Chapter Text
天慶元年 (Tengyō gannen | Year 938) | Japan
You pressed two fingers to the wound, and the cursed spirit shuddered beneath them.
It laid beneath your palms, breaths rattling wet and broken. It was a weak, trembling and feeble thing you had found bleeding beneath a plum tree, half-buried in its fallen blossoms. Its belly had been ripped open, flesh curled back like paper scorched by fire. It had been likely attacked by stronger cursed spirits, or perhaps left to die by a sorcerer when it had crossed their path.
That day, the blossoms had been soft on the wind. Pale pink petals danced through the air like silk torn loose from the heavens. You followed their drift until they led you to the scent of cursed energy and rot.
Now the spirit was stretched out on your wooden table, barely clinging to form. The shade of the veranda above you cast long shadows over the open air courtyard as you worked.
“It hurts- hurts...” the spirit whimpered.
“Stay still,” you whispered.
Your cursed technique: Soul Bound, glowed beneath your fingertips.
Sharp red threads emitted from your skin, forming a web of light. Each buzzed with cursed energy, surging outwards from your body. Your palm pressed firmly against the cursed spirit, and they formed a delicate lattice around its wound. You guided it slowly and bound its soul back to its body. Your cursed energy was steady, your mind focused on the task at hand.
Like you had done this many times before.
The creature beneath you stirred but didn't thrash about. Fortunately, this one was docile, almost like a shikigami. If it hadn’t been, your naginata sat just within reach: lacquered black wood, silent and sharp. It was gifted to you by a man with bloodied hands and an unknowable heart.
You thought deeply as you worked with your fingers, the soft wind carrying your thoughts elsewhere in your head.
Back to that day.
Once, long ago… you had been a Jujutsu sorcerer training underneath an Onmyōji.
The bustling capital had been everything to you. You were poor, but you had a cursed technique, so you had taken a master who provided you food and shelter. It was nice, you had everything you could need and the money you did save up you would send back to your family. It almost felt like home.
Until that day.
You remembered the man clearly, already dead, his soul halfway gone. They laid him out for you on the table, but didn't expect him to live. Still, you were a doctor under oath. You would do anything to save any soul, half-gone or not.
Healers in the capital usually used the Reverse Cursed Technique, but your technique worked differently than that. Whereas RCT worked by converting negative energy into positive one in order to heal, your technique dealt with healing the soul itself and thus, healing the body.
That day, as your hands lingered on him, your cursed threads had reached into the space between life and death. You pulled, bound, restored. As you always did. But the court who watched you long thought the man to be a lost cause. Then, the man gasped. His eyes fluttered open. His breath came in slowly. And when he opened his eyes, the court gasped.
He was no shuffling corpse, no mindless revenant. He breathed and thought.
He lived.
They had pronounced him dead and yet, you had played god and bound the soul meant for the afterlife back to his body.
Your teacher had called it heresy.
“Healing,” she had said, “is mercy. Not resurrection.”
You were meant to be a healer, not a god.
And not someone that could interfere with the balance of life and death. She spat curses as she cast you out and said the gods would strike you down, that your soul would rot in the underworld for tampering with fate.
Your jaw tensed at the memory.
How funny, you thought.
Considering what happened to that wench's village.
Since then, you had not just been exiled from the capital, but actively hunted by other Jujutsu sorcerers. Tampering with fate like you had done brought you two types of sorcerers. Those who wanted to abuse your abilities, and those who wanted your head on a pike. The Fujiwara clan, especially, was relentless in their pursuit. But they hadn’t shown their sorry faces ever since you’d found your new home.
Found was a strong word, more like taken.
You closed your eyes, letting the thoughts fade with the wind. Then you turned your attention back to your patient.
You turned your eyes to the cursed spirit under you as it finally stilled. Its cursed energy thrummed gently underneath your fingertips. The gash that had been made on its belly was no longer visible. Cursed spirits were born of negative thoughts but that didn’t mean they lacked souls.
You saw their souls firsthand. Stricken, bleeding and grotesque masses of cursed energy. Though it differentiated by curse.
Your head turned to the cursed spirit. A faint, soft smile crept across your face.
It would live.
All because of you.
“You always speak to them like that,” a voice murmured behind you, ancient and familiar.
You didn’t turn around. You didn't need to, you knew his voice like the back of your hand. His immense cursed energy emitted from him like a river of blood, pooling underneath your ankles. Most would fall to their knees beneath it.
