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‣‣ COR UNUM: CHAPTER TWELVE | DAIKOKUTEN

‣‣ Synopsis: The Tale of the Shogun's Daughter continues with a frightening encounter within the forest. And flames eternal burn away at flesh and bone until nothing is left of the one who dares to lay its hands upon the power of a King.

‣‣ Main Masterlist | AO3 ‣‣ Pairing: Sukuna x Reader ‣‣ Word Count: est. 7.7k ‣‣ Warnings: Blank blogs & Minors DNI. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. Set in the Early-Heian Period, trueform!Sukuna, female reader, cannibalism, vivid gore and horror, descriptions of bodily harm, descriptions of burns, slightly suggestive, usage of cursed energy

Twigs crunched beneath your bare feet, snapping and splintering until they dug themselves into the soft sole of your foot. Your lungs ache with each breath in, far too small to suck in a big enough breath to keep you running away—away from the beast that chases you.

You can hear their bounding steps, snapping branches and kicking stones, you can hear their hisses and shrieks of laughter. They were growing closer and closer. Soon they’d catch you, for they were much bigger than you, stronger and faster in every way. You were nothing in comparison to something designed for the hunt.

The forest winds around you, long thin trees in every direction. So open and yet so enclosed at the same time. You can’t breathe—you can’t catch your breath and they were right on your heels, their claws itching to sink themselves into your flesh until you were nothing but a fleeting memory.

Your heart aches in your chest, it beats so heavily that you fear it may just break out and flop onto the forest floor. But you push on, you push and push until your calves burn. The numbness of your toes came first, building up and up until you could no longer feel the deep lacerations of your bare feet with each passing stone you were forced to step on.

A guttural noise has you ducking down your head automatically, hands clamouring to try and cover your ears. That thing was something beyond evil, something you had seen in the dark corners at night and lurking at the borders of your village. They were something else.

Those monsters always prowled the darkest shadows at night, mumbling nonsense to themselves or simply just… staring. It was unnerving, and no one could see them. No one paid mind to the ones that clung to legs or draped themselves over the shoulders of someone complaining of back ache.

No one saw them. None except you. And that was your first mistake. You tried to tell your mother, to tell her of those monsters that lingered around her the most when she was with your father. But she thought you were a child with an overactive imagination, that you had been listening to the gossip of the village too closely.

So she held you when those things woke you in the night, her fingers running through your hair and cradling your head to her chest. The softness of her voice had always lulled you to sleep, the lullaby she sang to you was enough to ward away the evil that stroked its long claws along her back.

Yet it was not enough to save you from the wrath of your father who had ripped open the sliding door to your bedroom, and tore you from the safety of your bed in a flurry of loose blankets and a forgotten teddy. He dragged you through the streets, uncaring for when you stumbled and fell into the mud.

The village leader had deemed you an abomination, an unwanted child.

And that’s why you were sprinting through the forest as fast as you could, away from the village, away from the evil things that roamed in the darkness and screeched their enjoyment—their thrill for the hunt. They grew closer and closer, approaching from different angles until you could smell them.

Death; rotten and suffocating.

“Found you…” a voice hisses against your ear, so close you can feel the coldness of the breath that rolls from their tongue. Your body is thrown to the side, slammed harshly against the trunk of a tree. The ache in your back blossoms quickly, spreading from the tip of your tailbone to the very top of your spine. Your legs ache, and your feet are blistered and broken beyond belief.

A crack of wood has you looking up in time to see the thing that had been hunting you. It’s an elongated figure, its jaw opened so wide that it swings loosely at his chest. The teeth within its mouth are broken and sharp, all primed and ready to rip apart their victim. Its hair is a mousy brown, dangling around its ankles — and its outfit is so… human, a plain hakama and haori that had been ripped and torn over time. And at its ankles are two heavy metal cuffs, designed to have a chain attached to them.

The monster hisses, those narrowed white eyes are narrowed down at you. “Found you, f–found you, little one.”

It raises one gangly hand up, its fingers disfigured and disconnected at the joints - only held together by loose pieces of skin and sinew. The claws attached to those fingers were unlike anything you had seen before, they were long and spindly. They twitch in your direction, and the air becomes suffocatingly overwhelming.

