#dom reader

At the bottom of a lake in a national park sits a towering stone statue of an Asura – the three-faced, six-armed demigods who revelled in war and hungered insatiably for worldly pleasures. Two hands are clasped in prayer; four reach for the heavens. The forests are dense, the mountains tall, and the waters dark and cool.

Most scholars estimate the statue to be particularly ancient – something like one thousand and five hundred years, around the time Buddhism was introduced to Japan. Its size, however, begets questions: why so large for such a new religion? Who made it? Why at the bottom of a lake? Why this lake? How is it still almost perfectly preserved, with such little water damage or natural erosion?

It was a local oddity, a mystery of ancient times. Its purpose – to scare, to protect, to be worshipped – was debated. Kenjaku, however, knows better.

It is a door. An entrance to a long-forgotten tomb.

Now, draining an entire lake is a mammoth task. Luckily for him, whoever crafted the statue also made it a lock. It will open via a specific pulse of cursed energy, shaped sharp and terrible like a blade rather than a key. However, time has eroded the statue's memory of its proper shape – with a determined-enough battering ram, any door will open. Kenjaku is that ram.

It's magical, watching the lake drain into some strange contraption at the raised circular base at the bottom of the statue. It looks like a grate. Soon enough, the roar of the water subsides, and the dark hollow of the lake, punched deep in the earth, is like the gods' very own kitchen sink.

Kenjaku's eyes flicker to the dark dome above. The veil conceals everything for now, but discretion would be awfully difficult to keep if he finds out there's no way to restore the lake to proper, well, lake-hood. Sorcerers would come sniffing in an instant.

At the bottom of the lake, he enters the revealed stone doors, probably fifteen or twenty feet tall. They waited, newly open, for him once he'd bypassed the lock, grinding open slowly once he reached them.

His steps echo in the vast, dark cave system. The soft plink of water drips into clear pools somewhere in the distance. His breath clouds in front of him, the air cold and damp, as he descends stairs carved into the dark stone. The stairs go down and down, then up and up, the long winding passages broad enough to fit three cars side by side.

Torches line the walls, hammered into place with black iron that fans out in the shape of spider lilies. They crackle to life as he nears them, their red flames licking the centres.

Eventually, he comes across another set of open stone doors. Two black braziers sit on either side, throwing crimson light on the walls and darkening the shadows. He lifts a hand to one of the braziers as he passes, fascinated as the flames flicker harmlessly around his bare fingers. The fire feels only as hot as the steam over a boiling pot of pasta.

None of this is for him specifically. There is no kindling in the braziers, no oil in the torches – this is a falling line of dominoes, with stored cursed energy instructed to follow a set of actions the moment the lake drained. It is unique. It is ancient. It is... ingenious.

Beyond the second set of doors, the cave system opens up into a vast, gaping cavern. Through a gap in the ceiling, pale moonlight cuts diagonally through the darkness, a cone of light falling upon a rocky formation in the centre of the cavern. A cleared path curves up to a point, and mirroring its curve above is a massive stalactite. Perhaps the points of each had touched, once, into a single form, but no longer. Water drips from the tip into a blooming patch of translucent blue flowers that stretches around the base of the rock all the way to his feet, so pale they seem to glow in the moonlight.

He glances down near the doors. At the edge of the field of flowers is a knee-height collection of drawings etched in stone and painted with flaked paint. He bobs down, brushing his fingers over the stone.

The linework is sloppy, unsteady. The paint trails outside of the lines. Humanoid figures dance around a spider-lily brazier – sit peacefully around a roasted boar – stand knee-deep in a river catching fish. His fingers trail over the last scene. Two figures are in the water, one tall and one small, but there's a third on the banks, watching under a tree. It has four arms. The face has been erased with time.

He stands again. He walks up the path, flowers sprawling on either side, and finds a tall, still figure slumped gently at the top, like a throne.

Ancient silks pool around its wrists and feet, trailing through the flowers. Any colour it once had has since faded, the cloth now bone-white. It still, however, retains its shimmery lustre, with a sheen like crushed pearls.

Kenjaku steps closer, brushing his bangs over his ear as he reaches into his pocket and extracts his phone, glancing at a picture of an ancient painted scroll from his private library. He lifts his phone up to the figure, glancing between them, and hums.

"All these years, and you haven't changed one bit."

A thousand years have passed and your skin is still supple, smooth, though ashen with death. No blood runs through you now. Your hands rest open in your lap, cupped loosely, as if awaiting offerings. Your hair is romantically long, tucked behind your ear and over your shoulder, and despite how soft they look, your lips lack colour.

Even standing at the end of your robes, more than a metre away from the bottom of your moonlit throne, Kenjaku still has to look up slightly – you are tall, definitely beating his current body, six-foot-something as it is. No, you are larger than that. God-tall. Easily worshipped, he thinks – easily feared.

He steps closer, carefully manoeuvring around the white silk pooling around his shoes. In your hands is an intricate golden brooch, inlaid with four almond-shaped rubies that haven't dulled with time. It rests delicately in your palms, and your head is tilted towards it – perhaps it was the last thing you ever saw. Careful not to disturb the rest of you, he reaches for it.

Your hand shoots forward and wraps around the entirety of his forearm, dragging him in. Your grip is bruising, strong enough to shatter stone.

Silhouetted by darkness, your eyes glow a ghostly silver, pupils completely milky-white. Your lips nearly touch his as you pull him ever so slightly closer, fingers twisting punishingly around his arm. Your breath is cold against his lips.

"A corpse..." you whisper, a raspy, rattling breath, "should be left well alone."

Kenjaku doesn't move. He doesn't try to. Even dead, your presence is electrifying, your touch like a live wire straight to the nerves. His lungs constrict, and his heart pounds in his chest with something more than wonder.

Even like this, you still manage to surprise him.

You tilt your head slightly, eyes reflecting with an eerie catlike glow in the shadows of your features. Slowly, your grip loosens, and you release his arm – gently, softly, as if you're giving it back to him. Mechanically, your gaze lowers to the brooch in your palm, and you lean back, cupping it once more. Your hand closes around the brooch; the crimson jewels glitter between your long fingers. You close your eyes, and stillness returns to the dark cavern.

Kenjaku grabs his wrist, rubbing it more out of habit than anything. His own touch is a balm from the icy burn of yours. He mutters, "So dramatic."

You don't move.

