Chapter Text
Disappointment. Discontent. Disgust.
Dis, dis, dis. His whole fucking world had become nothing but words that began with ‘dis.’
He could come up with more. A whole dictionary’s worth. Dislikable. Disagreeable. Displeasing.
Dismantled.
Sukuna laughed, a thoroughly disconcertingly broken sound. He hated it. He was the so-called King of Curses, but with humanity extinguished, no more curses existed to be king of. They had all disappeared. He was the fallen one, nothing more than a king in disgrace.
“Are you satisfied?”
The brat wasn’t here. He’d died ages ago. Even so, his distorted form stood there beside Sukuna, staring at him with ugly disapproval scrawled across his features like he wasn’t one of the billions of people whose bodies were slowly dissolving in the fetid air covering the earth.
Sukuna shook his head, feeling any trace of humor die. No. He was distinctly dissatisfied. That was the problem. He’d gotten what he wanted, only to discover that it wasn’t what he’d desired after all. It was completely boring. Even his miserable existence within the brat had been better than this. At least then he’d had the brat’s misfortune to laugh at. Now he had nothing to distract him from his boredom but the phantasms of memories haunting him.
It was all Kenjaku’s fault, he was sure. Kenjaku’s plan was what had led to this disaster.
“Too bad you can’t go back and try again.”
The brat wasn’t here. That didn’t mean his remnants couldn’t have good ideas though. A flicker of something like interest lit up the world. At worst, he would fail. There was nothing to be lost for trying. Sukuna gathered his energy, more than happy to offer up the entirety of this fucking disreality.
The brat’s ghost looked at him. “You can’t be serious. What do you even intend to change?”
“Anything. Everything. Whatever I like.”
The ghost shook its head in dismay and disintegrated into a nothingness that flowed back into Sukuna’s form. That was all the brat had been in the first place anyway: nothing. That was all he could be in this world now, but if Sukuna went back, he could be real again. A plan, half-baked and ridiculous and entertaining, unfurled within him, and Sukuna smiled for the first time in years.
The world ended.
***
And a new one began.
Sukuna breathed out a sigh and settled into the nostalgic embrace of his brat’s soul. He spread out his energy, filling the brat’s body with himself and feeling the body accept him like he belonged. Fuck. Even his body hadn’t felt this good in years. Between the festering remains of the shadow user’s soul and the damage done to Sukuna’s soul, Sukuna had to admit (only to himself) that leaving the brat’s body had been a very poor decision altogether. If he couldn’t have his actual body, this was the form that suited him best.
He opened his eyes, aware he’d have mere seconds out before the brat would adjust to his presence and take back control. He swept away the curse before him without a thought and stared, transfixed, at the world before him. “It worked.” He breathed in the cool night air. Unlike Tokyo, nighttime in Sendai was comforting rather than muggy. People were everywhere because they wished to be rather than because they had no choice, crammed into the space as they were, and the stench of their cursed energy made a savory meal after ages of nothing.
The first time around, he’d breathed it in and tasted the world and thought how he might wreck it. The women he could fuck, the children he could ruin, the countless maggots writhing on the earth, helplessly awaiting their own destructions. He’d sensed them and abhorred them even as he reveled in the opportunity they presented to indulge in violence.
It had been entirely unsatisfying in the end though. He hadn’t fucked even a single woman, finding them all lacking, and all the ruination and violence had come and gone in less than a year. He’d been impatient after a thousand years of nothing, and he’d spent the world’s resources in one go rather than partaking of it in smaller, sustainable doses.
Kenjaku should have warned him rather than enabling him. Next time Sukuna saw that curse user, he’d be killing him for his poor handling of the situation.
Then Sukuna turned and caught sight of the panicking teenager before him. He smiled crookedly. “It’s been a while, Fushiguro Megumi.” His former (future?) vessel stared at him, trembling in sheer terror but nonetheless standing his ground. He was hardly recognizable as the same boy who’d broken down and given up so thoroughly that he’d refused rescue. That moment had been the first (but not the last) time Sukuna had regretted stealing the boy’s body, disgusted by the pathetic display no matter that it benefitted him. Sukuna wouldn’t take him this time around. There was no enjoyment to be had in the broken creature that had inhabited the very depths of Sukuna’s soul in the future, and such a weak soul didn’t deserve to rest alongside his.