Something burns at the back of your throat, and further down in the deepest part of your chest. It burns and chokes, like you’d swallowed a mouthful of mountain ash. You can’t breathe—you can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe–

A snarling hiss jolts your attention back to the monster, and you can only raise your hand hastily to stop the hand that descends upon you. The air whips against you, throws your body further back into the ground and you wait for the impact of the monstrous claws to slash and rip at the arm you threw up in defence.

…But it never comes. The stench of death is still there, but there’s a smoky smell that lingers just beneath it. Slowly, you raise your head from beneath your raised arm to stare at the monster who had slowed its attack. Only to find half of its body before you—sliced cleanly in half.

You blink owlishly at the sight, the blood that pours from its body is a pungent purple. A sign that it was nothing but a monster. You glance around to find that all the trees before you have been sliced cleanly in half. A single stroke in the same section of each tree, all lining up perfectly with the body that bursts into bright blue flames before your very eyes.

It’s over as quickly as it started, and you wait to see if the attacker who had cleaved the forest in half would show itself… yet they never show. Where else would it have come from? An attack like that… it was strong, something so otherworldly that it made no sense.

With a sweep of your eyes, you glance around the tree you were pressed against, and you still find no one had come running out of the shadows — human or otherwise. Maybe they were waiting in the dark, waiting for you to make a mistake and retreat the way you once came… so you run.

You run in the opposite direction until you hear running water, and stumbling out of the forest treeline you find a babbling stream. Your throat aches with thirst, and so you lurch forward, feet burning against the stony embankment as you approach the water.

A hand scoops down, and you freeze with your hand submerged in the water. Your hand… It has long nails, pointed like claws and the hand is much too small to be your own. Your heart thrums in your ear, thumping with each passing second until you find it within yourself to drag your eyes to look at your reflection.

Instead of your own face, you are met with another. One with maroon eyes and a childish young boy's face. Your hair is mixed with mud and leaves, but you can see the peek of colouring beneath all of that. Pink.

No. You were not yourself but you were someone else entirely.

You were the King of Curses when he was a young boy.

…You jolt awake. Your eyes snap open to dance around the pitch-black room, honing in instinctively on the corners that seem a little too dark to be considered just shadows. But nothing comes from the darkness, nothing with sharp teeth and spindly fingers, it was nothing but a nightmare.

That realisation has you inhaling deep, freeing your mind from the images of that sliced curse. You didn’t doubt that it was something more than just a simple nightmare, it felt far too realistic to be anything but that. Your fingers brush along the tattoo that had found its way onto your chest, could that be the reason why you were seeing the past of the man lying next to you?

The theory of binding hearts was left unknown to you. Sukuna hadn’t bothered to explain it further to you, and perhaps he never would. There was no real reason for him to explain anything to you now, you had completed the binding vow and you were now unable to remove it.

Yet, you find yourself almost uncaring if you were to be left in the dark of the vow. The content that had settled into your heart, your soul, after the vow was complete was unlike anything else. You felt different, in a way. A way you were sure you’d discover sooner rather than later. If the vow was to offer you Sukuna’s strength, you can’t imagine he wouldn’t want to see just how much of his strength you could throw back at him.

That has you glancing at the man at your side. He was still asleep, laid on his back with one arm tucked beneath your head to act as a pillow. The others were splayed out around him, one resting softly on his stomach—covering that large mouth.

Sukuna seemed undisturbed by your nightmare, his face completely relaxed. He looked devastatingly beautiful like this; the flickering dying amber flame that lit the smooth expanse of his features, catching against the rough texture of his secondary face. His eyebrows were relaxed, as was the line of his lips.

Your cheek presses into the thick muscle of his bicep when you roll over towards him, your hand hovering just over the planes of his chest before you settle your hand right over his heart. It thuds under your palm in a slow yet steady pattern, undisturbed and calm.

But as you look at those softer features, the delicate shade of pink hair, your heart shatters in your own chest. If that nightmare was an accurate depiction of when he had been hunted by his own village, you mourned for that child. He had known the love of a mother yet succumbed to the wrath of a father.

He had been failed from the very beginning, an unwanted child is what they called him. A bad omen. The grief that settled into your gut slowly coiled into volatile anger, no one had been there to protect him. No one had stopped it from happening, his mother had not tried to protect her only son. Instead, she was there, shoved behind her husband as they released their son into the forest to be hunted down by the curse that ate wandering little children.

