whispers, wishing that curse user monk could hear her. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”

     Not for the first time, but she regrets not unleashing all of herself in Shibuya that night. It seemed to work perfectly fine for her father. She makes a mental note to put skullfucking back on the menu when she crosses paths with the monk again.

     The first sorcerer to come for her head attacks her in a Cinnabon when she’s scavenging for snacks. They were clever in their approach, she’d give them that much credit, but their cursed energy barely warrants the effort, and she emerges from the abandoned shop, gnawing on a stale cinnamon bun she attempted to reheat in a microwave. It’s not much, but breakfast is breakfast at this point.

     The man hunting her this morning is a sorcerer by the name Genji Ishida, and Sundari regards him with a bored expression, her four-eyed perspective taking him in while keeping watch on her surroundings. She tastes his cursed energy, like corrupted ozone. She’s always likened it to ‘tainted’ magic. Other forms of magic have their own flavor, but jujutsu has always tasted wrong to her. Genji doesn’t have enough cursed energy to face her.

     “Look,” she says, “I don’t know what you think you heard, but this isn’t a fight you want right now.” It’s a warning, and she hopes Genji has the good sense the gods gave a rabbit enough to fuck off and find some other sorcerer to play with. Sundari isn’t sure if she will be penalized for not killing sorcerers, but she knows she can. In fact, the game encourages it, and that’s what she’s afraid of: not of losing, but of winning so handily that the blood will soak Tokyo for weeks. She knows what she’s capable of and she knows she’s trying very hard not to be like her father.

     She also suspects that’s why that dickhead monk has placed a veritable bounty on her head. He wants her to act up! Well, she will eventually, but she’s gonna offer as many ways to avoid it as possible.

     Genji is not a smart man. In fact, as she gets a good look at him, she can see that the lights are not all on upstairs. There’s a vacant look in his eyes, and she can see the dried blood crusted around his nose. She wonders if he’s overused his technique recently.

     “I need those points,” he says, and his lip curls into a sneer before he lunges for her. He’s faster than Sundari expected, and she rotates her body in a smooth pivot, taking his telegraphed strike and using his momentum to fling him effortlessly into the Cinnabon’s glass storefront. It shatters beautifully, as does the counter as Genji plows through it from Sundari’s powerful throw. Sundari waits to see if he gets back up.

     He does, stumbling out of the shattered Cinnabon into the street where Sundari has given up on her breakfast and dusts the crumbs off on her pants before cracking her neck and her knuckles.

     “You’re worth a whole five stacks,” Genji says, assuming a fighting stance, but Sundari sees him swaying unsteadily, like an uncertain serpent. He’s concussed. “No way I’m letting a steal like that pass me by.”

     Sundari snorts. “Well, come collect your bounty if you can, buddy.” She makes a come-hither gesture with two fingers. Genji lunges at her again and this time she’s certain his cursed technique is burned out. She rotates out of his way again, playfully rolls out one of her extra arms to shove him in the back as he stumbles past her. She can tell the man’s brain has been cooked, likely because he doesn’t have good control over his cursed energy or technique. Her other arm rolls back into her body before he can get up and turn around.

     “What the hell?” He mumbles. “Why can’t I make the fucking sparks come out?”

     Sundari sighs. Yeah, he’s cooked. Suddenly, the fight has lost its petty amusement, and she keeps walking, ignoring the muzzy curses of the sorcerer behind her. He’ll be dead before nightfall if he doesn’t recover his cursed energy in time to fight off the actual curses plaguing the city at night. But that’s his problem.

     Right now, Sundari has bigger fish to fry mainly, her father, whom she has just detected elsewhere in the colony. A massive burst of cursed energy that mirrors her own. Sundari’s focus tunnels down to that, and she takes off at a dead run, unhindered as she realizes her gut instinct is in fact correct again. However, being right isn’t always a good thing and Sundari finds utter devastation when she arrives.

     Yuji is down, injured from a recent blow, and Sundari is at his side before she realizes something is terribly wrong. Yuji looks up at her, tears in his eyes, but Sundari’s eyes are wide because the soft, red slits where Sukuna’s lower eyes reside are no longer on his face. His face, which is twisted into such anguish as he tries to get the words out through the thick, wet flood of his own grief.

     “He took them both,” Yuji says and Sundari realizes that not only is Megumi missing, but her mother as well. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. He just…he took Megumi.”

     Sundari already knows the answer, but she asks anyway: “Who?”

     “Sukuna,” Yuji whispers, and there is anguish and contempt in his voice. “Somehow he managed to escape my body and took Fushiguro…and then he took Hikmat-sensei, and they escaped with a shikigami.”

     The fact that her mother is seemingly unable to kill her bastard of a father when it counts is beginning to irk Sundari. She is beginning to believe that her mother might still love the fucking bastard and that’s why she won’t strike when it’s time. Sundari clenches her fists and uses the menacing presence of her immense cursed energy to ward off any challengers who think to come for the prize on her head.

     “Can you stand?” She asks and Yuji nods as she helps him to his feet. Maki soon joins them, but she looks more irritated than disappointed.

     “There’s a price on your head, Hikmat-san,” Maki says. “Why’d you leave Tengen’s realm?”

     Sundari chuckles. “I had a gut feeling that everything was going to shit so I came to help. Looks like I was right, for all the fucking good it did anyone.”

     Maki shoulders her sword and heaves a sigh. “Yeah, well, that’s noble of you but now your cursed energy is going to be a flashing neon sign to any sorcerer stupid enough to try and claim the bounty.”

     Sundari grins. “I hope so. I need them so I can open the Prison Realm.”

     “What?!” Maki and Yuji exclaim in unison. Sundari waves her hand dismissively.

     “Not here,” she says looking around. Most of the city is quiet, and there’s destruction where the fighting has been heaviest in the first few days of the Games. Their current location is indefensible, and Sundari can’t think of where they can go to enact her admittedly half-baked plan. She knows she requires more cursed energy to do what she tried before, but without Sukuna here to intervene she risks truly killing herself in the process. Gods take his withered soul for his perfidy. Sundari feels a rage inside her like brutal magma, and she wants so badly to kill her father, to end his curse upon this world once and for all.

     Unless…

     Sundari shuts her main eyes, keeping her lower eyes open to regard Yuji and Maki, as well as keep an eye on their surroundings. Looking at Maki is a bit unsettling because Sundari can detect no cursed energy from her. She’s like a void in the flow of the world: invisible to sorcerers, and deadly to them. She begins to breathe slower, letting herself feel her own body as she inhales and then exhales.

October 3, 2018, Gojo Satoru’s Residence, 21:35

     Satoru manages to come home early one night. With the summer ended, and most troublesome curses exorcised, his schedule manages to free up only slightly, but it is enough that he no longer keeps exceedingly late hours. And so, he claims a rare moment of respite, eager to come home to the woman he has come to love so dearly. He can already taste her cursed energy, exactly like her father’s, and yet he would know her anywhere. Not just because of her energy, but because he sees her everywhere. He sees the shape of her lithe and svelte curves in the hills and mountains Tokyo is nestled within. He sees the dark glimmer of her garnet eyes if he focuses his vision just enough.

     He can almost hear her rich laughter in the wind, a sound from her belly, where her secondary mouth grins.

     It’s not until he crosses the threshold into his home, shuts and locks the door behind him, and pulls down his blindfold that he breathes her name like a secret he’s been keeping all day.

     “Sundari…” His voice is rich with eagerness. He wants her, wants to wrap his arms around her and kiss the sharp black ink of her tattoos on her neck, down to the tender spot between her shoulder blades.

     He follows his senses and finds her seated on a grassy rise overlooking the vast forest that extends endlessly. It is a hidden place, and Satoru likes to believe that it has become their place. Few know this location, and even fewer have set foot here. Satoru has taken great pains to keep Sundari hidden until he can smooth things over with the higher-ups, whom he knows will call for her immediate execution.

     An abomination, they’d call her.

     A goddess. He’d counter.

     Sundari’s back is to him, and he notices that she is nearly naked, clad only in what looks to be a—

     Oh. She’s nude and wearing nothing but a gold waist chain. Satoru bites his lip and shuts his eyes momentarily, letting out a small laugh.

     She’s sitting cross-legged, her main eyes are shut, the smaller set focused on the moonrise. All four of her arms are present, each of her four hands in a different mudra. Satoru’s asked her about them, and she’s explained their meanings to him, so different from the ones he was taught. Still, they are effective, and she seems to be engaged in some sort of meditation. The mouth on her belly is chanting, but the mouth on her face is neutral, full lips slightly parted.

     She’s doing intense breath work, and Satoru studies her.

     Stark black tattoos—Sukuna’s exactly—stand vividly against her almond-brown skin. Every part of her seems deliberately sculpted, a testament to her lifetime spent being raised as a warrior, as he was. He tries to imagine how Nadja, who has no cursed energy, had managed to raise someone as powerful as Sundari. He has so many questions, and yet all of that is doused out of him when he sees her main eyes open, and she turns to look at him over her shoulder.

     “Satoru,” there is a burgeoning smile in her voice, and her voice has a slight ring of power. His Six Eyes read the overwhelming flow of her cursed energy. It heaves and sighs like the ocean but moves slow like the earth. Each breath she takes draws it in, and every exhale pushes it out. He watches her rein it in tighter with each breath and push it out slower with each exhale.

     Her heart is beating strongly and steadily, and he can see the heat building in her belly, her cursed energy pulsing like a neutron star: blinding and overwhelming.

