Warnings: MDNI, 18+, Graphic destruction/violence, blood/injury, not as many civilian casualties as Star Wars, but not none. Sukuna being told no.
A/N: Yeah, I haven't written anything in like 2 months so this is like amazing for me.
The Void Curse Master List | Chapter 3 (coming soon) | Chapter 1
He meets her in Shibuya expecting the violence to come to a sweet but quick end. Instead, she dodges just long enough to talk, steering the exchange away from blood and into words. By the time he notices, the kill is gone- and heâs left with the irritation of having been pulled into an actual conversation.
It isnât only the destructionâthough thereâs plenty of that, too. Buildings split open like rotten fruit, streets cratered, smoke rolling over the neon like fog. Itâs the pressure in the air. The way the night feels heavy, like something has placed a hand over the cityâs mouth and is forcing it to suffocate.
You canât see veils the way you can see a wall, but you can feel it in the same way you can feel a storm before it hits: the hum under your skin, the drag in the space between one breath and the next.
You, however, are a sorcerer with a goal, hum or not.
By any means necessary, you have to breach the barrier shrouding Shibuya so civilians can get out. There are too many trapped underground right now, too many people pressed together in panic, too many screams swallowed by concrete and cursed energy.
You donât have a team. You donât have an organization feeding you intel or handing you a plan. You arenât part of any society or cult.
Youâre alone. Completely.
Which means youâre running on instinct, scraps of overheard information, and one undeniable truth: something is tearing the city apart and if you donât do something, there wonât be anyone left to save.
Itâs what keeps your legs moving even as your lungs burn. What keeps your mind sharp even as the ground shakes beneath your feet and the sky flashes with distant bursts of cursed energy like silent lightning.
You cut through a narrow alleyway, footsteps echoing against wet pavement. The streetlights here are dead; only the glow from far-off signage bleeds into the corridor, staining everything a dull, sickly color.
Itâs too quiet in this alley. Not peaceful, never that. Quiet like a held breath.
Maybe itâs the years of hiding that taught you not to trust stillness. Maybe itâs the way your skin prickles a half-second before danger arrives.
Either way, something stops you.
You slow, just a fraction, and your instincts screamâ
You duck behind a low wall before you even fully register itâs there, crouching with your shoulder pressed to chipped concrete. Your heart pounds against your ribs hard enough to hurt.
You hold your breath and try to steady yourself.
The alley seems empty. Dark and shadowy. The stillness tries to trick you into believing thereâs nothing there.
A man appears at the far end like heâs stepped out of the night itself.
He doesnât drop from a rooftop or smash through a wall. Heâs simply there, strolling along the walkway as if he doesnât have a care in the world.
As if Shibuya isnât burning.
As if the air isnât thick with death.
Heâs carrying a soda and popcorn.
For a heartbeat, the sight is so absurd your brain tries to process it as a hallucination.
The way he holds the cup loosely, the way the popcorn bag crinkles in his other hand, like he really did just come from a movie that didnât particularly impress him and now heâs out for a late-night walk.
Heâs tall. Very tall. Lean in a way thatâs deceptive. A blade sheathed under soft fabric. A sweater hangs on him like heâs dressing for comfort, not war.
Cute, your traitorous brain supplies, because itâs easier to latch onto something harmless than admit what your instincts are already shouting.
Every warning bell in your mind is ringing so loudly itâs almost nauseating.
You wonder, absurdly, what he looks like when he actually eats something he enjoys.
He stops a few meters from your wall.
Doesnât look around. Doesnât scan for movement. Doesnât even glance in your direction.
He simply tosses his treats aside like theyâve bored him.
The section of wall you had been hiding behind a split second ago explodes.
The blast is hot and violent and loud enough to make your ears ring. Concrete turns to shrapnel. Rubble hammers the ground. Chunks of cement look like theyâve been sliced apart and then beaten to pieces.
Your body jerks on instinct, recoil ripping through you. A gasp tears out of your throat before you can stop it; you clamp your hand over your mouth, but the sound escapes anyway, small and terrified.
You stare at where you were and the delayed realization slams into you like a second explosion.
If you had stayed thereâ
He wouldâve killed you.
A voice drifts through the dust, as casual as someone making small talk.
You cock your head up, expecting to see him peering over the wall, leaning in to confirm the kill.
He hasnât moved closer. He canât be bothered to check. He just stands there in the alleyâs mouth, weight on one leg, head tilted slightly like heâs listening for a particular kind of sound.
A body hitting the ground.
You force your lungs to work again, swallowing hard. Your hand lowers slowly from your mouth.