“What is it?” Sukuna mumbles from next to you, voice steepled in a deep rich husk, his eyes are still closed but the upper arm that had been splayed above your head comes down to run those long claws down the expanse of your shoulders. “I can feel your torment.”

A peck to his chest has him humming deep in his chest, that hand at your back splays out to force you closer. You can’t help but huff out a laugh when you’re smothered in the warmth that seems to radiate from Sukuna, yet you curl into it regardless. His arms curl around you carefully, safely, as if he were trying to ward off the thoughts in your mind with his very being.

The delicately intimate air that settles has you shoving down your thoughts; pushing away the nightmares lest you break whatever this feeling was that filled your heart with such warmth. You didn’t want to break the spell that had been cast over the both of you.

So you lay another kiss against his chest, your finger drawing a small undefined shape over where his heart lay before you curl in as close as possible. “Nothing, my love.” It’s nothing but a whisper, and yet that term of endearment comes so easily.

Sukuna doesn’t refute your lie, instead, he shifts just slightly until his lips brush against your hairline and a gentle kiss is pressed there before he relaxes back into the bed. His hand resting on your shoulder continues to draw mindless circles against your skin as his breathing begins to deepen once again.

You’re unsure how long you lay there wide awake, ear pressed to Sukuna’s chest as you listen to the rhythm of his own heart that languidly matches your own. Sleep continued to elude you until the sun began to rise and light filtered through the slatted window on the far wall.

When morning had begun to break, it too roused Sukuna from his sleep. The aforementioned man stretches his arms out wide, large claws dragging across the softness of the futon beneath the both of you before a hand is dragged across his face. It was awfully human, so different from the beast you had tried to conquer all those weeks ago.

He doesn’t speak until he drags a large hand over the expanse of your bare back from where you had sat up, holding the heavy blankets to your chest to try and fight off the winter cold that still seeped through the cracks and openings of the temple.

“You’re quieter than usual. I had expected to drag you from your sleep this morning.” His voice is a deep type of softness, gone is the sneering tone he often took with those around him.

In truth, you had far too much on your mind. The nightmare had been at the forefront of it for the rest of the night, but beneath that was the realisation of the vow you had struck with Sukuna. You had bound your very heart to his, you had only felt the shift in power when the vow was complete. There was something heavy in the pit of your stomach, a lingering feeling that knocked you sick the first time you focused on it.

Whatever it was, or whatever Sukuna is, had festered in your gut—and quickly. His strength was unlike anything you had ever felt, it felt so tangibly different to your own. You had been given time to grasp the shape of your cursed energy, it was a sleek thing—like a white moonstone.

But Sukuna’s energy… you had seen it briefly flare up in your fights with him. Though now with it living within you, you couldn’t grasp or hold it within yourself. It was furious, a gigantic inferno that burned hotter than anything you had ever felt. If you had managed to withstand the heat of the energy, you were then bombarded by talons as dark as night.

Whatever it was, it did not belong in your body and it was making itself known.

Instead, you push down those thoughts. “Drag me? Why, what do you have planned for me today?”

The futon shifts beside you and you turn your head in time to watch Sukuna get up, each of his muscles rolls and tenses with the movement. His arms stretch and you’re reminded of just how small you are in comparison to him, he had made himself into something so formidable… something strong enough to hold whatever was within him.

“I don’t plan on waiting to see just what comes from the new vow. I want to test it.” He replies simply, shrugging on his haori after he slides up a pair of black hakama pants that tie at his waist. He turns to you then, his chest entirely bare. “We’ll eat, then we train.”

...

It was around forty minutes later that you were once again subject to the freezing temperatures of the mountain you were nestled against. The winds were thankfully merciful this morning, yet the lack of clouds had made it much colder.

Sukuna seemed unperturbed by the cold, as he stood across from you in the wintery courtyard that had become the meeting place of your training sessions. His arms are loosely crossed over his chest, his head tilted just slightly as he assesses you for a long silent moment.

“Set me on fire.”

…You blink, and you blink again. His command hadn’t been something you were anticipating, perhaps a warm-up… in the non-literal sense.

“I can’t—I don’t know how.” You admit, scrunching your fingers deeper into the crooks of your arms to fight off the cold that started to bite at the tips of your fingers. Whilst it was true you didn’t know how, you could feel it deep within you that you could.

“You’re smart enough to figure it out. I don’t need to baby you like your poor excuse of a teacher once had.” He snips back at you. “Now, set me on fire.”