"My way would have been easier. Centralised. I have to go out of my way to bring you back – but you were always a rebellious one, weren't you?"

He reaches for the brooch again. You grab his wrist – again. Just like before, there is no life in it. Nothing real. This is all just automatic reflex, instinct preserved in limbo, as unconscious and unthinking as the decay of meat and muscle – a natural, predetermined pattern of reactions to certain stimuli.

"What a bother," he murmurs, twisting his arm out of the corpse's grasp. "But if I were you, I suppose I'd want to keep a face like this, too."

He leans down, inspecting your lowered face. You have intimidatingly beautiful features – noble, strong. Uniquely elegant.

He reaches up, his face tilted towards yours. His fingers brush your ice-cold cheek – his palm is tiny in comparison.

Part curse, part god. A once-simple soul entangled deeply, cosmically, with another's. A bond that transcends eras, lives, and perhaps the very realm of the earth.

You don't stir. Why, he wonders? Is it the brooch that acts as the catalyst? Is your corpse protecting it?

Kenjaku draws back, lifting his phone again and scanning his annotations printed on a PDF file of scrolls. The photos are clearly taken with a phone camera on a library table rather than being scanned in archive quality, but they’re serviceable.

There's a highlighted note on a poem with beautiful calligraphy, its author gone uncredited. It accompanies a landscape scene of the lake he's standing under, the inky shape of the hills and mountains almost identical to when he viewed it over a nearby cliff.

Lucent blooms settle

Beneath sleeping mountains' light—

Silk's argent embrace

He hums. Incredibly profound.

It's a winter poem. 'Sleeping mountains' – that's the seasonal word, the kigo. His thoughts dart between fragments of information as he taps his chin thoughtfully, beginning to pace languidly back and forth. If only you'd trusted him enough with the key yourself – he'd had to scrounge through countless charred villages and museum archives just to find these clues, a task that spanned centuries. You were very good at hiding things. Unfortunately for him, only one being in existence has ever held that key, and they were currently… indisposed.

Winter. Cold. The corpse is cold. 'Lucent blooms' – that definitely has to be referencing these strange flowers, some rare variety he's never seen anywhere else. 'Light'… Moon? The moon's out right now. A full moon, if that changes things. Or it could be the light bouncing off the white peaks of the surrounding mountains. 'Embrace'. Embrace what? Fancy talk for just enjoying the natural view?

He clicks his tongue with a sigh.

Silk, his mind supplies helpfully. His gaze swings back to the god-corpse resting before him and the snow-white silk, still defiantly gleaming despite the passing aeons. An idea sparks in his mind.

Slowly, he crouches, inspecting the flowers and plucks the largest one from the fresh soil. The white petals are slender, soft as velvet and luminous under the moonlight. He glances at his phone, rereading the poem two more times. He places the flower in the cup of your open palms.

He waits. He watches.

The corpse's fingers twitch.

They close stiffly around the flower, pulling it close. With a slow, steady inhale, the corpse's eyes flutter open.

No longer are they that milky death-white, lacking the natural pinkness at the corners of the eyes and in the veins of the sclera. The irises are now gold, molten gold, and as bright and brilliant as the dawn.

There is a figure in front of you: dark-clothed, blurry with countless years of your dreamless oblivion.

"Uraume…?" Your voice is a low, husky breath. You close your eyes, one hand lifting briefly towards your aching, throbbing temple. The gold brooch tips from your palm, landing soundlessly in your lap.

"Not quite."

You blink, brow slightly furrowed. Your vision clears. There is a man in front of you – a sorcerer, judging by the controlled silvery shimmer that threads itself through his very being. His face is unfamiliar. But his energy is…

You take in his serene expression, the knowing gaze that borders on condescension… and the stitches across the forehead.

"You are not Uraume," you murmur – barely. Your lip curls with distaste. He has to strain to hear over the ambient noise, the low hum of the earth and the whisper of wind through stone. Your voice comes low, a death rattle cold enough to chill bones. "Leave, brain. You are not welcome here."

"Such little gratitude to an old friend," he replies with a smile. "Would it kill you to call me by my name?"

"Which one have you stolen now? This body…" You tilt your head, surveying him. "It is a recent acquisition."

"Yes – Geto Suguru," he says rather joyfully, touching his stitched forehead in a caricature of shyness. "You may call me such, if you like."

"I will not." You lower your gaze, scooping up the brooch and closing your fingers over it. The metal is cool against your skin – your sense of touch is returning to you. You can feel the intricate patterns of the gold and the hard angles of the jewels under your thumb. "Why do you wake me?"

"My plans are coming to fruition. I assumed you would want to be there for them."

You trace the white petals of the freshly-plucked flower in your palm. An offering – but given by the wrong hands. "If I had any interest in your 'plans', I would have accepted your proposal back then. So, before I snap every bone of your borrowed body and drink its marrow while you watch, I ask again: why do you wake me?"

He lifts his hands in surrender, but his smile sharpens. "Ryomen Sukuna has returned."

Your fingers stop drawing circles into the petals. Your breath catches. "What…?"

"Indeed. I'll give you a moment to check for yourself."

You can sense it. You feel him. It's faint, but something tugs at the base of your ribs, a sharp longing that has your eyes widening. He's unmistakable. You would recognise him anywhere – you would know him blind.

But if he has returned, why is it this brain stands before you, and not him? You promised you would wait for him. You would wake for him. To be awoken by this thing instead feels like a sickening betrayal. Your grip tightens on the flower, its petals crushed in your palm.

You… should kill him.

"Thinking of ending me?" His grin widens. "Unfortunately, Your Grace, I am the tip of the spear when it comes to restoring the King of Curses to his full strength. Removing me from the equation would obstruct his return to power."

"Would it?" You cup the brooch instead, letting the broken flower petals flutter to your feet. "You are such a confident little bug."

"Well-earned, I'd say." Kenjaku flutters a few fingers in the air casually as he speaks. "If it pleases you, I know a place where you can stay to recuperate while I gather the remaining number of Sukuna's fingers. I'm sure you'll be well enough by then to participate in my plans, should you change your mind."

"I have no desire to partake in your games. It is all posturing and strutting about – no substance." You glance up, leaning back. "Now leave before I peel every nerve out of that hideous brain of yours. You interrupted my beauty sleep."