The way you see it, you have two choices.
Stay quiet and pray he loses interest before he finds you.
You glance down at the broken cement block by your foot. Itâs small enough to fit in your palm, jagged at the edges.
You may be a little fucked here.
You press your forehead briefly to the remaining wall, as if you can borrow strength from it. Then you exhale, slow, and lift your voice just enough to carry.
Thereâs a pauseâone beat, twoâas if your answer has genuinely surprised him.
Then his tone shifts, amused.
âCareful. That sounds a little close to begging for your life.â
âItâs an observation,â you reply, and your voice comes out steadier than your pulse feels. âDid you mean to miss?â
You snort, because if you donât laugh you might shake. âYou do. Just didnât mean to.â
You imagine his head tilts at your response.
âHow long do you plan on hiding behind there?â
âItâs a nice wall,â you say, eyes flicking over the rubble. âWell. Was a nice wall.â
âItâs actually a pretty shitty wall,â he replies, mildly offended on principle, âconsidering the whole point of one is to prevent breaches like that.â
Another explosion cracks through the alley, sharp and sudden.
It hits right where you had been crouched.
You jerk back again, heart clawing at your throat.
âStill alive now?â he calls, and you can hear the grin in it.
Youâve learned your lesson. You donât answer this time.
The wall crumbles further, and then he steps through the gap he made like he owns the alley, the night, the city. Dust clings to his sweater in pale smears as he tries to brush it off. His shoes crunch over the broken concrete.
You slide into the deeper shadows, body low, using the debris as cover as you circle. Your feet know how to land without sound, years of hiding will do that to a person. Your breathing stays shallow, controlled. Your senses narrow to the manâs presence.
He doesnât know where you are.
But he knows he didnât succeed. The lack of a body in the rubble tells him that much.
âI hate repeating myself,â he says, voice sharper now.
You stop behind him, just out of armâs reach, where the darkness is thick enough to swallow you if you need it. His back is broad beneath the sweater, and for a second youâre struck by the strange contrast: soft fabric, monstrous pressure.
You speak into the space behind him, letting your voice cut clean through the dust.
âYou say that like this is the first time youâve had to.â
His arm snaps back in a lazy, brutal slice aimed to bisect whatever is behind him.
The air where you were shivers as cursed energy passes through it. Close enough that your skin prickles, close enough that your stomach twists.
His gaze finally drops over you, slow and evaluating, like a predator taking a careful look at prey thatâs turning out to be more work than expected.
His pupils constrict, tighten, like a camera snapping into focus. The extra set of eyes that you didnât realize he had open a fraction wider, however. But the red colorâŚthe red color darkens, less bright and moreâŚsaturated, like blood.
âYou learn quickly,â he says. âMost donât live long enough to notice patterns.â
âGuess Iâm special.â
He scoffs. âDonât flatter yourself.â
He lunges, quick, a strike meant to throw you off balance.
You vanish from where he expects you to be and reappear behind him, your movement so clean it feels like the world simply forgot you existed for a fraction of a second.
âI donât have a problem with false modesty,â you add lightly.
Not because heâs tired. Not because heâs lost. But because heâs thinking.
He waits a beat, long enough that you can feel him recalibrating.
You tilt your head. âExplain what?â
âHow you keep stepping out of reach.â
The word is simple. Bright. Blatant.
He turns his head, just enough to look at you from the corner of his eye.
âNo?â he repeats, incredulous, like heâs trying out the concept for the first time.
âYes,â you say, helpfully. âThatâs right. No.â
A breath passes, and then you add, because apparently you have a death wish: âLook at you. Repeating yourself and being told no for the first time. All in one night.â
His eyes narrow. Something like genuine offense flickers there, quickly smothered beneath amusement thatâs turning sharp at the edges.
âYouâre an insane one then?â
A slash comes from the side.
You dodge it anyway, sliding back as if the blade of cursed energy is moving through syrup.
Youâre faster than him.
At least, in the ways that matter.
âWhy would you think that?â you ask, voice almost curious.
âOnly humans who are touched in the head would dare to speak to me this way.â
âDoesnât feel like Iâm insane,â you say. âYet here we are.â
He movesâtoo fast, too close, his presence suddenly filling the alley with a suffocating heat.
His hand snaps toward your throat.
And still, his fingers close around nothing.
The ground where you were cracks under the force of his cursed energy, spiderwebbing through the pavement. Bits of asphalt jump.
He exhales a short laugh, and this one isnât amused. Itâs the sound someone makes when they realize theyâve been inconvenienced.
You donât respond right away.