You have to bite on your tongue to hold in your grumble of telling him just how idiotic the idea was, you don’t doubt he’d provide a very insightful demonstration and turn you into a human pyre. So you turn your attention inwards, towards that new heavy mass that sits at the depths of your soul. Its darkness was nothing like you had felt before, it was something akin to pure evil.

It doesn’t react as you reach in closer, your hands twitch against the sleeves of your kimono when you get closer and closer—any second now, those flames would roar to life and boil you from the inside out. You can feel Sukuna’s eyes on you, watching every second of what was about to happen.

“I can smell the fear coming off of you, do not be afraid.” He comments from across the courtyard, yet it sounds like he’s much farther away. His voice carried away on the high-pitched whistling sound that drowns out any and all noise.

You inch closer to that foreign energy inside of you, and it sparks to life. The mass of darkness igniting into a blaze of infernal-like flames. It snaps and cracks as you reach into it, the feeling of just how hot that energy is was nauseating.

Yet you push through, you inwardly clamp down on that energy and it burns in your blood. It ravishes its way up through your bones, hissing and crackling the further and further it gets up your body. It burns. Hotter than anything you had ever felt.

The sound of something moving in front of you has your eyes opening suddenly, unaware that they had even closed in the first place and you can make out the grin on Sukuna’s face through the distorted air in front of you. It snaps at the drifting snowflakes that dare to approach you, melting them away into nothing but a memory.

Your entire arm burns. Like you had dunked it into a pool of oil before setting yourself on fire, it pulls and pinches at your skin until it becomes unbearable. You can only blink through the tears vainly forming in your eyes before they evaporate from your cheeks — too hot, you were too hot.

Sukuna’s grin falters for a moment, his hands uncurling from their crossed position over his chest and you think you can faintly hear him snarling at you to stop. Stop holding onto it. But it’s not you who is holding onto it, rather it has itself wrapped around you. The very darkness is alive, you can feel it beneath your skin and creeping up the back of your neck.

Large hands grab at your upper arms, a low pained hiss coming from the source in front of you. You try so hard to will the flames to stop, to not consume both you and the man you had grown so fond of. Yet they do not yield, they burn brighter—hotter, the second he lays his hands on you. They scream at the cold air, lashing out more wildly until you can hear nothing but the crackling snapping sound of burning flesh.

The flames creep higher and higher up along your body, burning away through both clothes and flesh until it’s nothing but a sticky substance that slinks off of muscles. The world shifts around in a blur of flame and snow, before it suddenly vanishes altogether.

It gives way to a new perspective of snow-capped mountains and the sky, beneath rippling water. The flames retreat instantly, snapping back with a hissing noise before they sit dormant once again deep inside that dark mass that took up a generous amount of your soul.

The pain fades away soon after, and the stinging of your flesh gives way to a soothing feeling that coats you entirely. The hands at your upper arms hold you fast beneath the water's surface, long claws sinking into the flesh that rebuilds itself within a matter of moments.

A blurry face is above your own, his eyes are wide with what you could mistake as genuine worry. It grows closer when Sukuna pulls you forcibly from the water, your lungs suddenly aching with the need to breathe. You have to gulp in the crisp cold air, choking on the heated water that pours into your mouth on the way up.

Another hand brushes along the side of your face, up along your forehead to free you of the wet hair that stuck to your newly made flesh. Sukuna says nothing as he watches you grapple with the reality of what had happened; how you had lost to his own cursed energy within a matter of seconds and gave in just as quickly.

Those same hands cup your face, holding you completely still as he peers into your eyes. “Never let it control you again.”

“I didn’t mean to—” Your voice is hoarse, scratched from the ravaging fires and the water you had choked back. “It wasn’t—.. it grabbed me.”

Sukuna goes silent at your admission, his lips in a deep frown that you haven’t seen turned your way in a very long time. You’d think he had half the mind to rip your head off of your very shoulders for failing him, for not listening to his instructions and stopping when he demanded it.

Yet his thumb smooths gently over the apple of your cheek, before it goes back again to press into the plushness of your bottom lip. He starts by shaking his head, eyes briefly closing as if he was pushing away a thought. “Then learn to fight back.”

His tone is clipped and harsh, and it stings deeper than it ever had before. It makes your chest ache and your stomach drop, he was truly disappointed.

