golden age

"....All these fur..."

With winter having passed and gone, it looks like all of Hansol's winter coat is shedding right off onto the floor. She has a pile of white fur in one corner.

"huff, huff...."

How does she ever survive this?

"Futon stuffing, fude bristles, threads for stitching." He spoke aloud the typical uses for the hairs with the flat intonation of an afterthought. But upon standing and pulling the hairs pinched between his fingers up with him, the tuft he separated from the pile unfurled to be about a meter in length, inspiring in his features the tilted smile of an interest renewed. He grabbed the other end, twisted them tightly until they formed a cord, and snapped the hairs taut, the fibers humming with springy tension. "Good," he hummed.

The laughter broke the tension like a bolt of lightning through a cloud. If not for the cloth covering his eyes, it might have illuminated the hopeful delight in Satoru's eyes too. He's all too glad to know Sukuna would be watching his climb back to the strongest with anticipation.

He wasn't a drinker, but it was rude not to share when someone offered it to you. He didn't swig nearly as deeply as Sukuna does, but it's enough to be considered an agreement of sorts.

"My own fault! As if! I've never felt this way before, this place has some weird properties. And before that - well. Situation was different."

He shrugged with both shoulders, tearing the jerky in his hands apart to eat the strips a little at a time.

The tang of the alcohol waking his palate, Sukuna reached over the table to prize a thick slice of dried meat off the slab. He hung it over his mouth, dropped it in, and briefly ground it between his teeth before it bulged down his throat. Leaning his elbow against the table, he swiped his tongue across the residual spices clinging to his thumb.

"Like I said, I gave you everything you were ready to see." As in dance, strength shown in kind depended on the competency of both parties, and Gojo failed to incite Sukuna do anything more than waltz. But through the communication they shared and the mutual opportunity for evolution presented to them, he expected their next bout to transcend what they proved capable of in Shinjuku.

Sweat caked his skin, sucking the cotton robes against his flesh and trapped the heat that simmered off his body. A baritone voice twisted the siren that rung in his ears, melting the high-pitched note to match the low wavelength until his siren faded into obscurity. The terrifying human did not threaten his existence as Maru recently believed. He critiqued his compliments, carving out the falsehoods embedded in the politeness.

Without seeing, without knowing, the man witnessed the hidden third eye. Maru's eyes widened in disbelief, and quickly reasoned that he could be a sorcerer, though he seemed more than that. His power did not seem to derive from a family inheritance as it did with Yuuka nor was it innate as it was with the Simurians. The origins of his power gradually became lucid. The man took the power he desired, and ingested it--similar to a Kalyan's ritual feasting upon Simurians.

Maru's hand trembled as he reached for the bandage. He did not tremble from terror. He had nothing to fear, he reasoned that now. He trembled in awe over a human who managed to ingest and become one with a Kalyan. Maru's dull nail scratched at the edge of the adhesive and he tugged on it. The glue peeled off his flesh, leaving a sticky residue on the edges of his eyelid. Slowly, the third eye opened, and expanded to its widen form.

The pupil thrashed up and down, examining the other's form in great detail, and then it shuddered violently. His third eye relaxed in silent submission.

As the bandage peeled back to uncover a bulging third eye rolling with consciousness, Sukuna met its intelligent gaze with a tight stare that left its iris flickering across his in silent communication before it sedated into a half-lidded daze. Sukuna kept his attention to it, his eye only flicking down to regard the boy again upon hearing his admission that he was not from Earth. A wry smile cracked across his worn, sunbaked skin. "... Ha."

"Of course you're not." His reply warbled with an undercurrent of cold laughter. Turning, he raised one hand and gestured for the boy to fall in step behind him, issuing no command except for the unspoken expectations he observed to be compulsively obeyed.

Plodding through untamed grasses, Sukuna's large body carved through the forest, the boughs and shrubbery seeming to recede before his mass like shadows banished by light. Verdant musk hung richly around them and fountains of insects sprung from the greenery he crushed underfoot, but as the sun diffused between layers of canopy and light thinned to wan patches of sickly shadow, a rotting, sour rancor polluted the wild smells insulated beneath the canopy, a poison detectable by both flesh and soul. With one arm he lifted a mighty branch aside to clear the way to a lake clearing overhung in curses and decay--the haunt of a carcass left to decompose, untouched.

Maru concluded his outpouring compliments and observations with shortness of breath. He waited for approval or rejection. Either way, he would be accepting.

"You engorged your fantasies on the life you already know, boy," he commented, his tone expressing neither admonishment or approval, just emotionless truth. Though the boy approximated the concept behind Sukuna's form, he failed to grasp anything beyond the obvious principles--he saw each part in isolation, not as inseparable elements of a working, uniform whole.

There was a quiet moment of just lingering on the scent of the spices and the sound of the meat being sliced, taking in the absolute insanity that was sitting in a frankly beautiful home with the King of Curses entertaining his stupid questions and even more infuriating non-answers.

It was true that Yuuji wouldn't lie to Satoru, especially not about something like this - but it had been something he had to confirm with his own eyes. He reached out, snatching up a piece of meat before he leaned his elbows on the table.

"So formal with me still! Here I thought we had something special." A bad deflection. "I'm not out to prove myself to be anyone yet. Not until I get a little more of myself back. Once I do, though?"

He drummed his fingers on his chin, giving a little hum.

He was.

"Keh heh!" A pleased laugh split his mouth into a wide, toothy smile.

The Earthling noticed him, and questions deluged his brain. Was the stomach mouth convenient? Did two more arms add to his strength? Did he have plastic surgery like the Earthlings habitually practiced? Or was he al natural?