Because your attention has snagged on something else, something youâve been feeling since you entered Shibuya, but that is strongest here, in this alley, like the air itself is thickening.
At the space that isnât quite space.
At the invisible pressure that makes the veil feel wrong, heavy, like a hand over the cityâs throat.
âIs this your doing?â you ask.
He follows your gaze, unimpressed, as if youâve pointed out a slightly irritating stain on the wall.
âYouâll have to be more specific.â
âThe barrier,â you say, forcing your focus back to him. âThe one strangling Shibuya.â
He looks at you again, and this time his eyes are sharp. Too sharp. Like youâve finally asked something worth paying attention to.
âThen Iâd stop pretending youâre just here to catch a movie and stretch your legs.â
A corner of his mouth lifts. âBold assumption.â
He chuckles, low and unpleasant.
âIf Iâd done it,â he says, âyou wouldnât be wondering.â
âThatâs not an answer.â
His smile widens. âItâs the only one youâre getting.â
You study him for a long moment, reading what you can from his expression, the way his energy sits in the air like a coiled animal.
Then you nod once, filing it away.
âSo someone else put it up.â
âMm.â He glances toward the veil again, interest flickering now like a match catching. âSomeone ambitious.â
His grin sharpens. âCareless people always assume theyâll have time.â
You meet his gaze steadily. âThey wonât.â
He hums, and it almost sounds pleased. âNo,â he agrees, softly. âThey really wonât.â
Silence settles between you, thick with dust and distant destruction. Somewhere far away, something collapses with a deep groan. The city trembles like itâs trying to shake itself apart.
You take one small breath, then ask the question thatâs been circling in your mind since the wall exploded beside you.
His smile pauses. Not gone, just⌠caught. Like the question has stalled him in a way no attack has.
âYouâre joking,â he says slowly.
For the first time, irritation bleeds through his amusement like ink through water.
âYou stand in front of me,â he says, voice lowering, âyou dodge my strikes⌠and you donât know?â
He laughsâsharp, humorless, full of disbelief. âHow utterly disrespectful.â
Cursed energy flares around him in a sudden wave, a warning so heavy it makes your teeth ache. The air vibrates. Your skin crawls.
âSorcerers carved my name into history,â he says, âso they wouldnât forget who to beg.â
You donât move. You donât bow. You donât do anything that will give him the satisfaction of seeing you flinch.
The question hangs between you anyway, because youâre stubborn and stupid and you need to know what kind of monster youâre standing in front of.
You nod once, like youâve been given a name at a party and youâre politely filing it away.
Then you strike. Before he can reply.
You donât go for his throat.
Instead, you aim low, your strike cutting toward his center of gravity, a test rather than a kill. Your cursed energy flares just enough to make the air bend, space hiccupping as you step somewhere you werenât a fraction of a second ago.
Sukuna reacts on instinct.
Which is to say: violently.
Not metaphoricallyâactually. Cursed energy rips outward from him in a brutal pulse that shatters windows, pulverizes brick, and turns the ground beneath your feet into splintering asphalt. The force would have snapped you in half if youâd still been there.
Time stutters around you, local space dragging like wet cloth as you slip sideways and outânot teleporting, not disappearing, but sliding through the moment between moments.
You reappear near the mouth of the alley, breath sharp in your lungs, boots skidding as rubble rains down.
Sukuna stands where you left him, unharmed, grinning like heâs just been handed a challenge he didnât know he wanted.
âOh,â he says, eyes bright now, genuinely interested. âSo thatâs how you want to play it.â
You donât respond. Talking takes air. Air takes time. And time is something youâre already spending too freely.
This time, you donât attack. You circle, fast enough that the shadows blur, fast enough that your afterimage lingers just long enough to be misleading. You keep your cursed energy tight, precise, refusing to let it flare into anything he can grab onto easily.
He turns with you, tracking, not struggling, but not bored either.
Each step he takes is deliberate. Heavy. Like heâs anchoring himself to the world.
He strikes without warning, a cleaving arc of cursed energy that slices through the space where your head was going to be.
You dip, roll, come up behind himâ
âand feel the air snap as his elbow slams backward with enough force to crater a car parked halfway down the street.
You shouldnât have been able to move that fast.
For the first time, Sukuna misses not because he didnât careâbut because he misjudged you.
The street becomes a battlefield in seconds.
Every movement is a gamble. Every dodge costs you somethingâfocus, breath, stamina. You feel the strain building behind your eyes, the familiar ache that warns you, you canât keep this up forever.
Sukuna, meanwhile, looks like heâs warming up.
His strikes come faster now. Sharper. Less playful.