But you were used to it by now.
“The docile ones listen better when you’re gentle,” you said, lifting your head up to look at him.
“Gentle, hmm? Pitying the weak isn’t my style.”
He came up behind you, looking over your shoulder to take a look at the cursed spirit. What a weakling, he thought to himself. Yet you still continued to take them in and heal them, despite his thoughts on the matter.
How foolish.
“That’s because I'm not a brute, Sukuna. You kill without thinking but... I think before I save them,” you huffed, looking up at him.
Sukuna raised an eyebrow, then gave you a faint smirk. He towered over you, his shadow stretching across the open courtyard. You didn’t know how tall he was, whenever you’d ask he’d always give you vague answers.
“A brute, am I?”
You gave him a look, but there was a half smile on your face. “You cleave things in half for fun. Yes, I’d say that qualifies.”
He snorted at your words, amused. “And yet here you are, saving that thing,” he jerked his chin towards the creature on the table, “like it's worth anything.”
“I don’t expect you to understand compassion,” you muttered, brushing your hair behind your ear.
He took a step closer, his body now inches away from yours. He was wearing a short kosode tied at the waist, with a hitatare-style jacket covering his shoulders. You wondered where he got clothes so big. The wooden floor creaked underneath his weight. His warm presence wrapped around you like warm cloth. It made your blood rush to your face. You had thought you’d gotten used to his proximity, but the way your heart thundered in your chest said otherwise.
“You always do this,” he murmured, his voice uncharacteristically soft, like the weight of the world had folded itself into a warm blanket, meant only for you. “You keep taking in the weak. You stitch broken things back together. You do it with cursed spirits, with humans… and with me.”
You stiffened, but only for a second.
“Hm. I don’t remember stitching you,” you said, playing dumb. “I’m not in the habit of fixing lost causes.”
A low chuckle rumbled from his throat. He leaned down, until his breath just barely caressed against your face. One hand braced itself on the table, the other wrapped gently around your waist. His gaze locked onto your soft lips.
Your eyelashes fluttered, looking at the way the light wrapped around his features. The sharpness of his jawline contrasted with that soft, almost gentle look in his eyes. His skin was pale, with dark tattoos lining his chin all the way around his cheeks and to his forehead.
The cursed spirit on the table was long forgotten.
Pink tufts of hair swayed gently in the warm summer breeze. His wine-colored eyes, half-lidded, seemed to glow as they fixated on you. Those eyes had watched the life drain out of countless souls, those hands had crushed humans like twigs. He had four of them, most people would call him an abomination.
The man before you was a monster. A most beautiful monster.
Yours.
“Are you sure?” He asked, breaking you out of your trance. “Because I recall your hands on me, little sorcerer.” His voice dipped lower, “It felt a little like worship.”
You rolled your eyes, even as your heart skipped a beat. You scrambled for your words, “Worship implies devotion. I was just keeping your guts from falling out.”
“Is that so?” He whispered, voice too soft for someone like him. “Then why are your hands shaking now?”
Your lips parted, a sharp retort at the ready… but he was already there, catching your jaw between two fingers. His touch was firm but reverent, like he wasn’t holding your face so much as asking for it. He tilted your face up with his third hand, and your eyes met, just for a moment.
The stillness of the courtyard seemed to suspend you both in time. The distant chatter of birds, the soft breeze, the lazy twirl of the plum blossoms in the air stilled as this moment settled between you… like a dollop of dew on a leaf waiting to drop.
He leaned down, practically bending in half due to his immense height.
Then… his lips brushed up against yours, ever so gently. Just the faintest touch. As if he was testing the waters. He didn't deepen it just yet, almost like he was teasing you.
A shiver ran down your spine at the anticipation.
You let out a breath, parting your lips slightly, and that was all that he needed.
Sukuna pulled you into a kiss.
It started slow, his lips soft and warm against yours. The kiss was unhurried, like he was memorizing you. Your eyes fluttered shut, the world narrowing to the warmth of his mouth, the gentle pull of his lips against yours. The warmth of his hand pressed against your waist. He kissed like someone who knew exactly how to ruin you and planned to take his time doing it.
The kiss wasn’t rushed, but it wasn’t entirely soft either. It was inevitable. Almost possessive.
Heat rushed to your ears, your body relaxing under his touch. You had done this countless times, but it always felt like the first.