     But not to the strongest sorcerer of the modern age. No, he can bare the beautiful brightness of her. He revels and basks in it as if she is the sun, and he wants nothing more than to see her revel and bask as well. Creatures like them will never take to being slapped with a bridle and led by the nose. No, she—like him—deserves to run free.

     One of her hands beckons him closer, an elegant roll of her wrist, delicate but deadly fingers crooked and alluring; and he comes to sit beside her. They have established equal footing in more ways than one. He is not afraid to yield to her demands from time to time.

     “You’re home early,” she murmurs, even as her lower mouth chants empowered sutras in a soft and sweet melody that seems to blend so nicely with the deepening night. Satoru marvels at her when she does this. The secondary mouth does not strain her heart or lungs yet is as powerful as her main mouth.

     “Curses are incubating,” Satoru says, “and there’s nothing that requires my level of intervention. I can fuck off if I want.”

     Sundari snorts. “And this is you fucking off, is it?”

     Satoru leans back on his hands, stretching his long legs in front of him as he awards her with one of his feline grins.

     “Hey, I’m allowed to fuck off in any way I please,” he tells her. “And don’t act like you don’t like me fucking off with you.”

     It’s ridiculous, this exchange, but that’s sort of the nature of their friendship…and a core foundation of their continued attraction to one another. They burst into mutual laughter. Sundari breaks her concentration, and her cursed energy stills like a placid lake, blanketing the area, overlapping with his. Satoru sees it like moonlight dancing off the surface of her lake. It’s beautiful, how their energy blends so well together.

     “What were you doing?” Satoru asks. “Just now. I don’t recognize those sutras.”

     Sundari gives him a tender smile; a benevolent goddess answering a willing acolyte.

     “A breathing technique my teacher showed me. It helps cycle my cursed energy through my body more efficiently.” At Satoru’s expression she frowns. “Look, just because my dad was—is—a prodigy, doesn’t mean I was. I was just born with a lot of power and a unique physique. But I definitely wasn’t always good at it.”

     “Still,” Satoru says, “you’ve got an instinct for it. And your martial arts are impeccable. I’m more afraid of your hand-to-hand combat than your techniques.”

     Sundari smiles. It’s strange to her that he says this, because most of jujutsu society prides itself on whatever unique and powerful techniques manifest. But Sundari was raised amongst women whose value could be weighed in coin on the best nights. They were courtesans and warriors. Vanhi had been strict in having Sundari learn to be a cunning and powerful fighter before she trained her to wed those skills to sorcery. In retrospect, Sundari can understand why. She’s made a god bleed, and she’s faced off with the most powerful sorcerers and held her own.

     “I see,” she says, grinning. She adjusts her body, folding her legs under her and retracting her lower arms. They roll into her body in an incomprehensible display and then they are gone. A second black band manifests on her arms and wrists, and she looks at him in full. Satoru studies her beautiful face, the wide garnet eyes and the smaller ones beneath, which flare to the color of crystalized blood when she’s excited or angry. The stark black trishula symbol on her brow marks her as Sukuna’s own. As does everything about her.

     “You going to kiss me or what?” He asks. “Don’t make me beg.”

     Sundari chuckles, a rich and husky sound that makes him shiver.

     “But you’re so good at it, Satoru,” her tongue caresses his name tenderly and he swears he can feel it on his cock. He wants her to suck him off, right here under the stars. He wants to see those perfect, pouty lips wrapped around his shaft.

     Fuck. He might just beg tonight, but he doesn’t want to beg. He wants her to come to him when he calls her.

     Sundari stares at him, amusement giving an impish look to her grin. She’s going to play this game right alongside him, and he grinds his teeth a little. He doesn’t know it yet, but Sundari is more like her father than either of them realize. The same sinister smirk, the wicked glint of mischief in her four eyes, and the dimples in her cheeks giving her sharp and dangerous appearance a softness that Satoru has come to adore. A woman—no, his goddess—whose power rivals his own, and right now she looks as if a butterfly would be safe in her fight-ready hands.

     God, he loves her.

     “Come here,” he says to her, but he’s reaching for her, fingertips brushing the apple of her cheek. Sundari shuts her main eyes, leaning into his touch. He watches her breathing even out from his mere touch. Such a spitfire and yet she seems wholly trusting and ready to yield to him. She finally relents, and instead of leaning in, she crawls onto him to straddle him. Satoru’s arms come up automatically to wrap around her naked body, his palms smoothing up the sinuous length of her back. Her skin is so satiny and tender to the touch. He’ll never tire of touching her.

     Sundari’s ankles lock behind his back. The lotus position is her favorite, he’s learned. It’s his too: he loves being able to see her and feel her come undone as he holds her close. His cock strains in his pants, and he swears he can feel the heat of her naked cunt against the fabric. Her body always feels like she has magma running in her veins in lieu of blood.

     No. Ichor. Her mother isn’t human. Sundari is an immortal.

     “Satoru…” her voice has a warning note in it but is softened by concern. He’s in his head again.

     “Sorry,” he murmurs. “It’s just that you’re so goddamn beautiful, baby. Took my breath away.”

     Sundari rolls all four of her eyes, but her smile is fond, and he can see the heat blooming in her cheeks like a soft candle glow.

     “You’re not so bad yourself, handsome,” she says back, and she rewards him by kissing him. Satoru’s lips part even as he’s grinning, basking in her affections shamelessly. After all, they’re for him and him alone. He presses her closer to him, and she moans softly when her breasts rub against the fabric of his jacket. Her nipples harden at the contact, making her hiss.

     Satoru’s mouth leaves hers reluctantly, but his leans in to trace the sleek line of her jaw with his lips. He presses kisses so soft against her skin, Sundari nearly whimpers from the tenderness of it, shivering in his arms and linking her arms around his neck, her hands threading through his silvered white hair. Satoru purrs from the sensation of her nails rubbing and massaging his scalp.

     For a while there is only kissing, and caressing, and basking in the closeness of one another. They can do this for only so long before one or the other insists on taking things further. Satoru can be impatient, but Sundari is insatiable in her hunger for him. It’s only a matter of time before—

     Sundari rocks her hips and now he can feel the slick heat of her through the fabric of his pants. His mouth goes dry, and he swallows.

     “Fuck…” he whispers reverently, resisting the urge to pump his hips up just for the sheer sensation. He knows she’s wet, knows it as surely as anything, but he refuses to break first.

     “Satoru…” Sundari purrs his name in his ear, nipping his earlobe and making him shiver. He spends so much of his time being untouchable that these soft, intimate moments are a delicious indulgence for him that rivals his actual sweet tooth. He loves to be touched. Loves the sensation of skin against his own, of being so thoroughly entangled that their limbs seemed to blend. He needs to be inside her. He needs his skin on hers. Fuck, he’s going to break if she doesn’t stop.

     “Don’t you want me?” She whispers.

     “Of course I want you,” Satoru says. “I just…I’m learning to savor what’s in front of me. And you’re worth savoring.”

     Sundari smiles, leans in so that they can kiss again. “Sweet talker…”

     Satoru lets himself be smug. “I eat enough sugar for it. I’m the sweetest talker, baby…”

     “Shut up,” Sundari murmurs, but the grin in her voice is all too telling of how his words affect her. She clings to him as they kiss, Satoru’s hands running a circuit over every inch of her within his reach.

     Satoru grips her waist, pulls her down so that she bounces on the bulge of his cock prettily. He relishes in her surprised groan of pleasure, and there’s a wet spot on his pants where her cunt has grown slick as she rocks her hips to grind against him. He grins at her, and holds up one hand, his index and middle fingers crossed. Her eyes widen as she realizes what he’s about to do. They’re closer than ever, now, and Satoru wants to show her something he’s never gotten the chance to show anyone else in this way.

     “Ryōiki Tenkai…”

Zenin Estate, November 18, 2018, 14:35

     Nadja is not sure how long she lingers in the living, writhing shadows Megumi’s technique have dropped her in. She cannot see, but her senses strain for any sign that will give her a clue as to where she is. She does not have to wonder long, as the shadows surge beneath her, and suddenly she’s rushing up and up and up, until she breaks the surface, spilling onto the flagstones of a walkway. She recognizes the Zenin Estate instantly, and she can smell the death Maki left behind.

     She comes onto her hands and knees, her arms shaky as she vomits onto the stones, shaking off the last vestiges of disorientation from the living shadow that brought her here.

     “Still alive,” Sukuna’s voice spills down her senses like warm honey and she climbs to her feet, swaying slightly as she regains her bearings. She turns to look at the new face he wears, keeps her expression neutral as she realizes he has now possessed the body of Megumi Fushiguro. It is strange, but he looks nothing like Megumi. The vessels always get warped to reflect his true face in some way. His smirk is the same, though, and he tilts his head.

     “My fugitive of heaven fears not even the shadows, hm?” He closes the distance between them, impossibly fast, and Nadja is still too shaky to react in time as his fist collides with her ribs. All the air in her lungs is driven out in a rush, followed by a choking sound as she crumples to her knees before him. Sukuna stares down at her, fury banked in his wild, crimson eyes.

     “That,” he says, his rich voice limned in malice, “I owed you.”

     Nadja can’t help herself, even at his mercy: she laughs.

     “And when you have finished beating me to hell and back, what then?” She grits out, holding her injured side, already healing. She cannot rise from her knees, the pain in her ribs is too great. Sukuna doesn’t care, he reaches down to grab a fistful of her hair and shake her head roughly.

     “I will do it for as long as it takes.” He snaps. “Remember: I promised to repay you for every year you hid her from me and made me wait for you.”