He isnât trying to kill you yet, but he is trying to catch you.
You duck under a sweeping blow that shreds a streetlight in half. Sparks rain down, hissing as they hit the ground. You slide across the pavement, twist, and kick off a cracked wall to redirect yourselfâ
Only for his hand to slam into the concrete inches from your head.
The building groans. Part of the façade collapses.
You suck in a breath and vanish sideways again, space stretching, snapping back behind you like a rubber band.
âRunning already?â Sukuna taunts, turning smoothly to face you.
You flash him a grin you donât entirely feel. âThat was load bearing.â
He laughs. This one is louder. Freer.
âDonât tell me you care.â
âI care about efficiency,â you snap, and then youâre moving again because he lungesâreally lunges this time, speed spiking hard enough to make the air scream.
This one catches you off guard.
You twist, trying to step out of the moment, and feel the edge of his cursed energy graze you. Pain flares hot and sharp across your side, breath punching out of you as you tumble and hit the ground hard.
You roll, scramble, force yourself up before he can capitalizeâ
His foot slams down where your head was, cracking the street open like an egg. Debris sprays upward.
You stagger back, blood warm at your ribs.
âAh,â Sukuna says, eyes flicking briefly to the wound. âThere it is.â
You grit your teeth. âYou sound relieved.â
âI was starting to wonder if you were cheating.â
âBold words from a man trying to hit someone who isnât standing still.â
He bares his teeth. âCareful.â
You donât wait for him to finish the thought. You throw yourself forward, cursed energy spiking as you force a drag through the space around himânot slowing time exactly, but thickening it, making every fraction of a second resist.
Sukunaâs movement stutters.
You slip past him, shoulder brushing his arm as you pass, and he hissesâa sharp sound of irritation that sends a jolt of adrenaline straight through you.
Youâre not imagining it. You can affect him.
The satisfaction is brief.
Sukuna recovers almost instantly, twisting to follow you, eyes narrowed now with something far less playful burning behind them.
âInteresting,â he murmurs. âYouâre not faster.â
You land on the hood of a car, crouched low, breathing hard.
âNo,â you agree. âIâm not.â
âYouâre just making the world wait for you.â
That⌠was uncomfortably close.
You straighten slowly, eyes locked on his. âThatâs one way to put it.â
His grin returns, razor-edged. âA dangerous way.â
âYeah,â you say quietly. âFor you.â
That earns you a laugh, short and sharp.
âYou think slowing me down will save you?â
âNo,â you answer honestly. âI think itâll buy me time.â
You glance past him again, toward the invisible pressure hanging over the city. Toward the veil.
Sukuna follows your gaze this time, really looks, and something shifts in his expression. Not concern. Not worry.
âYouâre not here for me,â he realizes.
âCongratulations,â you mutter. âYouâre catching on.â
His smile fades. Not entirely, but enough to change the shape of it. âSo, what are you doing here?â
âTrying to fix someone elseâs mess.â
He snorts. âThatâs a losing game.â
âMaybe,â you say. âBut people are dying.â
You meet his eyes. âSo, Iâm not done yet.â
For a moment, the two of you just stare at each other while the city groans and burns around you. Sirens wail somewhere far away, distorted by the veil, by distance, by the way Shibuya itself seems to be folding in on itself.
âWell,â he says, rolling his shoulders, cursed energy surging again. bigger this time. âIf you insist on wasting my time, I suppose Iâll stop holding back.â
His presence swells, pressing in from all sides, a suffocating weight that makes your knees want to buckle. Cracks spiderweb through the street at his feet. Windows shatter all at once, a chorus of breaking glass.
This is no longer sparring.
This is him deciding youâre worth the effort to kill.
You force yourself to breathe. Force your cursed energy to respond despite the pressure, despite the fear crawling up your spine.
âAlways nice to know when Iâve made an impression,â you say, because if you stop talking you might panic.
The blast tears through the street, ripping cars from their parking spots and flinging them like toys. You runâreally run this timeâpushing your technique harder, dragging the moment around you until everything feels syrup-thick and wrong.
You vault debris, skid around corners, feel heat lick at your heels as explosions chase you down the block.
You hear it even over the destruction.
You burst into an open intersection just as something massive tears through the sky overheadâa plane, spiraling, engines screaming.
âOh, you have got to be kidding meââ
Sukunaâs cursed energy lashes upward, ripping through the aircraft like paper.
Your technique flares, bright and painful, as you grab hold of the moment around the falling wreckage and reverse the driftânot sending it back in time, not undoing it, but redirecting its trajectory just enough.