His lips were too soft for a man like him. You sighed into them, and he swallowed it as he continued, his tongue slipping inside and deepening the kiss.
After a long moment, the kiss finally broke.
Sukuna’s lips hovered over yours for a breath longer than necessary though, as if daring you to chase after him. His grin curved lazily, eyes half-lidded with something between amusement and triumph as he pulled away.
“Hm. You've gotten better. But you're still so easy to tease, my beloved.” He murmured. The words came out smug, like a man used to having his way, on or off the battlefield.
You took your hand back and wiped your lips using your palm. You exhaled through your nose, sharp. You scoffed in mock offense at his tease. “Don't flatter yourself. You still haven’t learned to kiss well.”
“Why are you blushing like a temple maiden, then?” He crossed two of his free arms together.
“That’s just the summer heat."
Sukuna almost looked offended, albeit amused, by those words. He moved one hand to his chin, observing you for a moment.
“You kissed me back.” He purred.
“I was simply humoring you.”
He tilted his head, still too close, eyes gleaming in the half-light. “You’ve been humoring me for the past few years then.”
You gave him an unamused glare, but your face was burning bright red. You swatted him away with the back of your hand, though the shiver down your spine betrayed you. “Get over yourself.”
Sukuna leaned back, laughing, not mockingly, but as if you were the first thing in centuries that amused him. “You wound me.”
“You’ll live,” you muttered, brushing your thumb over your lower lip as if to erase the taste of him. But the taste of his lips always lingered.
You weren’t sure what you were. You weren’t his wife. Not a concubine. You were just his.
Sukuna stretched, casual like a lounging god, then glanced toward the edge of the garden. The cursed spirit that had once been writhing in agony now slithered weakly toward the woods, its shape half-formed, half-melted in the sunlight. It had gotten up from the wooden table when you two had been… busy.
Your cursed energy threads had faded from its body, but the lingering trace of your energy still glistened along its wounds, stitched shut, if only for now.
You followed Sukuna’s gaze, watching in silence.
“It’ll die out there,” he said flatly. “The weak and cowardly always do.”
“Maybe,” you replied, folding your hands. “But at least it leaves upright.”
His jaw twitched, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. Then: “You waste too much time on things that should stay broken.”
You didn’t look at him when you answered. “And you never wonder if you were meant to be repaired.”
That made him pause. He just looked at you, with an uncertain expression in his eyes. It wasn’t anger. It was something else.
“A soul’s a soul,” you said, “Even yours, Lord Sukuna.”
He chuckled dryly, but without humor. “I'm the King of Curses. You think I have a soul? Do you know who I am?"
His words made you pause. You studied him for a while, watching as the sun filtered through the shade of the veranda overhead, falling into neat rows across his face.
“I think it’s not my place to say.” You replied softly.
There was that calculating look in his eyes again. Like he hadn’t tested your abilities himself over and over back when he’d taken you in. He knew your abilities and body in and out, yet he always had something new to say.
His voice was low as he asked, “And if I asked you to touch mine again? Could you?”
The silence was loud in your ears. But you didn’t answer him. Not at first.
He had asked the question several times since your first meeting, but you never had an answer for him. You had peered at his soul back then but you hadn't touched it since. Your cursed energy had brushed against it while you laid in bed together several times. But your hands never lingered.
Not because he stopped you.
But because of what you had seen back then.
The souls of cursed spirits and humans differed, but back when you worked at the capital you had seen dozens of them. A person's soul was usually a mixture of negative and positive energy. It reflected the person's very being, their emotions, their conscience, their mind.
Cursed spirits were different, more abstract and less formed. But they usually only contained one soul. And you had never seen anyone, or anything for that matter, where the soul carried thousands of unspeakable sins.
Not until Sukuna.
His soul wasn’t broken. It wasn’t even wounded. It was... misaligned, like something born of a dozen selves that never quite merged. You checked, he only had one soul, but it also seemed to be made up of several dozens of screaming echoes within it and you had no idea why. You’d seen cursed spirits whose cores were similar, but his wasn’t cracked.
It was forged that way. A paradox of agony and apathy, stitched together by something that enjoyed being wrong.
If souls were supposed to resemble woven cloth, Sukuna’s was an iron chain wrapped in silk: beautiful, impenetrable, and utterly unnatural.
His very being was one of malice, like his very nature was one of evil and destruction.
