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Zuko sucks at flirting and specifically being brazen.

He’s been on approximately 45 dates in the past year… and not one lady has been interested. Or rather they have been, until he opens his mouth.

But not even that; if there was one thing Zuko was absolutely embarrassed about, it was his lack of experience when it comes to sex. He was a virgin, a prude, and shuddered at the thought of having to have his first with some random woman he never met.

There was even one time the council suggested concubines due to his lack of courting success… but there was no way in hell he’d do that (since… as disgustingly sweet as it is… he wanted to be an intimate relationship with someone he considered close).

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that he’s put off so many of those candidates, but a small part of him sulked at the fact that he’s going to have to have a wife sooner or later, and then have an heir. He sulked at the idea that it would be rushed and he wouldn't even love this person he was to marry.

“I can help you.”

Zuko’s lips pressed to a fine line, looking at your direction to see any reaction. Your face was completely neutral. There you were, sipping your tea while looking down, all with the most neutral expression in the world as if Zuko, the Fire Lord, didn't just tell you about his embarrassing celibacy.

He’s always told you his dilemmas, and this was no different. You’d always come up with a solution or compromise, but for some reason, he felt especially… on edge.

You’ve known Zuko since you two were children, as he attended the same school as you did for a few years before you and your father were officially promoted to head staff, and you, Zuko’s handmaiden.

Zuko remembers how you always followed him back in his childhood—answering to every beck and call; he remembers how sweet you were, how compassionate too, and how you’d encourage him when it came to Fire Bending.

You never showed a sign of protest when it came to anything, always a neutral look on your face.

And he couldn’t lie, you were absolutely stunning (despite said neutral look), but he couldn’t help but be put off even more. To be honest, you were more attractive than any of the candidates he's encountered (but who is he to say anything...).

“R-Really?” His skin turned flushed.

“Mhm,” you hummed, sipping your tea calmly like you didn’t almost cause for Zuko mentally break. You were currently sitting across from him, drinking tea with just him in the room while you listened to his problems like always. “I’m not some random woman, aren’t I? I can teach you.”

You were too damn casual.

He nodded hesitantly. “No, you’re not.”

He’ll admit, he has to get with the times. Not many people are saving their chastity and he has to stop being scared. Especially when it comes to wanting to romance others.

“And how so? How would you teach me?”

You shot him a smile. “Trust in me, my Lord. Everything shall be situated.

Zuko cleared his throat, glancing once more at your neutral face and nodded gently. “When do you suggest we start?”

You looked up and smiled. “Whenever you’d like, my Lord.”

lesson one: foreplay

Zuko thought it over, coming to a conclusion two days later and then asking you to come to his chambers later at night where the rest of the staff wouldn’t see you.

He sat there, robe hastily put on and sat there awkwardly at the corner of his bed, waiting. And then he began thinking.

Zuko’s known you for a while—you’ve been at his service for a long time. Hell, there was even a moment in time where he had a crush on you.

It was back when he would stride alongside his mother around the palace, constantly meeting your eyes every time he glanced over where your father would be working. Then you’d smile at him and his heart would be pounding; his mother knew, maybe even Azula knew—she’d certainly mess with you sometimes, but overall respected you (more than him at least).

Sure, you were a “servant”, but it’s obvious that you were a great Firebender. He remembers how he’d have trouble sleeping as a kid and walk off to the courtyard where you’d be there in a small corner, practicing Fire Bending and moving so graceful, it appeared almost like you were dancing.

Even when he got banished, he’d think of you. When he’d look at the stars, he’d think of how your eyes would shine every time you made eye contact.

And now you’re in this situation? He feels sheepish for almost exposing this vulnerability to you…

Zuko jumped at the sound of a knock at his door being knocked, walking fast towards it and swinging it open rather quickly.

“Get in, get in.” He turned around all too fast, his back facing you in sheer embarrassment that he’d even have to ask this of you.

And of course you could tell; you always could. “My Lord, please don’t be embarrassed about this. It is simply educating you on your sexuality; nothing wrong with that.”

“Right…” He walked to the bed slowly and sat down, his eyes following your figure slowly approaching him.

He can’t deny it; you looked beautiful. Your nightly robes were a pretty white, its sheer fabric covering your body nicely and your nipples poking out in the fabric.

But as much as Zuko’s eyes were on your breasts, he quickly averted his eyes to you the moment you cleared your throat. You were holding a book…

“And that?” You smiled at his question.

“This is erotic literature. Clear source material in order to work as an example on what to do.”

He blinked awkwardly, whereas your smile was still glued onto your face. You opened the book to a specific page, being bookmarked by a folded piece of parchment.

Perhaps Zuko was out of his mind—or maybe he already was (because why the hell else would he even be in this situation in the first place?), but he couldn’t stop staring at you reading. God, he knew he was a prude but to get aroused by watching you lick your index finger every time you flipped a page? He felt his pants get tight and his mouth dry.

“Do I have permission to proceed?” He looked away, his face burning with embarrassment. “I guess.”

“So… first, you hold their face and look into their eyes.”

Before he knew it, you leaned closer, holding his face and  looking deep into his eyes. Your eyes softened and the moonlight peeking through the curtains hit your irises—the color almost instantly becoming more vibrant.

“After that, lean closer…”

Then you just began kissing him. Zuko’s eyes felt like they were going to pop out; your lips were warm, plush and soft. You tasted sweet, like the pastries you’d make him on occasion.

Then your tongue slowly went in his mouth the sloppier the kiss went. Your hands cupping his face pulled him closer to you the more you kissed him.

But as Zuko was starting to get used to the pace of your lips, you stopped, pulling back.

He felt his heart race, blinking profusely like he was embarrassed.

The Fire Lord? Getting like this over a measly kiss? He can already imagine Aang and Sokka making fun of him should he ever accidentally tell this about this encounter.

“That was good, my Lord,” you smiled. “Maybe you don’t even need my teachings.”

“O-Oh…” He panicked, mouth going dry. “Um… I believe I still do…”

And damn, you smiled so kindly. “Okay then please position yourself and sit against the headboard, my Lo—“

“Zuko.”

He winced—God, did he really just say that? Your eyes widened a fragment and you blinked. “Sir, are you sure I can refer to you by your name?”

“We are practicing intimacy,” he looked away while saying this and was glad the moonlight wasn’t hitting him or else you’d see how absolutely flustered he was.

“Referring to each other by our given names is one of the most intimate things. I’d like to try it with you too.”

Only then he looked at you when he heard a light laugh slipping from you. “Okay, Zuko.”

Fuck, you said his name so pretty too… You said it like it was something precious; softly enunciating the consonants and not spewing it harshly like how he’s known for almost all his life.

He felt his heart race faster, observing how you slowly got on the bed and planted your knees on the sides of his thighs, straddling him. You then sat on his lap, your crotch against his, and from your small smile forming on your face, he can tell you’ve taken note of his evident hard-on.

“Now let’s try what we did again, but in this position!”

You sounded far too enthusiastic about this…

He blinked, awkwardly. He didn't know what to do. Hell, if he were to compare being in a room full of generals and his finest soldiers, he would consider that much easier than being stuck between your body and the wall.

Your eyes followed his hands, which were placed beside your thighs and you could sense how shaky they were. He let out a small gasp the moment you grabbed his forearms and led them to wrap around your waist.

“You can touch me, sir.” He nodded slowly and grabbed at your waist hesitantly.

Your lips met his again, except with more fervor. Like you were trying to get a taste of a candy you haven't tasted in years, with your head slightly rotated. Your hands roamed around his upper torso, with your slim fingers caressing on the scar on his chest; it was as light as a feather on his skin.

Zuko could feel his heart beat so. Damn. Fast. So much so that he felt overwhelmed and light-headed and aroused, but also nervous if he was doing this right.

Your hips began grinding against his, hands tangled in his hair while you let his hands travel across your skin. His callous fingertips lightly brushed on your warm skin under your shirt, on your hips.

But when he was kissing you, he couldn’t help but still feel so nervous—to be at such proximity to you and to be able totally touch you like this.

Then you pulled back and got off of him. As soon as he was in bliss, you quickly ended it. He couldn’t atop the quite upset expression he had on his face, noted by you.

“Don’t worry, sir. I must stop now since we are only at the beginning. According to this book, kissing intensely while grinding against one’s gene—“

“Okay… I get it. You’re dismissed.”

He laid on his bed, attempting to catch his breath before you spoke again. This time, without a blank look on your face and tone. You smiled so sweetly…

“It’s cute, but we have to work on your hesitation, sir. Please keep that in mind for our next lesson.”

He nodded, finally relaxing his body the minute you shut the door. You stole his first “make-out”. Sure, he’s kissed girls (and by girls, he means just Mai), but not like this.

Not like you wanted to practically taste them while caressing their face and pulling hair.

“Fuck…” he groaned. “What am I going to do with you..?”

And… he grimaced. He was still hard.

lesson two: fellatio + cunnilingus

For the next lesson, you had him sprawled out on the canopy bed of his chamber. Zuko swore he could fucking hear his heartbeat…

He glanced over at you, once again reading your "source material" pornographic novel, and felt his heart beat into his chest. Your previous lesson didn't inherently lead to any sex, rather it was foreplay that left him all hot and bothered the moment you left. 

All you did was grind against him and kiss, and you had him practically burning for more. And now, here he was, at your mercy. You were kneeled on the bed beside him while you really examined what to do. He could tell how your expression shifted from one of amusement to one of slightly shock, and then you closed the book.

“Now we are trying oral sex!” Once again, he couldn’t help but be nervous at your demeanor.

“Okay…”

“Actually, oral sex is also considered foreplay for some before penetrative sex! But, I didn’t want to rush you and also considered how flustered you got after last session, I decided it was enough!”

Zuko stared at you blankly. “Right…”

You spoke so academically? Blankly? You’re kind and listen to his dilemmas, but he feels unsure. When the both of you were making out, he was the one that was all hot and bothered while you simply left. Was he that terrible at this? Granted, it was his first time making out with someone while touching their body like that, but really?

He wonders how you get during sex… if you’re just as blank or if you—

“Okay! I will strip myself, then you now.”

You then began to peel off your upper half, where Zuko made eye contact with your pretty breasts. He’s never seen a woman’s breasts before like this, but yours looked beautiful. Really beautiful. Like a nice dumpling... Is that even a good comparison? What the hell is he thinking?

His eyes widened at how quick you leaned over, sliding his pants fast and exposing his dick, all hard and resting on his abdomen.

“Now please let me show you how to indulge in fellatio.”

You took his tip in your mouth, tongue swirling on his leaking tip and pressing on his shaft. It was too quick.

“Hahh—fuck…” Zuko closed his eyes, almost in disbelief that you were actually doing this.

You then took him whole in your mouth while stroking him at the base of his cock. You looked so cute, just cheeked hollowed out while you sucked him off.

You stopped for a moment, still stroking his cock while looking up at him with those damn pretty eyes of yours. “Now, if you want, you can also push my head a bit in case you would like a more pleasurable experience according to the book!”

And just like that, you latched your lips on his length, bopping your head up and down while your tongue dragged on his sensitive veins. He was itching for a release, and clearly you could tell too.

“You can also ejaculate in my mouth if you so choose!”

And just at that moment, he did, with spurts of cum unloading in your mouth. Then you swallowed… Shit…

Zuko took a moment to catch his breath, panting a bit before speaking again.

“Now let me do it to you.”

And for the first time, you looked hesitant. “Ca-Can you repeat your question again—?”

“Can’t I indulge in oral sex with you?”

Your eyes widened like they were going to pop out of your skull. “I-I mean yes…but it isn’t necessarily proper.”

Zuko pushed you on the bed by your shoulders, making you lie down, where he got off the bed and stood over you.

“If you are to educate me on my sexuality, not only would I like to learn how to receive but to give.”

He leaned towards you and grabbed the book beside you, flipping to the page you bookmarked talking about cunnilingus.

“Here we go…” He couldn’t lie that he felt nervous, but for some reason, just being in such an intimate situation where you were nervous as well, made him want to act more brazen. To take some type of authority.

“Do I have your permission to proceed?”

You blinked, your face feeling like it’s on fire, and nodded. “Only if you want, my Lo—Zuko.”

He kneeled on the floor, taking off your pants and underwear down and being face to face with your cunt.

Of course, Zuko’s taken anatomy during school and has gotten a diagram on how female and male anatomy look like: all technical.

But as he’s kneeled down, he can’t help but marvel at how pretty you look. Your sex was dripping with your arousal and as soon as you took note on how he was staring, you instinctively attempted to shut your thighs. Like a flower, almost. His eyes traced your body, all stiff and hesitant like you were anxious.

“Please don’t do that; let me make you feel good…”

Zuko grabbed your thighs, dragging you closer to him, and slowly kissed at your inner thighs, leading to your cunt.

Your breathing was shallow, shaky—and you were so evidently shy.

He lapped at your cunt, tasting your essence and going insane off it. He took one hand and placed it above your abdomen, two fingers spreading your labia apart and went at it.

Zuko was almost technical with his movements, kneading your plush thighs like bread dough and cupping his mouth around the top of your slit. His tongue began to piston inside you, going side to side and in figure-8 motions. He attempted to heat up his tongue even, to make the experience maybe a bit more pleasurable, all the while your thighs were crushing his head and you were…crying?

“O-Ohh my God…! Zuko—!” You were whining, your voice so high pitched that he had to do a double take. Your voice usually was derived of emotion, but you were in absolutely bliss. “Hahhh… that’s so so good—!”

He began rubbing your clit with the bridge of his nose, feeling how you twitched every time he was grinding his nose against it.

And then you pulled on his hair, shoving his face in your cunt further. Your back arched from the bed, rotating your hips against his face and tangling your fingers within his hair further.

It was too much; you were practically crying out, tears streaming down your face while Zuko ate you out in such a sloppy manner, eliciting the most lascivious sounds to anyone who may walk in. He was practically making out with your pussy, savoring your taste. You were in a trance, practically almost reaching your climax.

Which is why, when the two of you were under your own euphoric state together, did you barely notice a councilman and his entourage barge in his chambers. 

“My Lor—Oh my goodness!”

“Fuck!”

Zuko looked up, already seeing you covering your face with the covers while the councilmen were looking anywhere but the direction of you two.

“W-We shall leave you be…” one spoke, turning abruptly. 

“Wait!”

Zuko abruptly put on his robe, following the councilman and his entourage.

“What is the meaning of this?! You dare infringe on my privacy?”

The councilman turned around, his expression going from embarrassed to slightly relieved.

The great Fire Lord was on his knees eating a woman out scandalously while he was supposed to be on the look-out for a wife.

The Fire Nation needs an heir now, and Zuko has a lover!

And the thing was, you were from a fine family. Your grandfather was an esteemed military officer to his grandfather and father; your mother taught at the military academy, your brother was a current general in the army.

This was perfect… An absolutely perfect candidate for a wife.

“That woman… That woman is to be your betrothed.”

final exam: the night of his wedding

Zuko sat beside you on his bed, looking away. He bit his lip all anxious and afraid to meet your gaze.

It happened too quick. It was uncharacteristic of the council, however apparently someone snitched and you soon became his betrothed, and were to get married in two weeks after he was caught indulging in oral sex with you.

And now, you officially have gotten married, with you being the Fire Lady.

Yeah... You're now the Fire Lady.

He could seriously scream (in rage because he couldn’t court you? In happiness because he actually likes you? In pure disbelief?).

His head turned to your direction, where you were blankly staring at the window. The moon was out and it was shining directly at your face, sporting a rather melancholic expression.

“I-Is everything alright?”

You were biting your lower lip and your eyes looked glossy, almost like you were stopping yourself from crying.

“Y-Ye—“ “Be honest with me.”

Your eyes met his and then, did the tears slip down your face and your lip quivering.

“I’m so—hic—so sorry… I can’t begin to express how sorry I am to you, Zuko.”

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, a pit settling in his stomach at the thought of being the reason for your tears. “What do you mean? Why are you apologizing?”

“I-I—Your wife! I s-stopped you from marrying your true love! A-And I’m so so sorry!” You were bawling at this point, lightly clutching Zuko’s robes and head crouched down in shame.

“Wait what?” He lifted your head up by your chin and saw how you were looking up at him with apologetic eyes.

Your breathing was shaky and you couldn’t look him in the eyes, making Zuko’s heart hurt. 

He hesitated. He didn’t know how to make someone feel better if they were sad—let alone a woman and someone he feels strongly about. His everything hurts looking at you cry. 

So he tried something he’s never done, but reminded him of his mother.

“Here,” he whispered, holding your shaky hands. His thumbs caressed small circles on your palms, and you slowly looked up at him with eyes that were still overflowing with tears. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong. At all. Don’t ever think that…” He held eye contact that made you cry even more. “My wife.”

At that moment, it felt so natural. You slowly leaned in, caressing his scarred cheek and running your fingertips through his skin, and kissed him. 

It felt all too natural, to be undressing you from your new formal nightly gown, and to lay you down on the bed beneath him.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to… We don’t have to consummate this marriage.”

“I do. I want to.” You said it all too quickly, looking away like you were flustered and destroying whatever nonchalant neutral façade you had been building. 

The truth of the matter was that you love him and have been for years. And to think that you almost stopped him from “getting his true love”, you felt terrible during the two weeks the council forbid you see your husband until your wedding ceremony.

“I want to see you, Y/N.” It was the first time he’d ever say your name so gently while being face to face with you, and he felt a pit in his stomach just looking at your soft smile.

He kept eye contact while he stroked himself, hesitant on touching you.

“Okay…” you whispered quietly.

He began rubbing your slit with his cock, spreading your arousal on his length and paying attention to your clit. 

“I… I learned something from the book during these two weeks I haven’t seen you.”

You blinked and suddenly gasped. 

Zuko placed a hand above your abdomen and began plunging his index and middle finger into your pussy and thrusting them in and out, eliciting a string of lewd shlick! sounds that echoed around your chambers. 

Your eyes tightened, holding his muscular forearm as he continued. Your gummy walls clenched on his thick, quick fingers curling inside of you and hitting that spot. 

“Hahh… keep going. So so…good.” 

A sound somewhere between a gasp and a squeak slipped from your lips at the sight of Zuko sticking his middle and index fingers into his mouth, sucking on them. 

“My Lord—!”

He smiled, a sense of pride overtaking him at your sudden shock. “Can’t I know how my wife tastes like? You taste simply divine, my wife.”

“Oh my—!” You squeaked, using your forearm to hide your flustered expression and beginning to roll your hips against nothing. Your clit still ached in anticipation for that friction he gave.