It crashes away from the streets, skidding into a half-evacuated district with a deafening roarâbut not into the packed underground access points you can feel beneath your feet.
You drop to one knee, chest heaving, vision swimming.
When you look up, Sukuna is staring at you.
âNow that,â he says slowly, âwas impressive.â
You wipe blood from your mouth with the back of your hand. âGlad you enjoyed the show.â
âYou didnât slow me,â he continues, ignoring you. âYou altered everything else.â
Your pulse hammers. Heâs piecing it together frighteningly fast.
âLocal,â he muses. âSelective. You donât control time.â
You push yourself upright, legs shaking. âDidnât say I did.â
âYou control your relationship to it.â
Sukunaâs grin creeps back, sharper than ever. âHow tedious it must be,â he says softly, âto live always a half-step out of sync with the world.â
You donât give him another word.
You reach deepâpast the burn, past the ache, past the screaming instinct telling you youâre at your limitâand pull.
The space around Sukuna thickens violently, his movement dragging like heâs wading through tar. It wonât last longâseconds, maybe lessâbut itâs enough.
You feel him tear free behind you, cursed energy roaring in fury, but youâre already goneâcutting down side streets, vaulting barriers, slipping through the cracks in the city like youâve done your whole life.
You donât stop until the pressure of his presence finally fades.
Only then do you slow, ducking into the shadows, lungs burning, hands shaking.
Behind you, Shibuya continues to burn.
You donât stop running when the pressure fades.
You donât stop when your lungs feel like theyâre tearing or when your legs threaten to give out beneath you. You donât even stop when the night grows quieter, when the explosions recede into distant thunder and the air loosens just enough to breathe without pain.
You keep moving because stopping means thinking.
And thinking means replaying how close that was.
You cut through backstreets and half-collapsed storefronts, slipping through gaps too narrow for anything large to bother with. Your technique hums low and exhausted beneath your skin, no longer flaring, just there, stretched thin like a muscle held too long under tension.
By the time you finally slow, itâs because you physically canât go any farther.
You duck into the shell of an underground parking structure, half-flooded and abandoned, the entrance caved in just enough to discourage casual exploration. The air is damp and cold. Water drips steadily from somewhere above, each sound echoing too loud in the quiet.
You press your back to a concrete pillar and slide down until youâre sitting on the ground.
You rest your forearms on your knees and bow your head, forcing yourself to breathe in slow, measured pulls. In. Out. In. Out. The rhythm grounds you, even as your body protests every movement.
Your side burns where his cursed energy clipped you. You press your fingers there experimentally and hiss, teeth clenched. Not fatal. Not even close.
But itâll leave a mark.
âWorth it,â you murmur to the empty garage, because saying it out loud makes it feel true.
Eventually, the shaking eases.
Your thoughts settle, organizing themselves around the thing that dragged you here in the first place.
Even now, you can feel itâless immediate than before, but present all the same. A pressure on the edge of your awareness, like a migraine waiting to bloom. It stretches across Shibuya in a suffocating dome, warping space, trapping people who donât even know theyâre trapped yet.
You didnât breach it tonight.
You didnât even get close.
You exhale slowly, pushing yourself back to your feet. Your muscles scream in protest, but they obey. They always do.
The veil wasnât his. That much youâre sure of now. Whatever monster you just crossed paths withâwhatever Sukuna isâhe wasnât lying about that. The barrier felt different from his presence. Colder. More calculated. Built with intention instead of brute force.
You roll your shoulders, ignoring the ache. If you can feel the difference, you can find the seams. And if there are seams, thereâs a way through.
You wipe grime and blood from your hands against your jacket and glance back toward the city.
âAlright,â you whisper. âRound two.â
You step back into the night.
Somewhere across Shibuya, the street you fled lies in ruins.
Cratered asphalt. Shattered glass. The smoking remains of a city already bleeding.
Sukuna stands at the center of it, coat torn, cursed energy still crackling faintly around him like residual heat. The drag you forced on the world has burned away now, leaving only irritation in its wake.
No lingering presence to tear apart.
Just the echo of youâyour movement, your refusal, the way the world bent around you instead of him.
He rolls his wrist once, flexing his fingers, and snorts softly.
âSo you run,â he mutters, amused despite himself. âFigures.â
He glances in the direction you vanished, eyes sharp, thoughtful rather than angry. The city groans around him, distant destruction continuing without his input, without his care.
A slow smile curves his mouth.
âGo on, then,â he says to the empty streets. âFix your little problem.â
He turns away, already bored with the aftermath, already moving on to something louder, bloodier, simpler.
But the irritation lingers.