He smiles back, infuriatingly composed. "As you wish. But I can't, in good faith, go without mentioning something. You might be interested to see that I have… this." He reaches into his robes and pulls out a wooden box completely wrapped in paper seals. Despite them, dark cursed energy radiates off of it in suffocating waves, thick enough to choke humans into a terrified, sobbing paralysis. It pulses like a heartbeat. He shakes it, and something rattles within.

Your amusement vanishes. You stiffen.

He watches your reaction keenly. "This is one of the two. Join me and I'll help you retrieve the other. Luckily for us, I just so happen to know exactly where it is."

Your eyes flash. "Are you threatening me?"

"It's more of a bargain, but I digress. Is the threat of a heart attack on a cosmic scale enough to entice you over, Your Grace?"

You gaze at him with an expression as readable as stone. Your gaze darkens. "You are a fool if you believe I'll ever make promises to a brain."

"A smart fool. I know you and Sukuna are impossibly attached to each other. How long will it take you to rewrite the rules of your 'hibernation' again? A year? Ten years? His current vessel is giving him grief, so it may take him a while to retain control long enough to find you. Help me gather his fingers and you'll have him back in a flash."

You say nothing.

"How long has it been?" you ask, finally, glancing around you. "How long has that bastard made me wait?"

"A thousand years, give or take."

Your grip tightens on the brooch. A long, heavy silence falls.

"Very well," you mutter, tracking him like prey as he steps away, inspecting the flowers and your silk robes as if you're some sort of museum exhibit. Your lips press together with disgust as he smiles and clasps his hands, a glint in his eyes that states he already knew your answer before you said a word. At least for now, you're weakened, so you'll oblige, but you promise yourself you'll enjoy spilling him across the stone one day. "Do what you must."

—

A child is running around your feet. It is small, with mismatched eyes and long blue-grey hair. You stare at it.

"This is not Uraume."

Kenjaku chuckles, watching from his seat by the table. He lifts a cup of steaming tea to his lips. "Uraume is busy searching for Sukuna's fingers. Why? Missing them?"

You cross your arms, tugging your billowing sleeves away from the grabby hands of the tiny... curse. Undeterred, it crawls under the hem of your trailing robes, folding them over its shoulders like a cape. You lift your gaze. "You said they were here."

"I said they were awake," he corrects. "If you care so much, why don't you send out your Bat-Signal, call them over?"

"My what?" you frown. "If you mean that I should signal my presence to them, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. Only Sukuna created that sort of bond. I did not like the idea of being... tracked."

He hums, sipping his tea. "Always so independent. Uraume will be back soon, I wager. In the meantime, why don't you introduce yourself, Mahito?"

The child at your feet looks up and beams, brushing his messy bangs out of his eyes. The dark stitches across his skin stretch with his smile. "I'm Mahito!" he chirps. "I can touch souls!"

"That's... very nice," you say, tugging your robes to stop them from catching and pulling at his dark stitches. You glance between the pair, eyes sliding up to Kenjaku's forehead. "Is it another one of yours?"

Kenjaku lets out a barked laugh, placing his tea on the table. "No. He was born of human hatred. He's quite young – not even a year old, I believe."

"Oh. I suppose that's better." You observe the youngster for a moment as he plays with the charms hanging from your sash, particularly absorbed with a small jade fox.

"Excuse me?" He almost sounds offended. "Why is it better that he's not my child?"

You ignore him, turning to the little curse. "Mahito, do your stitches hold you together, as his do? Or are yours just to make you look even more adorable?"

He lights up. "Geto! You hear that? He thinks I'm adorable!" He turns back to you, grinning. "I don't know, mister! I don't think I'll fall apart without them, but I haven't been pulled apart yet."

"I see." You pat his head. "Let's keep it that way."

"Okay!" He grasps your kimono and follows you to the table, where a dozen old scrolls and stolen inventory files lie neatly organised. You pick up the nearest folder, finding inside a printed report of 'Sukuna's Finger: Left Index'. You trace the image of it, your gaze softening ever so slightly.

Mahito isn't tall enough to see what's in your hands, let alone over the edge of the table. He huffs in annoyance and shoots up in height, shaking out his newly lengthened limbs, and grabs your elbow, shoving himself beneath your arm. He is now comfortably chest-height with you.

"Oh, just looking at these again. Geto always looks at these. So, you two were, like, married, right?" he says, tilting his head straight up to look at you at an angle impossible for human necks. "Was he any good as a wife?"

"It was a covenant," you correct, turning the page. "And yes. He was very good."

"Wow," he giggles, grabbing a scroll and unrolling it flat across the table. "Then what was the covenant about? How'd you meet? Did he try to kill you?"

You glance down at your robes, white as moonlight. A small smile tugs at your lips. "That's a boring story, Mahito."

"I don't believe that for a second! I mean, I'm not doing anything important. Let me decide if it's boring or not," he says, immediately ditching the scroll he'd just opened to take up half the library table. "Tell me, tell me!"

"Are you sure? I might not be the best storyteller. My mind is still a little foggy with sleep."

"It's okay. I just wanna know how someone like Sukuna caught the attention of someone as pretty as you, mister." He stares up at you with wide, sparkling eyes.

"If you insist." You chuckle.

"I do!"

"Very well. Long ago, I lived in a forest," you begin, touching the photo of Sukuna's finger. Even Kenjaku shifts slightly, eyes downcast towards his research but his ear tilted towards you. "It was a great, ancient place, spanning across many mountains. It was my home, and I protected it well for many years – until one day, humans came stumbling through it, shouting and trampling and carrying torches. There were too many to fight off, coming from all directions. Dealing with one group left another unchecked. They set my home on fire; that fire raged for two weeks."

You grab a chair and settle down into it, and Mahito quickly takes a seat at your feet. "Hanami hates when humans do that," he says wisely, nodding.

"They do it often, those wretched things – no consideration for the innocent creatures caught in their paths. That day, they were looking for someone: someone who'd made his latest home in my forest, and who they called the King of Curses. I didn't think much of the title. I'd never heard of the man before, so I wondered why they cared so much about him. Curious, I sought him out. I don't know why the sorcerers struggled to find him – he was loud and brutish, every step like an earthquake, every blow shaking the heavens. Unfortunately, before I could confront the barbarian disrupting my peace, the sorcerers fighting him attacked me as well. Mahito, what colour do you think gods bleed?"