     Nadja looks up at him, and for a moment there are no words, only a silent tension building between them, thick and cloying and choking out all other air in the world. Sukuna’s eyes are dark, drifting downward where he can see her pulse hammering like a trapped thing. He briefly remembers a time when the sight of her pulse hammering was because of excitement to be with him. Not this.

     He shoves her away with a disgusted sound, whether with her or himself is anyone’s guess.

     “Sukuna-sama,” the cool and even voice of Uraume slithers through the tension like a cold river cutting through stone. Both Sukuna and Nadja turn their gazes to them. Uraume does not even spare Nadja a glance, keeping their gaze respectfully downcast as they reported to Sukuna that his bath was ready. Sukuna’s stony expression melts into one of malicious pleasure. He glances back at Nadja, disdain flitting across his gaze before returning to neutrality.

     “Get up, we aren’t finished.” He snaps. Nadja cannot believe that after a thousand years the commanding growl in his voice still sends shivers down her spine…not all of them unpleasant. Not to be humiliated, Nadja climbs to her feet, steadier than before, her expression one of fierce determination. She steadies her mind and steels her heart. Whatever he sees makes Sukuna’s eyes widen slightly—briefly—before he turns on his heel and begins to stride off, Uraume following three steps behind. Nadja trails after them, and notes that she is still armed. Whatever reason for it, Nadja is certain Sukuna knows himself at an advantage here. She won’t kill him if he is using Fushiguro as a vessel, and he can’t kill her so he will find other ways to hurt her instead.

     But he knows every time he does hurt her, it is very real. Sukuna is cunning, and it’s what makes his cruelties particularly sharp and cutting. Nadja knows he will try to kill her in other ways. That fills her with apprehension. She will stay her hand, for now.

     They walk further into the Zenin compound, and Nadja can smell the sourness of Maki’s vengeance everywhere, but even more so, she can smell the utter rot coming from the large outbuilding that she knows to be the Zenin’s disciplinary pit. They’d made a habit of collecting and corralling curses, usually grade two or below, and tormenting prisoners and disciplining subordinates.

     And, Nadja remembers bitterly, torturing Toji. She remembers him telling her one night, and she wonders why thoughts of him make her heart constrict. She misses him.

     But her worst mistake now stands at the lip of the steps to that same pit, which no longer contains any curses. Sukuna’s presence is enough to frighten other curses out of the area, if he doesn’t exorcise them himself. Nadja comes to stand just behind his shoulder and looks into the pit.

     Viscous, living darkness bubbles and roils, smelling of death and poison. She clamps her teeth to keep from gagging from the stench.

     “Oh! You’re about to start without me?” Comes a cheerful and playful voice. Nadja notes the look of brief irritation flitting across Uraume’s face before she turns to see Geto—or rather, Noritoshi Kamo—coming to join them. Her gaze hardens. It is too much to hope that Sundari killed him in Shibuya. Still, she has unfinished business with him: starting with why he bound Sundari’s seal to her father’s incarnation.

     Geto wrinkles his nose, waving one of his sleeves as he covers his mouth and nose with the other.

     “Ick,” he spits in disgust. “What manner of bath is this? Is it safe? Does it even feel good?”

     Sukuna begins to disrobe, heedless of the bickering growing at his back as Uraume explains the purpose of the ritual bath. Nadja is horrified with every word she hears, watching as Sukuna wades into the roiling mass of tar-like liquid, until he vanishes beneath the surface, fully submerged.

     Silence follows, and for a while, he does not come back up. Nadja begins to wonder if perhaps the foul poison has managed to kill the King of Curses and then she remembers he is immune to poison and disease. He surfaces, and there is a look of resolute neutrality on his face, his eyes seem to look less human: red ringed with black. He ascends the steps as Uraume presents his clothing to him with a reverent bow. He pulls on his clothing, throwing his black haori over his shoulders before they move from the pit, leaving the poisonous bath behind. Nadja breathes a small sigh of relief as they put distance between themselves and that cursed place. It makes her soul shudder.

     Kenjaku speaks frankly of what has transpired since the Culling Games began. Nadja listens, keeping her face schooled to disinterested neutrality.

     Yuki is dead.

     Nadja tries not to let that show on her face but there is a brief tension between her shoulder blades as she absorbs the news like a blow, willing herself to compartmentalize the pain of such a loss. That leaves only Yuta, Satoru, and Sundari as the only ones truly strong enough to contend with this trio should she fail to complete her mission. But she cannot do this without at least trying to save Fushiguro. She thinks of Sundari’s abilities, and Yuji’s. How long did Sukuna soak in the boy’s soul? And the hard usage he put his body through…at least some of his techniques should be engraved on him by now. Nadja takes another breath.

     Choso escaped. Good. And judging by the fact that the world has not been swarmed with curses, Tengen is alive. Even this creature wearing Geto’s face is not fool enough to tamper with that. Not unless…

     “I brought you something,” Geto says, and Uraume makes a terse sound with their teeth. “A gift.”

     Sukuna’s brows raise in a silent question as they enter the estate proper. Sukuna has claimed it as his territory since the Zenins are no more, and he strides about like the lord of the entire place. Nadja cannot believe his arrogance once charmed her. It feels so petty, now. Still, there was somewhat about him that had staid her hand a millennia ago. And something that makes her hesitate even now.

     They find Geto’s gift waiting in the receiving room. Nadja’s eyes go wide, Uraume sucks in an affronted breath, and Sukuna laughs.

     Seated on the dais, clad in the funerary robes befitting his status as a powerful shaman, is Sukuna’s mummified body.

     For some reason, seeing it makes Nadja’s mind go white, and freezes her body. It is unnerving and unsettling. Here, standing before her, Sukuna fully incarnated in Fushiguro’s body. There, seated like some grotesque shrine statue, his original body, too powerful to be consigned to any sort of destruction, and so mummification and placement deep within Tengen’s layered barriers was the only way to contain the sheer power of Ryōmen Sukuna.

     Beneath the sleeves of his robes, all twenty fingers on the hands of the mummy are missing.

     “Is this your idea of a joke?” Sukuna asks, mildly amused. Geto turns out his hands in a helpless shrug.

     “Well,” he says, “it occurred to me that—oh. Nadja! What are you doing here, naughty girl? Sukuna, did you want us to leave you two alone?” Geto’s tone turns playfully suggestive and Nadja’s eyes narrow at him, unamused. Sukuna waves his hand.

     “She and I have unfinished business, yes, but that can wait.”

     Geto shrugs, but there’s something shrewd in his gaze that tells Nadja he does not share Sukuna’s nonchalance about her presence.

     “In any case,” he continues, his tone turning bright and conversational again. “It occurred to me that you haven’t collected all of your missing Fingers. Only one to go, correct?”

     Sukuna snorts. “It’s of little consequence,” he says. “One Finger won’t tip the scales in their favor. Let them come if they think they’re ready.”

     Nadja is certain none of them are ready for Sukuna who is nearly at full strength, and her right eye burns in the presence of his cursed energy. Fushiguro’s entire soul is a wickless flame, guttering and sputtering in the darkness in which Sukuna has subsumed him. Her heart aches for the boy, but there is nothing she can do for him right now. Her sword does one thing well, and neither Sukuna nor his vessel can survive it.

     “Shall I have the evening meal prepared, Sukuna-sama?” Uraume asks. Sukuna grins.

     “As always, you know my mind, Uraume,” he says. “I do not need to eat any longer, but I do miss the taste of good food. See what the Zenins have in storage and make do.”

     Uraume bows deeply. “As you wish, Sukuna-sama.”

     They are cat quiet as they leave the room. Geto watches them go, a look of vulpine fascination on his face. He meets Nadja’s gaze, and his grin seems too wide, even for the face he wears.

     “If there’s nothing else…” Sukuna says, a warning note in his tone. Geto takes it as his cue to leave. It seems whatever plans these two have laid will not be spoken of in front of her. Nadja watches Geto leave, and he gives her a simpering smirk. She cannot wait to kill him.

     The doors slide shut.

     Nadja and Sukuna are alone—truly alone—for the first time in centuries.

     They gaze at one another, a room apart. That strange tension is winding up again, like a spring condensing to its absolute limit. The neutrality of his face cracks just a little, and she sees glimpses—phantoms, really—of the man she once knew. Sukuna is patient, but seeing her standing there, looking exactly the same as the last time he saw her in such a setting, has his senses and emotions battling themselves to a pained and steamy gridlock. This is the woman whose presence had ablated a heart of iron to rust beneath the steadiness of her affections. This is the woman who had promised to remain by his side, no matter how far her damnable mandate took her.

     He thinks of Sundari’s face, her insolence, the way he saw so much of himself in her.

     He studies Nadja, takes in the svelte lines of her curves, not a glimmer of threatening steel visible on her, but he remembers how well-hidden and cunningly placed her blades are. And that sword, the one he knows is drawn only to kill, along the length of her spine. That tiny poisonous blade at the nape of her neck.

     The razor hidden in her mouth, somewhere against her tongue.

     The tension draws taut. Sukuna feels the power in him surge, the veins in his hands growing slightly more prominent.

     There is a split second where both wonder who will move first, and then there is a sound like whistling as both of them move simultaneously. Sukuna hears the hiss of steel derailing from its sheath, Nadja’s right eye begins translating Sukuna’s cursed energy to her nervous system in real time, and her body reacts accordingly.

     Together, they tear the receiving room apart. Sukuna hates that Fushiguro’s body is not as durable and acrobatic as the brat’s, but he makes do. Nadja moves like poetry, indescribably fluid and inhuman, as if she and the earth breathe as one, surging on the crest of her own immeasurable strength.