Zuko’s nimble fingers traced your goosebump-ridden skin and he cupped your left breast while his lips went further down to your other one. “You’re so damn beautiful, my wife. All mine...”

The pit in your stomach grew and you looked away, embarrassed and aroused. 

“Please…touch me further.”

It was silent between the both of you for a moment; the wing in which the both of you were at was silent, and you could hear your heavy heartbeat in your ears the longer you kept eye contact with your husband’s golden eyes, pleading with you. 

“Let me pleasure you…Y/N. Please.”

You nodded your head slowly and bit your lip, your gaze trailing down onto your husband’s cock again, practically on the verge of cumming. 

“Darling—please,” his golden eyes gazed at you, your flushed face and hesitant expression, and he smiled softly. 

He felt nervous. What if he didn’t like sex? What if you didn’t like it? As much as he can call you darling, he was a nervous wreck internally.

“L-Let me know if it hurts. Please. I will stop.”

You nodded and dug your nails on his gentle skin, creating crimson crescents in their wake.

And just like that, your husband penetrated you while holding you so gently. Your lips pursed and your eyes followed where his were: at your cunt. The skin of the base of his cock wrinkled the moment he bottomed out in you and gleamed with your arousal when he moved his hips. Zuko hissed, his breathing becoming jagged and heavy.

“M-Move…Faster, Zuko!” He rocked his hips into you, holding your arms down against the sand. Your supple breasts bounced with every harsh thrust. 

Oh, Zuko appeared as if he was going to lose it. You were just so beautiful and you were all his now.

Your eyebrows pinched together, lower lip bitten down, and tears welling up in your eyes. 

“Oh my God!” Every move of his was fast, pistoning himself into you with ferocity that you slapped your hand on your mouth to stop squeaking. You felt bad for whatever maid or guard was outside hearing you cry out your husband’s name.

Zuko leaned towards you, latching his lips onto your jawline, where he left soft kisses in their wake. His cock dragged lazily against your velvety walls, clenching against him like a damn vice.

“Ahh—nghh…Z-Zuko—!” Your legs clung onto his hips lazily, body arching onto his while your arms covered your face. He’d slowly pull his hips away and slam into you so lasciviously.

Even if he did not replicate the same growing emotions you had for him, you still found yourself wanting more. Your hips bucked against his and you wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him again.

“You feel so good, my Lord…” you whispered, against his lips as you tasted him.

Your legs clung onto his waist, feeling his hips buck and thrusts slowly become less consistent. “Let me make you feel good forever, my love…”

Oh…

He flipped you, to be on top of him. The moment he bottomed out inside you, you let out a cry, pressing down on his lower stomach and bounced yourself on his dick.

“Fuck! Oh my—!” God, you looked fucking stunning, with the moon hitting your upper torso and your breasts bouncing with every harsh thrust of his hips upwards. 

“Let me make you mine, Y/N. I beg of you…” He groaned, hissing at how your cunt tightened around him oh so good.

You were crying—like actually crying—rocking your hips and fucking yourself on him back and forth. Zuko felt like he was on cloud nine; you were just too damn perfect.

“Nghh-more! Please!” A wave of euphoria washed over you; it was amazing…something you’ve never experienced before. 

“Are you alright, Y/N?” He paused, noting your labored breathing and maw slack.

Your body felt damn feverish and you could feel how Zuko’s cock twitched inside you, spilling his hot, warm load inside your hole, making you full. 

“F-Fuck…” Zuko wrapped his arms around your waist and slowly tugged you down on him, his head on the crook of your neck as he burried his seed inside you deeper. All warm and filling. 

Your weight was on him and you could hear his heartbeat, both of you breathing heavily. 

“We should… We should do that again. That was nice.” God, you really are perverted.

Or maybe he’s the perverted one for having one hell of a time right now.

“Tomorrow?” “Tomorrow.” He sighed, running his fingers through your hair and feeling your legs’ hold against him become tighter.

But one thing’s for certain: he wouldn’t give this up for the world.

-

-

-

Since the faithful meeting when he was still just a boy, with nothing to his name, nor without any knowledge of his godly descent. He would remember that day for the next few years, while fighting his way up to Mount Olympus and proving his worth. While dreaming of you every single night, with nothing but shimmering stars and the gentle splashing of a brook reminding him of the kindest soul he's ever met. With benevolent touch and bewitching eyes. The sweet power that helped him lick the wounds, and the lovely giggles following him in dreams every night.

After years of hardships, he finally ascended to heaven and got the recognition of his father. Became the golden child, a precious sweetheart, with a massive combat body compared only to Ares's and the strength of a thousand monsters locked up in the deepest parts of Tartarus. He was a monster himself, some may've said, but with a kind heart and, oh, such handsome looks.

Light hair as if bleached by the Mediterranean sun and deep eyes, thick as hazelnut paste, with the gentleness never seen among warriors. Broad shoulders that could lift a thousand mountains and split the seas, without a droplet of sweat sliding down his curved muscles.

He was nothing but a demigod, but his name and fame spread around the country like a fire. The strongest man alive, the greatest hero, a myth, whose travels and deeds ended up on the pages of local storytellers and curved smoothly within the marble walls of his temples. His journeys spread wide across the long coastlines and mountainous peaks, with the nymphs whispering of his slayers like little birdies.

Of the King of the Thrakian Gigantes, he has killed to free the princess from his clutches. Of the Libyan giant, son of Poseidon, who abused the travellers crossing his land and made them compete in wrestling matches. Of the Prometheus he has freed, and the eagle feeding on his flesh, killed by Heracles himself. His father, Zeus, wasn't merry upon hearing the news, but Heracles was no one if the most dear child of his – thus the Gods and mortals did not feel Sky Father's wrath.

There were lots and lots of myths and tales celebrating Heracles's deeds, praising his half-godly figure and spreading the fame.

What mortals, gods, and other divinities didn't know, however, was why.

Why was he doing all of it?

Why was he trying to achieve an almost godly rank?

Why did he want to sit among the highest ones and praise in glory?

Why?

Because for Heracles, or Nanami Kento as his mortal parents named him, it was always you.

And what would be the easiest way to ask for the precious Nymph's love? Became the greatest, strongest, most praised warrior of the Mediterranean Sea, of course. Was there anything beautiful creatures like you loved more than the fame and glory? Not really.

At least that's what he thought.

Until he finally met you again, high on the Olympus' peak, basking under the flaming sun and dipping naked body in a river. You weren't alone, as other little birdies chirped right to your ear, with soft voices and girlish laughs, glancing at the river's calm waters.

And as beautiful as they were, his pleading eyes were reserved solely for you.

Nanami Kento has never met Aphrodite, but how truly angelic could she be if his heart already raced for a simple nymph? What could she possibly have that you might've lacked?

Did her hair bounce the same way as yours? Were her eyes shimmering slightly as if cursed by the stars? Was her skin soft and plush, with flushed cheeks and lips plumped like the freshest peach, he dreamed of caressing with his own? Was Aphrodite's voice as mesmerising and honeyed as yours, tickling the deepest parts of his brain?

What did her laugh sound like? Was it as bewitching? Could she also sway her hips with the swelling of the ocean's waves? Would she be willing to help him the same as you did?

Was her heart as compassionate as your?

Because that's what Nanami Kento thought – of you, being the loveliest petal, with the tenderness and kindness not seen among any of the patheon's gods.

That's why he approached you with confidence and pride, with eyes never leaving your blooming face and his heart swelling under the single giggle slipping through your cheeks.

He was hopeful and full of anticipation to once again hear your gentle voice soothing his mind.

But when you saw him... oh dear.

"What do you want?" your voice slashed his heart. "Why are you here again?"

Well... maybe, actually, it wasn't his first time meeting you on Olympus.

Not the second and third, even.

The fourth? Maybe fifth.

You stopped counting after seeing him the third time, with the same beseeching look and broad shoulders hunching under your irritated gaze.

The first time he asked for your hand was surprising. You were surprised as to why the strongest man alive wished to marry you?

A simple nymph, bathing lazily under the Greek sun and stuffing herself full of rich olives while days were passing by. You were nothing but a small deity, playing over the rivers and gossiping with other sisters while sipping the sweet wine sneaked out of Dionysus's cellar.

He talked of some meeting years ago, and your healing power, but Mnemosyne could only remember when and where it had happened.

For too many men healed by your powers walked this earth, and too many of them wished to see your slippery figure once again.

Coming back to the same river again and again, in hopes of catching your fleeting shadow or a single melody of your laughter, looming over the waters as men possessed.

The sole look on their faces was truly miserable, but seeing them like that was, well, quite fun.

You liked it and watched them secretly, as their tears and pleadings were drowning in the depths of rivers.

So how surprising was it when one of those sorrowful admirers, driven by an obsession, managed to rise in glory and turn out to be the mightiest's son.

Oh, how problematic he was, following you like a shadow and turning the Mountain upside down, just to ask for your hand. You thought that the first rejection would stop his further pleadings, but when Zeus himself decided to visit your small cottage and beg to finally accept the offering – the highest one too could not bear the misery of his son – you finally gave in.

Did you accept Heracles's proposal? No.

Were you willing to do it? Maybe.

"My love, I've come to ask–" he started, standing over the river's edge and covering the hottish sun.

Other nymphs giggled quietly, and you knew how eager they were to step into your shoes any second. Jealous of having such a man as Nanami Kento wrapped around your finger, ready to plunder the mortal world for a single glance of yours.

"I already said no," you quickly added, looking at his curled shoulder with a sly smile.

"Is there anything I lack, love?"

He kneeled, closing up the distance between you. You rested arms on the river's edge, looking up with doe eyes. He tried, really tried, to not glance at your naked body, with crystal droplets paving their way down the plush of your breasts. But you were nothing if not daring, taking the pleasure in the way his huge palms fisted and hazelnut eyes swirled between wet hair covering your nipples and plush hips swaying slowly in the water.

"You're covering my sun," you chuckled, and he smiled shyly.

"I'll bring you a thousand other suns if you'll ask me to."

A gentle hum slipped through, and you once again traced over his figure. Golden hair and warm eyes. Creamy skin coated by a thin armour and nothing but a white cloth hugging his hips. Muscles so big they seem almost unreal, covering him thickly and massively, making Nanami Kento the biggest and the most powerful man the world has ever birthed. His fingers were long and thick, but always oh so gentle, whenever he pushed a single strand of hair behind your ear.

The most intimate and only gesture you've ever allowed him for.

"I don't want another sun, just move away from this one," your voice was soft, but the words made his shoulders falter even more.

"I'll do whatever you ask me for, my love. Just, could you please rethink–"

You raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"

His sandy eyebrows creased, with a small wrinkle forming between them.

Because he didn't know.

He truly, honestly didn't know why you would be willing to marry him, being sure of nothing but only the fact that he loved you deeply. Maddeningly, almost, verging on following you miserably like a dog if you just asked him to. Ready to shoot a sun down, just to bring you a piece of warmth.

But he didn't want to be like Apollo - drive you mad till death would seem more pleasant than accepting his feelings.

But he also didn't want to let you go, waiting eagerly for the day when–

"Fine," you suddenly said.

What?

"I'm sorry?" he couldn't swallow it, tracing the cunning smile forming on your face.

"I said fine, I'll marry you," you giggled, pushing away from the shore and swimming a few meters back. "But firstly, you'll need to prove yourself to me."

Your naked body swirled, as if melting together with warm water, before swimming closer once again. Kento was still kneeling near the edge, with thick thighs and knees touching the grass. Your wet hands rested on his muscles before you lifted yourself up. But only in half, with crystal droplets dripping down from pinkish nipples and hips still hidden under the gentle waves.

He almost burned.

Oh, was he dying?

Was your touch that sizzling, fragrance so maddening, that he truly started to burn from the inside?

He didn't dare to touch you, but hazelnut eyes traced the watery paths carving your skin, oozing down the plush neck, collarbones and swirling between the soft breasts.

You were close, too close, with your nipple almost touching his iron-covered chest and lips tracing the little bobbing of his neck. Kento fought hundreds of monsters, but none of them felt as heavy as your hands on his bare thighs, bearing all of your weight solely on his muscles.

Not because you were heavy – oh dearest, he could lift you up with a pinky if you wanted to – but because the idea of you touching him willingly made him feverishly weak.

"You're very, very strong, right?" came out giggly, sweetly, with a thumb circling his skin.

He nodded, a voice stuck in a throat.

"How strong, hm?"

"The strongest."

"No one can beat you, right?"

His head shook. "No one, ever."

You lifted yourself up higher, with hips slowly surfacing out of the water and knees landing on the lush grass.

Bare and wet, with the softest skin not dared for his touch and alluring eyes never leaving his.

He truly was the strongest, with clenched fists and gaze holding yours, never, ever, sliding lower than down to your breasts.

And, oh, you were having so much fun, watching his crumbling composure.

"Then, should you prove your strength, I will marry you," your eyes shone upon seeing a tremble of his lips.

"Really?" came out in a whisper so quiet that only you could hear it. "You promise?"

You chuckled, slowly, slowly, climbing up his lap. His kneeling thighs between yours, breasts fully pressed to his light armour, dripping heat looming over creamy, bulged cloth wrapped around his hips.

"Mhm, I promise," you nuzzled against his neck, breathing in the musky fragrance that wrapped him tightly. "If you'll finish twelve missions, I will give myself to you," backing up, your arms wrapped around his neck. "Will become your sweet wife. You'll be allowed to do with me whatever you want," your voice was dripping with seductiveness, curling around his neck like a viper, only to finish him off with a poisonous kiss.

And Nanami Kento was more than eager to be killed by those sweet lips of yours.

"What is it? I'll do whatever you want, love."

He should know that the devilish smile that curved your lips was nothing but bad news.

You told him all twelve missions, one more horrendous than the other, with other nymphs' breaths catching in the background and his fists curling right next to your hips that straggled his.

A flimsy, creamy cloth was keeping his cock away from your heat. Feverish and sticky, with honeyed juices already smeared around his bulge, and your eyes not leaving his even for a second.

Hera herself, Zeus's wife, would be more merciful to her husband's bastard child than you were. The twelve labours sounded almost impossible, bizarre, absolutely savage even for a man like him.

But if that was your wish, then be it.

After you finished talking, he didn't say anything for a minute. Stared, with a pale face and furrowed brows. Golden hair caught the last rays of sunshine, basking his face in warm flames.

"Are you willing to–" but you didn't finish, when suddenly, you were gripped by your hips and placed back in the water.

Not a single word left his mouth, when he raised himself, gave you one last glance and turned around, disappearing in the lurking forest before the sun fully set.

Other nymphs quickly curled around you, watching his muscular back with sorrowful eyes.

"Sister, weren't you a bit harsh for him?" one asked.

"Dear, those labours... he may end up dead before finish them all," another added.

You sighed, wondering whether you'd actually gone overboard.

☾ 𖤓 ☾ 𖤓

He didn't visit you the next day.

Or the day later.

He didn't visit you even a week later, and when it prolonged to two, you started to worry.

Maybe you truly carried it too far?

But then, one night, while indulging with sister nymphs in the small, wine-party, one of them mentioned:

"Have you heard, dear? He killed the Nemean Lion."

You stalled, with throat clenching around the sipping wine.

"What did you just say?" you mumbled between the harsh coughs.

She slapped you gently on the back. "Your first labour – he did it. Strangled the lion with his own hands and skinned it for its fur."

It was true that the lion had been quite a trouble and a few gods had already tried to wrestle him, but you didn't expect Kento to do it so effortlessly.

With bare hands.

You didn't talk at all for the rest of the evening, wondering whether Nanami Kento would truly be able to finish all of your unachievable labours.

But after the first one, his next accomplishments came one by one. Sometimes over a distance of a few weeks, sometimes a month. And for this whole time, he didn't show himself even once.

You didn't catch a single strand of his golden hair nor the gentle, hazelnut gaze. Heavy, musky smell stopped following you around, and at some point, you even started to miss the deep voice that came to haunt you in dreams.

That space, dreams, seemed to be the only place where he appeared more human than ever. Long fingers grazed your cheeks and neck before slowly dripping down to your swollen breasts and soft belly. In that other, unfamiliar but at the same time so magnetic world, Kento was bolder than ever – more ferocious, brave, using his massive body to pin yours. Spreading your plush thighs, circling creamy clit with his fingers, warm eyes following every changing expression of your face.

You would wake up wet. Feverish. With pulsing heat and sweat dripping down your spine, before turning on your bed and glancing over the window, as if in a wish to see a piece of this golden hair.

And while you were trying to understand those new feelings, Kento was finishing labours one by one.

After the lion, he killed a Hydra, a monster with nine venomous heads, cutting each one of them with his sword, before dipping the silver into its poisonous blood.

Then he captured the golden-antlered deer alive, the most precious pet of goddess Artemis, before sending it straight to your cottage.

When you saw the animal chewing on the grass surrounding your place and drinking water from the river curling around the house, a deep sigh rolled from your lips. At least the deer looked quite well and indeed rather graceful.

For his fourth labour, he travelled to the land of the Centaurs and captured the Erymanthian boar, solely to return it to the King of Tiryns. It was a, well, sort of a present for a king, whose wife liked you very dearly.

The fifth labour was of the humiliating sort, and you thought that he might take offence. You forgot, however, that a man in love was prepared for all sorts of hardships and degradations, thus cleaning the stables of Augeius in a day was nothing but a pleasure break from killings. The stables were known as one of the biggest and filthiest ones, impossible to clean even in a month, but the idea of you becoming his wife was enough to forget about his ego.

Months were passing by, and the number of labours started to diminish rather quickly. On the contrary, all the little gifts you've asked for were coming one by one, till your deer got himself a precious, Cretan bull from Knossos, and a little hybrid cattle of Geryon straight from a foreign country, who was said to be born of a divine goddess. One day, three golden apples belonging to the Nymphs of the West appeared on your table, and you hid them quickly before the praying eyes would see the stolen treasure. Oh dearest, you were nothing but a simple nymph compared to the reputed Hesperides, with no other goddess but mother Hera having a single golden tree in her garden.

Nymphs started talking. Whispering, gossiping about the possessed demigod who plundered through the mortal realm and played havoc. They knew what his reason was. Everyone knew, together with gods and Zeus himself, absolutely furious over the foolish challenge you've brought upon his bastard son.

What frightened you greatly, however, was the last labour. The one you feared the most, knowing that it could've ended up badly not just for him, but for you too. For your justification, you truly thought that he would drop out (or be dead) after the first mission.