He cups his chin thoughtfully. "Mine's red, but most other curses are purple. Hm... You seem different. Maybe gold, like your eyes?"

You smile evenly. "Clever guess. After I slaughtered those sorcerers, I found this supposed 'king' standing back and watching me, letting me do all the hard work. It infuriated me. He barges into my home, destroys my quiet, and now he doesn't lift a single finger to drive off the enemies he brought to my door? He had twenty of them. Surely he could spare one. But he refused, so clearly, I had no choice but to chase him off like a feral dog to take his invaders with him. For three days and three nights, we fought until we reached a stalemate. He could not touch me in a way that mattered. I could not keep him down."

A sigh flutters past your lips as you rest your head on your palm, propping your elbow on the table. "Finally, he stopped. He called me mesmerising, said that I'd enchanted him with how I fought like it was a dance, but that he wouldn't leave and wouldn't help with the humans unless offered something in return. You who steal my moonlight for your silks! he accused me. I will kill every sorcerer who threatens this forest only if you dance for me alone, forever."

Mahito hangs onto your every word, leaning forward slightly. His round, mismatched eyes shine with fascination.

"And so, Ryomen Sukuna, the mighty and undefeated King of Curses, became my darling little guard dog. The end." You wave a hand, your white sleeve gleaming in the light, and laugh at Mahito's dumbfounded expression. "Why the look? Did you expect more?"

"You skipped the middle part!" he complains, crossing his arms. "That's the best part. I wanna hear how you responded to his bargain!"

You think of Sukuna's flushed face and parted lips, all four ruby eyes half-lidded and trained on you. You think of taking him then and there in the forest clearing, the grass and trees bleached bone-white from the heat of your clash, with his sturdy thighs bracketing yours as he gripped his weapons stabbed into the soil for balance.

"No," you hum, smiling. "No, dear, you don't."

—

Mahito quite likes you. Hanami approves of your paternal care of the forest you claimed as your own, and little Dagon is still too young to do much except get carried around by Mahito so they can listen to your stories together. These are facts that bother the volcanic cursed spirit, Jogo, a surprising amount.

"He lies as easily as breathing," Jogo says gruffly, his single Cyclopean eye narrowing in your direction as you spin tales out of Sukuna's triumphs over ten-thousand-strong armies. Mahito is small at the moment, legs crossed in the sand of Dagon's beachy domain – his eyes shine brighter when you briefly make reference to your own formidable strength. Sukuna is a fairytale, just a collection of words – you are tangible, real, and to his mind, more interesting for it.

Kenjaku smiles calmly. "Is that why you don't get along?"

"Cursed spirits should be authentic! Real! The fox hides his true feelings and plays games to manipulate things in his favour. That's cowardly," he grumbles. "Striking from the shadows is reserved for the weak."

"Ah, but you forget that he faced off against Sukuna in his prime and managed to walk away. He's anything but weak. Open, honourable duels just aren't his cup of tea." Glancing across the beach, he watches Mahito clamber into your lap, childlike interest bright on his face as he reaches up and touches the brooch pinned high on your lapel. You hide it with your hair most of the time, sweeping it forward over your shoulders. Kenjaku watches as you sit him across your knee and let him touch it, but you grasp it firmly so he can't steal it away. "Once Sukuna fully incarnates, don't mention such thoughts to him. He's very touchy when it comes to what's his, so if you know what's good for you, keep your mouth closed."

Jogo harrumphs. "Fine. Doesn't matter to me. Why'd you wake him up before Sukuna's incarnation, anyway? He hasn't done anything yet except make a fanboy out of Mahito."

"Oh, just think a little bit harder," Kenjaku cajoles. "We know Sukuna's vessel is trained by Gojo Satoru and they're both residing at the Tokyo jujutsu school, yes? If Sukuna's as possessive as I remember, knowing his fox has returned and is waiting for him will fuel his desire to incarnate as soon as possible. Right now, there are still a dozen fingers out there, so he isn't rushing to consume them. I want to change that."

His eye narrows. "You… want to send him to the school."

"Bingo," he replies cheerfully.

"That'll get him killed."

"Oh, please. Stop underestimating him. He's very good at his certain brand of violence. Besides..." he hums as he settles back in the chair, crossing his ankles and closing his eyes with a serene smile. "Don't you think it would be funny?"

—

Yuji trudges blearily towards the open training fields of the campus, rubbing his eyes. His uniform is crinkled, and his socks are probably two different colours. He can't remember. He's always been unnaturally hardy, but over the last two weeks, Sukuna has been exceptionally loud and restless inside his head, and every lapse in attention was enough to let him manifest a mouth or eye with disturbing ease. Nights were even worse, and Yuji worriedly relayed to his teacher how Sukuna was able to take control of his entire body just because he crashed so hard it felt like blacking out. He'd jerked himself awake with his hand on the doorknob, but that wasn't a risk he was willing to take every night.

Satoru had lost much of his flippant attitude at his confession. His smile faded for a beat too long before it returned, and he simply asked Yuji to meet up with him the next day to 'train'. Train what, exactly, he wasn't sure, but honestly, he'd trust the man if he told him to walk off a cliff blindfolded.

"You're a weak, pathetic little gnat and always will be. You think your 'training' will amount to anything? Give in. Give up."

If Yuji smacks the side of his head with any more force, he'll give himself a concussion. "You're straightforward today," he mutters. "Usually you like to try to manipulate me more."

"What is there to manipulate when you've got the brains of a brick?" Sukuna drawls. His voice echoes in his skull like a pounding bassline with none of the fun involved.

"You're a real jerk, man."

He chuckles then, deep and sinister. "Every time you consume a part of me, you lose more of yourself. Can you imagine that, of not knowing where I begin and you end?"

Something red flashes into Yuji's peripherals. He blinks, pausing on the edge of the training field along the path, right next to the dense forest that circles the campus.

A small red fox halts in the middle of the path in front of him, thick fluffy tail swaying low behind it. It blinks slowly, its yellow eyes fixated on him. Its red-orange fur is glossy, and its soft white throat is as pale as snow.

"Hey, buddy," Yuji coos, voice pitching higher subconsciously. "Aw. You're just the fluffiest, aren'tcha?"

The fox stares at him, small paws tapping the ground. It turns and patters further along the path for a few steps, then pauses and looks over its shoulder expectantly with uncannily clever eyes.

"Whoa," he mumbles, brows knitting slightly. "Is it just me, or does that fox look like it wants me to follow it?"