     And Sukuna finds it hard to detect her. When her blades are sheathed, they are sealed, and their cursed energy is hidden from his senses. And Nadja, possessing no cursed energy, can hide from him. He has fought many beings like her since last they met, and so finding her becomes second-nature.

     He simply looks for the space where cursed energy seems to stutter. He looks for a void.

     And he finds her.

     Nadja is mid-draw of her sword when Sukuna catches her by the elbow and swings her over, slamming her bodily into the floor. The floorboards crack and shatter beneath the force of the blow. Nadja is momentarily shocked, emitting a choked sound as her body bounces off the floor. Sukuna still has a grip on her arm, and he thinks to himself before the grip tightens, and Nadja cries out as her bones begin to give under the pressure of his strength.

     “You thought you could sneak back to Japan a thousand years later and I wouldn’t find you?” Sukuna growls, dragging her stumbling toward him. “You thought I’d forget what you did? What you took from me?”

     Nadja’s mind is hazed with crimson, pain the only note singing in her already high-strung nerves. Sukuna is patient, but for this, he will make an exception.

     He finishes his transformation, and Nadja finds herself hauled by four individual hands, grasping each of her limbs.

     “I should tear you apart, right now,” Sukuna says, his voice deeper, rumbling in her bones like an ancient god. How ironic to see him here and see his corpse just behind him.

     Sukuna drops her, and she lands in a pained heap on the floor at his feet.

     The transformation doesn’t last long. It reverts and Sukuna lets out a swear. Without his complete power, he cannot hold his true form for long. Nadja cradles her injured arm, climbing to her feet. Sukuna turns from her, walking toward his corpse.

     “Hm…” He muses, staring at his mummified face. Nadja watches him, and then is horrified when his hand snaps out, and tears his own head from his corpse’s shoulders. Even worse is that he brings it to his mouth and devours it. Nadja’s stomach roils at the sound of flesh and bone tearing and crunching. He devours his own head, and then turns to Nadja, smirking.

     “Much better,” he says with a satisfied sigh, and the transformation comes back. He grows, and his cursed energy wraps around him like a cocoon. When it disperses, he is as she first knew him, and she knows this time it’s for good. “This is a cause for celebration. And Nadja, what a happy coincidence that you’re here…”

November 19, 2018, Tokyo No. 1 Colony

     Sundari can feel them converging on her location, and she smirks as she sits down. She expands her awareness, and she can feel the distinct cursed energy of Yuji and the others, moving further away as she’s ordered them to do. Yuji was reluctant to leave her alone, but she needs them out of range for what she plans to do.

     She also doesn’t want them to see what she plans to do. It’s a gamble, but she trusts that it’ll work as it’s meant to; otherwise, she’s given them orders to retreat to safety if she fails.

     Sundari doesn’t think she will fail in this.

     It doesn’t take long, and Sundari slips into an almost meditative state, cycling through different levels of breathing, her cursed energy flooding the area like the gentle and powerful heave of an ocean. And at the center of it, her in utter stillness. She is like living statuary, and like any warrior during moments of peace, she prepares. Her eyes are open and unblinking, and that is when she feels them.

     Her challengers.

     They’re a cluster in one place, and she sees them, crawling out of the surrounding alleys like vermin.

     Like maggots.

     Sundari surprises herself with the snarling voice in her head as she regards the approaching sorcerers with disdain. She can already tell that they are not strong enough to last against her. She has tested her mettle against both Satoru and her father and has gained the respect and acknowledgment of both.

     She does not fear those who have not tasted true divinity.

     They hesitate. Her cursed energy rivals her father’s, and she realizes that some of these sorcerers must be incarnated from his era. They recognize his cursed energy and she can see their puzzlement. The cat’s out of the bag, as the Americans say: they know Sukuna has a direct descendant. The price on her head pales in comparison to the glory they will win for slaying the Princess of Curses. For some, it is just that: for glory. For others—the new-blooded sorcerers awakened by Noritoshi’s mad scheme—the points on her head are a temptation that can free them from this waking nightmare.

     Sundari knows this, and even so, she is determined to kill all of them.

     She waits until they’re within range, and then she rolls out her lower arms, the maw on her belly opening as she forms a mudra and begins to chant.

     “Ryōiki Tenkai: Tripura Purification.”

     It’s too late when they hear her resonant voice tolling like a bell, and there is no barrier for them to discern how far they need to run to escape. Out of consideration for Yuji and the others, Sundari makes a binding vow to restrict her domain’s normal radius, having learned from watching her father’s decimation of Shibuya. She is the epicenter of instant destruction, and her lower mouth continues to sustain the domain, while the mouth on her face stretches into a manic grin.

     Everything with cursed energy within the domain immediately withers away. The screams of agony die stillborn as Sundari absorbs all of the cursed energy in the domain. With her upper arms, she reaches into the pack slung across her shoulders and withdraws the backdoor of the Prison Realm, setting it in front of her.

     She makes another mudra, the memory of her once and only once touch of the divine. She has enough, she thinks. She can do it.

     “Hanten: Divine Mandate.”

     The world shudders.

     Sundari knows what she’s doing. She is half-divinity, after all. She is daring, reaching, up and up and up, until she places her metaphysical fingers on the divine pulse of the very universe. The eyes of the divine turn in incomprehensible slowness. Sundari is making a request the gods must answer, and in exchange, something must be sacrificed.

     She offers up the cursed energy gathered in the desolation of her domain, and the world seems to grind to a halt.

     The gods are considering her request.

     Sundari’s eyes glow white, divinity surging through her as the cursed energy doubles back on itself, becoming positive energy. The Prison Realm shudders. The binding vow of that damnable Genshin tugs at her own will, but then there’s a collective breath.

     The gods have decided.

     Sundari feels the scales of the universe tip in her favor, ignores the blinding pain behind her right set of eyes as her brain burns and reforms, burns and reforms, her technique burning and engraving itself over and over as the gods give their answer, and take the sacrifice on the altar.

     The Prison Realm bursts open in a spray of divine energy that burns Sundari’s tattoos as her father’s curse shudders against the force of such a powerful vow.

     A vow, finally broken and released.

     Somewhere, far away, the ocean boils, and something that witnesses would swear was a shooting star streaks into the sky, flying toward the smudge that is Japan in the distance.

     The world exhales as Six Eyes open.

     Sundari dismisses her domain, blood pouring from her nose as she slumps over, her vision fading to darkness. She’s distantly aware of Yuji crying her name, can see him running toward her as she shuts her eyes.

     Somewhere, deep within the Zenin estate, Sukuna grins at Nadja as if he has finally found an answer to a question that he has pondered for over a millennium.

     “Asura.” He says and watches as fear—true fear—crosses Nadja’s beautiful face for the first time.

     Sundari, what have you done?

˚⊱🪷⊰˚ Masterpost || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter ⤳

© 2024 Hajara Asiri. Do NOT copy, translate, plagiarize, repost anywhere without permission [reblogging posts is okay]. I only upload on Tumblr, AO3, and FFN. Title and footer banners by me. Dividers and support by @cafekitsune.

[sugurugayto]

[dotdot-png]

saw this riverdale screencap going around so i had to do this

[tangsakura]

Yess sukuna is lying about not knowing flowers.. Body swapped Yuta can't go through gojo's memories, only when the brain swapped he could. That means sukuna, too, can't go through megumi's memories???? Sukuna knows flowers 🌼

In this post, I'll cover:

Conditions to read someone else's memories

Proof that Sukuna knows about flowers and lied to Yuji

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS UP TO CH. 265. PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU AREN'T CAUGHT UP.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

First of all, let me clear up this misunderstanding about soul swapping.

Body swapping doesn't allow the intruder to read the memories of the person they're intruding in. To my understanding, it's because soul swapping doesn't break the soul's connection from the original body despite the switch - that's why Yuta can't read Gojo's memories and vice versa. The only ways one can read another person's memories are through their soul co-habiting with another in one body regardless if they have full control of the body or not; or if you have a CT that allows you to body hop, disconnecting your soul from one body and connecting to another.

The reincarnated sorcerers, including Sukuna and Angel, can read the memories of the people they're co-existing with in one body - they are the best examples of the former. Kenjaku has a CT that allows their brain to invade a corpse and control it, provided that it is not greatly damaged and has no conditions like a heavenly restriction in it - this is the best example of the latter. So, to read someone else's memories, you gotta co-exist with someone in one body or have some CT that allows body hopping.

Sukuna is still co-existing with Megumi in Megumi's body, so he can read Megumi's memories, though not always instantaneous.

｡ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ₊ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ｡˚｡ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ₊ ˚ ︶︶✩︶︶‌ ｡˚｡ ˚ ︶︶

Megumi's Memories???

Sukuna was definitely lying. He certainly knows about flowers. Let me explain.

So here's what we know of Megumi from what Gege revealed from the fanbook.

He's an animal-type of guy. He loves animals more than humans, plus he's more into reading, especially non-fiction books (he reads the newspapers, too).

"Oh, but Tsumiki -"

Yes, Tsumiki was into constellations, and most likely, flowers, too. Megumi knows that. But how much do you think Megumi remembers all the things she taught him about them?

Megumi barely remembered about the Southern Cross constellation.

JJK CHAPTER 156

"Yeah, but Sukuna could've seen these stuff in passing."

Okay. Let's look at chapter 265 - RAW. Translated by me, lmao.

"Asagao (Morning Glories)" "It's Ajisai (Hydrangeas), fool."