“I’m sorry.” You have to suck in a breath to avoid it coming out when you inevitably break into tears. That ache in your chest is far too much to deal with, the disappointment and guilt that riddles you chokes you just as did the flames you were doused in moments ago.

Sukuna makes a noise of confusion, his own face crumpling in what seems to be a mixture of concern and disgust at you even apologising in the first place.

“Don’t be.” He huffs after a moment, his face still twisted in distaste. He holds you close, and only then do you realise he’s kneeling in the hot spring with you. Fully clothed. “...I should’ve known that it wasn’t something that could be wielded so easily.”

He almost looks pained with the admittance of his fault, his eyebrow scrunching inwards and his bottom lip nearly pushed into a pout. It’s one of those moments where you’re reminded he’s just a man beneath all that muscle and dark energy, he’s human too.

He doesn’t jolt in place when a wet hand brushes along his own jaw, fingertips dragging along the grooves of that secondary face. Your own thumb runs itself against his own bottom lip, pulling it further out to deepen that pout. It makes him look more his age, more a man than the legendary demon they paint him as.

Instead, it’s you who lightly jolts in his hold when his mouth parts, only to clamp his teeth lightly around your thumb. It has your heart lodged into your throat, hammering erratically — he could bite through bone and flesh like it was nothing to him. Yet he doesn’t move, simply holding you between his teeth.

The look in his eye is relaxed however, a soft spark of intrigue perhaps with how his eyebrow arches in a silent question. Your lips tick upwards in the corner before you slip your thumb free from his teeth to smooth it once over his chin.

“Will you tell me what has you acting so recklessly?” He asks after a beat of silence and moving the both of you so you were sat on the ledge within the spring. If he is bothered by his wet clothing, he doesn’t show it.

Instead, he holds you steady in his lap, both of your legs on either side of his own and it’s only in this position partially above water do you notice that your kimono had been burned into nothing.

“The Binding Vow.” You admit, pushing past the urge to hide yourself away from Sukuna and instead brushing your fingertips over the exposed skin of his chest. He doesn’t speak again, only prompting you to continue. “I had a nightmare, or rather, a memory implanted in my brain that isn’t mine.”

Sukuna narrows his eyes slightly, a thoughtful look on his face. “If not your own memory, then who's?”

“Yours.”

“Mine?” His eyebrow raises once again, his fingers still their movements on the exposed skin of your waist. “Which one? None of them are pleasant.”

“...The hunt.” It’s immediate, the way his upper lip nearly curls up and bares his teeth. A sharp snarl so animalistic you’d believe it came from a wolf lurking in the wilderness around you. “I saw your parents, and the thing you killed in the woods.”

“That’s all?” He asks once that simmering fire within him cools slightly, his fingers relaxing at your hips. “You didn’t see what happened when I returned?”

You shake your head no, and you think you see his shoulders relax just slightly at that. Whatever had occurred in that village must’ve been something he never wanted to discuss with anyone, he didn’t seem like a man to be caught up in his past but you don’t doubt that night of his revenge had been the defining moment that made him Sukuna Ryomen.

“Tell me about the theory of the binding vow.” You ask, in an attempt to smoothly divert the topic. You half expect Sukuna to reprimand you for demanding something of him but he almost looks relieved.

“It’s not from our part of the world. It comes from the West, where they worship a God who they’ve never met.” You want to point out that no one here has met a god either, but the man before you gives you pause on that thought. “The theory is that if you’re to truly reach your full potential, and to become real strength. You must become one — one heart, one soul. Cor Unum et Anima Una.”

Your eyebrows raise at the switch in language, one you had never heard before but he spoke it as if it was his own. “What language is that?”

“Latin. It truthfully wasn’t designed for what I had in mind, it was more of their way of trying to appease a God who let them rot.”

You ponder his words for a moment, you had never heard of the Latin phrase before and you doubt you ever would have. Sukuna was a man of vast knowledge, expanding his reach across the world to glean all he could from those who thought they were powerful.

“You thought it’d kill me.” Not a question, more of a statement and the look Sukuna gives you tells you that you’re toeing the line of just how far he’ll let you go with this haughty tone.

“I did.” He shrugs a shoulder, a slight movement in the corner of his lips as he smirks. “No one has ever compared to me in cursed energy, I thought you’d simply explode.”