The response is instantaneous. "Do it, brat."

"Well, now I don't want to," he says stubbornly, crossing his arms. "Can't you literally read my thoughts? I was going to do it to kill time, since Gojo-sensei isn't here yet, but you saying that really messed me up."

"What the hell do you think I gain out of following a damn animal?"

"I dunno. What if it's a cursed spirit or something? What if you're trying to get me killed – again?"

"It is not. I can assure you, it is not." He sounds almost impatient. "But say it was. Look at the size of the thing. Kick it and you'd exorcise it. Now go. It's leaving."

Yuji groans, reluctantly jogging after the quick little fox. He supposes Sukuna's right, though – he's on campus, and he saw Principal Yaga walking through the halls just a few minutes earlier, so he at least has someone to run to if anything goes sideways.

Besides... something within him burns with curiosity. Not a vestigial remnant of Sukuna, either. Something uniquely his own.

With a half-second pause and a glance back, the fox veers left into the trees. It vanishes amongst the shrub almost immediately. Yuji scrambles to track it. "Ah, damn it…! Doesn't everybody say not to follow foxes in forests? The second things look fishy, I'm getting outta here."

For the first time in weeks, Sukuna is dead silent. Yuji ducks under a low-hanging branch, glancing behind him to see the light of the path quickly dimming with every step. The fox seems to be leading him in a straight line, which will be great for sprinting his way back to safety if he even so much as hears a twig snap.

The fox's pace quickens, white-tipped tail held high like a flag. Yuji steps over a nest of thick, gnarled roots, almost trips on a spiky bush, and looks up. He freezes.

There, in a small patch of sun behind a large evergreen tree, is a pure white fox the size of a large dog. Several smaller red foxes surround it, jumping about or resting in the patch of sunlight. What seems like a mother and her kits play slightly further away to give the yipping, wrestling babies some room. The white fox watches them with particular care.

"Whoa... Cute," Yuji whispers, dazed. He lifts his hands to his mouth, his eyes glistening. "So cute…"

At his words, the large white fox turns its head in his direction. Its eyes are not just yellow – they seem to glow with an unnatural flash that lingers even after it passes through the light into the shadows. It rises to all fours and steps slowly, predatorily, towards him.

Stepping out from behind the tree, it reveals nine long, gleaming white tails, held up high and proud.

The fox that led Yuji here scampers towards it, lowering its head in what seems like deference. The white fox glances at it once, and the red one stands and trots off to join another curled up in the roots of a tree.

The white fox approaches slowly, strong and sinewy. It blinks with eyes almost human, the pupils dilating as it scans his figure. The nine – nine! – tails puff up and give a little quiver, before calming down into a slower – though faster than earlier – side-to-side sway.

It comes even closer, near enough to pet if he lifted his hand. His fingers twitch. Its fur looks impossibly soft and white, like a cloud in animal form. It churrs quietly as it lifts its head towards his outstretched palm.

Wait, outstretched?

He snaps out of it with a sharp gasp. He turns swiftly on his heel and takes a single step forward.

"Leaving so soon?"

He freezes with a strange tugging in his soul – was that his? – that commands him to turn. Eyes wide, expression fixed in place, he slowly inches back around. His breath catches in his throat as his gaze travels up, up, up.

Standing before him is a beautiful man, taller than anything he's ever seen – taller than Nanamin, taller than Gojo-sensei, taller than Panda. He wears long robes that flow like a silver river, gleaming so brightly he looks like a fallen star, and a soft wind plays with his sleeves and hair. His expression is almost kind.

Almost.

"Goodness. Even a thousand years later, you still manage to drag me into the filth of your messes," you say, your voice a soothing wash of silk over river-smoothed stone. A pair of red foxes curls around your ankles, leaping over your trailing robes.

Yuji takes a step back.

"Well?" you ask, tilting your head. "Nothing to say, husband?"

Yuji squeaks, lifting his hands defensively. "Huh? What? No, you must be mistaken, I-I'm not – um—"

His jaw clicks shut as you step closer, extending a hand. How can you be more beautiful up close? You gently take his chin between your thumb and forefinger, tilting his face up. "He even looks like you, Sukuna. I have not seen you so young in a long, long time."

A crushing pressure presses down on his lungs, not unlike Gojo-sensei's when he lifts his blindfold. He wants to move. Needs to move. He's going to die if he stays still for even a second longer.

You lean down slightly, molten-gold eyes trained on his. Against his own will, his eyes flick down to the ruby-studded brooch peeking out from beneath your hair. Something dark and foreign rumbles against his very soul – like the purr of a large cat.

"Brat." Sukuna's deep voice cuts through his incoherent thoughts. "Let me take over."

What? he thinks, halfway to panic because a really, really pretty man is holding his face and isn't breaking eye contact. No! I'm not doing that! No way!

"You think you can fight him and win?" He scoffs. "That's a special-grade curse you're looking at, you know – slips past your defences like moonlight, a cruelty so beautiful you would thank him if he danced on your corpse. He made rivers run red with human blood for days."

WHAT? he thinks, fully panicking.

Oh, god. Oh, dear god. He wonders if he can summon his trusty teacher if he screams his name loud enough.

"You should come with me, child," you whisper with a smile, those golden eyes glinting. You kneel, moving closer, and Yuji squeaks as you look up at him. The scent of sweet petrichor curls around him – cool, gentle, like a secret not meant to be shared. "I won't hurt you... not a hair on your head. Come."

Your offered hand looks so inviting…

"No!" he blurts out, jerking back. "He said you like human blood, a-and dancing on people's corpses! I don't trust you at all!"

"Do you think sweet animals would sleep around my feet if I were so savage? You'd trust the word of a demon over mine, pup?"

"I..." He hesitates. "F-For this, yeah! He sounded proud. He's never proud of anything, so he can't be lying."

Your lips part slightly before pressing together. Your eyes, once so gentle, narrow. "Sukuna... You're ruining things again with your big mouth. I travelled all this way just to be foiled by my own husband – typical."

You turn Yuji's face, staring at the scar-like line below his eye. "You speak to the child, yet you hide from me. Does it please you to pretend I'm not here? Coward."

Foreign indignance bubbles up inside him. Yuji swallows.

You wait. One second. Two.