“How do you know my name?” the boy demanded. He pressed his hands together and summoned his divine dogs.
“Oh, there were two of those once, weren’t there?” Sukuna mused. He’d entirely forgotten about that. When had that changed? It must have been early on, before he’d bothered paying any attention to the shadow user.
Suddenly his own hand wrested itself from his control and gripped his chin. Sukuna sighed. His time was up. Without any resistance, he let the brat take back control. There was no point fighting it when the Six Eyes would ask him to come back out in another moment anyway.
Sure enough, he felt himself being pushed back out before long. He stretched, comparing the types of vessel experiences he’d had so far. The shadow user had been the worst. Controlling his body was like nothing so much as simply stomping on an ant that had attempted to bite you. Controlling the brat’s body against the brat’s will was better. That was more like riding a bucking horse, one so wild he knew he’d be thrown off, and the only question was when. Controlling the brat’s body with the brat’s permission was also fine, an experience akin to cooking alongside an equal, with both parties cooperating to create an exquisite finished product.
The transfer of power was good too. Of course, when he was being suppressed, he enjoyed fighting against the brat’s control, pressing his consciousness against the entirety of the brats soul in search of any weakness to exploit. However, it was also enjoyable experiencing this easy give and take. It was a feeling not unlike sparring with someone at your level. Not the same as fighting them in earnest, but pleasant all the same.
Now wasn’t, perhaps, the time to be considering that though. He had an opponent who was watching and waiting, the banter between him and his student having finally died down into uneasy silence with Sukuna’s lack of aggression. He smiled insincerely at the Six Eyes. Sukuna had thought long and hard about where things went wrong, and he’d determined it all started with this man getting sealed. After all, Sukuna’s existence hadn’t destroyed the world in the Heian era.
Back then, when the sorcerers who fought him found themselves stretched too thin and their resources depleted, they backed off and returned home to lick their wounds. Sukuna typically let them go, secure in the knowledge that some of their number would use the defeat to become stronger and return, giving him future enjoyment to look forward to.
Kenjaku’s Culling Game, however, had removed their ability to do that. No matter how little they wanted to keep fighting, their only choice had been to try their hardest to defeat Sukuna. Even when they failed, they could only push their exhausted and broken bodies to keep going until they died. Sukuna hadn’t even enjoyed most of those fights. Most of his opponents had still been immature. They’d needed more time to develop, and the Culling Game had denied them that.
So rather than attack the Six Eyes, who would handily defeat a Sukuna with only one finger’s worth of power anyway, Sukuna opened his mouth and said, “Getou Sugaru’s body has been taken over by a curse user named Kenjaku. He intends to trap you in a cursed object called the Prison Realm. You’ll eventually be freed, but it will be too late by then.”
The Six Eyes gaped at him. Behind him, the shadow user glanced between the two men as though this was somehow some prank engineered by his teacher.
As though Sukuna would ever participate in a prank that man designed. Ridiculous. Without another word, he sank back down into the depths of Itadori Yuuji’s soul and waited.
It only took another few heartbeats for his brat to be knocked unconscious. Sukuna pulled him into his domain and studied the boy who’d landed before him with a splash. He was every bit as young as he had been when he died, less than a year after consuming Sukuna’s finger as it had been, but his face was lacking the scars gained in Shibuya. He looked wary, but there wasn’t any of the venom that had filled it after Shibuya and after stealing Fushiguro Megumi’s body.
And, presumably, he hadn’t yet consumed any suspicious objects other than the one finger yet. Sukuna thoroughly disapproved of his vessel going about eating other cursed objects like they were candy. One type of cursed object per body should be more than enough, Sukuna thought. If the brat so badly needed a technique, he could figure out Sukuna’s. Sukuna refused to share space within the brat with any other curse.
The brat’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Ryoumen Sukuna?”
“Nope.”
The brat stared. Sukuna stared back.
“What do you mean, nope? Who the hell are you then?” the brat demanded.
Sukuna grinned. Time to start a lie. “Who do I look like? Though, well, I suppose you may as well call me Sukuna. It’ll get confusing otherwise.” He laughed at the dumbfounded look on the teen’s face. With a grunt, he jumped down from his throne and walked up to the boy. “Well? It’s good to meet you, my past self.”
“What.”