Thus, when the news of Cerberus, Lord Hades's dearest pet, being kidnapped spread around Olympus, you almost fainted.

It was best to keep good relations with all the gods and goddesses, as no one knew when one of them would turn out to be helpful.

However, keeping the especially good affairs with God of the Underworld himself was particularly beneficial, and his rage was the last thing all the deities on the Mountain desired.

And yet, you managed to get on his nerves.

His visit was to be expected, and you tried to prepare yourself. Three animals in your garden, together with golden apples hidden under the bed, only fueled the rage of all the deities disrespected by your challenge. You paced back and forth, looking outside the window, as if expecting the earth to suddenly open up and birth Hades's obsidian chariot to appear in front of your cottage.

But instead, three days after the Cerberus kidnapping, a gentle knock pealed inside the wooden walls.

And as it turned out, it wasn't Hades who decided to place you a visit.

But someone, who you truly, really, didn't wish to see, and maybe standing face to face with Tartarus itself would be a much more pleasant option than meeting–

"Good morning my dear, my I come in?"

–his wife.

Aphrodite, in all her fullness, dressed in a flimsy, rosy dress and whitish sandals, stood right in front of you. With a sweet smile and a single strand of soft hair caressing her flushed cheeks.

"My Goddess," you murmured, opening the doors wider. "Yes, please."

She lifted up misty robes and came inside, looking around your small cottage with a little nod of her head. You didn't have many occasions to face the most beautiful goddess herself, thus your eyes traced shyly every curve, every bump, every flush of her body. Hips hugged by a rosy dress, hair falling over the shoulder, and gentle eyes, currently looking outside the window at the golden-antlered–

Oh dear.

"My Goddess–"

"You know, Artemis really liked this deer," she chuckled, sitting down at the table. One hand placed on her belly, the other supporting a tilted head. "I was rather surprised that your man managed to steal it," she stopped for a minute, before laying eyes on your face. "Well, before he stole Cerberus, too."

You wanted to refuse, he's not my man, but a wave of shame washed over your body. You lowered your head and bit down on lip. "My Goddess, I'm–"

She, however, continued. "I'm expecting, you know?"

Yes.

You've noticed.

From the moment she came inside your cottage and never took a hand off her belly.

Your eyes slowly looked up. "Does Lord Hades know?"

"You see, I wanted to tell him. Around three days ago, I think?" Great heavens. "But then our lovely dog went missing, and I've never seen him so, hm, devastated."

Your knees buckled up, hitting the wooden floor with a faint hump! "My Goddess, I'm so sorry. I didn't expect him to actually do this."

Aphrodite didn't say anything for a second, looking at your trembling body and cheeks burning with shame. You knew how protective she was of her husband. How bizarre, but rather lovely their marriage was, with Lord Hades quite enjoying being walked like a dog by his mesmerising wife. You didn't know that they tried for a child, but it should be fairly obvious – how could the goddess of fertility and her madly obsessed husband not have children?

And you? You somehow managed to ruin such a precious moment.

A deep sigh rolled over before she helped you stand up. "Please, it's fine, dear. Don't worry," you sat next to her, still too embarrassed to look up.

You groaned, covering face with hands. "I really thought he would drop out after the first one! This foolish man!"

Aphrodite giggled, resting her hearty face on a hand. "He's just a man, after all. A desperate one at that – the most dangerous type. My husband is quite similar, although I would rather not test how far he would be able to go to grant my wishes."

You answered with a chuckle before finally looking at the goddess's face.

Oh, she was so, so beautiful.

"What I mean is, I'm not mad at you, dear. Rather amused, I must say. I'm glad your man is ready to go through such hardships, just to–"

"He's not my man," you quickly added with a deep sigh. "I promised him my hand under the condition of finishing all twelve labours. I just didn't know that he'll actually–" you groaned again, and Aphrodite laughed. "I'm sorry for ruining your surprise. Lord Hades surely will be overjoyed."

She hummed, circling with fingers the plush of her belly. "Yes, well. Tears will be shed, I suppose. My husband cries more often than I expected, but it's fine," you were almost sure that she bit her tongue, before saying I like him that way. "Cerberus is back and healthy, so you shouldn't worry. I guess your... Heracles took him only for a simple walk."

You sighed with relief, seeing amusement dancing in the goddess's warm eyes.

"Well, I guess he'll come back soon for his reward," she chuckled, slowly standing up. "I'd better go before Choso stalks me out. He doesn't know about the baby yet, but tends to be rather overprotective," you accompanied her till the doors, tracing the bloom that has spread over her cheeks. Oh, she really must've loved him dearly. "But please, next time give me a warning before my husband comes back home crying. In case I'll have other plans for that day."

You nodded with shame before she waved you goodbye.

As much as you adored Aphrodite, she truly was the most beautiful but terrifying goddess in the whole pantheon.

☾ 𖤓 ☾ 𖤓

So you've expected him to come the same evening.

But when he didn't, something panged in your chest. Oh well, maybe you should be relieved after trying so hard to get rid of him. Maybe after finishing all twelve labours, he decided that your hand was, in fact, not worth a bean. Maybe during his travels, he met another woman (a princess even?) and decided to marry her instead. Maybe–

"Sister..." one of the nymphs called, and you quickly collected wits.

The evening was of the warm sort, with the river's water nuzzling your bare skin kindly. Little droplets reflected the warm rays of the sunset, with a mix of orange, purple, and pink spreading over the forest. Birds were slowly going quiet, letting the crickets step in shyly and prepare for the symphony that was soon to spread near the river's bank. First fireflies, too, were timidly floating your way, with a gentle buzz of their paper wings.

You looked at her, seeing that she, in fact, was glancing somewhere over your shoulder. With an open mouth and eyes big as porcelain plates. "I think you have a visitor."

Your head turned, gaze immediately landing on the figure emerging slowly from the forest.

Heracles.

But this time he looked... oh.

"Good grief," the nymphs gasped, seeing the approaching monster.

Because no other word could the describe the man who has set his eyes on you.

With lion's skin draped over his shoulders, bulgy scars slashing naked arms and torso, swirling over pecks, thighs and even neck, as if some brute tried to cut him to pieces. Golden hair was still slightly marked by the crimson hues, as though the blood still gripped it mercilessly.

What shocked you the most, however, were his eyes. With no trace of gentleness from months before, rather filled with something... predatory. Beastly, maddening, with a gaze fixed on your frozen figure, still dipped in water.

Before you knew, other nymphs quickly flew away with terrified gasps, burdened by the heaviness of the atmosphere he spread around.

"Kento–" you whispered, as he came closer.

But before you could finish with a foolish question of what happened to you? His massive body steeped in the water. Gentle waves nuzzled him only till the ribcage, and you choked, when muscular arms lifted you up and sat on the shore.

Crystal droplets dripped down your breasts, nipples, down through the plush belly, naked heat, when he gazed up at you from below. With pledging, possessed gaze, focusing on nothing but your face.

"Tell me you want it," came in a whisper, quickly dissolved by the first melody of cricket's.

"Want what?"

His palms curled around your waist, face nuzzling against the softness of your belly, before he sighed deeply. "Me. Tell me you want me. You want everything that will happen the second you give me your consent."

A shiver dripped down your spine, and your lip trembled when his muscular arms tightened up. Something warm, feverish, started to coil in your stomach every time his breath hit your skin.

"And what will happen, if I may ask?" you knew that playing with fire would end up badly, but you wanted him to say it.

All those filthy, nasty, messy things you dreamed of every night and knew he did too. You could feel it, right now and before, with your legs still dipped in the river and feet poking something hard.

He looked up, with a dark hazelnut gaze, taking in your cunning smile. His arm lifted, thumb grazing the lower, slightly opened lip. "In details?"

You giggled. "Of course."

Fat finger pushed inside, landing right on your wet tongue. Plush muscle welcomed him warmly, with lips wrapping around it and giving a gentle suck.

His brows furrowed, and another arm pulled you closer to his dipped body, moving your hips right over the edge. Gaze still fixed on your face, but he could feel the heat of your cunt on his chest. From this perspective, you looked nothing but divine, with wet hair curling around your shoulders, plump lips sucking wetly on his thumb and eyes, fucking hell, looking down at him with a sly amusement.

"Tell me," you whispered, taking his thumb out and nuzzling cheek against his calloused hand. "My answer will depend on it."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought finishing the twelve labours was enough."

The arm curling around your body suddenly dropped down, with long fingers tracing the smoothness of your tummy, thighs, circling, pinching, smoothing wet skin, before going down... and down... and down.

Till your breath hitched and lips once again fell open.

"Hm? Did you lie to me, my love?" he whispered, with a big thumb plastered to your puffy clit. "Have you deceived me?"

You didn't answer, but instead spread legs a bit wider, inviting his massive body in. He chuckled, seeing your hips hovering over the edge and creamy cum dripping straight to the river. "They do say to never trust a nymph," his eyes glanced down, thumb placing small circles on your clit. "Did you deceive me, then?"

Your head shook. "T-tell me," slipped almost beggingly. "What will you d-do-"

His arms shifted, with big palms landing under your thighs and pushing them up, till you folded easily like a leaf. Your back hit the soft grass, knees pushed against the breast, while his massive body was still dipped in a river.

Now, with your bare heat right in front of his face.

"Firstly," he dipped down, placing gentle kisses on your inner thighs. "I will work on your pretty cunt till you'll be nothing but a whiny mess," his teeth dipped into the fat of your belly pouch, before licking it sweetly. "Then, I'll stretch you out on my fingers, getting hard over your moans and maybe dragging my cock against your legs," lips traced down, through the mound of your cunt, right till the drenched folds. With two fingers, he spread them open. And groaned. "Fucking hell."

"A-and then?" you whimpered feeling his warm breath on your clit.

"And then you'll go on your hands and knees, spreading yourself nicely like my good wife," he gave you the first lick. Long, sweet, heavy, plastering his tongue to your trembling clit, till a pitched moan bounced from the river. "Gods, you taste so good, my sweet fucking wife."

Theoretically, you weren't even engaged yet, but this word, combined with his deep voice, somehow made you even wetter. Spongy tongue once again swirled around your clit, with lips sucking, grazing, ravishing it madly, as if Nanami Kento waited for this moment at least a millennium.

For finally feasting on your honeyed juices and swallowing all the precious moans that slipped past your lips. The sugary mmm Kento, and, sososo good, or, p-please put t-the finger in.

He was spreading you wide open, with your hips hovering over the river's edge and his nose grazing your clit. You trembled every time his hard cock nudged your feet, with wet pads smoothing its leaking head.

Your finger curled around his golden hair, pushing him closer, deeper into your cunt, riding his tongue with a starved desperation to release the knot that already fastened in your lower belly.

And when his long finger pushed inside, your pussy clenched.

"Fuck, my love, you're still so tight," he grumbled, looking up at your falling breasts and arched back. "So beautiful," floated in a whisper, before he lifted massive body up and slowly came out of the water. "My beautiful, beautiful wife, does it feel good?" long fingers curled inside your tight walls, sending another shiver down your spine. His lips wrapped around your wet nipple, sucking on it with a gentle hum. "Mmm, so sweet, you're so sweet everywhere."

"K-Kento, it f-feels so–nghhh–good, so so so good," a pitched whimper slipped through when he added another finger.

He pumped your squelching pussy, with lips sucking on your nipples and eyes looking up every few seconds, just to take a pleasure in your ever-changing expressions. Slightly lidded eyes, flushed cheeks, single strands of hair stuck to your forehead, and fingers still curled in his hair.

You looked beautiful, mesmerising, folded as if ready to be bread, with rolled belly and lifted thighs. He could already imagine your fat ass hitting against his abdomen and drenched cunt swallowing cock. Your back curved in the most delicious arch, and knees biting into the lush grass.

Oh, he could already think of sweet tears that will roll down your cheeks and soft belly pouch being slowly, slowly filled with his cum, till you'll be begging, whining, crying for him to take his cock out and–

"K-Kento, I'm gonna–" you whimpered, feeling his fingers pumping you faster. Lips sucked on your nipples as if he wanted to milk you out.

It felt overstimulating, feverish, too much, with his massive body almost fully lying between your thighs, pinning you into the ground.

"P-please let m-me–"

"No, my love. You won't be cumming in any other way but on my cock."

He took out his fingers and flipped you on your belly. Big palms traced the fat of your ass before lifting your hips up – just as he promised. With your chest stuck to soft grass and dripping cunt opened up widely, looking like the prettiest, the juiciest fruit he'll ever tasted.

You couldn't see his cock, but, well, could definitely feel it. The moment he took drenched, creamy robes off, it sprang up and nudged right against your hole. Sticky and feverish, with a pulsing head sliding through your dripping cunt, collecting all the cum that Kento's fingers dug out. A tremble washed over your body, feeling the fatness of his shaft and single veins curling around its length.

It felt so... heavy. He didn't even put it in yet, but you could already feel its heaviness dragging between your folds, with its head nudging your desperately fluttering hole.

"You want it, right?" He asked, spreading your ass cheeks and spitting heavily right between them. Fat spit slid down to your pussy, before he pushed it right inside. "Say it, my love. Tell me how much you want it."

"K-Kento, I want it s-so bad, please," your hips rolled against his cock, glazing it with saps. When he didn't move, you tried to reach for it and push it in yourself, but he locked both of your hands on your back. "Kento!"

"I asked you a question. How much do you want it?" his voice was low, stern, as if he was tired of all the bullshit you gave him for the past few months. "Do you want me to push inside?"

"Y-yes!"

"Do you want to feel me here?" his fingers circled your tummy, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Mhmm, yes yes yes," you cried and he chuckled.

His cock, finally, pushed slightly, slowly inside, with sticky head catching on your entrance. "Do you want to get bred? Hm? Get stuffed so full, till you'll be feeling it in your throat?"

It was filthy, disgusting, nasty, but, oh, did it make you tighten around his cock like a little slut. Crying, moaning, and choking, while he pushed further, stretching your clamping walls and sliding through the creamy cum that stuck to his length.

You knew the strongest man alive would be well-hung, but when the head of his cock grazed your cervix and he still tried to thrust inside, something inside you broke.

"P-please, Kento, it's too muc–"

But your dear, gentle, always so careful hero turned out to be nothing but a filthy, possessed beast. You expected to hear his kind voice, sorry pleadings, maybe even a soft hand smoothing your bulging belly.

But instead, you felt it between your shoulder blades, as he pressed you harder against the grass. With his full weight hovering over your trembling body, heavy breaths nuzzling your neck, and cock thrusting deeper.

Nanami Kento was anything but gentle.

"Fuck, forgive me, my love. But I think I deserve a little treat after everything you put me through," and before you could protest, he shoved his length.

Fully.

Till his balls smacked against your cunt and big hands pulled your ass to his hips. Till you moaned in a mix of pain and pleasure, feeling his massive weight in your belly, lungs and throat.

"Fuck," he groaned, tilting head back, trying not to cum right that second, with your walls locking him in a deadly clutch. "My love, baby, dear, ughh, you need to relax," he moved, sending a shiver down your spine.

But how could you relax, if his girth was already smudging your womb? Dear heavens, how could you relax if every move of his was brushing this spongy spot inside?

"Kento, p-please move s-slower–ahhhh," you moaned, gripping the lush grass crumpling under your trembling hands.

It seemed, however, that he was already gone, with his thrusts quickly changing from gentle waves to aggressive crushes, dragging his pulsing cock through your pinkish walls. You felt him everywhere.

His hands on your ass, gripping the jiggly fat and pulling you over and over and over on his cock, somehow thrusting it even deeper. Smooching your pudgy womb, kissing plump g-spot, scratching feverish walls with even more sticky cum dripping down the grass. You've never been so drenched before, feeling his length moving inside without any obstacles. It was smooth, delicious, electrifying, with his fingers slowly sliding between your folds and finding the pulsing clit.

And when he pinched it? Dear gods, your hips started meeting his thrusts, with your hole accommodating him even deeper, sweeter, swallowing his fat cock and clamping down as if desperately trying to milk it dry.

Nothing but filthy squelching filled the evening air, and your moans tingling his ears like the loveliest melody.

Oh, and you looked exactly as he imagined. With swollen lips and tears swirling in the corners of your eyes. His name slipping every few cries, and eyes trying to look back at his massive, sweaty body.

His broad chest breathing heavily and lidded eyes, taking in the way your cunt sucked him in.

"Fuck, my love, you're so–nghh–I can't longer, fuck," he rambled, quickening his pace, with every thrust going straight to your womb. "Do you feel good, tell me dear, is it good?"

You could barely whimper, feeling the knot in your belly slowly, slowly, untying, and eyes rolling back. Thus, nothing but simple, "Mhm, K-Kento, gods, feels so, nghhh, mmm gonna c-cum," could slip away.

His fingers played with your clit – rolling, pinching, slapping it gently with your gluey juices sticking to his fingers. He lifted them up, licking the skin clean. "So sweet, fuck, you taste so heavenly. My pretty, pretty wife will eat your cunt out every fucking morning. Spread you wide on the table and fill with cum before the sunrise," his fingers went back to your clit, already feeling the spasmatic clenching on his cock. "Like it that much, love? Your pussy is swallowing me so nicely. Can't wait to see you swollen with my children, heavens."

"K-Kento, please, let me cum–mhmmm."

"Can't wait to be bred, huh?" he chuckled, but you pushed your hips out, meeting every single thrust.

"Yes, yes, yes, I can't wait t-to, ahhhh, fuck cum inside me."

Your words seemed to ignite something within him, because the next second, his reddened tip got glued to your womb, as if sucked in by your muscles. Fingers still circled your clit, harshly, with a pinch, till your thighs started shaking and feet curled. A quivering cry escaped your clenched throat, and Kento finally, finally, started cumming.

Or, well, flooding you with his seed, till your head spun and lower belly started to swell.

"Fuck, my love, you better pray it takes," he mumbled, resting his wet forehead between your shoulder blades.

He came deep, filling every corner of your trembling cunt with warmth, planting his gluey seed right inside your womb. It felt heavenly, maddeningly good, with his fingers still working on your clit and gathering all the watery cum that gushed right against his palm. Long tongue traced your sweaty back, soft lips placing gentle kisses right down your spine.

He thrusted gently, keeping his softening cock inside as if trying to make sure that not even a droplet of his cum will land anywhere but inside your womb.

"I meant it," he muttered after a while, before changing your positions. You lay spread on his chest, with his cock still nuzzled inside. "I want to have a family with you. A big one."

"How big?" you mumbled, too tired to even lift up your head.

"Ten?"

Oh dearest.

Your eyes somehow looked up, tracing the completely stony expression of his face.