Your expression darkens and you rise to your feet, not so much dropping Yuji's face as pushing him away. He steps back, touching his jaw where your fingers once were. Something lingers, painless but crackling like Pop Rocks against his skin.

"Fine," you murmur, like a dull wave against the shore, as you turn your back to him. Your voice is impassive, but the forest responds to your mood as physically as a bushfire. Trees shudder. Flowers shrink away. The foxes stop playing. "Stay silent. Stay spineless. Just don't come crawling to me after, begging for forgiveness."

You lift your head at the brief flaring of heavy, malicious, familiar cursed energy that soaks into the forest around you.

At once, with more urgency than ever before, black markings bloom across Yuji's skin. His features sharpen minutely, his nails lengthen and blacken, and he runs a hand through his hair and sweeps it up off his forehead. With a slow, silent exhale, he pushes his sleeves up to his elbows and shoves his hands into his pockets, tipping his chin up as he regards your figure with eyes that are finally his own.

Emotion burns like red-hot charcoal in his chest. Sharing a body with a teenager was annoying at best and humiliating at worst. Forced to watch through the brat's eyes as you touch him, hold him, even going so far as to kneel before him to make yourself smaller, he despised the way he felt his vessel's heartbeat quicken, how the kid's thoughts turned into jumbled mush the moment you gave him a playful nickname.

Maybe he should tear out the brat's eyes before he gives his body back. Maybe he should rip his heart out again just for the pleasure of crushing it in his fist, knowing that regenerating another meant that the new one would never have raced for you.

You turn. Your expression changes – softens, almost.

"Sukuna," you say quietly.

He says your name slowly. It's almost reverential, his four eyes trailing over your body. His crimson gaze is greedy, drinking you in. You have changed very little – you still wear the kimono he gifted you, tailored and as expensive as ten thousand mercenaries. The hem has frayed slightly, trailing over the ground, but every silver thread still carries the faint thrum of his original cursed energy – a mark, a claim, which you once wore with preening pride, teasing him for his quick jealousy. You have kept it steady, meticulously keeping him alive quite literally on your sleeve.

His lips part. "You're… awake."

"I am." Your eyes narrow. "Not by your hand."

He crosses his arms. Two, not four. "No."

"Why not?"

He pauses, assessing your mood. You stand perfectly still, now taller than him by a significant margin. He thought he'd hate it more than he does. Regardless, you have yet to grab him and sew him into a rock-weighted sack to toss in a lake, so he supposes it could always be worse.

"The brat is an anomaly," he replies, his lower set of eyes glancing down at his vessel's body with a sneer. His upper pair remain trained on you. "I was… suppressed."

"Suppressed," you repeat. You lift your chin and stare down at him. "I thought I married the King of Curses. The strongest."

He bristles slightly. "You did," he snaps, his voice deepening. "I am."

Silence falls. Your cursed energy ripples outward, and as the foxes begin to play again, as if he weren't even there, he knows he is free to speak. You have cloaked his presence, letting his energy merge with yours – as a creature of lies and illusions, nature's guardian god, your cursed energy feels more natural than most, as essential and unremarkable as rain and earth. You've given him a few minutes of secrecy.

"Hm." You step towards him, beckoning with an outstretched hand. He meets you in the middle, and you gently take his chin between your thumb and forefinger, tilting his face up. "You look young, Sukuna. I have not seen you like this in a long, long time."

"Do you prefer it?" he asks, his tone flat with boredom – but he never blinks, tracing your features, printing them into the backs of his eyelids. The weight of his gaze slips lower – to your lips and then to your robes, tantalisingly open from the chest to the navel. His tongue swipes over his lower lip. Your waist is cinched with a wide silk belt, pinned with several draping chains of pearls and jewels. Little charms of glossy jade hang from your sash.

"Don't be jealous." You tilt your head as you blink slowly down at him, curiously tracing his features with your hand. "You are so small now, beloved… It hurts my neck to look you in the eye."

He huffs, but says nothing. You let go of his face and turn to pick up one of the foxes darting around your ankles, which paws at your clothes like a fussy toddler wanting to be picked up. Sukuna almost steps forward to force himself back into your line of sight, to keep your attention solely on him. He satisfies himself by walking half a step behind you, his sleeve brushing yours as you take a seat on a fallen log, the bark blanketed in soft moss. The hems of your robes spill across the deep green grass like a pool of stars.

You place the little fox in your lap, and it curls up in the crook of your arm. Its yellow eyes follow Sukuna as he moves. Expectantly, you gesture to a boulder beside you and murmur, "Sit with me a while."

When he doesn't so much as twitch, your eyes narrow slightly.

"Sit."

He sits.

You lean back, satisfied. You spend a long, silent, suffocating moment watching him, unblinking, in the way cats watch birds.

The mother fox begins to pick her kits up and place them near your feet, one at a time – back and forth, until all six of them are roughhousing a few steps away. Sukuna doesn't try to hide his distaste when a pair of them roll too hard and land on top of your pooling hem. You, however, relax at the sight, a small smile tugging at your lips as the mother trots off to a quiet, shady tree nearby and promptly curls up and closes her eyes.

Children are all the same, regardless of species.

Atop the boulder, Sukuna sits with one knee up and his cheek in his palm. His shoulders are loosely sloped, his hands open and loose, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say he's bored of the company. But you do know better. One set of eyes is always, always, trained on you.

"So," he drawls. "I'm sitting. There. Now what?"

You eye him. "Someone's testy these days… Eager to get away, are you?"

"I—" He exhales sharply. "No. Just aware of time. The brat's supposed to be meeting with his mentor soon. I don't know how long I have you for."

"Ah. That would be the newest Gojo boy I've heard so much about, yes? The only one in recent years to have both the Six Eyes and Limitless?"

"Yeah. That one." He clenches a fist. Loosens it. "I want you to stay away from him."

"Hm." You stroke the fox's brow gently with your knuckle. It curls up more comfortably. "Do you believe I would lose?"

His lips thin into a line. "No. He will become far too interested in you."

"Of course you would think so. Sharing me with anyone else is, to you, worse than death." The fox shifts in your arms, and you can feel its breaths – the steady expansion of its ribs, the inner workings of the heart. Meat and bone. Even Sukuna, next to you, is the same – now in a stolen body, yes, but he was still flesh and blood when he had four arms and four eyes. You, on the other hand, won't leave a corpse to feed the earth.