(After Yuji yapped about Sendai and the flowers in this place) "Come to think of it, you can identify things like the names of the flowers, huh."

(Note: I know Yuji used 分かる here, which also means 'to know'. But, in this context, it means 'know by looking at the flowers').

"..................I guess it's Fushiguro Megumi's memories."

Bro, what's with the long pause? What's with the conjecture? It's a simple question.

We know it's not from Yuji since he's more into movies, and perhaps TV shows since he likes watching TV. So it's either he knows it already or he learned it from Megumi - why hesitate?

"Oh, you're overreacting-"

Here's another panel. Look at how he recognized Yuta's CT from Megumi's memories in chapter 249.

(Literal Translation) "From Fushiguro Megumi's memories, it is revealed [to me] that the cursed technique of the kid, possessed by the cursed spirit, is Copy." (Kanji of Copy: 模倣, imitation)

You're telling me that this hedonistic beefy guy, who can tell someone else's CT from Megumi's memories from the get-go, cannot tell if the names of the flowers are from Megumi's memories?

Nah, there's only one conclusion. Sukuna knows about flowers and he lied to Yuji. Obviously, his claim was such an epic fail, lmao.

Love ya, Sukuna, but screw you for being a big failure in lying.

TLDR - Sukuna knows about Flowers:

Megumi is an animal-lover, and an avid reader of non-fiction books and newspapers

Sukuna can tell Yuta's CT from Megumi's memories, but isn't sure if the knowledge of flowers came from Megumi's memories. So contradictory. It can only mean one thing - he knows about flowers and just lied to Yuji xD

Thank you for coming to my long-ass TedTalk. Until then.

[bxriles]

I will eventually have a full rant, but this one is just off the cuff. I would like to say that I know jjk is a tragedy and I know (and love) that it doesn’t follow traditional Shonen manga. I am aware of all of this.

But Gege. My brother in christ. I really am not following the narrative decisions being made here…. And I haven’t since the start of the culling games.

Why is the story framed as the younger generation being “better” than the older generation and breaking generational cycles and changing the status quo if this is what we’re doing to the younger generation?

And yes, yes. Before people start freaking out, I do understand that this is a tragedy. I’m just not sure how we got to this level of tragedy when the story was not framed that way. (My full rant will be coming with receipts supporting that btw.)

I mean jfc, seeing those 261 leaks made me feel like I was reading Steven Erickson’s Deadhouse Gates again in terms of sheer bleakness and brutality. The only difference is that it worked in Deadhouse Gates because the story was always framed to be that tragic and brutal and I would argue that Jujutsu Kaisen has had VERY DIFFERENT framing since the beginning.

[niinnyu]

Gege's payoff followed by setup problem, and why Shibuya Arc is still their finest writing.

Gege's writing structure has become so reliant on catching the readers by surprise that they just won't tell anything to the reader. Going into Gojo vs sukuna and the fight fest it's been since, readers have no clue of if there was any strategic/tactical planning happening (outside of Yuuji training with Kusakabe which is sloowwly coming back to the limelight).

The current buildup by adding emphasis to Sukuna and Yuuji and their dynamic, Yuuji's rage and loneliness and loss, only to bring in a Gojo-Yuuta vs Sukuna part 2 electric boogaloo. Which imo is another fight that has no interesting overarching commentary/themes outside of being the promised shounen strong vs strong fight, in a power system already criticised by both sides for being flawed.

It feels like Gege uses shock value and people eating absolutely anything up if it's about their fav, to bypass any meaningful setup.

The reason why Shibuya had the effect of absolute gutwrenching loss and defeat, is because it was setup so deliciously done. We'd seen the villains literally experiment their ideas with the veils on our heroes with the sister-school event, we've seen them talk about their plan with a lot of details, and how eventually they tweaked it to work better with their new knowledge.

We've seen that the mastermind might be someone from Gojo's past since they talk about how they cant be seen by Gojo, then you have jjk0 which shows the rift and the death of that someone (intrugue! Theyre still alive?? They're still on the bad side with that ending??) , following which you have Hidden Inventory where you see the bond and what caused the rift.

And ONLY THEN do you have everything fall into place when Kenjaku appears and Gojo is tricked because you were tricked alongside Gojo even tho as the reader almost everything was right in plain sight with just the lack of some context. Even the inconsistencies between Suguru's and now revealed Kenjaku's behaviour makes sense.

Althought the setup happened rather non-linearly, all of it was still always before the payoff. And boy, does it pay off.

And when things didn't go according to the villains' well thought out plans, it was still just such a seen yet unforeseen turn of events. We didn't know Yuuji would be fed so many of Sukuna's fingers that Sukuna would take over, but Sukuna taking over was an underlying threat that has been constant throughout the story and it just so happened to take place then).

Everything since the culling games has felt like things just happening one after the other. Short term goals that our protagonists had to complete since no one knew what was even happening. An entire year's worth of chapters of not seeing our protagonists and following new people who didn't/haven't yet done anything to truly warrant that much undivided paneltime. Anyone remember the US gov subplot? Did i dream that?

The last genuinely set up but still pretty shocking event was Sukuna using their binding vow and taking over Yuuji's body only to then take over Megumi's. We knew he wanted Megumi's power and the binding vow was another underlying threat since Yuuji's first death that was waiting to happen. Abrupt? Yes. But it was something hinted happening.

By no means am I saying that the reader should be told everything, that's not how writing works, but have enough at least fall into place when things are revealed instead of showing the puzzle completed then picking out puzzle pieces to show it individually and putting them back. A couple of panels where a character says something vague where you as the reader don't even know if it's something to take into account is NOT good set up.

[littleholmes]

them: what’s wrong?

me: idk yuta could die, that’s always a possibility cause he’s powerful but mostly i’m concerned about how and when Kenjaku will infiltrate someone else’s body, cause we still don’t know much of the specifics of how he’s been body hopping and nestling himself in people’s brains and we have Gojo’s body out there and Yuta would make a super powerful host too, Kenjaku’s last words were ominous as hell and the look in his eye in that last panel…there’s no way taking him out would’ve been that ‘easy’…idk, it’s jjk, and since Shibuya, for every positive thing/victory the students get, like three negative things happen, so idk he could—

[goatyuuji]

THAT’S MY SON MY BABY BOY

[cursedmemerson]

The Gay Agenda:

Get possessed by a cursed spirit

Accidentally let the cursed spirit control your body

The cursed spirit threatens your significant other's life

Your significant other says something to make you take back control over your body

Die

[osunism]

“There are no prisons in Heaven.”

One winter night, the King of Curses took an overly curious fugitive of heaven to task. That night, and the many that followed, would see her drawn into the jujutsu world, crossing paths with some of its most storied sorcerers and fighters across millennia.

Warnings for this chapter: BREEDING. BLOOD. GORE.

𓇢𓆸 Chapter 9: Ryōmen Sukuna

Mount Shiroma, Hida, Japan, 422-423 AD

     Something was wrong.

     Sukuna knew something was wrong because he could feel it. Nadja had tarried with him for three years, which was more than enough time to learn her habits. She did not drop her guard around her heart until the second year, and he did not become tender with her until her heavenward confession began to ablate the iron will of his heart to rust. The nights were spent in quiet conversation, after hours of lovemaking. It delighted him that a woman like her had wandered past his threshhold out of mere curiosity, fearless in the face of a man who could kill her.

     It amused him to think that he had tried.

     At first, she had been aloof with him, coy even, but she spoke openly with him. Fear did not touch her as it did most humans he knew. Rather, she seemed conflicted, but on what he had never been able to quite get her to tell him. He knew that her heart was his, she had said as much, and he’d even torn it from her chest and devoured it in a ritual that bound them deeper than any marriage. She’d returned the following morning, healed and refreshed. While the pact that bound him from asking her of her origins kept their conversations vague on the subject of her origins, it did not forbid him from delving into finding answers by other means. It became an obsession as he sent far and wide for every bit of knowledge on heavenly restrictions that existed.

     His conflict with the Fujiwara was when things changed.

     He’d been encroaching on territory over the years, claiming lordship over lands that had either been seized or surrendered, and thus far the Fujiwara had been content to observe and see if lesser sorcerers could fell the beast known only as Sukuna. But Sukuna was not so easily felled, and he sent the sorcerers back in pieces if there was aught left of them by the time he was done. That none returned was a message in and of itself, and the Fujiwara could not stand for such outrage to go unanswered.

     And so they sent their mightiest sorcerers: the Sun, Moon, and Stars squad.

     Three days before the assault, Sukuna asked Nadja if she wished to take part in the battle. They were in the hot spring, and she’d slid into his lap [her throne if only she would let him possess her in full]. With achingly tender care, she scrubbed him clean, dodging his playful nips and wandering hands even as they spoke.

     “You wish to employ my services, my king?” She asked coyly. Sukuna made a hum of amusement, giving her ass a generous squeeze, making her laugh as she detangled his hair with her fingers.

     “You have lived with me for nigh three years, Nadja, and I have let you roam and do as you please,” Sukuna said. “I would like to see your blades turned to my uses for once.”

     Nadja grinned. “My king! I would never dream of raising my blades against you.” She laughed when he pinched her. “Alright, alright! Brute. Why do you want me to join you in this fight? You’ve never asked me to tag along before, and you’re more than powerful enough to lay waste to anything Fujiwara can scrape together.”

     Sukuna grinned. “It is as you say, my love,” he said leaning back against the spring’s rocky ledge, spreading his upper arms while his lower arms stayed wrapped around Nadja’s svelte body.