"You must be joking."

"Not from such affairs, my love," his fingers gently nuzzled your back – a touch completely different from the violent thrusts of his hips.

"Not even the oldest gods of this pantheon have that many offsprings."

He looked down with a warm smile before placing a single kiss on your forehead. "Then it seems that we need to set up a new tradition."

And after going back to your cottage and getting stuffed full in every possible position, you started to regret that the strongest man alive with the stamina of a thousand bulls, was supposed to become your husband.

And for the dessert, as the last fic from this collection, we're getting the most heartbreaking angst, aka Satosugu as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion.

I got a request for the second part of Hades!Choso, and because it's my fav fanfic from this collection, I will be making it (that's why you got the preview hehe) :) It will be posted here, where I'll be adding all my other historical, myths, tales based fics.

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“What kind of game?” He tch-ed, tempted to take the plain stem now from you. 

“I asked if you love me,” you admitted, and he couldn’t decide if this was some crude attempt at teasing him. His fingers sank deeper into your side, pulling you deeper into his lap. 

He nodded towards the scattered petals on the floor, the blood slowly spreading and threatening to seep into them.  “What did you land on?”  

“You love me not.” 

Sukuna’s mouth twitched at how you said it. As if you gave an idiotic child’s game weight. 

But he didn’t protest. Didn’t say no or scoff. 

Instead, he pried you off of him, placing you on the floor, barely bothering to check that you wouldn’t be stepping in blood before he started towards the exit. 

“Kuna,” you started in a soft voice, the irritatingly intimate making him freeze for a split-second, enough that you corrected yourself. He'd only criticized you for it once, snapped at you to refer to him properly when he was at his court. “My lord.” “My chambers tonight,” he announced, not looking back at you. 

There was a rhythm to the routine. A monotony he found dull and draining, a familiar itch creeping under his skin at staying here this long. He wanted back out in battle. To find some other sorcerer claiming themselves capable to cleave down. 

He made up his mind during his next meal, stuffing his mouth full of meat, fork stabbing clean through the fine cut of someone he never got the name of as he planned out his next departure. Some irritating white-haired woman kept trying to talk to him from across the table, claiming to be from some clan he couldn’t care less about. 

An advisor tried to quell his annoyance, but it was like another bug in his ear, whispering that she could be useful as a concubine, as if Sukuna gave a shit. A flick of his fingers was all it took for the room to finally fall silent – even if the wall was now splattered with blood. 

Perhaps they should be grateful he gave them messes to clean. Stable employment meant they wouldn’t starve. That their children wouldn't. 

Not everyone was so lucky. 

You kept eating next to him, taking a long sip of your wine before excusing yourself a few moments later, leaving without looking over at the still body in the seat next to you. You weren’t apathetic like him, but you would hold your tongue no matter how much his anger hurt you. 

Did it splinter your soul to see him kill? 

Sukuna had no way to know. 

Conversations weren’t something so commonplace between the two of you anymore. So much had changed, enough that he tried to convince himself that you were simply a body that he shared his bed with. 

He disliked the other concubines. They always expected things from him. Wanted clothes or jewels or power. Occasionally, he considered making you his wife, if only to put the others in their place. 

To remind them that they would never occupy the space by his throne. That they would never have children that would sit on it. 

His new advisors, these men who swore they had intelligence simply because they were schooled, they all urged him to. Begged him to select someone from a clan to have a child with, for his legacy, but he refused. 

Why would he want a child? Especially one that would be like him? 

He’d carve out his own legacy.

You were waiting for him by the time he returned to his room, cross-legged on the floor, squinting at a poetry book. Neither of you had learned to read as a child, but he’d begrudgingly hired you a tutor – and just happened to sit in on your lessons to learn himself. Supervising, he said. You didn't argue otherwise, even if your brow subtly arched up at his looming presence, his bottom set of arms folded across his chest while the tutor instructed you on how to write, teaching you everything from haikus to the hidden meanings in famous poems. 

Sukuna had found it unfortunate when he had to kill him, but it wasn't his fault that the fool had tried to put a hand on your waist, no matter how innocent he claimed it was. 

You had been mad at him though, huffing and shutting yourself in your room for four days before you started speaking to him again. 

Calling him a child, like you weren't the one clinging to this life he created. 

“What are you thinking about?” You asked, drawing him out of another pointless memory of the past. 

“You left dinner early,” he dismissed your question entirely. He didn't want to answer it. Why dredge up another reason for you to be annoyed with him? 

“I prefer to eat without the smell of iron,” you said, in that measured voice of yours, playing this game of skirting around the real subject.

“You used to eat dirt,” he pointedly reminded you, and you threw your book at him. A rare reaction, your hurt flickering across your face for a few fleeting seconds before you shut back down, maybe remembering that he beheaded a woman for much less hardly fifteen minutes ago. 

“You ate bugs,” you argued, brows furrowed in frustration before you glanced away from him. 

“And now we both get full meals that you don't even finish,” he sharply replied, the edge to his voice echoing as you flexed your jaw, forcing yourself to not respond to him. 

A poor imitation of the meek submission the other women who flitted around in their fine kimonos were well-versed at.

“My apologies, master,” you eventually murmured, your mockery not going unnoticed as you lifted your chin to look up at him from the floor. Dragging your eyes over his bulky frame, muscles stretched taut over bone, skin littered with scars and tattoos. 

And still, you stared like he was just the weakling he used to be. That faint flicker of sorrow persisting even when he had practically handed you a soft life on a silver platter. 

Sukuna scoffed, squinting before he begrudgingly took two steps forward, beckoning you to stand with a single gesture.

You obeyed. Dusting off the skirt of your robe as your hand reached for the tie – but Sukuna beat you to it. 

Skin slowly exposed when he peeled off every layer, removing piece by piece until you were completely bare for him, the light and shadows from the flames dancing across the shape of you while you stood still. Waiting for some appraisal, for him to do with you as he wished. 

Your position was always defined by him after all. As his friend or his fuck. 

He tossed you onto the mattress, his top set of hands pinning your thighs to your chest, watching your eyes widen as his own loosely-fastened robe hit the floor. 

Love was a waste. 

It meant nothing. 

You said it to him once, declared it under the moon, knees curled against your chest as you looked at him like that. But that had been before. Before the estate and the esteemed treatment that came with a title and land and leverage on all the people that previously treated him with disgust. When it was still simply you and him surviving. 

He didn’t say it back. Didn’t do anything other than grunt, tempted to call you a brat for saying something so stupid. 

“You're rather distracted tonight,” you murmured, fingers frozen just before they could touch his face. He flinched from it – pulled back before you could make contact. 

“You’re irritating today,” he grimaced back, even if you were the least annoying part of his life. The only thing that wasn’t dull and dreadful. The only one that actually made him feel alive.

He waited for you to whine that he didn’t really mean that, but your eyes just searched his for silent confirmation. 

You knew better than to expect him to say it out loud. 

And despite that (pretty) little pout of frustration flitting across your face, you were still wet when he dipped a single finger into your dripping warmth. 

All your feelings fading into the mush of pleasure, eyes rolling back with a simple crook of his thick finger, lazily swirling it around to see your reaction. Not much could compare to the adrenaline of a fight, of sorcery and raw strength, but a faint shiver of exhilaration ran down his spine at the sight of you arching your hips up to make sure he was knuckle-deep, lips falling in a lewd moan as he added another digit. 

He ignored it though, shoulders stiff as your walls tried to clamp down on him. 

“Were you this wet when you were on my lap?” He dryly mocked, not particularly caring how mean you might call him for teasing you later. 

You always forgave him. 

Whatever he did, you found a way to justify it. 

You weakly nodded, chin tilted back in the air as your lashes fluttered, gasping for air that didn't seem to go in. 

“Answer me, brat,” he grunted. 

“Yes, m-my lord,” you moaned, and it was only when they parted he noticed your pretty lips painted the same shade as his hair. 

“Sukuna,” he snapped, sick of correcting this stubborn new habit of yours. Sure, it had been who insisted on it in the first place, but it was annoying to remind you of what you were and weren't allowed to do. 

You swallowed hard enough for him to notice, but you still didn't say it. 

Held your mouth closed, and he begrudgingly closed the gap to crash into it, claiming it in a greedy kiss, his tongue in your mouth while you threw your arms over his shoulders. One hand ending up in his hair, scratching at his scalp the way you knew he liked, even if it was another thing he'd never admit out loud. 

You tried to wrap your legs around his waist, to push back against the palms still pressed against your thighs, but he didn't let you budge, refused to allow you to try and lock him in some more personal position. 

For all the times he'd been called a freak, a curse, for these four arms, there were many more he found them quite useful. 

He crooked his fingers deeper, harder, and your body was tensing automatically, your focus fading as you discovered yourself lost and floating in the force of his strokes. Your features softening, catching a fleeting hint of a smile before you were squirming again in his grip. 

Using your body to beg him for more. 

Sukuna did what he always seemed to do. Oblige you. 

Pulling his fingers out the second he thought he stretched you out enough, although it was always a tight fit when it came to him, but he paused, collecting your slick and rubbing it across your puckered hole in preparation for his real main course. 

You were the only thing he wanted to devour tonight. 

Drinking up the way you whined, wiggled your hips as he dipped his finger deeper in your ass, pushing past the initial resistance to open you up. Taking his time before adding another one, keeping a keen eye on your wrecked expression.

“S’torture,” you slurred, weaking moving your arm trying to grab one of his cocks and guide it to your entrance. “Wan’ you.” 

Drunk on him. 

He snatched your wrist before you could touch though, letting out a low growl before dropping it over your head. 

“Then beg,” he mocked. 

“Please,” you immediately whispered, eyes wide and wavering. “Please, Kuna.” 

Sukuna couldn’t stand how much he felt like a slave when you spoke like that, lips pretty and pursed and painted that infuriating fucking color. 

He dragged his fingers out with a heated huff, wiping them on the sheets and glancing down to see how wet you were for him, glistening in between your thighs as he kept them pinned in place. 

“Brat,” he dryly name-called, but his top cock was already throbbing as he slipped it through your soaked folds. Your fingers rushed to tangle in his hair, brushing it back and holding it from his face like he wasn't about to turn you into even more of a blabbering mess.

Glossy eyes hazy with arousal, anticipation as he slipped inch by inch inside, his other cock throbbing, aching to feel you too. Veins pulsing, abs tensing as he felt the sinful way you squeezed and sucked him in. 

“Hngh,” you groaned as his bottom tip started to grind against your ass, already starting to feel full as the first one found that spongy part at the back that left you scrambling for your senses. 

“You're a wreck,” he tch-ed, like he wasn't already resisting the string tugging tight in his own stomach, restraining himself as his second cock finally slipped inside you, the slow burning stretch leaving you frozen, shuddering as you tried to take him without falling apart. 

“Y-you,” you gasped, lashes fluttering, stray tears collected in them as he pulled out just to push back in a rough thrust that made a soft squeak escape instead.

“Finish your sentence,” he murmured, dark and dangerous. He wanted to bite. To sink his teeth into your skin until it left the kind of bruises that would mark you as his to everyone who saw. 

“It’s your fault,” you huffed, half a whisper, half a whimper. 

Sukuna scoffed, rolling his eyes and his hips, stuffing you too full to speak. 

One of his hands groped at your chest, grabbing and squeezing, watching them bounce in time with each thrust, leaning down to wrap his mouth around your peaked nipple. Tongue swirling over the top, sucking hard, toying with you while you unravelled underneath him. 

You tugged at his scalp, but he was too focused on his current task, lapping and licking at the hardened bud, feeling the soft tissue of your tits while your cunt clamped down around him in response. 

Making all sorts of noises that were hardly coherent, moans that hung in the air, the light of the fire dancing across the walls as he fucked you until you forgot all about your attitude earlier. 

His fourth hand flitted between your thighs, finding your clit with ease. Sukuna knew your body inside and out. Memorized without making an effort too. He supposed it was simply time. 

Rubbing rough circles over that bundle of nerves, well-aware what you liked, what was too much, what would make you whine and cry and try to wiggle free. Although, right now? 

Double stuffed with that dreamy look in your eyes, half-lidded and hopeful as you stared up at him while he took you in both holes? 

You would accept anything he gave you. 

Painting patterns he'd done a thousand times before across that sensitive spot, pinching and playing with it until your thighs were trembling, toes curled as your lips were stuck permanently parted in a broken plea of his name. 

You came so easily, he almost found it cute. That soft mind of yours melting with sloppy thrusts, stuffed too full to so much as think while he fucked into your stretched-thin holes, molded into the shape of him. Wrecking you with the way his hips slammed down, threatening to bruise your fragile body. 

But you took him how you always did. 

With greedy moans, nails raking down his shoulders and slicing through his skin. A little allowance he still gave – one he waited to heal until the morning after every time.

And then he was snapping too, warm ropes of cum spurting out and filling you up, his abs tensing before the abrupt release, his breath briefly growing ragged as his chest heaved. 

Most of the world was ugly. A disgusting, boring place he couldn't stand being stuck in. 

But the sight of you as he pulled out, dripping with his seed, kiss-bitten and barely held together, shivering as you struggled to catch your breath, well, it wasn't awful. 

He didn’t mean to cum inside of you. 

A simple accident. He stared indifferently at the cum leaking out onto the sheets, a prick of annoyance setting in at the thought of needing a servant to come change the bedding again in the morning.

It wasn’t the first time he slipped up. But you both were fairly certain years of starving had left you barren. Unable to conceive when you couldn’t even menstruate properly even now. 

There was a time when he didn’t think you’d even survive this long. Nights that he was convinced morning wouldn’t come. 

Where the snow had collected in your hair and ice clung to your lashes, where he couldn’t tell whose wounds were worse, watching you shiver and shake and cry for someone he could never be. 

But it never happened – and you were here now, shivering underneath him for entirely different reasons, sweat making stray hairs stick to your forehead as you belted out one last whine of his name. 

He let go of you, dropped your legs, untangled you from his body. Standing up as his cocks still sprang up in the air, rolling his shoulders back as you tried to sit up straight, clearly sore judging by the way you shuffled and readjusted. 

“Lay down,” he ordered, but you got down on your knees in front of him anyway. Took his top cock in your smaller hand, still covered in cum and slick, gingerly licking it clean before he pulled you off by your hair. “Do you ever listen to me?” 

You pouted at him, but you obeyed this time, pushing off the floor with your palms and crawling back into his bed, pulling the blankets over your bare body. 

Sukuna grunted, using a discarded piece of his own clothes to clean himself off, unable to stop his lower eyes from snapping out to watch you while you tossed and turned, impatiently waiting for his return. 

Irritation bubbling back up at your wide-eyed stare, how you bit your lip at him before squinting, not saying anything when he yanked the covers back and got in too. 

He never understood what was going on in that head of yours. 

“Perhaps we could take a walk around the garden in the afternoon,” you hopefully suggested, your fingers hesitantly interlacing with his, readjusting to lay closer to him. He let you do it. Indulged you when you squeezed his scarred and calloused palm. 

“I leave tomorrow,” he informed you, his mouth twitching down as your face fell. 

He didn’t have to, he supposed. The world revolved around his decisions – he forced fate’s hand. 

“How long will you be gone?” You asked under your breath, your hand slipping away from his to fix a loose strand of your previously pinned-up hair. He rolled away from you, the disappointment in your eyes bothering him like some shallow cut that refused to close. 

“A couple weeks.” 

It ended up being closer to a couple months. 

Days spent on battlefields, nights staring up at star-dotted skies or at the ceiling of his tent. His name, which used to only be spoken in hushed whispers under your breath, was now known across the land. Scarred into the people who lived on it. 

He returned to his estate with blood staining his robes, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead as servants rushed out to greet him. A handful of concubines he couldn’t remember the names of stepping out to stammer greetings. 

But you weren’t there. 

Not outside. Or in the entryway. 

The bed in his chambers neatly made and markedly absent of the one person allowed to stay there when he was gone. And when he stomped across to your wing and threw open the door to your room, it was empty too. 

He sent a goddamn letter before his arrival. Everyone here had to know by now he returned home. 

Were you hiding from him? 

It wasn’t like he wanted a fucking kiss or fuck. 

But Sukuna didn’t tolerate disrespect. Couldn’t. 

For as much as he disregarded court etiquette when it came to you, he would be a fool to miss the strange tone the sparse letters you’d been sending to him had begun to take. No longer begging him to return promptly, but telling him you didn't mind his delays. That everything was fine here, no need to rush back to his throne and the woman waiting for him on it. 

If everything was fine, where the hell were you? 

He could still sense you, still feel you somewhere close, unable to discern exactly where you were. Following the faint presence of your energy, tugging it like a line until he was in the gardens. Trailing down the winding path, leaves scattering by his feet as a chill bristled over his skin until he found a little alcove that was easy to miss, your body curled up on a bench, like you were taking a nap. 

“Wake up,” he snapped, tempted to shake you awake as you sleepily rubbed your eyes and started to blink up at him. His mouth opened, ready to snarl something about you catching a cold out here like an idiot with no blanket or cover, say that you knew better, but for once in miserable existence, he was stunned into silence as his senses picked up on a second energy signature swirling around and clinging to your skin. 

No, inside of you. 

“You’re pregnant,” he accused, staring at your stomach while something unfamiliar stirred in his own. 

“It’s-” You weakly started, trying to explain, but he silenced you with only a single hand held up while you made yourself sit. Exhaustion was obvious in the rings under your eyes, your fingers shaking as you fiddled with the skirts of your robe, deliberately loose to disguise the growing bump beneath it, surely. 

He was going to behead whoever failed to inform him of this. 

The personal servant he assigned to you had to know. The chef too, if he was cooking the proper food for your new needs. And his unborn child’s. 

“Your hands work just fine,” he sneered, nose scrunching up as something inside him twisted. He never wanted an heir. Never wanted to bring another curse into this world. How many fucking times had he told himself that? But this baby was yours too. “Why did you not write to me?” 

“My lord,” you began again, but you offered no real explanation. “I-”

“You what?” He barked, brash and blunt. 

Sukuna couldn't fucking believe it. That you would do this to him. 

Not even a single letter? 

Was he not worth the truth to you? 

He expected this cowardice from the other useless creatures in his court. But you had to know-

“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel,” you admitted, looking down at his feet instead of his face. “I was scared.” 

Sukuna nearly laughed.

You were scared of him.

He supposed it was only inevitable. How much blood had you seen him shed? How many lives had he snuffed that you bore witness too? 