Inhaling sharply, you turn to Sukuna, suppressing the emotion that still rakes its claws across your heart when you remember he lied to you. I will be there when you wake, he'd murmured when his temples were frosty with time. He'd pushed a folded piece of paper into your hand, containing a short poem in his elegant script. Your sleep may leave you weakened. Until you regain your strength, I will keep you safe.

How humiliating it had been to stumble in front of Kenjaku, of all people. You had once been a force of nature, the only thing the merciless King of Curses ever took counsel with – the only thing strong enough to bend in his wake without breaking. None of that mattered when you were forced to walk with a hand against the wall to keep your balance.

"How do you know the Six Eyes will take an interest in me?" you ask, voice deceptively even. "Even if he were, what does it matter? I am yours, not his."

His fingers twitch at your last sentence. It almost makes you smile; even after all this time, he remains a possessive little creature.

"Sometimes I can see through the brat's eyes," he replies, dragging a hand through his hair. "Gojo Satoru has already taken an interest in you. Over the decades, cursed spirits by your tomb began to concentrate, but their numbers were recently lowered to near zero. The sorcerers suspect one of my fingers was consumed by a curse which razed everything else. They're investigating my history with the area."

"It is always you who causes trouble for me. No one else. Only you." You sigh. "Does the boy know you watch?"

He shakes his head. "The file was open when the boy glanced at it. He didn't even read the title."

"I see," you say. Then, quieter: "Is he aware of us right now?"

"No."

The pause that follows is thick with anticipation. Sukuna watches as you brush your hair over your shoulder, his body turning towards you ever so slightly as if to make himself look larger, to show himself off. Look at me, his posture demands. Look at me and no one else.

You look away.

"I see now that you cannot leave," you say, watching the kits at your feet pounce playfully at each other. "This… displeases me."

"Yeah, well, imagine how I feel."

You're supposed to be angry with him – for lying, for leaving, for a dozen little things you scrounge up in ancient memories just to be petty. But you almost smile, a familiar warmth blooming in your chest that passes as your kind of love.

He opens his mouth. You stiffen and hold up a hand, all humour vanishing from your expression.

"Wait," you murmur, eyes darting around. "Something has changed."

A beat after you, Sukuna feels it, too: a loud, careless rush of cursed energy, emanating from an infinitely-condensed point near the main gates of the campus. A radar, of sorts.

It crackles over him harmlessly, moving on without notice. You place the fox in your arms aside as you rise to your feet, turning to him with a complicated expression.

"Someone has come looking. I can't keep you hidden while revealing your vessel. This is... This is where we must part ways." Your gaze flits over him as you step closer. He tilts his head up to meet your eyes. "I can't say meeting you here made me happy. But... I missed your presence," you admit quietly, "and this assuages that, somewhat. Even if you are still as much of a bastard as you used to be."

He folds his arms tighter over his chest.

You continue, "Worry not. I will wait. After all, what is a few years to a millennium? However… you must promise me something in return for my patience."

He eyes you warily. "What is it?"

Leaning down, you grasp his chin. You glance over your shoulder in the direction of the overwhelming energy, pausing, then kneel in the grass and trace the marks along his cheek. A small smile graces your features, as soft and familiar as the night.

"Come for me the moment you are free. Depending on my mood, I may even offer you a dance," you tease. "You always liked that, didn't you?"

"Of course, I'm not a savage," he drawls, though his voice lacks its usual disdainful bite. He shifts his weight. "Fine. Deal."

"Good. Very good." You draw him closer, your fingertips brushing the soft underside of his chin. All four of his eyes flicker down to your lips. "My good boy…"

You press your lips to the corner of his mouth, as light as satin. For Sukuna, however, it is a grave insult – he grabs your collar and yanks you closer, turning his head so that his lips meet yours instead of his cheek.

He feels your lips curve up against his. They part, and you whisper his name against his skin.

—

"Beloved."

A silky voice, a soft touch. Somewhere in the distance, birds call to each other in the verdant canopies. Your fingers trail over his broad chest, and you prop your chin on his shoulder. You wrap your arms around him, pressed warm and solid against his back. He shifts – not to push you off, but to examine your expression.

You are smiling. Not that beautiful, terrifying show of teeth and tongue, but a small, playful one, reserved for him alone.

"What is it?" he mutters, ink brush hovering over the paper. "Weren't you teaching Uraume to use a bow?"

"I was," you agree, head bobbing. Silver glitters in your hair, woven through it like the river of heaven through the sky – treasured gifts from a man who cares little for personal adornment, but whose gaze always lingers a little longer, a little hungrier, when you drape yourself in his spoils.

"And?" he prompts, turning back to his half-finished poem. Your fingers slip beneath the edge of his dark grey haori, tracing the edge of the cloth. "Finish your sentences, fox."

"Patience. I was getting there. I sent Uraume out to run some errands – when you ask me to craft you weapons, you really don't understand how much you're asking of me. My list was... substantial." Those golden eyes of yours dilate slightly as you tilt your head, staring at the side of his face. You bring your lips to his neck, kissing the skin just below his jaw. "I tire of the heat of the forge. I missed you."

His skin flushes with heat as your touch grows heavier, less fleeting. You press on his shoulder, turning him towards you, and you smile, fanged, as your eyes drift to the grinning mouth splitting his stomach. You lower your hand, pressing your thumb to the sharp points of its teeth, and it laps lightly at your fingers like an eager little pet, saliva thick and viscous.

"You've missed me, too, I see," you hum, playing with its tongue. "Put down the brush." You lean in, licking the shell of his ear. His stomach-mouth kisses your palm, licking your hand into it. "It has been some time since I've touched you, my lord. I will fix that right away."

"You are interrupting my private time, fox," he grumbles, though he doesn't push you away. "Don't try to twist your desires as if it's my fault. You are insatiable."

"You're the one who wanted me all to yourself," you huff, the shimmer of your silken pearly robes pooling around you as you pluck the brush right out of his hand. You wear so much fabric – sometimes he wonders how you can stand to lug it all around. Translucent white ribbons loop around your arms and across your back, shimmering with silver threads. "Do you also blame your stomach for rumbling when you starve?"

Giving up on his poem, he turns to you fully. "What do you want, then? To eat me?"

"Oh, can I?" You lean forward with a half-lidded glance, leaning into his touch when he raises one hand to drape over your shoulders. "I would love that."

"Only if you remove your clothes."