You remembered the first time you touched it and how it nearly burned your cursed energy raw. Not because it was resisting.
But because it welcomed you.
That was worse.
You wondered how a being like Ryomen Sukuna ended up with his soul in such a manner. He never spoke of his past to you, if he even had one to begin with. He had always been an anomaly of a man, more cursed spirit than human. He did call himself the King of Curses but he was unequivocally human.
Your gaze drifted to the place where the cursed spirit had vanished into the woods.
“I don’t know,” you finally said. “Maybe your soul doesn’t want to be looked at.”
Sukuna said nothing. His silence was never empty, though, it stretched, vast and ancient. You could feel his eyes on you, feel the shift in the air as he tilted his head, as if weighing whether to say more.
But he said nothing. Just turned his back and walked toward the door frame, where the sun dared not follow. His large silhouette eventually disappeared inside of the shrine.
You let out a sigh. He was always like that when things displeased him. You knew his routine by heart now, he would leave to let off steam against whatever poor opponent he would “train” against.
You stayed there at the table, hands still faintly glowing with cursed energy, watching the wind scatter plum petals across the old, worn wood. Your eyes fixed on the lanterns that hung from the eaves of the shrine, unlit, as they swayed in the gentle wind.
This place felt like home now. But when you’d first arrived you’d been scared, thinking that this place would eventually become your tomb. You’d always thought a creature like Sukuna wouldn’t ever spare someone like you.
But you’d been wrong.
─────❅─────
Several Years Earlier. On the outskirts of the Capital.
Your boots clicked harshly across the coarse dirt as you fled through the narrow trees. The sting of the winter air clung against your bare arms, clawing at your skin as any heat evaporated with each breath you took. You’d lost your coat after they’d caught you by surprise. You had thrown it towards them, in an effort to escape. But now you were half bare, running for your life through the forest.
Smoke and screams filled the air behind you, and fire painted the sky in shades of crimson and gold. You didn’t dare look back and if you did, you’d be dead in a heartbeat.
You clutched your satchel to your chest, not for money, but for the old sutra scrolls inside, for the old comb your mother had given you when you were small.
The trees passed like a blur in front of you, most of them had lost their leaves except for the pines. You just needed to make it further uphill, where the forest was thicker, where the trees hadn’t shed their leaves for winter.
The Fujiwara crest had been sewn onto the sleeves of the onmyōji chasing you. That meant a formal warrant. And a price on your head.
The last thing you’d seen was that wench's smirk as she cast you into exile. You barely had enough time to gather your things before they’d broken into your quarters.
Fortunately, you had escaped by then.
You continued to run until your legs gave out and you slumped against a tree, utterly exhausted.
The human voices had stopped, but you could only rest a while until they caught up.
What would they do to you once they caught you?
Execute you publicly?
All you’d done was heal a man.
You didn’t know that would bring him back to life.
They called you a heretic, a witch who disturbed the line between life and death. But all you wanted was to heal him. That was your job.
Cold sweat lined your brow, falling in rows down to your chin. Your back rested against the trunk of the tree as your breath came out in sharp, ragged gasps.
For a moment, you rested your eyes. They closed shut as your body begged you to stop for a rest, but you knew you couldn’t. It didn’t matter where you went, anywhere but here.
There was no going back.
Not to the capital anyway. The sorcerers chasing you knew your family. You wondered if they were dead but you pushed the thought back, the idea too horrible to think on it now.
Your fingers dug into the rough bark of the tree, trying to ground yourself against the rugged skin.
You’d lost everything.
Just like that.
All because you healed a man.
Was this what you’d brought back?
Was this your fault?
Tears burned at the corners of your eyes, and a half sob made it's way up your throat but you stopped it just in time. Anger coursed its way through your body, tangling in your chest tightly.
You hated them. All of them.
But right now, all you could do was flee.
You opened your eyes just for a moment and turned your head ever so slightly.
And that’s where you found him.
Your pupils dilated at the sight in front of you. You’d been so lost in thought you hadn’t heard the noises, hadn’t felt his presence either.
The clearing was littered with the half-eaten remains of animals, shredded talismans, and shattered jade amulets. And at the center of it all sat a man… no, a monster wrapped in the shape of one. He was hunched over, his head lowered as he ate an animal. The white flesh was barren, the animal looked like it had four limbs. Its legs were still twitching, its blood covered half of the monster’s face.