And now you suspected he was going to take the life of your child. His own flesh and blood, the baby that sprouted inside you, and you were sure he was going to hurt it. Did you think he was going to hurt you too? 

“Did I not make a vow to keep you safe?” He hissed, reminding you of the only oath he’d ever taken. 

Maybe you were both barely big enough to know what the weight of that would mean, but he held true to his word. Asked the world for enough strength to protect the only person who saved his life, to return the favor, although you surely regretted the childish decision now to offer a starving boy the last of your food when he'd grown up to be the man he was today. 

The first time he met you, he tried to kill you. Robbing graves and eating remains, barely scraping by when he saw you under a tree, curled up on your side and clinging to raw roots. He bit you, buried his canines in your  exposed shoulder, drawing blood while you startled awake. Your small fists whacking him as hard as you could, fat tears rolling down your cheeks as you tried to fight him off. He'd been too exhausted to keep trying, huffing and letting go of you while you whined and asked him why he did that. And still, despite your wet face, the fresh wound, you still offered him your foraged meal, murmuring that he looked like he needed it more than you. He washed it down with the blood on your skin, dragging his tongue over the bite mark while you winced, tasting the salt on your face next.  

You didn't stop him. 

Started stealing more food, just enough for both of you to survive while he tried to get stronger. 

Tied together by circumstances, intertwined by some pathetic twist of fate, two parent-less children uselessly trying to take care of each other. 

But still, you were still alive, weren't you? Even when you didn't like what he had to do to ensure it. The times he had to peel the bark off trees and demand you eat it, days where you got hurt trying to defend him, forced to shake your shoulders and keep you awake, shoving down his anxiety that you’d drift off and die. 

This, too, was for your own good. 

You called him every name you could think of, weak fists hitting his back, telling him to put you down so you could talk about it, as if you hadn't tried to hide it. 

What was there to say? 

You knew as well as he did he was not a kind man. Maybe you had been made for motherhood after all, but he had not been cut from a cloth destined to be a father. 

But he had a vow to uphold. 

And you would have a thousand targets on you once word and whispers spread of what you were carrying. Whom.

Locking you up was his only option. 

The room was on the other end of the estate, one kept under careful watch by the few people who had been around long enough to know better than to cross him. 

You pounded against the door at first, protested that this wasn't fair, like anything in either of your lives has ever been. 

A servant would test your food for poison, bringing meals three meals a day while you whined about feeling like a prisoner. But your stomach started swelling with the weeks, a small bump taking shape, your hand reaching out to rub it when he came to visit or the rare occasion he spent the night. 

The anger was still blooming under his skin, silent rage burning when you frowned at him, as if he wasn't doing this for you. 

He still fucked you, pressed your body into the bedding and claimed you as his, even if it wasn't the same. Your body was changing, your words wilting as you complained about not being able to see the seasons shifting, the garden blooming, missing the weather and the warm sun. 

You had him. 

Why was that not enough?

A neighboring clan invited themselves over, forcing him to play host while he ordered everyone to stay hush about your current condition, ignoring your pleas begging to attend just one dinner, despite his irritated promise to see you afterwards. 

Except – while the festivities were still ongoing, he came to bring you food he personally selected, you had managed to sneak out, slipping past the pathetic guards, or maybe sweet talked them through a sliver of pity to allow you to walk through the garden at the worst possible time.

He stormed through, stomping as he made a mental list of men who wouldn't make it to the morning, sharp eyes scanning through the winding pathways and rose-lined trellises, searching for your energy amongst all the sorcerers here.

Bumping into a scrawny dark-haired man in the middle of the path, vaguely recognizing him as the Kamo head’s eldest son, the stupid startled expression that flashed on his face before he started stammering something about getting lost only making Sukuna scowl before he snapped at him to return to his father before he sent him to an early grave. 

He didn't give a shit if there would be retribution, if his threat would amount to something more, his throat constricting and closing at the idea of some other stranger stumbling across you first. 

Ripping down a trellis to break through the path, pushing through only to find you bent over and plucking a flower, recoiling at the sight of him when you glanced over your shoulder. 

Guilt. 

Written all over your face, in the way your mouth preemptively opened, ready to offer a weak excuse for something simply inexcusable. 

It wasn't just you that you were putting in danger. 

He dragged you back by your arm, tugging you through dimly-lit halls, your soft voice not reaching his ears even when you attempted to explain yourself. 

It was only when he slammed the door shut and let go of you in your new chambers, your kimono doing nothing to disguise the clear outline of your stomach that he paused. 

“I wish I never met you,” you whispered, pained, pulling away from him while his mouth twitched. 

“You’d be fucking dead,” he bluntly said, his dinner churning in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. 

“Maybe I would be better off,” you spat back. 

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head as his thin tether to sanity threatened to snap. 

“You’re-”

“You're punishing me,” you pointed out, interrupting him with a finger pressed against his chest where his heart would have been. It didn't feel like he had one anymore.

Maybe he was.

“I'm leaving.” 

Why should he stay? 

You were ungrateful. Maybe some time apart would make you remember how fortunate you were to be in this position. 

Maybe going back to picking off sorcerers would burn off some of the betrayal, dull the blade of rage he felt every time he thought of this situation you were both stuck in. 

He didn’t mean to be gone so long. 

But there were battles to win, blood to be spilled. And it did make him feel better to see the bodies strewn on the ground, to climb up to the top of the world and look down on everyone else when he used to be at the bottom. 

The letter came late. Too late for him to do anything actually worth anything. His estate had been besieged. Surrounded and cut off, only able to send out this single communication from one of the few servants that slipped out during the attack. 

It seemed the Gojo’s had been waiting for the right moment to strike. 

He didn’t rush back. 

Maybe he should’ve. It wasn’t that he had confidence in the soldiers stationed there, in his own forces, but he thought he selected ones with any competence to know what to do. How to handle invaders – even if they were powerful sorcerers. 

He took his time fighting his way there, slowly sending sorcerer after sorcerer to early graves. He was the strongest after all. Would go down in history as a monster instead of a man.

Not a single wretched soul was spared. 

Although his own soldiers were picked off along the way, he kept moving. One foot in front of the others, carving a path back to you. Back to the small world he'd made for himself. 

Slashing and cleaving through them, scoffing at their bold professions of how they’d be the one to take him down. They never were. 

It began to get boring.  

Monotonous when all it took was a few moves to leave them a whimpering bloody mess on the ground. 

He figured the head of the Gojo clan would be waiting for him, probably poised and planning out some grand fight while he tried to wait out and starve everyone inside the estate. Let them grow weak enough they wouldn't be able to do anything to support Sukuna when he arrived. 

But he never expected the white-haired asshole to be sitting outside of his gates, casually leaning against it and flipping through the pages before he glanced up with blindingly blue eyes.

“Ryomen Sukuna,” the fabled six-eyes user greeted him, a casual smirk curling up on his lips as his sharp stare dragged over him. He was still covered in scrapes, mere flesh wounds, but the man just grinned brighter, tossing the book to the side and standing up. 

No servants. No guards. 

Birds falling silent and the chittering of bugs fading to the background as he stared down the only person bold enough to try and take his place by force.  

Sukuna wasn't in the fucking mood. 

He hadn't been back in months, and this was his reward? There would probably be repercussions that came with killing the Gojo brat, but he was asking for it.  

The freak didn’t even attempt to move out of the way when he sent the first slash, just taking it, but it didn’t even touch him. 

Sukuna couldn’t help but laugh, amused at the prospect of putting down someone like him. Of an actual challenge for once. 

Trading blows, dodges, gritting his teeth to push through the pain when a blow hit him only to grin when he managed to break through the technique that had been protecting his opponent, watching the cut blemish his previously clear complexion. 

“I met your wife,” he called out, not even flinching as he wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “She was pretty. Even with the baby.” 

Sukuna saw red. Heat soaring through him, rage radiating through his veins. The fucker had to be lying. Maybe he heard of the baby through a servant he captured, but he had gotten it wrong. You weren’t his wife. Sukuna almost spat out something out that he would surely regret. That asshole didn’t need another reason to go seeking you out. To turn his attention away from Sukuna and to who was inside of the gate. 

“You just missed her,” he continued, clearly mocking him, hands moving up, about to throw another attack before Sukuna sent another cleave he expertly maneuvered away from, the gate behind him splintering from the force. 

“Shut up,” Sukuna hissed, knuckles clenching as he held them up, but his brain was faltering, failing to come up with what he needed to do when his thoughts had started to uselessly wander. 

The fun he’d felt at the start was gone. Replaced with something raw, like every movement he made was stepping on glass, shards of it stuck inside his throat as he was caught off-kilter.

“She begged, you know,” he added. “Said you'd come back for her.”

The next few seconds were a broken blur. Throwing all of his cursed energy into a move, just a little too late to realize the white-haired man across from him was doing the same. 

It was the aftermath that was clear. The slashed body cut in half in front of him, the blue eyes staring up at the mirrored sky, seeing nothing after a spoiled life of getting everything. Blessed to never know hunger or pain or suffering like him or you had. 

And still, Sukuna knew he was dying too. 

Even if he didn’t quite believe it. Couldn’t wrap his brain around the gaping hole in his side, his energy draining as he stumbled forward through the broken gate only to discover blood-soaked halls inside. 

It wasn’t a siege. It was a slaughter. 

Sukuna had done more than his share to see it for what it was. They were never trying to get his attention by holding his people hostage. They knew he didn’t care. So the clan killed them anyway. 

He wasn’t sure when he started running, how his body was even capable of moving, but he had to see it anyway. Confirm what everything in his body was telling him when he couldn’t feel you anymore. 

Your guards were gone. 

The door was cracked open, his hand impulsively shooting out to shove it the rest of the way, as if he couldn’t smell what was inside. 

But you were on the bed, curled up on your side, and he could almost believe for a second, you had been spared. He knew the truth though.

There was only death here. 

Rolling you over to see your face, black encroaching on the edges of his vision as his body threatened to give out, blood dripping from his side down to the floor, onto your bed. The light had left your eyes. Nothing else there for him to find in there except a single unspoken accusation. 

You're late. 

He didn’t have enough cursed energy to repair the damage to himself. 

But what was there left to live for anyway?

Warmth. 

Hands that didn’t quite fit in his, boney fingers clinging to his palm, too little to belong to anything except a child. For a brief moment, he thought it was yours. His. 

It couldn’t be. You were dead – and so was the baby growing inside you. It was impossible, and still, his mind betrayed him. Spawned treacherous images of a tiny thing that looked like you, annoyingly clingy and cute. 

His eyes opened, still thick with sleep, blinking slowly as he tried to discern dreams from reality. 

It wasn’t your child. 

It was you. 

Younger, your eyes still shut, lashes fluttering just slightly as he realized when this was. Where you both were. 

Back in the old village, in the husk of an abandoned home, where you slept on a makeshift bed of straw and tattered blankets he’d stolen from someone’s trash. Dirt in your hair, shivering before you snuggled closer, exhaling softly as your head rested on his chest. 

Breathing. 

What sick joke was this? 

There was nothing he’d done in his life to deserve a second chance. Was it some kind of hell to repeat his shitty life, cursed and condemned to a similar fate? 

He let go of your hand, sitting up to shake your shoulders harder than he should, watching you startle as you weakly opened your eyes. Focus slowly aimed on him as your brows scrunched together, fingers tightening and grabbing his shirt. 

“Mm, Sukuna?” You croaked, voice hoarse. 

He blinked. 

Laid back down, head throbbing as his dry mouth reminded him that he needed water. You were slow to move with him, body still heavy with exhaustion before he pulled you down again. 

“Go back to sleep,” he grunted, pressing your head back down against him. Running through the possibilities, wondering if this was just his life flashing before his eyes, a memory he’d forgotten. 

But it felt fucking real. 

You went stiff, trying to peek up at him, but his palm pressed down on your hair, refusing to let you budge. 

Had he really regressed? The clock turned back to a winter he hardly remembered?

“What’s happening?” You asked, but your words were small, muffled into his shirt. 

“I’m just tryin’ to rest,” he grunted.

Dozing off without meaning too, something about the pressure of you on him, the faintly familiar feeling of you curled on his chest dragging him into dreams. He didn’t think he’d wake up. 

But he did. 

And he was still here with you, children once more, condemned to scraping through trash and digging up graves and bugs to fill your stomach. He loathed this weak body of his. The scrawny arms and legs that could barely make it more than a few miles in a day.  

You were quieter than he remembered. 

More self-conscious, more serious, your smile not quite reaching the same spots on your face. Somehow clingier at the same time, softer with him, not arguing nearly as much anymore over who got to eat what or nagging at him for being reckless. You held on tighter to him in the evenings, pulled him closer, picking flowers you knew he couldn’t appreciate. Pressed a chaste kiss against his forehead, whispered the word friend like it was something intimate. A glimmer of adoration he didn’t deserve still glittering in your eyes. 

Would it still be there if you knew where you were both headed? 

What had happened before? How you wasted away waiting for a monster who didn’t show up in time? Died for him? 

Everything kept happening the same way it had before. You, stealing whatever food you could, narrowly avoiding getting caught and coming back to him with chilly hands and shaking limbs, affection in your words, rare laughter ringing in his ears long after it slipped from your lips. Him, struggling to get stronger, to feed the cursed energy inside him and train on a mostly empty stomach. 

He woke up once to you staring at him in the middle of night after going hunting for two days on his own with two measly fish to show for it, your fingers delicately tracing the shape of his jaw before you froze, that funny flicker of guilt in the lines of your face. 

“What are you doing?” Sukuna grumbled, unable to work up more than a weak glare. 

“Missed you,” you muttered softly, dragging your small thumb over the deformed half of him, just underneath his eyes. 

“It was only-” He started, stifling a yawn as you yanked him into you this time, your fingers sliding around to guide his head into the crook of your collarbone, despite the terrible pillow it made. 

He fell back asleep there anyway. 

 Before he realized it, a whole year passed, then two, the seasons changing and shifting, your presence a constant pull by his side, and yet, one he refused to lean on. 

Sukuna hadn’t learned his lesson. 

Rejected what the world might be trying to show him as he insisted you eat the past-ripe crop while he stuffed himself with the one thing you still refused to take so much of a bite of. You were still clinging to humanity he no longer felt any kind of connection to in his second life. 

“This place is wretched,” he muttered the next morning, shoving what few possessions he had in his sack. You were sorting through herbs you collected, not even glancing up when he spoke. Just silently stacking them, barely fucking reacting. 

He huffed, loud enough you had to look. “Hm?” 

“I’m going,” he insisted, remembering the first time you had this conversation. Where he announced that he wanted to go, wanted to leave this pitiful village and all the awful people in it. You grabbed him, whined about how dangerous it would be before caving in and clinging onto his hand as you asked to come with him. 

He had grumbled, shrugging his shoulders, letting your clumsy feet trail after him down a dirt path. 

Besides, there was no reason for him to stay here now either. 

Why bother reliving the next few years of starvation and scraping together enough for both of you to survive? 

“You’re leaving,” you echoed his sentiment, and he shoved down the uncomfortable suffocating feeling settling in his chest. 

“There’s nothing for me here,” Sukuna somberly spoke. 

You stood up, staring at him with an expression he didn’t understand. Arms folded across your chest, your lips pressed together in a thin line, ready to watch him walk away. Eyes hollow, daring him to say something else, to do something else. To not leave you alone like this. 

Why weren’t you begging to go with him? 

Tugging at his clothes and trying to convince him to take you too? 

He could ask you to. The question was on his tongue, all it would take was a couple words. To grunt out a ‘well?’ or ‘come on’ and surely, you would listen. Would rush around to collect what little things you had and chase after him. 

Sukuna’s throat was closing up, constricting tighter with every strained second of silence. 

But he didn't say anything. 

And all you had to offer was a little tilt of your head and a sad smile, swallowing hard before you said something he almost hated you for. 

“I was happy.” 

So he left like he said, stepped out and didn’t look back, scoffing under his breath once the village was out of sight that you’d come running sooner or later. Scramble to search for him, face the fact that you wouldn’t be able to survive without him. 

What the hell had you even meant? 

The only thing here was misery, curdling and coiling, trying to claw and claim his life and yours through starvation and sickness. In the scowls and stones thrown at him for simply having the misfortune of being born. What was there to even be happy about?

He pictured you huddled by a dying hearth, hands held out and shuddering, shutting down the thought before it could curse him. 

Sukuna gave it a month before you realized you made a mistake. 

You still needed him. 

It was never him that needed you. 

Getting stronger was easier when he didn’t have to look after you anywhere. Without needing to play babysitter or make sure you didn’t end up in the line of fire during fights. He fended for himself just fine. 

Time slipped by faster. 

He had more important things to focus on than the weather, redoing all those years of training with expertise from experience, forcing his body to catch up to his brain. 

Eventually, he found a companion in a child he stumbled across. A sorcerer who couldn’t quite control their potential yet, but suited his needs just fine. Could cook for him, store food too. They were far more fucking obedient than you were, listened intently when he barked orders at them. 

Uruame wasn’t you. 

But he didn’t miss you. He was fine living like this. Slaughtering without discrimination. Growing stronger far faster than he did in his last life. Avoiding the same petty mistakes that had resulted in injuries, acutely aware of the fact you weren’t there to nurse them anymore. 

Honestly, other than that, he hardly thought of you at all. 

Sometimes, he’d see you in his dreams, the older you, but rather than stuck in that small room, you were laying back in his chambers, one hand on your stomach, a lazy smile on your face while you read a book. 

Or he’d wake up in the morning, reaching out for a hand that wasn’t there. 

You probably weren’t even alive anymore. 

In an unmarked grave or tossed out in the woods. Maybe you managed to get a job as a seamstress, or found a clan or lord to work for as a servant to stave off fate without him. 

People were starting to whisper his name now, things getting thrown his way again now, fear sweeping across the land of the four-armed freak out for blood and bodies. If you wanted to find him, you certainly could. 

So really, Sukuna had no reason to return. 

Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, scratching an itch he’d been ignoring for what? Nearly ten years now? A decade had turned him from a skeleton to a curse, made more of muscle than anything else, his bulky frame far more menacing than it had been even in his last life. Well-tuned, energy coiling around him as he walked down familiar paths as he found himself standing on the outskirts of the place that had never really been home. 

It looked almost the same. 

And yet, the only thing that mattered was missing. 

The frame of the place you both used to sleep under had caved in, the thatched roof fallen into a pile of debris, the rest of the houses intact. Their inhabitants cowering inside as he prowled down the street, glaring as he felt the world still. Uruame was standing by his side, head bowed slightly down as they assessed the situation. “Would you like me to go door-to-door?” They asked. 