She's really grateful that Sukuna's in the hot spring first. She has some undergarments on that are okay to get wet, and they're also clean. Still, she waits for Sukuna to get inside before she even takes off her outfit and gets into the hot spring. She honestly doesn't need to be in it. Her body already runs much hotter. The blue flames within her surge through, making the hot spring, perhaps, even hotter. Maybe Sukuna can feel it. Is it too hot? She hopes not.

If it were, he'd tell her, she's sure.

When she slipped into the water, he held his gaze to the heavens, not out of respect for her privacy but in his easy comfort in her presence. The water heated to a steady, enjoyable boil that massaged him with roiling bubbles, loosening his mind and relaxing him.

"Sustaining heat is no issue," he commented, referring to what would be required to simulate the thermal energy of a hot spring for their home. He envisioned it being as easy as dropping a ball of foxfire into the spring or striking his cooking fire into an underground chute running below the water.

His head still lulled back, Sukuna cast her a side-long glance, his eyes sharp and perceptive.

* Oh * Okay

Queen stands around awkwardly, rubbing the side of her casing as she takes another look around. This man is the only person she's seen around here, so he's going to have to put up with more questions.

* ... * So Are You Like * Hansol's Handyman? * Can I Leave A Message With You? * Yes/No

Since she wasn't answering her text messages, either, nor could she find her at the NokNok Cafe, Queen had started to assume the worst, and quickly made her way over to her house.

* Yoo Hoo * Hansol * You Home?

She calls out for her as she walks the perimeter of the house, and sticks her scanners through whatever windows she can find in an effort to locate her friend.

(She doesn't seem to be aware of anyone else around the house, nor what they make of the strange blue woman calling out for the homeowner...)

Entering through the back gate, his eyes passed over the woman once before catching on the synthetic blue of her body. Perceivable to him only on one field of vision, he narrowed his human eye to adjust his focus on her before continuing toward his work shed, unbothered by her presence.

When Sukuna approached, it was like the world held its breath. He couldn't tell if the warmth in the space was just the heating of the house or Sukuna's presence, but it felt sweltering under his jacket as he tugged the collar of it up against his cheek.

Old habit had Infinity clinging to his skin, though he lets it fade when Sukuna bent to open a crawlspace that he hadn't realized was there. The bottle clutched in his other hand was held up in a gesture to offer it to Sukuna's attention.

"Just wanted to see if Itadori was telling the truth - and to talk. Nothin' else right now."

"We missed the anniversary of the big day, unfortunately, so nothing exciting to celebrate, but I figured you'd let me know if you didn't want company."

"No point in standing there."--An implied invitation. Loosening the joints in his hand with a flick of the wrist, he ran one sharp nail down the length of the meat's bindings, the tension snapping and allowing the package to stiffly open in an aromatic plume of rubbed-in seasonings. He then cut the slab into smaller strips, his expression flat and indifferent even as Gojo joined him at the table.

"The brat can tell no lie worth bothering with. You're wasting your time questioning what you've learned." He offhandedly acknowledged Itadori Yuuji's existence in this place as though speaking through a mouthful of rot. His motions stilling, he narrowed his attention on Gojo, his large, protruded eyes squelching as they bulged toward the other man.

His perception of Ryomen-Sukuna was it he said: convoluted and misguided. He winced and turned away from the temple's embrace. He didn't deserve its salvation. As he pivoted his eyes caught glance to a shimmering gleam. He was instantly absorbed and met gaze with the young man that was devoured by his friend.

"Wah! Huh--you're bac--" before he could finish, the apparition began to speak with no sound. His mouth moved slowly, intentionally, passing along a message that could not be deciphered. Then, he was gone. Zhang San lingered on the mysterious moment, longer than he should, and then released the sign to the ground.

He followed his intuition and sought where the young man would be within this world. Only one location floated in his memory: the lake where he and Sukuna shared their bleeding colors. He trekked through the city with blinders on, ignoring all parts of the outside world until he reached the lake.

As he reasoned, the young man stood upon the lake's surface with no rippled forming underfoot. Quickened, hushed whispers surrounded him in consistent prayer. Their language was instinctually familiar and entirely alien to him at the same time. The weight of worship dropped upon his shoulders, forcing his shoulders to roll forward and his back to hunch. He couldn't resist the millennium worth of veneration and he fell to his knees, choking back on the cursed energy that congealed the air. This one was not like before.

Without the means to vomit his sickness, his soul folded in on itself. He looked inward for refuge, and his perception of his surroundings undulated invisibly with change. With it, creeping thoughts of hunger and a fear of hunger poisoned his mind. He thought with strange lucidity that he wasn't sick but emaciated and starving, that the movements in the darkness were the cells of his body screaming in slow, belabored death throes. He had to eat. He groped in the black. He had to eat. He breathed despite an empty, rattling chest. He had to eat. He brushed his fingers against a bare warmth. He would eat. He grabbed at the small, fleshy soul nestled next to him. He ate.

He woke up.

A shaft of sun hung over the center of a lake within which he fitted the memory of his body. Appearing like a trick on the eyes, his image refracted along length of the light in a faceted, elongated prism, the irises of his eyes sheer and hollowed with diffused starshine. People thronged around him between the infinitesimally thin beams of sun, whispering eulogies to their god for feeding them and saving them from the terror of starvation. Realizing his head to be snapped up at a tilted angle, he slowly straightened his stiff neck, seeing through his curtain of light that a man bared his soul upon the sacred ground.