The monster was large, with what looked like four arms. Despite the cold, he was half-naked. He munched lazily, almost like he didn’t notice you. His canines ripped through its flesh like a blade as he tore another chunk off its leg. The animal shifted between his hands, its neck lolled to the side. He held it tightly with his four large arms, his fingers digging into its flesh.
Then the clouds overhead moved and the sunlight caught on the animal’s corpse.
On its eyes.
Dull, brown eyes looked back at you.
Thick wads of black hair fell down its face but its head remained still.
Looking at you.
That was no animal.
No animal had eyes like that.
Its neck was snapped at an awkward angle, its lips had cracked and gone ice cold. Its body was barren, but you recognized it immediately.
A human woman.
A thousand cursed energies crept around the monster, swirling in the thick heavy air. The scent of blood and gore hit your nose like ice cold water. Bile piled up in the back of your throat, you could barely stomach the sight. But you couldn’t look away. Your breath stilled in your throat.
You needed to go.
Right now.
Carefully, you decided to try to move and hope you didn’t catch his attention. You didn't want to be next.
Your leg barely moved forward, your boots crunched on a twig underneath your feet.
The sound echoed far too loudly in the forest clearing.
You thought, for a moment, he might not have noticed...
Until he moved.
His head turned first. Then his shoulders. Then his eyes.
All towards you.
His eyes like molten wine, his hair pale and wild, like no one had dared tame him. Tattoos crawled across his skin like old script written in dark blood. His scarlet eyes latched onto yours, his expression unreadable.
He didn’t move.
Neither did you.
Fear clung to you like old parchment, and you screamed at your useless legs to move. To run. You’d rather die at the hands of the Fujiwara clan than whatever this monster had in store for you.
In the distance, human voices could be heard again, the sound all too familiar.
No...
You’d taken too long.
You’d either die by their hand… or his.
But your legs wouldn't move.
Then, he moved his hand... ever so slightly, raising his palm. As he did so, the air got sucked out of your lungs.
That was enough to get your legs to move.
You just ran without looking back. You didn't know how you had forced your legs to, but you didn't want to die.
The wind blew past you, slicing your bare skin like knives as you ran further uphill and away from it all.
If he followed, you didn’t know.
You didn’t stop running until your lungs gave out. And even then, you didn’t rest. You’d had all but exhausted the last drops of water from your canteen inside your satchel. You hadn’t eaten anything in what felt like days.
The forest grew steeper the higher you climbed.
The trees were denser here, tangled together like they were hiding something. You found a cavern, or maybe just a hollow between two slabs of stone. You collapsed inside, knees scraped and bleeding, the cold biting into your skin until you couldn’t feel anything at all.
Hours passed as you rested. Or maybe it was days. The sun hadn’t shown itself behind the clouds since the blood-slicked clearing.
Your stomach ached, and your throat burned every time you swallowed. Your stomach growled with hunger but you pushed it back.
Eventually, the voices chasing you had stopped.
Not because you’d outrun them, but because something else had stopped them first.
You should’ve known the second the forest went still.
You had nothing left. Not even fear.
But curiosity?
Curiosity lingered.
You didn’t even know why. But when you’d found that monster, something about his soul spoke to you. As the user of the Soul Bound technique, you could see another creature’s soul using your cursed energy.
His soul… it was wrong.
You had never seen anything quite like it.
That should have stopped you. But it didn’t.
You weren’t even sure why your feet moved the way they did, retracing your path downhill. Your brain screamed at you to turn back, that you would end up dead out of curiosity. But what did you even have left anyway?
Maybe part of you hoped the clearing would be empty. That what you’d seen wasn’t real, that maybe it had been a hallucination. That your cursed technique had broken your brain.
But when you returned, you found blood.
It wasn't fresh.
It wasn't human either.
Trails of deep, red blood lined a path through the clearing. It was everywhere. Splattered over the dirt, over the leaves. It even coated the trunks of the trees, as if whatever had bled had held onto them as it moved deeper into the forest.
Your feet halted at the sight.
Despite the protests your mind screamed at you, you followed it.
How foolish of you.
But as you continued, that's where you found him.
He was collapsed beneath a cluster of black pines, one arm twisted at a wrong angle, his chest rising slow and with shallow breaths. Back when you’d first found him, he’d seemed so… inhuman.
So even gods could bleed, you thought to yourself.