“Fine,” he tch-ed, shrugging his shoulders, his robes hanging loose as he walked ahead without them. There wasn’t a single trace of your energy. No sign to be found. 

An elder stepped out, aged wrinkles doing nothing to disguise the tremble in his mouth as he welcomed the monster that had been born here so long ago. 

“Ah, welcome-”

“Where is she?” He snarled before he could finish. 

“Your friend?” He feigned innocence, taking pride in his position as if it meant anything when a single sweeping motion of Sukuna’s fingers could cleave through his skull if he chose. “Ah, I believe she left, what was it? Two springs ago?” 

Tilting his head to the side, pretending this was a friendly conversation rather than his last words. 

“Left?” Sukuna repeated, scoffing at the fucking notion you would just go. 

Sukuna would search every home and rip every meager fucking foundation from the ground before he believed that you left. 

“She didn’t say where-” 

Blood was strewn against the mud wall of a home behind him, a scream ringing out from someone watching. 

This was just a waste of his fucking time.

He burned every house down. Left the village for the third time in his life in ashes, dark rain coming down as the smell of meat burned his nostrils. 

That would catch your attention, remind you that he existed if the elder had even been telling the truth. Sukuna considered the chance he was lying, that perhaps you had passed away long before he'd ever stepped foot back here on this pointless endeavor and the man had foolishly attempted to save everyone else by making up some story about you leaving. 

But you didn't show up to scold him. 

And eventually, the memory of you started to shrink. Maybe it was shoved down, forced under the surface while he focused on what he told himself was important. Defeating all the sorcerers he had so long ago, settling his score with the Gojo clan by catching them off-guard this time, razing their estate and refusing to spare so much as a single servant while the fear sparked and spread across the countryside as the cowards crawled into their shells and threw whatever they thought would satiate him out. 

But not everyone was terrified. 

The Kamo clan was just as interested in him in this life as the last, the head of it inviting him over for a proper tour of their own sprawling compounds, one Sukuna only begrudgingly accepted. 

The man was strange, stitches etched across his forehead, but he agreed with Uruame's opinion that he might be useful in the future considering his output of cursed energy, so he tolerated his presence. 

A potential future partnership. 

He loathed to think that he needed a partner at all. 

But even Sukuna had the sense to see why an ally like him might work out in his favor someday. 

Despite how much he loathed this forsaken estate. 

It was lavish, annoyingly so, traditionally designed and upholding the pillars of a lifestyle Sukuna still felt repugnance towards. 

His partner refused to shut up, insisting they continue this irritatingly long conversation through their gardens, Uruame dutifully opening the door and taking notes for Sukuna as he nodded along to whatever he was spewing now. 

Sprawling flower beds and arches adorned with roses, studying thorny stems wrapped around the trellis, a strange urge tempting him to pluck one. A faint memory started to float up, a name that plagued his dreams, but then he heard something he’d almost forgotten. 

A pretty laugh. Soft and sweet. 

A dessert he hadn’t tasted in so long, the taste was lost on him. 

But he recognized it instantly. 

He tried to ignore it. Focus on the boring political spiel he came here for, to shove it down, telling himself it had to be his imagination. A fractured remnant, dug up by these stupid fragrant flowers. 

Until he felt it. 

Sensed your presence, his head snapping in that direction to spot a picnic blanket spread out on the bank past a small koi pond. You were here. You were happier. 

Dressed in silk robes, smiling as you popped a strawberry in your parted lips, the juice dripping down the corner of your mouth. A thumb reached out, dragging over it to keep you clean, and he repressed a sudden surge of pure rage. 

Anger simmering at someone touching you like that, daring to put their filthy hands on what was his, his seething stare shifting to see some dark-haired man, a black tattoo stretching across the slope of his nose, brown eyes only focused on you. 

He knew that face, even if it was just a distant image of a night he'd rather forget. The night you snuck out, the one from the gardens before he found you. 

Kamo noticed his stare, chucking softly. 

“That’s my son, Choso, and his fiancée,” Kamo informed him, nodding towards the two of you. “Would you like to meet-”

“No,” he interrupted, scowling at you playing house. 

So this was where you found yourself?

Cozying up to the Kamo clan to secure a future for yourself? Instead of choosing him? 

He wanted to laugh. Actually, he wanted to murder that runt, and then-

“He’s actually a few years older than you, but I doubt…” Kamo continued, and Sukuna felt one of his fists reflexively start to take the shape to send a slash his way, only quelled by that annoyingly bright giggle of yours as he brushed a finger over your lips. You fucking licked it. Running your tongue over his knuckle, reaching up to grab his hand and hold it there. 

You left him for this? 

Walked away from him to become the next womb for the fucking Kamo clan? 

Too enraged to even realize he was the one who left you, all his muscles too tight, too tense, cursed energy flaring up as he fought to keep it under control here. 

“Are you alright?” Kamo carefully asked, brows knitted together as Sukuna’s jaw flexed tight.

“Yes,” he managed a one-word reply, turning his head away from you. 

Were you pretending he didn’t exist now? Was he a chapter in your story that you were choosing to forget? 

His focus had shattered. 

Fractured into something he couldn’t scrape together, his thoughts lingering on that infuriating expression of yours. For once, he was stuck on what to do. A possessive thing inside him curdling and demanding he take you back here and now, cut off every damn digit that had touched you.

But the splintered remnants of his reason reminded him that he was supposed to be here to form an ally. 

Which probably wouldn’t appreciate him snatching his heir’s bride.

It made Sukuna fucking sick to think of you as another man’s wife. 

One of Kamo’s assistants scurried up, bowing his head deeply before muttering something to his master. His face scrunched up, and he shook his head before looking up at Sukuna apologetically, “Would you excuse me for a few minutes?” 

Sukuna only tch-ed, waving his hand as he glanced around the suddenly suffocating arched walkway of the garden. 

“Feel free to look around as you please,” he politely said, but he didn’t miss the cruel glint in his eyes before he walked away. The look of a man who knew too much. Bored enough to enjoy other people’s misery. 

Sukuna tried to walk away. 

To continue down this path he’d picked, to push you and your pretty laughter back out of his mind. But it curved in on itself, and here it was again. There you were.

He couldn’t stop himself from looking. 

You were sprawled out, hair in the grass, giggling happily at the boy in front of you. Sukuna thought he’d seen every expression of yours. Sad, starving, smiling, he was sure he’d known all of you. 

But you never looked at him like that. 

So free.

Unburdened, unbridled by what, exactly? Him? 

“You’re beautiful,” you murmured to your groom, grinning as he gripped your legs and hooked them around his waist. Your robes mused, pushed up to reveal plush thighs, soft skin that still made his mouth water, spit pooling in the back of his throat as this fool failed to appreciate-

“I could live a thousand years and I would trade them all just for this moment to last,” he spoke quietly, his chest rising and falling too fast, like he had to hurry to get the words out. Assured, the kind of certain Sukuna wasn’t sure he ever gave you. 

“Would you?” You teased, one corner of your lips curling up higher than the other, clearly past pleased. 

The man, this Choso of yours, nodded, acting like a loyal knight as he craned his neck down to kiss the tip of your nose. You wrapped your wrists around his neck like he was some missing puzzle piece, fiddling with the ends of his hair as you sighed with contentment. 

“Tell me more,” you requested. 

Sukuna didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear this poor excuse of poetry and confessions as he watched from the sidelines like some sick voyeur, all four eyes stuck on the familiar curves of your body as your betrothed shoved your clothes to the side to shove himself in you. 

Could it even be considered fucking? 

All slow and tender, treating you like some fragile thing that might break, rocking his hips against your body as you dug your heels into his back. Kissing your mouth instead of sucking on your tits, caressing your exposed skin rather than holding you down. 

And yet, you were making more sounds with him than you did with Sukuna, tiny whimpers that hung in the air, moans that ended up muffled in that bastard’s mouth. Writhing and wiggling your hips like he wasn’t an amateur. 

“I would do anything for you,” he whispered, and Sukuna nearly snorted, sure that he had no idea what anything really meant. Would he starve for you? Kill for you? How far would he go just to call you his? Because right now, Sukuna was considering stomping over and cleaving him into his next meal to make sure he’d never be able to see you again, and he was fairly certain that your Choso couldn’t say the same. 

“All I want,” you purred, eyes opening slowly and fluttering, flooded with pleasure Sukuna unfortunately had to face he did miss. “Is for you to stay with me.” 

You didn’t even know Sukuna was there, and yet it still stung. 

Felt like an arrow aimed directly at his heart. 

“Of course,” Choso answered easily, head bobbing, dark strands hanging down as his next thrust left you tossing your head back. 

Sukuna would do anything for you. But he just couldn’t get himself to be there. “I love you,” he moaned, rutting harder, even faster, your thighs locking him into place as you giggled at his expression. Sukuna stalled, staring uselessly at the moron’s cock drunk confession.

“I love you too,” you sweetly whispered back, brushing his hair back from his face. 

He had to step away before he saw anything else. 

Before he got to watch the man cum inside you the way he used to, before he made another decision that would destroy his life – and yours.

Sukuna didn’t know peace. He never had any to offer you. 

When he stepped back, he had the misfortune of stepping on a tiny twig, as if his afternoon wasn’t awful enough. 

Your head snapped up first, your eyes locking onto his, and he saw the recognition before the guilt. How you held your breath, the light dissipating from that warmth you radiated as if his shadows swallowed you whole. 

And he didn’t know what gave it away, what little detail in your face did it, but he realized something he failed to fucking notice for far too long. 

This had never been his second chance. This was yours.

He had never deserved it. Or you. 

You knew it too. 

The universe tried to spare you, and he got tangled up in it. Your soul and his were still tied together even when the world attempted to give you a new life. 

And he was the fool that walked away from you.

“What kind of game?” He tch-ed, tempted to take the plain stem now from you. 

“I asked if you love me,” you admitted, and he couldn’t decide if this was some crude attempt at teasing him. His fingers sank deeper into your side, pulling you deeper into his lap. 

He nodded towards the scattered petals on the floor, the blood slowly spreading and threatening to seep into them.  “What did you land on?”  

“You love me not.” 

Sukuna’s mouth twitched at how you said it. As if you gave an idiotic child’s game weight. 

But he didn’t protest. Didn’t say no or scoff. 

Instead, he pried you off of him, placing you on the floor, barely bothering to check that you wouldn’t be stepping in blood before he started towards the exit. 

“Kuna,” you started in a soft voice, the irritatingly intimate making him freeze for a split-second, enough that you corrected yourself. He'd only criticized you for it once, snapped at you to refer to him properly when he was at his court. “My lord.” “My chambers tonight,” he announced, not looking back at you. 

There was a rhythm to the routine. A monotony he found dull and draining, a familiar itch creeping under his skin at staying here this long. He wanted back out in battle. To find some other sorcerer claiming themselves capable to cleave down. 

He made up his mind during his next meal, stuffing his mouth full of meat, fork stabbing clean through the fine cut of someone he never got the name of as he planned out his next departure. Some irritating white-haired woman kept trying to talk to him from across the table, claiming to be from some clan he couldn’t care less about. 

An advisor tried to quell his annoyance, but it was like another bug in his ear, whispering that she could be useful as a concubine, as if Sukuna gave a shit. A flick of his fingers was all it took for the room to finally fall silent – even if the wall was now splattered with blood. 

Perhaps they should be grateful he gave them messes to clean. Stable employment meant they wouldn’t starve. That their children wouldn't. 

Not everyone was so lucky. 

You kept eating next to him, taking a long sip of your wine before excusing yourself a few moments later, leaving without looking over at the still body in the seat next to you. You weren’t apathetic like him, but you would hold your tongue no matter how much his anger hurt you. 

Did it splinter your soul to see him kill? 

Sukuna had no way to know. 

Conversations weren’t something so commonplace between the two of you anymore. So much had changed, enough that he tried to convince himself that you were simply a body that he shared his bed with. 

He disliked the other concubines. They always expected things from him. Wanted clothes or jewels or power. Occasionally, he considered making you his wife, if only to put the others in their place. 

To remind them that they would never occupy the space by his throne. That they would never have children that would sit on it. 

His new advisors, these men who swore they had intelligence simply because they were schooled, they all urged him to. Begged him to select someone from a clan to have a child with, for his legacy, but he refused. 

Why would he want a child? Especially one that would be like him? 

He’d carve out his own legacy.

You were waiting for him by the time he returned to his room, cross-legged on the floor, squinting at a poetry book. Neither of you had learned to read as a child, but he’d begrudgingly hired you a tutor – and just happened to sit in on your lessons to learn himself. Supervising, he said. You didn't argue otherwise, even if your brow subtly arched up at his looming presence, his bottom set of arms folded across his chest while the tutor instructed you on how to write, teaching you everything from haikus to the hidden meanings in famous poems. 

Sukuna had found it unfortunate when he had to kill him, but it wasn't his fault that the fool had tried to put a hand on your waist, no matter how innocent he claimed it was. 

You had been mad at him though, huffing and shutting yourself in your room for four days before you started speaking to him again. 

Calling him a child, like you weren't the one clinging to this life he created. 

“What are you thinking about?” You asked, drawing him out of another pointless memory of the past. 

“You left dinner early,” he dismissed your question entirely. He didn't want to answer it. Why dredge up another reason for you to be annoyed with him? 

“I prefer to eat without the smell of iron,” you said, in that measured voice of yours, playing this game of skirting around the real subject.

“You used to eat dirt,” he pointedly reminded you, and you threw your book at him. A rare reaction, your hurt flickering across your face for a few fleeting seconds before you shut back down, maybe remembering that he beheaded a woman for much less hardly fifteen minutes ago. 

“You ate bugs,” you argued, brows furrowed in frustration before you glanced away from him. 

“And now we both get full meals that you don't even finish,” he sharply replied, the edge to his voice echoing as you flexed your jaw, forcing yourself to not respond to him. 

A poor imitation of the meek submission the other women who flitted around in their fine kimonos were well-versed at.

“My apologies, master,” you eventually murmured, your mockery not going unnoticed as you lifted your chin to look up at him from the floor. Dragging your eyes over his bulky frame, muscles stretched taut over bone, skin littered with scars and tattoos. 

And still, you stared like he was just the weakling he used to be. That faint flicker of sorrow persisting even when he had practically handed you a soft life on a silver platter. 

Sukuna scoffed, squinting before he begrudgingly took two steps forward, beckoning you to stand with a single gesture.

You obeyed. Dusting off the skirt of your robe as your hand reached for the tie – but Sukuna beat you to it. 

Skin slowly exposed when he peeled off every layer, removing piece by piece until you were completely bare for him, the light and shadows from the flames dancing across the shape of you while you stood still. Waiting for some appraisal, for him to do with you as he wished. 

Your position was always defined by him after all. As his friend or his fuck. 

He tossed you onto the mattress, his top set of hands pinning your thighs to your chest, watching your eyes widen as his own loosely-fastened robe hit the floor. 

Love was a waste. 

It meant nothing. 

You said it to him once, declared it under the moon, knees curled against your chest as you looked at him like that. But that had been before. Before the estate and the esteemed treatment that came with a title and land and leverage on all the people that previously treated him with disgust. When it was still simply you and him surviving. 

He didn’t say it back. Didn’t do anything other than grunt, tempted to call you a brat for saying something so stupid. 

“You're rather distracted tonight,” you murmured, fingers frozen just before they could touch his face. He flinched from it – pulled back before you could make contact. 

“You’re irritating today,” he grimaced back, even if you were the least annoying part of his life. The only thing that wasn’t dull and dreadful. The only one that actually made him feel alive.

He waited for you to whine that he didn’t really mean that, but your eyes just searched his for silent confirmation. 

You knew better than to expect him to say it out loud. 

And despite that (pretty) little pout of frustration flitting across your face, you were still wet when he dipped a single finger into your dripping warmth. 

All your feelings fading into the mush of pleasure, eyes rolling back with a simple crook of his thick finger, lazily swirling it around to see your reaction. Not much could compare to the adrenaline of a fight, of sorcery and raw strength, but a faint shiver of exhilaration ran down his spine at the sight of you arching your hips up to make sure he was knuckle-deep, lips falling in a lewd moan as he added another digit. 

He ignored it though, shoulders stiff as your walls tried to clamp down on him. 

“Were you this wet when you were on my lap?” He dryly mocked, not particularly caring how mean you might call him for teasing you later. 

You always forgave him. 

Whatever he did, you found a way to justify it. 

You weakly nodded, chin tilted back in the air as your lashes fluttered, gasping for air that didn't seem to go in. 

“Answer me, brat,” he grunted. 

“Yes, m-my lord,” you moaned, and it was only when they parted he noticed your pretty lips painted the same shade as his hair. 

“Sukuna,” he snapped, sick of correcting this stubborn new habit of yours. Sure, it had been who insisted on it in the first place, but it was annoying to remind you of what you were and weren't allowed to do. 

You swallowed hard enough for him to notice, but you still didn't say it. 

Held your mouth closed, and he begrudgingly closed the gap to crash into it, claiming it in a greedy kiss, his tongue in your mouth while you threw your arms over his shoulders. One hand ending up in his hair, scratching at his scalp the way you knew he liked, even if it was another thing he'd never admit out loud. 

You tried to wrap your legs around his waist, to push back against the palms still pressed against your thighs, but he didn't let you budge, refused to allow you to try and lock him in some more personal position. 

For all the times he'd been called a freak, a curse, for these four arms, there were many more he found them quite useful. 

He crooked his fingers deeper, harder, and your body was tensing automatically, your focus fading as you discovered yourself lost and floating in the force of his strokes. Your features softening, catching a fleeting hint of a smile before you were squirming again in his grip. 

Using your body to beg him for more. 

Sukuna did what he always seemed to do. Oblige you. 

Pulling his fingers out the second he thought he stretched you out enough, although it was always a tight fit when it came to him, but he paused, collecting your slick and rubbing it across your puckered hole in preparation for his real main course. 

You were the only thing he wanted to devour tonight. 

Drinking up the way you whined, wiggled your hips as he dipped his finger deeper in your ass, pushing past the initial resistance to open you up. Taking his time before adding another one, keeping a keen eye on your wrecked expression.

“S’torture,” you slurred, weaking moving your arm trying to grab one of his cocks and guide it to your entrance. “Wan’ you.” 

Drunk on him. 

He snatched your wrist before you could touch though, letting out a low growl before dropping it over your head. 

“Then beg,” he mocked. 

“Please,” you immediately whispered, eyes wide and wavering. “Please, Kuna.” 