     “I can defeat them, but it would be costly,” Sukuna said. Nadja shrugged.

     “Would it not send a clearer message if you did it single-handedly?” She countered. Sukuna grinned.

     “Why, my queen,” he said slyly, ignoring her playfully annoyed look and eye roll. “I like the way your mind works. But I like watching you work.”

     Nadja looked at him, pausing in her ministrations to hold his gaze.

     “And so the truth is out at last,” she breathed wondering why her cheeks were so warm.

     “Is it so surprising that I like to see you fight?” Sukuna asked. “Have I given you reason to think I consider your skills unworthy of their due praise?”

     Nadja shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “It’s just…you compliment others seldom. I did not expect you to find my skills that appealing. I am not a sorcerer after all.”

     “Jujutsu is naught but skin and blood,” Sukuna said dismissively. “And you are a warrior, Nadja. I’m not so arrogant to ignore a skilled individual when I see them.”

     Nadja said nothing, staring at him as if he’d just plucked the moon from the sky. If she asked it of him, he would have done it. He would have brought her anything she desired. His immortal, unkillable little assassin. His wild, darkling treasure. Sukuna could never be attributed to having any feelings of the ‘warm and fuzzy’ variety, but he knew when he looked at Nadja there was a lightness in him that was akin to the high of a fierce battle. It nourished him and fed him in a different way. He felt it strongly, that giddiness in him just knowing that Nadja was roaming around the temple grounds like some deadly apparition. His, his, his.

     And in the night’s depths, when he’d spent himself inside her and she trembled and clung to him as if he were her soul’s very anchor, he felt something like contentment.

     Happiness. And he knew she was feeling it too. She would not have stayed so long if she did not find joy with him.

     He wanted her at that battle not because he needed her help. He did not need anyone. But he wanted her. He wanted her by his side. He wanted to share in the thrill of battle with her, and to bask in the afterglow of slaughter, and to drink deep from the cups of victory as they feasted. And after…after he would discuss expanding his holdings and siring his legacy. He wrapped all four of his arms around her, one hand spanning the expanse of her belly, imaginging life blooming within. It was enough to stir him and he roused Nadja with a tug of her earlobe between his sharp teeth, making her shiver and mumble sleepily.

     “S’kuna…” she mumbled even as one of his hands slid down between her legs, his fingertips circling her clit gently. Her sleepy mumbles became the softest moans and whimpers. Sounds no one would have expected from such a vicious woman, but she melted for him, her cunt growing slippery under his insistent touch. Her body moved like a serpent’s, languid and lissome and fluid as she pressed herself into his body, seeking more contact.

     “I want to get you with child,” he growled into her skin and she gasped, shivering into wakefulness.

     “What?” She whispered, then moaned as he dipped two thick fingers into her cunt, finding her hot and wet already.

     “I can think of no one else who would be suited to the task,” he said, lifting her leg as he angled one of his cocks until the blunt tip nudged at her entrance insistently. Nadja hissed as her cunt practically sucked him in, stretching her almost painfully but it felt so good. She bit her lip on a whimper.

     “You have concubines, my lord…” she whispered, licking her lips before letting out an involuntary cry when he thrust hard, stretching her painfully. She would always struggle to take him, but once he was in…ah gods.

     “They don’t have the constitution to handle my appetites, nor the qualities I would seek in someone worthy of bearing my children. You do. And given your restriction is complete and total,” Sukuna continued, thrusting until he was buried to the hilt inside of her. Nadja moaned weakly, gripping the sheets. “It’s likely a child of ours would inherit a massive amount of power.”

     And then he made love to her again. His hips moved faster, excited at the prospect of an heir, of putting one in this woman who remained elusive and enigmatic even after three years. Now she was moaning his name, throwing her head back against his shoulder as he fucked her with steady, powerful strokes.

     “Doesn’t seem like you’re opposed to the idea,” Sukuna said smugly, hissing with a reverant swear as he felt Nadja’s cunt tighten around him in response. The idea of having his brat appealed to her. He wagered he could convince her to take his offer and anchor her to him proper.

     “What do you think, my love?” He drawled, sucking a bruise into her neck, and licking it as if in mock apology.

     She moaned brokenly in response when his fingers found her clit again, swollen and throbbing under his touch.

     “Gnh…” It was the only response one could get out of her, and Sukuna chuckled, smug as ever.

     And then he fucked her.

     It was not gentle, but he knew she could take it. He rolled her onto her stomach before spreading her wide to slide his cock into her all over again. He planted his hands on either side of her, his lower hands holding her hips as he pounded into her. No longer whimpering, Nadja moaned as if she were wounded, and Sukuna drank down her cries, letting it goad his pleasure as he fucked her like he wanted to kill her.

     Her fingers gripped the sheets tight, knuckles going pale as she endured him.

     “Keep talking to me, love,” he growled. “Fuck…! You’ve got such a beautiful cunt—can’t wait to ngh…put a child in this…!”

     His rhythm began to stutter, and Nadja shuddered in release, milking his cock before he buried himself balls deep, his cock twitching nad pulsating as he fucked her full of his seed. He let out a contented sigh before leaning down to lick an obscene path from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck, making her shiver. Her cunt tightened reflexively making him hiss. He slapped her ass in response making her moan and lift her hips.

     “You wanna go again?” He demanded with a grin. Nadja lifted a hand weakly before he planted a trail of unusually soft and tender kisses along her nape and shoulders, and then to her temple. Then, he slid out of her, relishing her loud and obscene moan. He didn’t leave her be, and she hissed when his fingers took the place of his cock, pushing any seed of his that leaked from her cunt back inside. Of course, he grinned and stroked her clit on occasion, earning small mewls from her. He stirred her to climax again, watching as her cunt greedily sucked at his fingers, tight and wet and slippery with his seed and her own juices.

     “Sukuna…!” She cried, making an attempted to crawl from him as he laughed. He slapped her ass again before rising from the bed. She made to follow after him but he told her to stay and not waste a drop of his seed.

     “I’ll come with you,” she said at last, panting. “I’ll face them with you.”

     And Sukuna shared a smile with the darkness.

Shibuya District, October 31, 2018 22:51

     Watching Toji fight the special grade cursed spirit was confusing. Nadja understood she was seeing a seance spell in action, and it took her a while to sift through her memory to figure out what was going on. Why was he here to begin with? Gods above—

     “Megumi!” She cried. “We have to get out of here!”

     The boy looked strained, and blood poured from his nose and mouth. How long had he been straining to hold his domain? Nadja knew his cursed energy was straining. He would burn out if they didn’t punch a hole in this domain, and she was certain that even though Toji was preoccupied with the cursed spirit [and handling it with ruthless efficiency], she knew it was only a matter of time before the one holding the seance turned him against them.

     “The hole I made…” Megumi’s voice was a strained growl. “It closed when that guy got in!”

     That guy…Nadja allowed herself a grim moment. He didn’t know, then. Sad. She would not tell him, but she could hope.

     Nanami thought. “Wait! Hikmat, don’t your blade disrupt jujutsu? Maybe you can carve a way out of here!”

     Nadja considered it, but then shook her head. “No, I need to know where the barrier is. And I’d have to cut through Megumi’s domain as well.”

     She glanced back at Toji, who was stalking on the beach toward the cursed spirit who was beginning to realize that its time was almost up.

     “Then we’re placing our bets on him,” Nanami said with a frown. To that, Nadja had no protest. She already knew the outcome of this fight would be Toji as the victor. What worried her is what would come after. This was not the Toji she knew, not entirely. It was his body, perhaps parts of his soul, but he was like her: divinely gifted through a pact. Any resurrection attempts would be overwritten by their souls. For her, it meant she would reconstitute as herself after every death, being what she was.

     For Toji it meant a brief second chance at living.

     Nadja looked toward Megumi, wondered if the boy even saw the uncanny resemblance between them as Toji handily beat seven shades of shit out of the cursed spirit, grinning with unfettered malicious glee the entire time.

     It was Toji, stripped down to the most raw and deadly parts of himself, and for the first time, Nadja felt pity for him. He had perished twelve years before because of his own hubris, and now he was here at the bidding of some second-rate sorcerer’s technique. She pursed her lips. It was the reason heavenly pacts became more common throughout the ages: the universe’s way of redressing the power imbalance sorcerers had over ordinary people who lacked the gift of magic and jujutsu. The thin line betwixt those born with those gifts and those not is where she stood. It’s where Toji had once stood. It’s where Maki would stand one day.

Nadja’s Apartment, Tokyo, Japan, November 12, 2004

     “Protect?” Toji asked, looking down at Nadja where she was resting on his chest. His arm curled around her, fingers tracing patterns in her sweat-slick skin. Nadja nodded.

     “That is why people like you and I exist, Toji,” she said. “We’re supposed to protect non-sorcerers from sorcerers. You’ve seen the power they wield, and you’ve seen them wield it violently against the innocent. Our abilities exist to stand between their malicious intent and the mortals they seek to destroy.

     Toji scoffed. “Bullshit. If that’s the case, how come some people with pacts are born disabled.”

     Nadja sat up, frowning. “Being able-bodied is not a requirement to be able to protect someone, Toji. Divine pacts are not made unfairly. What the pact takes away, it must replace with something else. Perhaps a pacted individual is wheelchair-bound, but their cursed energy can still protect others around them.”

     Toji looked skeptical and Nadja knew that damnable Zenin upbringing was preventing him from seeing her point. She’d have to lay it out for him. This fucking Sorcerer Killer schtick was going to get him killed one day.