He was still alive, you could feel it before you saw it, the hum of cursed energy snarling just beneath his skin like a starved beast. But it was fractured. Something was deeply wrong.
You didn’t understand why he wasn’t healing.
Using the Reverse Cursed Technique for a creature like him wouldn’t have been a problem. He had loads of cursed energy, you could feel it.
You didn’t even realize you’d stepped closer until his eyes snapped open. All four of them.
Blood red.
All four fixed on you.
He didn’t move. Didn’t even speak at first. But you could see it… the fury in his stillness. The threat beneath his gaze, directed right at you.
He spoke in a low and cold voice. “Didn’t I scare you off already?”
His voice was rougher now, but underneath it was pain. It was raspy, like he was barely clinging to his own life.
You didn’t answer him, your eyes just went to his side.
You inspected it. As a doctor, you recognized a fatal wound when you saw one. If this monster knew how to use RCT but couldn't, then it reminded you of the man you healed before. Your eyes narrowed, studying the way his cursed energy glistened around his wound.
“Tch.” He dragged his head to the side, as if looking at you offended him. “Pathetic.”
You flinched at his tone. But you didn’t leave. Something about that wound flickered recognition in your eyes. You recognized it all too well.
The Fujiwara clan was said to have weapons that could bypass barriers and nullify cursed techniques. Rumors spread that they could deteriorate the body to the point RCT wouldn’t have worked. They must have caught him by surprise. Either that or a special curse got him.
You didn’t have much time to wonder about that though, and your attention turned to the monster in front of you.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” he muttered. “Weak thing. You don't even know when to run.”
His breath hitched slightly at the end. Just barely, but you caught it. He was dying. He’d be dead soon if he couldn’t heal himself. The effect from whatever had pierced him wasn’t wearing off.
The cut across his torso… it wasn’t closing. It was like his cursed energy was locked.
“Why…” you found yourself speaking. “Why aren’t you healing? You can use the Reverse Cursed Technique, can’t you?”
He didn’t answer, just scowled deeper. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”
His body spasmed once. Just enough to make him grimace.
You hesitated for a moment, then stepped closer towards him.
He noticed and immediately grew defensive.
“Back off.”
But you didn’t.
And then, maybe this was foolish, you dropped to your knees beside him. The cold leaves stung on your knees, but you could focus on your own situation later.
You didn’t touch him, not yet. You just… watched. You studied his cursed energy, how it flared when you got close. It was an oppressive feeling, stifling. But you couldn’t back away now.
He was terrifying, yes. Unholy. But now, he looked like something else entirely.
Not human.
Not divine.
Just broken. Bleeding. A dying god.
Maybe that’s what did it… the sight of someone so impossible, so reduced.
Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was pity. You always had a soft spot for cursed spirits, the cute and harmless ones that you’d sometimes find half-dead. You would always nurse them back to health.
This was different though. This was no harmless, docile thing.
Maybe it wasn't pity. Maybe it was something else entirely.
You reached toward him with trembling fingers. He grabbed your wrist, so fast you barely saw it. His grip was bruising, his fingers dug into your skin so hard that it hurt. Your hand flinched in response, but the grip wasn’t enough to snap your wrist in two.
It was just a firm warning.
His gaze bore into yours, his eyes staring deeply into your soul. “Try anything,” he hissed, “and I’ll tear you in half.”
You nodded slowly, gulping down in fear. “I-I just want to stop the bleeding.”
“Why?” he spat. “You want me to owe you?”
“No,” you whispered. “I just… I think I can heal you. With my cursed technique.”
His grip didn’t loosen. What a pathetic woman, he thought to himself. “Don’t bother. That cursed tool nullified my cursed energy.”
So it had been the Fujiwara clan.
You swallowed hard. “I can try. My technique… it allows me to bind souls back to the body and heal. I can do that for you.”
He stared at you for a long time. A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes. Then, intrigue. His silence said more than he’d ever admit.
And finally… he let go of your wrist.
Your fingers were numb as you pressed them against his chest. You felt the cursed energy recoil from yours. But you pushed forward anyway.
A number flickered in your vision, pulsing just above his chest. The numbers burned in your vision, your eyes going wide.
Karmic debt.
That's what it was. You'd never seen such an extremely large number in anyone. Whoever this man, no, this monster was, he had committed thousands of crimes that laid upon his soul.
For a moment, you hesitated... but you had come this far, you would heal him. Your soul was already damned anyway. You had nothing left to lose either.