Sukuna couldn’t stand how much he felt like a slave when you spoke like that, lips pretty and pursed and painted that infuriating fucking color. 

He dragged his fingers out with a heated huff, wiping them on the sheets and glancing down to see how wet you were for him, glistening in between your thighs as he kept them pinned in place. 

“Brat,” he dryly name-called, but his top cock was already throbbing as he slipped it through your soaked folds. Your fingers rushed to tangle in his hair, brushing it back and holding it from his face like he wasn't about to turn you into even more of a blabbering mess.

Glossy eyes hazy with arousal, anticipation as he slipped inch by inch inside, his other cock throbbing, aching to feel you too. Veins pulsing, abs tensing as he felt the sinful way you squeezed and sucked him in. 

“Hngh,” you groaned as his bottom tip started to grind against your ass, already starting to feel full as the first one found that spongy part at the back that left you scrambling for your senses. 

“You're a wreck,” he tch-ed, like he wasn't already resisting the string tugging tight in his own stomach, restraining himself as his second cock finally slipped inside you, the slow burning stretch leaving you frozen, shuddering as you tried to take him without falling apart. 

“Y-you,” you gasped, lashes fluttering, stray tears collected in them as he pulled out just to push back in a rough thrust that made a soft squeak escape instead.

“Finish your sentence,” he murmured, dark and dangerous. He wanted to bite. To sink his teeth into your skin until it left the kind of bruises that would mark you as his to everyone who saw. 

“It’s your fault,” you huffed, half a whisper, half a whimper. 

Sukuna scoffed, rolling his eyes and his hips, stuffing you too full to speak. 

One of his hands groped at your chest, grabbing and squeezing, watching them bounce in time with each thrust, leaning down to wrap his mouth around your peaked nipple. Tongue swirling over the top, sucking hard, toying with you while you unravelled underneath him. 

You tugged at his scalp, but he was too focused on his current task, lapping and licking at the hardened bud, feeling the soft tissue of your tits while your cunt clamped down around him in response. 

Making all sorts of noises that were hardly coherent, moans that hung in the air, the light of the fire dancing across the walls as he fucked you until you forgot all about your attitude earlier. 

His fourth hand flitted between your thighs, finding your clit with ease. Sukuna knew your body inside and out. Memorized without making an effort too. He supposed it was simply time. 

Rubbing rough circles over that bundle of nerves, well-aware what you liked, what was too much, what would make you whine and cry and try to wiggle free. Although, right now? 

Double stuffed with that dreamy look in your eyes, half-lidded and hopeful as you stared up at him while he took you in both holes? 

You would accept anything he gave you. 

Painting patterns he'd done a thousand times before across that sensitive spot, pinching and playing with it until your thighs were trembling, toes curled as your lips were stuck permanently parted in a broken plea of his name. 

You came so easily, he almost found it cute. That soft mind of yours melting with sloppy thrusts, stuffed too full to so much as think while he fucked into your stretched-thin holes, molded into the shape of him. Wrecking you with the way his hips slammed down, threatening to bruise your fragile body. 

But you took him how you always did. 

With greedy moans, nails raking down his shoulders and slicing through his skin. A little allowance he still gave – one he waited to heal until the morning after every time.

And then he was snapping too, warm ropes of cum spurting out and filling you up, his abs tensing before the abrupt release, his breath briefly growing ragged as his chest heaved. 

Most of the world was ugly. A disgusting, boring place he couldn't stand being stuck in. 

But the sight of you as he pulled out, dripping with his seed, kiss-bitten and barely held together, shivering as you struggled to catch your breath, well, it wasn't awful. 

He didn’t mean to cum inside of you. 

A simple accident. He stared indifferently at the cum leaking out onto the sheets, a prick of annoyance setting in at the thought of needing a servant to come change the bedding again in the morning.

It wasn’t the first time he slipped up. But you both were fairly certain years of starving had left you barren. Unable to conceive when you couldn’t even menstruate properly even now. 

There was a time when he didn’t think you’d even survive this long. Nights that he was convinced morning wouldn’t come. 

Where the snow had collected in your hair and ice clung to your lashes, where he couldn’t tell whose wounds were worse, watching you shiver and shake and cry for someone he could never be. 

But it never happened – and you were here now, shivering underneath him for entirely different reasons, sweat making stray hairs stick to your forehead as you belted out one last whine of his name. 

He let go of you, dropped your legs, untangled you from his body. Standing up as his cocks still sprang up in the air, rolling his shoulders back as you tried to sit up straight, clearly sore judging by the way you shuffled and readjusted. 

“Lay down,” he ordered, but you got down on your knees in front of him anyway. Took his top cock in your smaller hand, still covered in cum and slick, gingerly licking it clean before he pulled you off by your hair. “Do you ever listen to me?” 

You pouted at him, but you obeyed this time, pushing off the floor with your palms and crawling back into his bed, pulling the blankets over your bare body. 

Sukuna grunted, using a discarded piece of his own clothes to clean himself off, unable to stop his lower eyes from snapping out to watch you while you tossed and turned, impatiently waiting for his return. 

Irritation bubbling back up at your wide-eyed stare, how you bit your lip at him before squinting, not saying anything when he yanked the covers back and got in too. 

He never understood what was going on in that head of yours. 

“Perhaps we could take a walk around the garden in the afternoon,” you hopefully suggested, your fingers hesitantly interlacing with his, readjusting to lay closer to him. He let you do it. Indulged you when you squeezed his scarred and calloused palm. 

“I leave tomorrow,” he informed you, his mouth twitching down as your face fell. 

He didn’t have to, he supposed. The world revolved around his decisions – he forced fate’s hand. 

“How long will you be gone?” You asked under your breath, your hand slipping away from his to fix a loose strand of your previously pinned-up hair. He rolled away from you, the disappointment in your eyes bothering him like some shallow cut that refused to close. 

“A couple weeks.” 

It ended up being closer to a couple months. 

Days spent on battlefields, nights staring up at star-dotted skies or at the ceiling of his tent. His name, which used to only be spoken in hushed whispers under your breath, was now known across the land. Scarred into the people who lived on it. 

He returned to his estate with blood staining his robes, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead as servants rushed out to greet him. A handful of concubines he couldn’t remember the names of stepping out to stammer greetings. 

But you weren’t there. 

Not outside. Or in the entryway. 

The bed in his chambers neatly made and markedly absent of the one person allowed to stay there when he was gone. And when he stomped across to your wing and threw open the door to your room, it was empty too. 

He sent a goddamn letter before his arrival. Everyone here had to know by now he returned home. 

Were you hiding from him? 

It wasn’t like he wanted a fucking kiss or fuck. 

But Sukuna didn’t tolerate disrespect. Couldn’t. 

For as much as he disregarded court etiquette when it came to you, he would be a fool to miss the strange tone the sparse letters you’d been sending to him had begun to take. No longer begging him to return promptly, but telling him you didn't mind his delays. That everything was fine here, no need to rush back to his throne and the woman waiting for him on it. 

If everything was fine, where the hell were you? 

He could still sense you, still feel you somewhere close, unable to discern exactly where you were. Following the faint presence of your energy, tugging it like a line until he was in the gardens. Trailing down the winding path, leaves scattering by his feet as a chill bristled over his skin until he found a little alcove that was easy to miss, your body curled up on a bench, like you were taking a nap. 

“Wake up,” he snapped, tempted to shake you awake as you sleepily rubbed your eyes and started to blink up at him. His mouth opened, ready to snarl something about you catching a cold out here like an idiot with no blanket or cover, say that you knew better, but for once in miserable existence, he was stunned into silence as his senses picked up on a second energy signature swirling around and clinging to your skin. 

No, inside of you. 

“You’re pregnant,” he accused, staring at your stomach while something unfamiliar stirred in his own. 

“It’s-” You weakly started, trying to explain, but he silenced you with only a single hand held up while you made yourself sit. Exhaustion was obvious in the rings under your eyes, your fingers shaking as you fiddled with the skirts of your robe, deliberately loose to disguise the growing bump beneath it, surely. 

He was going to behead whoever failed to inform him of this. 

The personal servant he assigned to you had to know. The chef too, if he was cooking the proper food for your new needs. And his unborn child’s. 

“Your hands work just fine,” he sneered, nose scrunching up as something inside him twisted. He never wanted an heir. Never wanted to bring another curse into this world. How many fucking times had he told himself that? But this baby was yours too. “Why did you not write to me?” 

“My lord,” you began again, but you offered no real explanation. “I-”

“You what?” He barked, brash and blunt. 

Sukuna couldn't fucking believe it. That you would do this to him. 

Not even a single letter? 

Was he not worth the truth to you? 

He expected this cowardice from the other useless creatures in his court. But you had to know-

“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel,” you admitted, looking down at his feet instead of his face. “I was scared.” 

Sukuna nearly laughed.

You were scared of him.

He supposed it was only inevitable. How much blood had you seen him shed? How many lives had he snuffed that you bore witness too? 

And now you suspected he was going to take the life of your child. His own flesh and blood, the baby that sprouted inside you, and you were sure he was going to hurt it. Did you think he was going to hurt you too? 

“Did I not make a vow to keep you safe?” He hissed, reminding you of the only oath he’d ever taken. 

Maybe you were both barely big enough to know what the weight of that would mean, but he held true to his word. Asked the world for enough strength to protect the only person who saved his life, to return the favor, although you surely regretted the childish decision now to offer a starving boy the last of your food when he'd grown up to be the man he was today. 

The first time he met you, he tried to kill you. Robbing graves and eating remains, barely scraping by when he saw you under a tree, curled up on your side and clinging to raw roots. He bit you, buried his canines in your  exposed shoulder, drawing blood while you startled awake. Your small fists whacking him as hard as you could, fat tears rolling down your cheeks as you tried to fight him off. He'd been too exhausted to keep trying, huffing and letting go of you while you whined and asked him why he did that. And still, despite your wet face, the fresh wound, you still offered him your foraged meal, murmuring that he looked like he needed it more than you. He washed it down with the blood on your skin, dragging his tongue over the bite mark while you winced, tasting the salt on your face next.  

You didn't stop him. 

Started stealing more food, just enough for both of you to survive while he tried to get stronger. 

Tied together by circumstances, intertwined by some pathetic twist of fate, two parent-less children uselessly trying to take care of each other. 

But still, you were still alive, weren't you? Even when you didn't like what he had to do to ensure it. The times he had to peel the bark off trees and demand you eat it, days where you got hurt trying to defend him, forced to shake your shoulders and keep you awake, shoving down his anxiety that you’d drift off and die. 

This, too, was for your own good. 

You called him every name you could think of, weak fists hitting his back, telling him to put you down so you could talk about it, as if you hadn't tried to hide it. 

What was there to say? 

You knew as well as he did he was not a kind man. Maybe you had been made for motherhood after all, but he had not been cut from a cloth destined to be a father. 

But he had a vow to uphold. 

And you would have a thousand targets on you once word and whispers spread of what you were carrying. Whom.

Locking you up was his only option. 

The room was on the other end of the estate, one kept under careful watch by the few people who had been around long enough to know better than to cross him. 

You pounded against the door at first, protested that this wasn't fair, like anything in either of your lives has ever been. 

A servant would test your food for poison, bringing meals three meals a day while you whined about feeling like a prisoner. But your stomach started swelling with the weeks, a small bump taking shape, your hand reaching out to rub it when he came to visit or the rare occasion he spent the night. 

The anger was still blooming under his skin, silent rage burning when you frowned at him, as if he wasn't doing this for you. 

He still fucked you, pressed your body into the bedding and claimed you as his, even if it wasn't the same. Your body was changing, your words wilting as you complained about not being able to see the seasons shifting, the garden blooming, missing the weather and the warm sun. 

You had him. 

Why was that not enough?

A neighboring clan invited themselves over, forcing him to play host while he ordered everyone to stay hush about your current condition, ignoring your pleas begging to attend just one dinner, despite his irritated promise to see you afterwards. 

Except – while the festivities were still ongoing, he came to bring you food he personally selected, you had managed to sneak out, slipping past the pathetic guards, or maybe sweet talked them through a sliver of pity to allow you to walk through the garden at the worst possible time.

He stormed through, stomping as he made a mental list of men who wouldn't make it to the morning, sharp eyes scanning through the winding pathways and rose-lined trellises, searching for your energy amongst all the sorcerers here.

Bumping into a scrawny dark-haired man in the middle of the path, vaguely recognizing him as the Kamo head’s eldest son, the stupid startled expression that flashed on his face before he started stammering something about getting lost only making Sukuna scowl before he snapped at him to return to his father before he sent him to an early grave. 

He didn't give a shit if there would be retribution, if his threat would amount to something more, his throat constricting and closing at the idea of some other stranger stumbling across you first. 

Ripping down a trellis to break through the path, pushing through only to find you bent over and plucking a flower, recoiling at the sight of him when you glanced over your shoulder. 

Guilt. 

Written all over your face, in the way your mouth preemptively opened, ready to offer a weak excuse for something simply inexcusable. 

It wasn't just you that you were putting in danger. 

He dragged you back by your arm, tugging you through dimly-lit halls, your soft voice not reaching his ears even when you attempted to explain yourself. 

It was only when he slammed the door shut and let go of you in your new chambers, your kimono doing nothing to disguise the clear outline of your stomach that he paused. 

“I wish I never met you,” you whispered, pained, pulling away from him while his mouth twitched. 

“You’d be fucking dead,” he bluntly said, his dinner churning in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. 

“Maybe I would be better off,” you spat back. 

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head as his thin tether to sanity threatened to snap. 

“You’re-”

“You're punishing me,” you pointed out, interrupting him with a finger pressed against his chest where his heart would have been. It didn't feel like he had one anymore.

Maybe he was.

“I'm leaving.” 

Why should he stay? 

You were ungrateful. Maybe some time apart would make you remember how fortunate you were to be in this position. 

Maybe going back to picking off sorcerers would burn off some of the betrayal, dull the blade of rage he felt every time he thought of this situation you were both stuck in. 

He didn’t mean to be gone so long. 

But there were battles to win, blood to be spilled. And it did make him feel better to see the bodies strewn on the ground, to climb up to the top of the world and look down on everyone else when he used to be at the bottom. 

The letter came late. Too late for him to do anything actually worth anything. His estate had been besieged. Surrounded and cut off, only able to send out this single communication from one of the few servants that slipped out during the attack. 

It seemed the Gojo’s had been waiting for the right moment to strike. 

He didn’t rush back. 

Maybe he should’ve. It wasn’t that he had confidence in the soldiers stationed there, in his own forces, but he thought he selected ones with any competence to know what to do. How to handle invaders – even if they were powerful sorcerers. 

He took his time fighting his way there, slowly sending sorcerer after sorcerer to early graves. He was the strongest after all. Would go down in history as a monster instead of a man.

Not a single wretched soul was spared. 

Although his own soldiers were picked off along the way, he kept moving. One foot in front of the others, carving a path back to you. Back to the small world he'd made for himself. 

Slashing and cleaving through them, scoffing at their bold professions of how they’d be the one to take him down. They never were. 

It began to get boring.  

Monotonous when all it took was a few moves to leave them a whimpering bloody mess on the ground. 

He figured the head of the Gojo clan would be waiting for him, probably poised and planning out some grand fight while he tried to wait out and starve everyone inside the estate. Let them grow weak enough they wouldn't be able to do anything to support Sukuna when he arrived. 

But he never expected the white-haired asshole to be sitting outside of his gates, casually leaning against it and flipping through the pages before he glanced up with blindingly blue eyes.

“Ryomen Sukuna,” the fabled six-eyes user greeted him, a casual smirk curling up on his lips as his sharp stare dragged over him. He was still covered in scrapes, mere flesh wounds, but the man just grinned brighter, tossing the book to the side and standing up. 

No servants. No guards. 

Birds falling silent and the chittering of bugs fading to the background as he stared down the only person bold enough to try and take his place by force.  

Sukuna wasn't in the fucking mood. 

He hadn't been back in months, and this was his reward? There would probably be repercussions that came with killing the Gojo brat, but he was asking for it.  

The freak didn’t even attempt to move out of the way when he sent the first slash, just taking it, but it didn’t even touch him. 

Sukuna couldn’t help but laugh, amused at the prospect of putting down someone like him. Of an actual challenge for once. 

Trading blows, dodges, gritting his teeth to push through the pain when a blow hit him only to grin when he managed to break through the technique that had been protecting his opponent, watching the cut blemish his previously clear complexion. 

“I met your wife,” he called out, not even flinching as he wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “She was pretty. Even with the baby.” 

Sukuna saw red. Heat soaring through him, rage radiating through his veins. The fucker had to be lying. Maybe he heard of the baby through a servant he captured, but he had gotten it wrong. You weren’t his wife. Sukuna almost spat out something out that he would surely regret. That asshole didn’t need another reason to go seeking you out. To turn his attention away from Sukuna and to who was inside of the gate. 

“You just missed her,” he continued, clearly mocking him, hands moving up, about to throw another attack before Sukuna sent another cleave he expertly maneuvered away from, the gate behind him splintering from the force. 

“Shut up,” Sukuna hissed, knuckles clenching as he held them up, but his brain was faltering, failing to come up with what he needed to do when his thoughts had started to uselessly wander. 

The fun he’d felt at the start was gone. Replaced with something raw, like every movement he made was stepping on glass, shards of it stuck inside his throat as he was caught off-kilter.

“She begged, you know,” he added. “Said you'd come back for her.”

The next few seconds were a broken blur. Throwing all of his cursed energy into a move, just a little too late to realize the white-haired man across from him was doing the same. 

It was the aftermath that was clear. The slashed body cut in half in front of him, the blue eyes staring up at the mirrored sky, seeing nothing after a spoiled life of getting everything. Blessed to never know hunger or pain or suffering like him or you had. 

And still, Sukuna knew he was dying too. 

Even if he didn’t quite believe it. Couldn’t wrap his brain around the gaping hole in his side, his energy draining as he stumbled forward through the broken gate only to discover blood-soaked halls inside. 

It wasn’t a siege. It was a slaughter. 

Sukuna had done more than his share to see it for what it was. They were never trying to get his attention by holding his people hostage. They knew he didn’t care. So the clan killed them anyway. 

He wasn’t sure when he started running, how his body was even capable of moving, but he had to see it anyway. Confirm what everything in his body was telling him when he couldn’t feel you anymore. 

Your guards were gone. 

The door was cracked open, his hand impulsively shooting out to shove it the rest of the way, as if he couldn’t smell what was inside. 

But you were on the bed, curled up on your side, and he could almost believe for a second, you had been spared. He knew the truth though.