He snickers at the frown that takes over your features, and when you make a move to get up from his lap he grasps at your wet skin to seat you deeper in his lap. Chest to chest, and nearly nose to nose.

“Enough.” He chides. “I knew you were strong, I just had to see for myself. I didn’t truly doubt the woman who had nearly killed me three times.”

You huff in his face, even making a show of rolling your eyes at the admittance that he believed you were strong; strong enough to withstand certain death for some. “Insufferable.”

It’s a mutter, an under-the-breath comment and still Sukuna hears it. His eyes come to life, a burning inferno consuming the crimson of his eyes and his face cracks into a wolfish grin; the type of smile he had worn numerous times before a meal.

“You’re a brat. A needy, greedy little brat.” His hands clamp at your waist and thighs, holding you still whilst he lunges forward to claim your mouth as his own.

He kisses you like you’re a conquest, a fight he must win. His lip curls momentarily, a rumbling of a growl in the back of his throat before he clamps his teeth down into the fat of your bottom lip—then he tugs. He pulls your lip painfully until he’s forced to let go, lest he rip your very skin apart. You can taste the copper on your tongue, can feel it smudge against your teeth when your lip smacks back.

You flick your eyes down to his mouth when he huffs a laugh, his tongue flicking out to drag along his bottom lip slowly and then along the pointed canines that had been dipped momentarily in your blood. Immediately, you feel that coil tighten in your stomach. Your toes curl in the heated water and your hips rut just slightly into his own, and he huffs that same laugh.

“Insatiable too.” Sukuna leans in once again, his breath ghosting your throbbing lip. He breaks into a grin once again when he sees you move impossibly closer, your fingers grasping at the wet haori that hung over his shoulders. “Too bad, we have an audience.”

Confused by his words, you peek over his shoulder to see a pair of socked feet in sandals. You follow your gaze upwards along the thick monk robes you’ve come to know and recognise. Uraume stares down at you with a blank expression on their face, lips slightly dipping into a frown that they were evidently fighting to suppress.

You jump in place at the realisation Uraume’s gaze was starting to go lower, your bare shoulders feeling the icy gaze that followed down, and down… A wet arm loops around your waist to tug you into his chest, the wet long sleeve of his haori sticking to your figure but doing a good enough job to hide you from prying eyes.

“Master Sukuna,” Uraume bows when Sukuna raises a free arm with his palm turned upwards, waiting for the tray that Uraume had been holding in their hands. You see a twitch of an eyebrow out of the corner of your eye from how closely pressed you are to Sukuna but he says nothing before flicking his hand in a way of dismissal.

Uraume bows again, despite Sukuna having his eyes set on the tray of food and hot tea in his hands. You watch as they turn around to leave the way they came, the icy chill that had unknowingly settled over you seems to be swept away with each of their retreating footsteps.

The wet arm around your waist slides back down, a large hand splayed out against the bareness of your hip to allow you to back away just enough that he could move to place the tray down on the smooth rock of the hot spring. Immediately, your stomach rumbles at the idea of eating.

Breakfast was rushed, just a quick serving of rice and freshly squeezed juice. You had protested that you wanted more but Sukuna was adamant on not having you throw up on him or yourself if the training got out of hand. Sukuna had been correct however on the small breakfast, the feeling of your burning flesh still tingled beneath the new flesh that had been healed almost instantaneously.

That feeling has your stomach threatening to lurch regardless of whether it was empty or not, so you push it to the back of your mind and lean forward. Sukuna angled his body slightly to serve himself tea but stopped when your hands push his out of the way.

The fine china teapot burns at the tips of your fingers, yet you ignore it—nothing felt like the heat of what you had released earlier. Whatever that was deep down inside of you belonged to Sukuna, and solely Sukuna. He had mastered it in his years of living and training, it was ridiculous to assume you could have fire bend to your will.

“Here,” you offer with a smile in Sukuna’s direction when you offer him the first yunomi, a delicate cup designed for tea. It’s immediately dwarfed when Sukuna takes it between three fingers, his eyes tracking your own whilst he takes a long sip of the piping hot tea.

He doesn’t offer his gratitude at you serving him first, not that you had expected it. A man of his status was never expected to grant those below him with thanks, it was merely their job to serve him. Yet you can see the gratefulness in his eyes when he takes a moment to breathe deeply; soaking in the warmth of the green tea in his hand.