Your breathing slowed. Your cursed energy surged forward in waves, looking for his soul. Then… you found it. It was wrong in every way. A corrupted tangled mess of threads, like blood vessels that curled inwards around a dark mass of negative energy.
You pressed your hand to his chest further, and your cursed energy dove inward.
Not into the body, but beneath it.
Deeper inside, you saw it, glowing and broken. His soul. It looked like a mirror cracked by too many hands.
Without thinking, you offered yours.
You shaped your cursed energy into a reflection of his. Fragile and raw.
His soul surged against it, and for a moment, you thought it would devour you whole. But then, it began to resonate with yours, almost like it was pulsating alongside it.
It wasn't healing. It was more like you were anchoring. In that moment, you were far too lost in trying to heal him to notice the specifics of what you were doing.
You bore the pain of his wound in your own chest, your lungs seized as blood spattered against your lips. But that didn't deter you. You held it together like it was your own. You worked until you found the nexus. It was a red-veined mass, slick and heaving like a cursed womb, anchored to the threads like a beating heart.
There was a sound, like a dozen mouths breathing through a slit throat, rasping over one another. Even though he had one soul, it felt like thousands of screams echoed from within him. They came from the folds of that… thing. You flinched at the sound grating against your ears.
But you didn't stop.
Crimson threads worked swiftly, forming a lattice around it as you worked to stitch it together.
Your hands weaved the cursed energy threads, like you were an artist and him your tapestry. The stench of metal flooded your throat, hot and suffocating. You could barely keep your hands steady.
One by one, you wove them into place, pulling the strands, closing the gap between soul and skin. The thread sizzled when it touched him, rejecting you at first, until something within him stilled.
Acceptance.
You healed a dying god and bound his soul back to his body.
Sukuna felt something inside him shift once you pulled away. He had never felt anything like that. Like you had changed something forever inside him. Neither of you knew at that moment, but you had bound your souls together. But he brushed the feeling off.
He looked to you, noting the way you gasped from the cursed energy exertion. He had never witnessed such a cursed technique. For a moment, he thought about killing you or eating you after you’d healed him. But after witnessing that… he didn't want to let this one go. Oh no. Not to a cursed technique like that. It was more than mere RCT.
You looked at him, your cursed energy settling back down, and you furrowed your eyebrows.
Not even a thanks?
Sukuna was too deep in thought to pay attention to you.
He thought on something someone had once told him.
Years ago, a man had come to him. The man introduced himself as Kenjaku. A cursed spirit who swore he had the ability to reincarnate souls across time. He didn’t believe him, not at first. But if a technique like yours existed, anything was possible, wasn’t it? Kenjaku had proposed he split his soul into his twenty fingers.
He had laughed and called him foolish for wanting him to split his soul.
But maybe he was the foolish one.
If death ever came for him, perhaps he might be forced to do that. He always thought himself as unkillable, untouchable, a god in mortal form. But the cursed tool the Fujiwara clan pierced him with had proven him wrong. He was fortunate someone like you came around when you had.
He narrowed his eyes at you.
You had saved him. And… that technique of yours intrigued him. An idea crossed his mind.
You were his now.
His eyes flickered to you and slowly, he got up on his feet. He flexed his muscles, testing his newly repaired body. He was still sore, but it was enough to move.
You backed off, getting up on your own feet but you weren’t prepared by how he dwarfed you in size. He had to be at least 250 cm in height, the top of his head brushed up near halfway against the tree. He had four large arms, each one flexing as he stretched his muscles. Now, up close, you could see that the tattoos weren't just on his face. No. They ran across his chest and curled around his biceps.
You looked up at him, to speak.
But you didn’t even get your words out before he snatched you up in one arm and tossed you over his shoulder like a bag of rice. You clutched your satchel as he did so.
“Wait! What are you doing?! I helped you!” You screamed and tried to kick him, your free arm pounded on his back desperately.
But your efforts were in vain, his grip on you was iron clad.
“Shut up, woman. I have plans for that cursed technique of yours.” He grunted.
And so, he took you back to the shrine he called home. Back then, you’d really thought you would die at his hands. If you had only known how fate would play out.
─────❅─────
Present day. November 2018. Tokyo No. 1 Colony.