There was only death here. 

Rolling you over to see your face, black encroaching on the edges of his vision as his body threatened to give out, blood dripping from his side down to the floor, onto your bed. The light had left your eyes. Nothing else there for him to find in there except a single unspoken accusation. 

You're late. 

He didn’t have enough cursed energy to repair the damage to himself. 

But what was there left to live for anyway?

Warmth. 

Hands that didn’t quite fit in his, boney fingers clinging to his palm, too little to belong to anything except a child. For a brief moment, he thought it was yours. His. 

It couldn’t be. You were dead – and so was the baby growing inside you. It was impossible, and still, his mind betrayed him. Spawned treacherous images of a tiny thing that looked like you, annoyingly clingy and cute. 

His eyes opened, still thick with sleep, blinking slowly as he tried to discern dreams from reality. 

It wasn’t your child. 

It was you. 

Younger, your eyes still shut, lashes fluttering just slightly as he realized when this was. Where you both were. 

Back in the old village, in the husk of an abandoned home, where you slept on a makeshift bed of straw and tattered blankets he’d stolen from someone’s trash. Dirt in your hair, shivering before you snuggled closer, exhaling softly as your head rested on his chest. 

Breathing. 

What sick joke was this? 

There was nothing he’d done in his life to deserve a second chance. Was it some kind of hell to repeat his shitty life, cursed and condemned to a similar fate? 

He let go of your hand, sitting up to shake your shoulders harder than he should, watching you startle as you weakly opened your eyes. Focus slowly aimed on him as your brows scrunched together, fingers tightening and grabbing his shirt. 

“Mm, Sukuna?” You croaked, voice hoarse. 

He blinked. 

Laid back down, head throbbing as his dry mouth reminded him that he needed water. You were slow to move with him, body still heavy with exhaustion before he pulled you down again. 

“Go back to sleep,” he grunted, pressing your head back down against him. Running through the possibilities, wondering if this was just his life flashing before his eyes, a memory he’d forgotten. 

But it felt fucking real. 

You went stiff, trying to peek up at him, but his palm pressed down on your hair, refusing to let you budge. 

Had he really regressed? The clock turned back to a winter he hardly remembered?

“What’s happening?” You asked, but your words were small, muffled into his shirt. 

“I’m just tryin’ to rest,” he grunted.

Dozing off without meaning too, something about the pressure of you on him, the faintly familiar feeling of you curled on his chest dragging him into dreams. He didn’t think he’d wake up. 

But he did. 

And he was still here with you, children once more, condemned to scraping through trash and digging up graves and bugs to fill your stomach. He loathed this weak body of his. The scrawny arms and legs that could barely make it more than a few miles in a day.  

You were quieter than he remembered. 

More self-conscious, more serious, your smile not quite reaching the same spots on your face. Somehow clingier at the same time, softer with him, not arguing nearly as much anymore over who got to eat what or nagging at him for being reckless. You held on tighter to him in the evenings, pulled him closer, picking flowers you knew he couldn’t appreciate. Pressed a chaste kiss against his forehead, whispered the word friend like it was something intimate. A glimmer of adoration he didn’t deserve still glittering in your eyes. 

Would it still be there if you knew where you were both headed? 

What had happened before? How you wasted away waiting for a monster who didn’t show up in time? Died for him? 

Everything kept happening the same way it had before. You, stealing whatever food you could, narrowly avoiding getting caught and coming back to him with chilly hands and shaking limbs, affection in your words, rare laughter ringing in his ears long after it slipped from your lips. Him, struggling to get stronger, to feed the cursed energy inside him and train on a mostly empty stomach. 

He woke up once to you staring at him in the middle of night after going hunting for two days on his own with two measly fish to show for it, your fingers delicately tracing the shape of his jaw before you froze, that funny flicker of guilt in the lines of your face. 

“What are you doing?” Sukuna grumbled, unable to work up more than a weak glare. 

“Missed you,” you muttered softly, dragging your small thumb over the deformed half of him, just underneath his eyes. 

“It was only-” He started, stifling a yawn as you yanked him into you this time, your fingers sliding around to guide his head into the crook of your collarbone, despite the terrible pillow it made. 

He fell back asleep there anyway. 

 Before he realized it, a whole year passed, then two, the seasons changing and shifting, your presence a constant pull by his side, and yet, one he refused to lean on. 

Sukuna hadn’t learned his lesson. 

Rejected what the world might be trying to show him as he insisted you eat the past-ripe crop while he stuffed himself with the one thing you still refused to take so much of a bite of. You were still clinging to humanity he no longer felt any kind of connection to in his second life. 

“This place is wretched,” he muttered the next morning, shoving what few possessions he had in his sack. You were sorting through herbs you collected, not even glancing up when he spoke. Just silently stacking them, barely fucking reacting. 

He huffed, loud enough you had to look. “Hm?” 

“I’m going,” he insisted, remembering the first time you had this conversation. Where he announced that he wanted to go, wanted to leave this pitiful village and all the awful people in it. You grabbed him, whined about how dangerous it would be before caving in and clinging onto his hand as you asked to come with him. 

He had grumbled, shrugging his shoulders, letting your clumsy feet trail after him down a dirt path. 

Besides, there was no reason for him to stay here now either. 

Why bother reliving the next few years of starvation and scraping together enough for both of you to survive? 

“You’re leaving,” you echoed his sentiment, and he shoved down the uncomfortable suffocating feeling settling in his chest. 

“There’s nothing for me here,” Sukuna somberly spoke. 

You stood up, staring at him with an expression he didn’t understand. Arms folded across your chest, your lips pressed together in a thin line, ready to watch him walk away. Eyes hollow, daring him to say something else, to do something else. To not leave you alone like this. 

Why weren’t you begging to go with him? 

Tugging at his clothes and trying to convince him to take you too? 

He could ask you to. The question was on his tongue, all it would take was a couple words. To grunt out a ‘well?’ or ‘come on’ and surely, you would listen. Would rush around to collect what little things you had and chase after him. 

Sukuna’s throat was closing up, constricting tighter with every strained second of silence. 

But he didn't say anything. 

And all you had to offer was a little tilt of your head and a sad smile, swallowing hard before you said something he almost hated you for. 

“I was happy.” 

So he left like he said, stepped out and didn’t look back, scoffing under his breath once the village was out of sight that you’d come running sooner or later. Scramble to search for him, face the fact that you wouldn’t be able to survive without him. 

What the hell had you even meant? 

The only thing here was misery, curdling and coiling, trying to claw and claim his life and yours through starvation and sickness. In the scowls and stones thrown at him for simply having the misfortune of being born. What was there to even be happy about?

He pictured you huddled by a dying hearth, hands held out and shuddering, shutting down the thought before it could curse him. 

Sukuna gave it a month before you realized you made a mistake. 

You still needed him. 

It was never him that needed you. 

Getting stronger was easier when he didn’t have to look after you anywhere. Without needing to play babysitter or make sure you didn’t end up in the line of fire during fights. He fended for himself just fine. 

Time slipped by faster. 

He had more important things to focus on than the weather, redoing all those years of training with expertise from experience, forcing his body to catch up to his brain. 

Eventually, he found a companion in a child he stumbled across. A sorcerer who couldn’t quite control their potential yet, but suited his needs just fine. Could cook for him, store food too. They were far more fucking obedient than you were, listened intently when he barked orders at them. 

Uruame wasn’t you. 

But he didn’t miss you. He was fine living like this. Slaughtering without discrimination. Growing stronger far faster than he did in his last life. Avoiding the same petty mistakes that had resulted in injuries, acutely aware of the fact you weren’t there to nurse them anymore. 

Honestly, other than that, he hardly thought of you at all. 

Sometimes, he’d see you in his dreams, the older you, but rather than stuck in that small room, you were laying back in his chambers, one hand on your stomach, a lazy smile on your face while you read a book. 

Or he’d wake up in the morning, reaching out for a hand that wasn’t there. 

You probably weren’t even alive anymore. 

In an unmarked grave or tossed out in the woods. Maybe you managed to get a job as a seamstress, or found a clan or lord to work for as a servant to stave off fate without him. 

People were starting to whisper his name now, things getting thrown his way again now, fear sweeping across the land of the four-armed freak out for blood and bodies. If you wanted to find him, you certainly could. 

So really, Sukuna had no reason to return. 

Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, scratching an itch he’d been ignoring for what? Nearly ten years now? A decade had turned him from a skeleton to a curse, made more of muscle than anything else, his bulky frame far more menacing than it had been even in his last life. Well-tuned, energy coiling around him as he walked down familiar paths as he found himself standing on the outskirts of the place that had never really been home. 

It looked almost the same. 

And yet, the only thing that mattered was missing. 

The frame of the place you both used to sleep under had caved in, the thatched roof fallen into a pile of debris, the rest of the houses intact. Their inhabitants cowering inside as he prowled down the street, glaring as he felt the world still. Uruame was standing by his side, head bowed slightly down as they assessed the situation. “Would you like me to go door-to-door?” They asked. 

“Fine,” he tch-ed, shrugging his shoulders, his robes hanging loose as he walked ahead without them. There wasn’t a single trace of your energy. No sign to be found. 

An elder stepped out, aged wrinkles doing nothing to disguise the tremble in his mouth as he welcomed the monster that had been born here so long ago. 

“Ah, welcome-”

“Where is she?” He snarled before he could finish. 

“Your friend?” He feigned innocence, taking pride in his position as if it meant anything when a single sweeping motion of Sukuna’s fingers could cleave through his skull if he chose. “Ah, I believe she left, what was it? Two springs ago?” 

Tilting his head to the side, pretending this was a friendly conversation rather than his last words. 

“Left?” Sukuna repeated, scoffing at the fucking notion you would just go. 

Sukuna would search every home and rip every meager fucking foundation from the ground before he believed that you left. 

“She didn’t say where-” 

Blood was strewn against the mud wall of a home behind him, a scream ringing out from someone watching. 

This was just a waste of his fucking time.

He burned every house down. Left the village for the third time in his life in ashes, dark rain coming down as the smell of meat burned his nostrils. 

That would catch your attention, remind you that he existed if the elder had even been telling the truth. Sukuna considered the chance he was lying, that perhaps you had passed away long before he'd ever stepped foot back here on this pointless endeavor and the man had foolishly attempted to save everyone else by making up some story about you leaving. 

But you didn't show up to scold him. 

And eventually, the memory of you started to shrink. Maybe it was shoved down, forced under the surface while he focused on what he told himself was important. Defeating all the sorcerers he had so long ago, settling his score with the Gojo clan by catching them off-guard this time, razing their estate and refusing to spare so much as a single servant while the fear sparked and spread across the countryside as the cowards crawled into their shells and threw whatever they thought would satiate him out. 

But not everyone was terrified. 

The Kamo clan was just as interested in him in this life as the last, the head of it inviting him over for a proper tour of their own sprawling compounds, one Sukuna only begrudgingly accepted. 

The man was strange, stitches etched across his forehead, but he agreed with Uruame's opinion that he might be useful in the future considering his output of cursed energy, so he tolerated his presence. 

A potential future partnership. 

He loathed to think that he needed a partner at all. 

But even Sukuna had the sense to see why an ally like him might work out in his favor someday. 

Despite how much he loathed this forsaken estate. 

It was lavish, annoyingly so, traditionally designed and upholding the pillars of a lifestyle Sukuna still felt repugnance towards. 

His partner refused to shut up, insisting they continue this irritatingly long conversation through their gardens, Uruame dutifully opening the door and taking notes for Sukuna as he nodded along to whatever he was spewing now. 

Sprawling flower beds and arches adorned with roses, studying thorny stems wrapped around the trellis, a strange urge tempting him to pluck one. A faint memory started to float up, a name that plagued his dreams, but then he heard something he’d almost forgotten. 

A pretty laugh. Soft and sweet. 

A dessert he hadn’t tasted in so long, the taste was lost on him. 

But he recognized it instantly. 

He tried to ignore it. Focus on the boring political spiel he came here for, to shove it down, telling himself it had to be his imagination. A fractured remnant, dug up by these stupid fragrant flowers. 

Until he felt it. 

Sensed your presence, his head snapping in that direction to spot a picnic blanket spread out on the bank past a small koi pond. You were here. You were happier. 

Dressed in silk robes, smiling as you popped a strawberry in your parted lips, the juice dripping down the corner of your mouth. A thumb reached out, dragging over it to keep you clean, and he repressed a sudden surge of pure rage. 

Anger simmering at someone touching you like that, daring to put their filthy hands on what was his, his seething stare shifting to see some dark-haired man, a black tattoo stretching across the slope of his nose, brown eyes only focused on you. 

He knew that face, even if it was just a distant image of a night he'd rather forget. The night you snuck out, the one from the gardens before he found you. 

Kamo noticed his stare, chucking softly. 

“That’s my son, Choso, and his fiancée,” Kamo informed him, nodding towards the two of you. “Would you like to meet-”

“No,” he interrupted, scowling at you playing house. 

So this was where you found yourself?

Cozying up to the Kamo clan to secure a future for yourself? Instead of choosing him? 

He wanted to laugh. Actually, he wanted to murder that runt, and then-

“He’s actually a few years older than you, but I doubt…” Kamo continued, and Sukuna felt one of his fists reflexively start to take the shape to send a slash his way, only quelled by that annoyingly bright giggle of yours as he brushed a finger over your lips. You fucking licked it. Running your tongue over his knuckle, reaching up to grab his hand and hold it there. 

You left him for this? 

Walked away from him to become the next womb for the fucking Kamo clan? 

Too enraged to even realize he was the one who left you, all his muscles too tight, too tense, cursed energy flaring up as he fought to keep it under control here. 

“Are you alright?” Kamo carefully asked, brows knitted together as Sukuna’s jaw flexed tight.

“Yes,” he managed a one-word reply, turning his head away from you. 

Were you pretending he didn’t exist now? Was he a chapter in your story that you were choosing to forget? 

His focus had shattered. 

Fractured into something he couldn’t scrape together, his thoughts lingering on that infuriating expression of yours. For once, he was stuck on what to do. A possessive thing inside him curdling and demanding he take you back here and now, cut off every damn digit that had touched you.

But the splintered remnants of his reason reminded him that he was supposed to be here to form an ally. 

Which probably wouldn’t appreciate him snatching his heir’s bride.

It made Sukuna fucking sick to think of you as another man’s wife. 

One of Kamo’s assistants scurried up, bowing his head deeply before muttering something to his master. His face scrunched up, and he shook his head before looking up at Sukuna apologetically, “Would you excuse me for a few minutes?” 

Sukuna only tch-ed, waving his hand as he glanced around the suddenly suffocating arched walkway of the garden. 

“Feel free to look around as you please,” he politely said, but he didn’t miss the cruel glint in his eyes before he walked away. The look of a man who knew too much. Bored enough to enjoy other people’s misery. 

Sukuna tried to walk away. 

To continue down this path he’d picked, to push you and your pretty laughter back out of his mind. But it curved in on itself, and here it was again. There you were.

He couldn’t stop himself from looking. 

You were sprawled out, hair in the grass, giggling happily at the boy in front of you. Sukuna thought he’d seen every expression of yours. Sad, starving, smiling, he was sure he’d known all of you. 

But you never looked at him like that. 

So free.

Unburdened, unbridled by what, exactly? Him? 

“You’re beautiful,” you murmured to your groom, grinning as he gripped your legs and hooked them around his waist. Your robes mused, pushed up to reveal plush thighs, soft skin that still made his mouth water, spit pooling in the back of his throat as this fool failed to appreciate-

“I could live a thousand years and I would trade them all just for this moment to last,” he spoke quietly, his chest rising and falling too fast, like he had to hurry to get the words out. Assured, the kind of certain Sukuna wasn’t sure he ever gave you. 

“Would you?” You teased, one corner of your lips curling up higher than the other, clearly past pleased. 

The man, this Choso of yours, nodded, acting like a loyal knight as he craned his neck down to kiss the tip of your nose. You wrapped your wrists around his neck like he was some missing puzzle piece, fiddling with the ends of his hair as you sighed with contentment. 

“Tell me more,” you requested. 

Sukuna didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear this poor excuse of poetry and confessions as he watched from the sidelines like some sick voyeur, all four eyes stuck on the familiar curves of your body as your betrothed shoved your clothes to the side to shove himself in you. 

Could it even be considered fucking? 

All slow and tender, treating you like some fragile thing that might break, rocking his hips against your body as you dug your heels into his back. Kissing your mouth instead of sucking on your tits, caressing your exposed skin rather than holding you down. 

And yet, you were making more sounds with him than you did with Sukuna, tiny whimpers that hung in the air, moans that ended up muffled in that bastard’s mouth. Writhing and wiggling your hips like he wasn’t an amateur. 

“I would do anything for you,” he whispered, and Sukuna nearly snorted, sure that he had no idea what anything really meant. Would he starve for you? Kill for you? How far would he go just to call you his? Because right now, Sukuna was considering stomping over and cleaving him into his next meal to make sure he’d never be able to see you again, and he was fairly certain that your Choso couldn’t say the same. 

“All I want,” you purred, eyes opening slowly and fluttering, flooded with pleasure Sukuna unfortunately had to face he did miss. “Is for you to stay with me.” 

You didn’t even know Sukuna was there, and yet it still stung. 

Felt like an arrow aimed directly at his heart. 

“Of course,” Choso answered easily, head bobbing, dark strands hanging down as his next thrust left you tossing your head back. 

Sukuna would do anything for you. But he just couldn’t get himself to be there. “I love you,” he moaned, rutting harder, even faster, your thighs locking him into place as you giggled at his expression. Sukuna stalled, staring uselessly at the moron’s cock drunk confession.

“I love you too,” you sweetly whispered back, brushing his hair back from his face. 

He had to step away before he saw anything else. 

Before he got to watch the man cum inside you the way he used to, before he made another decision that would destroy his life – and yours.

Sukuna didn’t know peace. He never had any to offer you. 

When he stepped back, he had the misfortune of stepping on a tiny twig, as if his afternoon wasn’t awful enough. 

Your head snapped up first, your eyes locking onto his, and he saw the recognition before the guilt. How you held your breath, the light dissipating from that warmth you radiated as if his shadows swallowed you whole. 

And he didn’t know what gave it away, what little detail in your face did it, but he realized something he failed to fucking notice for far too long. 

This had never been his second chance. This was yours.

He had never deserved it. Or you. 

You knew it too. 

The universe tried to spare you, and he got tangled up in it. Your soul and his were still tied together even when the world attempted to give you a new life. 

And he was the fool that walked away from you.