You don’t protest when he shifts you deeper into his lap, securing you in place before he lounges back against the stone-lined wall of the hot spring. He merely watches you as you drink your own tea, thankful for the heat that washes down your throat and settles into the pit of your stomach. It was so much more comforting than the previous heat that threatened to burn you from the inside out.

“We will be trying again.” He comments after a moment, setting his empty cup of tea back onto the tray before returning to his relaxed position. You can feel his gaze on you when you stiffen at his words, you didn’t expect him to let you off for good but a part of you can’t help but cower at the ferocity of those flames.

You pursue your lips momentarily, fighting off the need to tell him that you don’t want to touch that dark part of you again but something whispers in the back of your mind, a voice that tells you that you’d never be weak again if you mastered the unfathomable amount of power Sukuna had granted you.

“I read once that sorcerers imbued weapons with their cursed energy.” Sukuna nods once with your words, urging you to continue your train of thought. “They said it was a good way to hone in on all that energy they couldn’t control. What if I were to do that with the flames?”

“You want to attempt to create a cursed weapon?” His eyebrow raises yet it’s not in amusement but rather, he seems impressed at the idea. “It’s not a bad idea. I have plenty of weapons just like it, some infused with cursed energy that I couldn’t replicate myself.”

“I’d need a new sword.”

“Hm, I’m sure I have a few spare lying around somewhere.” You want to ask just where he found these new swords, did someone forge them for him or did he pillage them when he ransacked estates and villages? Part of you already knows the answer.

A comfortable lull waves over the both of you, Sukuna had since dipped one hand back under the water of the hotspring to brush his fingers across the small of your back in gentle circles. You can’t help but ease into the comfort of it all, your heart beating in a slow languid state; truly relaxed even despite everything.

Your mind wanders to what is to come, to train with a sword again after so long almost felt silly. You could feel the strength of the cursed energy within you thrum at your very fingertips, a type of power that could slice with just a glance. It was undoubtedly Sukuna’s power that made you feel such a way, you had seen him slice through concrete and mountain rock with just a flick of his hand.

Sukuna shifts again beneath you, an arm moving slightly until you’re forced to glance down at what had been presented to you.

A tangerine.

“Cut it.” He orders, and your eyebrows furrow. Did he somehow read your mind? Did the vow allow him to do such a thing? You couldn’t sense his thoughts…

“I don’t know how.” You could feel it at the tips of your fingers, yet it was so unwieldy that you worried you’d slice your own hand off in an attempt to use it.

“It’s much simpler than you think,” he comments, holding the tangerine up slightly higher to be in line with your eyes. “Focus on the fruit, and only the fruit. Think of its size, its density, how easy it is to peel apart the fruit with your very fingers.”

You shoot him a glance and his eyes narrow in return, daring you to talk back about his method of teaching. So you shove down the urge to pout at him, and turn your attention back to the round tangerine sitting precariously between two large fingers.

That deep dark energy within you roars to life, spitting fire and hissing as you inch closer and closer to grasp at it. You feel a similar burn within you, a type of pain that promises to render you into nothing but ash if you dare to wield it again so carelessly.

“Ignore whatever it is that’s causing you to hesitate.” Sukuna comments, his voice stern yet not scolding.

Tension forms between your eyebrows, a pressure on the bridge of your nose as you continue to stare and focus your energy on the tangerine. It doesn’t budge, not so much as a singular scratch appearing on the unscathed outer shell. You want to flare your nostrils and tell Sukuna you can’t do it. Whatever he expected of you was far out of your reach, you were never going to surmount to the same level of power as him.

“Focus.” He snarls the word, and you can’t help but bare your own teeth in return. The strain on your brain feels like it might just turn to goo and drip from your ears, his hissed warning to focus is partially drowned out by the high-pitched ringing in your ears.

You imagine slicing the fruit with a knife, and it does not budge. You imagine what it’s like to rip and tear apart a fruit so delicate with your fingers, and it still does not budge. So you think of Kiso when he trained you with a wooden katana all those years ago, back to the lessons you had hated the most.

They were tedious as they were long. He had you meditate for hours before you picked up a sword, and when he did, you were only allowed to strike the training dummies in a small part of its wooden body. The neck and both sides of the body, just beneath the rib cage where you would meet no resistance of bone.

A similar train of thought hits you then when you focus on the tangerine, all of it was relatively soft but it had weak points where it was easier to peel and slice. So you bolster yourself, tensing up in Sukuna’s lap and you see his head tilt just slightly out of the corner of your eye as he regards the sudden concentration that washes over your features.