You stumbled through the wreckage like a marionette cut from its strings. Skyscrapers lined the path forward, large towering buildings made of steel and glass. Skyscraper. You didn’t know how you recognized the word, but you did.
You only remembered old temples, shrines, wooden houses. Not… all of this.
Smoke curled in the air, thick with cursed energy and blood. Concrete cracked beneath your zori sandals, and the tang of rust flooded your mouth. A naginata was in your hands, your grip too practiced for a stranger’s.
You didn’t remember your name.
All you knew was a stranger had reawakened you inside of a bright, white room. And he had handed you the cursed tool as he smiled. Was it yours? You didn’t know.
But holding it reminded you of someone. Of who? You had no idea.
You didn’t even know where you were. The stranger had said something about games, about rules written in blood. About sorcerers pitted against each other to see who the strongest would survive.
At least you recognized that term. Sorcerer. That’s what you were, right?
Something deep inside you felt wrong. But when you’d asked the black haired man he only smiled at you with a calm composure that sent a shiver down your spine. He simply told you to participate. You sensed he had ulterior motives. And a keen interest in you. His smile never reached his eyes either.
He had told you that you were special. And while you were unconscious, you swore you could have heard his voice before you awakened. His voice echoed in your head even now.
“All these years and your soul survived intact. Hm. Is that-"
Whatever he noticed about your soul, you didn't hear the rest of his words.
Something about it was wrong. No, everything was wrong. Your body moved like it remembered battles that you never fought. Your cursed energy snarled when it touched the open air. And deep beneath your ribs, where your soul had been rewoven, something was tugging... slow, sick, familiar. Like a red thread that pulled you towards an unseen horizon.
You looked around. There was no sign of life anywhere, just those glass buildings. A throb pulsed in your brain and you felt a memory resurface between the folds of your mind.
Soul Bound.
Your cursed technique.
That was right. Your cursed technique dealt with binding souls together and healing.
Was… that how you’d ended up in this body?
Something told you that there was more to it than just your technique though.
You couldn’t recognize your hands, your arms. It was all different, wrong. Those hands that had healed countless people. Those hands that had brought that man back to life, the act which had gotten you exiled. And then you met-
Wait a moment.
Exiled?
Your head throbbed again, this time the pain was more sharp in the back of your head. The memories ran just on the edge of the surface, barely restrained from spilling over. You didn’t have total memory loss, you remembered bits and pieces. Like your native tongue, what cursed energy was, Jujutsu, and other basic things. The memories were like broken glass, each one reflecting in your brain.
But it was too much.
Too soon.
So you pushed them down.
Your cursed energy convulsed, wild and untrained, barely tethered to the body it clung to. You were like a newborn that had barely now just learned to walk.
Another memory surfaced unbidden, against your will: it was a red shrine gate with unlit lantern that hung on the eaves. There was a small wooden house with a veranda that overlooked an open air courtyard. A wooden table on the deck. A voice, low and terrible, calling you "little sorcerer." You remembered fingers like claws brushing your chin. Cruel hands around your waist that made you feel like home, way too soft and gentle around your skin despite the untold sins that clung to them.
You gasped and it was gone.
The world began to shift.
The air was cold, you could tell you were nearing the winter months.
And you were somewhere in Japan. You remembered your native tongue, at least. So you could read the Japanese on the electric signs that hung above some of the buildings. But some of the words were strange, you couldn’t recognize some of the kanji either.
You were in the middle of a wide, open area. Black concrete laid underneath your feet, ever expanding forwards. Signs were planted everywhere, some of them had pictures you’d never seen.
Strange metal beasts lined the edge of the black road, frozen in place. They had doors like carriages, but no reins, no horses. Just glass windows and ghostly, empty seats.
Footsteps scraped in the distance. You could sense cursed energy from around one of the larger hunks of metal. It was a large, rectangular white object. You couldn’t quite name it.
You gripped your naginata tighter between your fingers. The blade pulsed between your fingers, as if resonating with your own cursed energy.
Something inside you whispered to run. To hide.
You weren’t a fighter.
Were you?
You were a healer.
A doctor.
But the way you steadily gripped your naginata and adjusted your stance betrayed your words. Your eyes narrowed. Whatever was behind the corner was waiting for you.
A cursed spirit, perhaps?
You gulped down hard, feeling a lump in your throat.
Whatever it was. It was coming for you.
But that voice still echoed, low and cruel, from some lifetime ago.
“Show me what you can do, little sorcerer."