     “Power can come from anywhere and anyone,” Nadja said fiercely. “Whether they are like us, gifted with inhuman strength, or like the disabled, whose powers manifest in other ways. The divine makes no bargains it does not intend to keep.”

     Toji shook his head. “Whatever you say, doll, but all that altruism isn’t gonna pay the bills, especially my kid’s school fees.”

     Nadja pursed her lips. “Maybe if you didn’t insist on gambling it away,” she said to him. Toji sucked his teeth at her.

     “Have you ever actually won anything from those races?” She asked. Toji frowned, but to her it looked more like a pout.

     “There’s no place for us, Nadja,” he said quietly. “The jujutsu world doesn’t care about you if you don’t have any cursed energy or cursed techniques. That’s all they will ever value.”

     And Nadja knew that even here, decades after leaving the Zenin Clan behind, building his reputation as the Sorcerer Killer…he would never be free of it. He could not see what he was meant to see and she knew deep down that it would be too late by the time he did. She did not know what expression she wore, but whatever it was made Toji look away from her gaze.

     It was one of the rare times they had been accidentally vulnerable with one another.

     They did not speak for weeks after.

Present Day, Shibuya District, October 31, 2018 22:55

     Sundari had two choices: kill Geto and take the Prison Realm, or kill the cursed spirits that were his allies. If she tried to kill Geto, it was likely the Prison Realm would remain closed. If she killed the curses, Geto would get away once the Prison Realm could be moved…which was soon.

     “Go,” Geto said in a bored tone, smirking. “I’ll not come to harm. I have something our little Godslayer wants very badly.”

     The cursed spirit, Mahito, fled to handle the rest of their meticulous plans, leaving Sundari and Geto alone.

     He glanced up at Sundari, even as the Prison Realm rattled with Gojo’s power between them.

     “You want to murder so badly,” Geto said. “Will you carry this box around after you kill me? Desperate to open it and get to your lover?”

     Sundari looked down at him with her lower eyes.

     “Open it.”

     “I can’t. The process has already begun.”

     “Liar.”

     “Any other time you’d be right, but in this, my dear, you are wrong,” Geto gestured to the Prison Realm which sat in its crater, utterly immobile. His gaze suddenly sharpened and Sundari’s eyes went wide as Geto sent a small curse flying at the ceiling past her head. It struck something hard and metal, which shattered on the ground below. Sundari’s lower eyes shifted and she made out the glints of green and copper colored metal. Geto’s nose scrunched.

     “Ugh. A minor setback,” he said. “So, have you given any thought to my offer, Sundari? Or will you continue fighting the inevitable?”

     Sundari crossed her lower set of arms, her upper arms reached upward as she stretched.

     “You are holding Gojo Satoru hostage and asking if I have made a decision to join your mad scheme?” She demanded. “I am many things, but a fool I am not. My offer still stands, however, and if you’re nice, I’ll leave off the skullfucking and just kill you outright.”

     Geto chuckled. “Now that’s not very fair at all, Godslayer,” he said with his serene smile. “Are my only options death or…forced fellatio? How would that even work?” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Are you…like your father in more ways than I anticipated?”

     Sundari’s glare darkened like a stormcloud and for a moment her cursed energy pulsed. She was about to raise her hand to cave Geto’s skull and tear out the thing occupying it, but both of them glanced up sharply at the presence of intense cursed energy. Sundari felt her stomach drop to her feet. It was an unmistakeable presence.

     Geto’s smile was catlike and utterly pleased.

     “Uh oh! Seems you’ve got bigger problems, my dear!” he said to her as she frowned in confusion, and realization dawned on her. Geto chuckled smugly. Sundari glared at him one last time before she turned to take off where Sukuna’s cursed energy was beginning to gather strength.

     “Daddy’s home.”

Shibuya District, October 31, 2018 22:55

     The first time Sundari had set foot in Shibuya, the chill of Sukuna’s presence had been felt. But Yaga and Shoko knew who she was, understood it and pieced together the clues based on Gojo’s strange behavior the last few months. They understood that the malevolent energy of Sukuna’s bloodline was active in Shibuya and knew that she had been here to help. There were no reports of mass casualties matching the carnage they knew she was capable of. Neither could fathom this going over well with the higher ups, and since it was so above their paygrade, the shitshow got worse when a second outpouring of Sukuna’s energy spilled into Shibuya.

     “What the fuck is going on down there?” Yaga muttered.

     Quite simply: Yuji Itadori was no longer in control.

     Sukuna opened his eyes, all four of them, watching as the cursed spirit that force-fed him the Fingers turned his attention to the two brats who’d also contributed to his awakening. He kept still and waited. It seemed no matter the era, everyone would want to beg favors from him. He was a king who would never be bloodied by overthrow. He wondered what a cursed spirit could possibly want from him, however.

     And why the fuck was its hand still on his face.

     A twitch of two fingers, and Sukuna watched as the cursed spirit lifted the stump where its arm used to be.

     “I’ll give you one second,” Sukuna finally spoke and the spirit turned its wide, frightened eye toward him. He stared back, already agitated. “Move.”

     To its credit, the spirit was fast, bounding over to the brats with alacrity. He stood up, brushing off the rubble and tile that had crumbled on him during the stillness of Itadori’s unconscious state. He took a deep breath, settling into the freedom of movement and pleased that he’d gotten so lucky to wrest the reigns of control. What a glorious opportunity to make everyone regret being born.

     He could hear them breathing, smell their fear, the sniveling brats and the conniving little spirit that radiated pride—the one saving grace that kept Sukuna from splattering all three of them…for the moment.

     He made his way to them, his vision adjusting as his soul assimilated control fully, and his power settled in his bones like a fever. He could feel how much stronger he had become, and he was eager to test his abilities. He reached up, pushing his hair back—the brat needed a fucking haircut—and then staring at the unlikely trio with cold disdain.

     “You all hold your heads quite high,” it was the only warning they received and frankly more than any of them deserved. The two sniveling brats read the room, dropping into an obeiscant kneel, foreheads pressed low to the ground. But that prideful cursed spirit took a knee, and Sukuna wanted to laugh as the top of its volcanic head was sheared off from the punishment he’d doled out. How dare this amalgamation of fear and rage think itself his equal.

     “It is said the greatest men bow the lowest,” Sukuna said. “Did you think taking a knee was enough, little curse? Tch. You clearly do not value your head very much.”

     It was only an echo of mocking admonishment, but the spirit did not kneel. Oh very interesting. This one’s pride was unshakeable was it? Sukuna made a note to dole out a more instructive lesson in humility later. In the meanwhile…

     “You two brats,” he said laconically, sneering when they both flinched. “Let’s start with you. I’ll give you a Finger’s worth of audience. What do you want?”

     They hesitated, but the fair-haired one seemed more confident than her twin. Sukuna’s lower eyes narrowed. Twins, huh? Interesting. They were both weaklings, barely worth his time, and he meant what he said when he told them they’d only get a Finger’s worth of his time. They had better make it a good time.

     “Below us,” the fair-haired brat said, trying to will the tremor out of her voice but Sukuna could smell the sweat of her fear already, cloying his nostrils like cheap perfume. “There is a man in monk’s robes. Please kill him.”

     Sukuna’s face was unreadable, even as in the midst of her plea she failed to address him by his proper title. Knew enough to kneel, but not how to address her betters? Tch.

     Then, she kept talking. As did the other more timid one. They prattled on and on about how they loved the man in the monk’s robes, about how his corpse was stolen by some creature and being used for dastardly ends. Sukuna heard it all with an unmoved expression. He was a mountain in the face of a howling wind. More like pathetic whines, but howling wind nonetheless.

     And then the fair-haired one said something that made his blood turn to brutal magma. It was only an instant, but it was enough.

     “He was Gojo Satoru’s one and only friend,” she said. “We know the location of one other Finger. If you kill the monk, we will tell you where it is.”

     Gojo Satoru. Love. All these humans cared about was love. The most useless lie ever created.

     And these brats thought they could buy his favor with a single blip of his power.

     Sukuna wanted to sneer. He knew what the creature lurking in that corpse was—who it was.

     “Lift your heads,” he said at last when he tired of their prattling.

     They hesitated, but Sukuna was not the type to repeat himself or raise his voice. He was a patient predator, and he was a king in his own right, one who wore his crown with ease. Master of himself and all within his purview.

     Slowly, the two girls rose from their kneel. He was about to give them his answer and the fair-haired one’s eyes flickered up to his once.

     A twitch of his fingers, and the timid one’s head was gone. Blood splattered like an angry red flower from the truncated neck, onto the sister’s cheek, who was still staring at him before she realized what just happened.

     Sukuna stared down at her as her shrieks of grief and rage rang out through the night. This was a sound he was intimately familiar with. It almost made him feel nostalgic for the old days. Ah well.

     “You thought you could buy me with a Finger? How insulting.”

     Could she even hear him over all her histrionics?

     “Sukuna! Die!” The girl screamed raising her phone at him. Sukuna looked down into the phone’s camera lens and smirked. He felt the flare of her cursed technique coming to life as her thumb hovered over the shutter button, and made a subtle twitching gesture with his fingers.

     One of his favorite pastimes when coming into his own had been learning how precise he could control the pattern and trajectory of his slices. He had been good with knives once upon a time, and understood the art of cutting more than most would credit him with, and with his art he was very much the same.

     He split the girl’s head first, just beneath her furious eyes. He wondered if she was glaring at him through her phone or looking directly at him. And with another gesture, he dismantled her in a spray of blood and tiny cubes.