It feels like knives are slicing along the skin of your hands, up along your arms and even along the back of your throat. They resist at first, digging further into your flesh with the threat of flaying you like a fish. But then the rubber band of energy snaps into place, slicing across your brain and you immediately feel the relief of having the energy expelled from your body.

The tangerine in Sukuna’s hand does not appear to be sliced into small dice. Instead, it blooms like a flower. Each of the sections of tangerine falls smoothly open to display all it has to offer, and you can’t help but huff out a laugh of relief and astonishment.

You did it. You managed to wrangle those sharp talons that tore apart your innards for daring to glance at it.

“Well done,” Sukuna praises with a grin on his face, his canines on show as he moves the tangerine to sit open in the palm of his hand. “Though, I had never used Cleave for something so delicate.”

You grin at his words, and you can see the fire light in his eyes. You wondered if he had been ready to give up on you, ready to set you aside if you weren’t able to reach his standards. Would he have finally succumbed to the need to kill you?

You don’t want to know the answer. So you reach forward, pressing your body momentarily against Sukuna’s and you can hardly miss the rumbling growl in the back of his throat at the pressure of you shifting in his lap. You pluck a slice of the fruit from his palm and when you offer it up to him, he raises an eyebrow in silent question.

Wordlessly, his lips part and you can’t help but gaze at the longer canines there. His tongue wears the same tattoo as the one on his stomach, and now the one on your chest. It tingles between your breasts at the mere memory of it, a warmth filling your stomach and you can’t help but offer Sukuna a much softer smile.

You raise the slice of fruit to his tongue, and you watch intently when that same tongue curls around the fruit just slightly to pull it into his mouth. His lips brush against your fingers, and there’s a pulse there—a moment where you can see yourself at his side for the rest of your life, gifting him slices of fruit whilst his fingers softly wander along the expanse of your back as if he were mapping it out.

When your hand falls away from his face, you mindlessly trace along the thicker tattoos peeking out from beneath the haori and along his chest. There’s a shift in the water before something wet and squishy is pressed to your lips, your eyes dart up from the blurry orange thing before you and to the owner of the hand holding it to your face.

Sukuna offers you a slight uptick of one corner of his mouth, a softened smirk that holds no arrogance. So you open your mouth for him, letting him press the slice of sweet fruit to your tongue and his fingers linger there against your tongue when you close your lips around them.

That soft look in his eye gives way to carnal desire, a black flame that burns in his eyes the longer he watches your lips around his tongue. When his hand slips away, it only travels down slightly until it rests loosely at the base of your throat. His fingers don’t tighten around your throat, merely just rest there as he loses himself to his mind.

You figure he may be debating on what to do next, and you can practically see the different scenarios flick across his face. His lips part as if he were to say something before there’s a rustling in the few trees that are dotted around the area. His face hardens almost immediately, lips falling into a flat line and before you can even blink he’s hauling you out of the water.

As he’s guiding you back towards the temple, his arms shift outwards to grant you a space within his haori so you can nestle against his side. You turn to glance over his shoulder, back towards the hot springs and beyond it. You don’t see anything at first, but then there’s another rustle of foliage before a great snowy white owl spreads its wings and silently swoops away.

…

The Snowy owl lands gently atop a rickety old fence post. Its long talons sink into the wood and melt the snow beneath as it settles in against the blistering winds that blow through the abandoned village.

Its feathers thicken, shaking out just slightly until it rests comfortably in place. The house before it and along the street is entirely burnt out, with blackened wood and charred shoji doors barely hanging on against the elements that continue to flutter down from the heavy grey clouds.

The snow is thick and mostly undisturbed.

A crunch of feet causes the owl to smoothly turn its head, large orange eyes blinking widely at the approaching footsteps. At the forefront is a woman, tall and well-built. Her outfit was meant for the colder weather, a fitted black mask to the lower portion of her face and the rest of her armour was tight to her skin.

The pink of her hair contrasted blindingly against the white backdrop, the two men behind her in similar attire before they stop in front of the owl perched on the fence post. The owl does not squawk at the closeness of a human, nor does it spread its wings to fly away. Instead, it tilts its head just slightly, large eyes peering up at the woman.

“We wait on your move.” Takako Uro says.

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