     Ah, and he barely expended any cursed energy. Excellent. He was sure he could reach for heaven tonight.

     He caught the phone before it hit the ground.

     “A cell phone, huh,” he surmised. “Doubtless meant to do something to the subject in the photo.” He checked to see if a picture had been taken. It hadn’t. “How boring.” He crushed the phone and tossed it.

     The spirit was still kneeling, unmoving.

     “And you, cursed spirit,” Sukuna said, finally deign to address the prideful thing. “What would you have of me?”

     The cursed spirit dared to look at him sidelong.

     “I want…nothing.”

     Sukuna raised his brows, turning fully to face the cursed spirit.

     “What?” He asked, genuinely curious. The cursed spirit did not rise from its kneel but nor did it bow or stop looking him in the eye. How annoying.

     “Our goal was only ever your full revival,” the spirit said. “Beyond that, we believe your return will usher in a new age of curses.”

     Sukuna blinked. He didn’t understand but even not understanding he thought it was foolish.

     He was about to speak, about to make the spirit an offer he knew it couldn’t refuse when he felt her…or rather, the lack of her.

     Cursed energy was thick in the air, he could practically taste it and see it, but he had been with her for years. He knew how to find her when her lack of cursed energy made her impossible to find. He looked for the space where cursed energy was not eddying in the air like ozone. And there she stood: the woman who had shown him that love was truly the most useless lie. The woman who had broken her promise to him, who had betrayed him, and whom he could not kill.

     “Nadja,” her name growled out of his throat like a curse and prayer, but more curse than anything. The cursed spirit’s attention followed Sukuna’s burning gaze, startled by Nadja’s ominous and invisible presence. She stepped into the light, looking as if she had already been in the thick of the fighting. The cursed spirit was more shocked that she had survived his flames and appeared unscathed. She lacked cursed energy so she should have died easily.

     “Sukuna,” Nadja replied, andh er voice held no malice in it, only the unfathomable weight of their history laid out between them. Sukuna ignored the cursed spirit, watching as Nadja closed the distance between them.

     “A thousand years and more have done little to diminish your beauty,” Sukuna said. “I would see you under moonlight and not the accursed lights of this era.”

     Nadja smiled. “All the better when you come for my head, my love?”

     Sukuna snarled. “I am glad you understand that this will not be a happy reunion.”

     The cursed spirit wanted to yell, but it knew intrinsically that it now occupied a space between hammer and anvil. And it wasn’t sure who was which.

     “And look what time has done to you,” Nadja said. Sukuna wanted to dismantle her but he knew it was pointless. That fact served to further goad his frustration. She looked the same! That sharp symmetrical beauty, the scar around her ruined right eye, the magma color of the left. Her hair was different, pulled back in a single braid, but other than that nothing had changed. He knew in the deepest parts of himself that she smelled and tasted the same too. A thousand years and more he’d waited in the dull quiet of his domain, thinking of those three blissful years with her.

     “I’m only using what the gods gave me,” Sukuna said in response. He frowned, tilting his head as if listening to a distant song. More of his Fingers unsealed? No, that made no sense. He was distantly aware of the rest, and they were far away. No, this felt…this felt like him. Him as he was now. He turned his gaze to Nadja.

     “What is that?” He asked. Nadja said nothing, but he saw her swallow bob in her throat. Sukuna smirked. Something she didn’t want him to know about? Good. It was something he could use against her, but he was more curious as to why it felt so familiar…

     “Sukuna…” Nadja’s posture changed, and he saw her shift her weight, her hands clasping and unclasping. He tried to remember where her blades were on her person. They were sealed in their sheaths so he could not detect them. He always had to touch her to find them, but he didn’t have time to get close.

     “Alright spirit,” he said to the cursed spirit, who startled. “If you can land a hit on me I’ll work under you and your group.”

     “Truly?” The spirit asked, seemingly honored at such an offer. Nadja and Sukuna locked eyes and she frowned at him almost affectionately that he was toying with a curse like this. She’d seen him play this game many times before in his own audience hall. Impossible tasks only to punish his opponents brutally for thinking they could ever best him at anything.

     Luckily, Nadja needed the curse dead too. She’d let Sukuna lock it into its game. It would keep him from Sundari for now.

     “Ready?” Sukuna asked. “Let’s go!”

     He sounded like a gleeful child, and before anyone left alive could blink he was gone, cackling upward into the open night air. Nadja’s eyes widened before she took off after him. He had always been so fucking fast, but now the stakes were different. There were innocent people trapped in Shibuya who did not know the danger they were in.

     And there was Sundari, whom Nadja had worked so hard to keep hidden from this world. She dreaded the day Sundari ever came face to face with her father, not only because Sukuna was cunning and manipulative, but because he was also volatile. Sundari had inherited her father’s temperament in a lot of ways, and she knew that any conflict between them would sink this whole damn island if they weren’t stopped.

     Nadja was tireless in her pursuit, but Sukuna was already like a shark on the scent of blood, making his way to where Sundari was. And as Nadja caught up to him she realized that this moment had been inevitable. Sundari had been coming to find the source of the energy same as he sought her out, and like two powerful stars within one another’s orbit, they came face to face at last.

     A thousand years of hiding had led to this moment, and Nadja stopped just short as father and daughter faced one another for the first time.

     Sukuna, for his part, could count on one hand [and this includes his other arms] how many times in his life something or someone had surprised him. But the moment he came face to face with the woman who bore a striking resemblance to Nadja, and four eyes staring at him widely, he knew he could finally count on two hands.

     He was stunned. She stared at him with four eyes identical to his own, with tattoos identical to his own, and yet he saw Nadja’s features in her own, saw his features too. The woman before him was a beautiful blend of them both and he realized who and what she was, the realization leaving him at a loss for words.

     “Who are you?” He asked quietly. The woman stared at him, her lips parting as her lower eyes flickered to Nadja and the cursed spirit who knew better than to interrupt.

     “Sundari,” she said, her voice carrying no fear, only the steel of certainty. The certainty of Self.

     Sukuna’s brows furrowed.

     “When were you born?” He asked.

     Sundari did not answer him right away.

     “In the spring of 425 AD,” she said softly. Sukuna took a deep breath, and resisted the urge to shut his eyes against the sight of the woman before him. His whelp. His heir. Her power brimmed with potential, and he could not help the swell of pride as the words he’d spoken to Nadja manifested true in the flesh. A woman with a complete heavenly restriction, and a sorcerer of unparalleled power came together to create this. He eyed his daughter’s four arms, the branded tattoos that marked her as his blood, carrying his cursed. She was his, he could not deny.

     Without another word he struck out and Nadja leapt out of the way as the cursed spirit with the volcano head splattered beside her. The remains burst into flames. Sukuna never took his eyes off Sundari and he saw her take a relaxed but defensive posture. She was a fighter, then. Good. He would test her mettle in a moment.

     “Nadja,” he said and Nadja came to him, not yet ready to kill him even now. “I’m going to test our brat, and if you interfere I will kill her immediately.”

     He snorted. “Aside, there’s still another curse lurking below. I’m sure the sorcerers are in dire need of your help if they aren’t all dead by now.”

     “Release the boy, Sukuna,” Nadja said, and there was no plea in her voice. “You and I can finish this once you’re at full power.”

     Sukuna glared at her.

     “You hid our daughter from me and think you can still order me about, do you?”

     Even though he knew it was futile, he wasn’t sure if Sundari knew that. He could start this battle off with a nice bit of heartbreak.

     Nadja didn’t have time to fight back before Sukuna’s hand fastened around her throat and without a second thought, snapped it. Nadja went limp in his hold, and he stared at her slack face momentarily before dropping it to the ground. Through his lower eyes, he saw Sundari staring at him, her cursed energy smoldering around her in quiet fury.

     Good.

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© 2024 Hajara Asiri. Do NOT copy, translate, plagiarize, repost anywhere without permission [reblogging posts is okay]. I only upload on Tumblr, AO3, and FFN. Title banner by me. Dividers and banners by @cafekitsune.

[getosugurusbangs]

DAMN yuta’s domain is sick actually

it is just love and peace themed (unsurprisingly) but it’s still pretty cool ngl

[the-teapot-collection]

crocodile walked so kenjaku could run

[sugurugayto]

now gege better draw fem!gojo so i could have my yuri!stsg

[pardon-my-scifi]

What even is chapter 242?

[love-marimo]

HOLY SHIT KSNDBHSHSJSKSNSHSHSJAJA

okay i need to take a deeeeep breath

im actually scared of how manipulative kenjaku is?? 😰 suguru def won't approve of this behavior.

also it kind of doesn't make sense that he thinks that the culling game has no true gamemaster when he literally broke the rule system to add two new rules.

but then i guess it's bc he has the intention of putting drawbacks… but ehhh… idk

MAKIIII OH MY GOODDDDDDD YOURE SO HOT PLS I MISSED U

i mean??? come on gege?? hop to it!! 🙄😤

i just- AAAAAHHH yuuji :((( my baby needs a damn break pls

anyways choso's fond smile tho?? HELL YES MONSTER DADDY

jujutsu avengers, assemble! 😤😤😤

also this short flashback of gojo 🥹🥹 i miss him so much my goodness. it's just bittersweet to even watch shoko reminisce about the memory of gojo not wanting to be alone anymore.

....

"come back already gojo"

HAH. i bet gege used that line to rile us up and yes i believe it worked on me 😩😭 i need him to finish this stupid ass game.

[jellie-the-aqua-puma]

My actual reaction to JJK CH 235