You tilt your head, pointed canines digging into the softness of your lips as you bite back a smile. "So eager. Who's the one with the 'desires' now, hm?"

He scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous, fox. It keeps the cloth clean. You will whine to me later if there are bloodstains."

"I would not."

All four eyes gaze blankly at you. You click your tongue and remove your hand from his stomach, much to its obvious displeasure – its lips twist, corners tugging down.

"Fine. No eating, then. Best to save room for dinner, anyway." You lean in, lips brushing his with a teasing smile. He busies two of his arms with straightening the inkwell and his half-full page of hemp paper – the third props himself up, and the last is wrapped possessively around your shoulders. "Perhaps you can sate another hunger of mine, beloved? I'll accept it as an apology for denying me a proper meal."

"Apology—?" he snarls, head whipping towards you. He glares. "What am I apologising for, you insolent fox—"

He is sufficiently silenced by a kiss.

You are not rough in the traditional sense. Just... bitey. Your canines dig into his lower lip, breaking skin, and he grunts softly as your tongue glides over the slick, coppery blood, pushing it into his mouth. He can feel your smile as you lick his tongue.

You part with a quiet smack, twisting in his hold to settle between his sturdy thighs. You press your forehead against his, stealing fleeting kisses between groans that seem to leave him more breathless than not.

"I know my lord is a generous and compassionate man," you murmur, your chest brushing his. "Sate my hunger. Offer me salvation."

Bare skin to bare skin, he can feel the strength taut in your muscles, the easy steadiness of your body. Despite your preference for twice as much fabric as necessary and all things shiny and luxurious, you are, at heart, just as much a fighter as he. Foxes are still predators, regardless of their glossy coats.

"Am I?" Sukuna nearly growls. His hand around your shoulders lifts to the nape of your neck, closing around delicate bone and muscle. He pulls you closer with a jerk, fingers digging into the soft spot beneath the corner of your jaw. His eyes roam your features, his blood tinting your grinning lips rosy. "Maddening pest. Think you can tell me what to do? You belong to me."

"Naturally," you reply with that same smile. "You always give in, anyway. Rather embarrassing, isn't it? A big, strong man like yourself, bending over backwards to please this little fox... or bending forwards, really. You're obsessed with me."

Nothing about you is little. You're the only thing he's ever met able to look him in the eye.

Sometimes he thinks you hover a few inches off the ground when you stand next to him, just so he has to tilt his head up to meet your playful gaze. But it isn't like he has any real proof; your robes obscure your feet, and you are constantly moving, fluttering about his shoulders in those ridiculous clothes, so it's difficult to get an accurate reading. It isn't as if you'd ever tell him, either.

"Come, now," you purr, fingers dipping into his stomach mouth again. It immediately licks your fingers inward, pulling them closer. "Ah... At least some part of you wants me. I'd almost resigned myself to using my own hand to get off."

His grip tightens around your neck. His eyes flash. "You will not. Your pleasure belongs to me."

"Yes, yes, as always. But you weren't giving me many options, my lord." You pout, stroking the tongue lapping contentedly at your hand. "Why can't you be more like this one? It's always happy to see me. You just call me names."

"That is also part of me, fox." Two of his eyes flicker down to it, watching the way you caress even his most monstrous parts with the same affection you offer the rest of him. Something unsettling curls around his heart. "Its sentiments are my own."

Your smile brightens. "Oh, I knew you loved me, Sukuna! Even if you'd rather pull out your own teeth than admit it."

He rolls his eyes and grabs you with two arms, another pulling at your sash and loosening it. You wear nothing beneath – typical of you, greedy creature – and your cock bobs as he releases it from its confines. He hums, low and rumbly in his chest.

Spitting in his hand, he grabs it and begins to stroke you, all four eyes trained on the pleased expression on your face. You thrust into his palm, one of your hands lifting to cup his thick chest and squeezing. Your saliva-slick thumb rolls over his tawny nipple, pinching and tugging, and you swallow his groan, tilting your head to deepen the kiss.

You nibble at his neck, sucking bruises into his tanned skin. He twists his wrist, his hand heavy with the weight of you. The size is nothing to scoff at. When he glances up, you're already looking at him, smirking knowingly. He scoffs and rolls his eyes, pumping you faster, tugging roughly at the sensitive skin. Your smile falls as you whine pitifully, hips jolting forward. Your thick tip leaks.

"Sukunaaa," you gripe, "not so rough..."

"Shut up." His grip tightens as you groan directly into his ear, hot breaths fanning his neck. His skin prickles, a warm shiver threatening his perfect poise as you moan his name in a lazy drawl. His breathing grows heavy. "You... wanted this."

"So cruel." Suddenly, you press against him, closing the distance between your torso and his. You gaze through half-lidded eyes as you rut against the heat of his body, your tip brushing the lips of his grinning stomach. It opens wide, waiting.

He glares at you. Gently, you lean in, threading your fingers through his hair. You mouth at his jawline, tracing a path up, and you smile at the way his lips part naturally. You kiss him, feather-light.

Finally, mutely, he lets go of your cock, and you are free to move. He rests back on two hands, his thighs like iron around you as you press your hips forward into the mouth of his stomach. It closes immediately around you, more eager than you are, and its wide tongue laps at your length as you lazily fuck into it.

Sukuna's breath hitches violently. He tips his head back slightly but his eyes never leave yours, his expression as impenetrable as stone.

You shift, throwing your legs over his to straddle him. His eyes widen slightly as you push your cock deeper into the furnace-like heat of him, his muscles tensing under your touch. Your balls smack his stomach-mouth's lower lip as you grip his shoulder, your robes slipping around your broad shoulders. Thick muscle ripples beneath your skin as you lower your forehead to press against his.

"Good boy," you husk, fingers tightening in his hair. He couldn't pull away if he wanted to. "That feels good, doesn't it?"

Two of his hands shoot up to grip your waist as you stuff your cock deep inside him, reaching the spongy back of his second mouth. His lips part, eyes fluttering against his will, and you chuckle as he fumbles with your clothes, pulling them away from your thighs so they don't get in the way. He's careful to keep his sharp teeth away, and his lips keep a tight suction around your thick cock. His palm ghosts over your chest and stomach, almost reverential. His eyes are dark as they take in the sight of your length vanishing into him.

You croon as you yank his hair, forcing him to look at you rather than your dick. "Answer me, my lord. Does this feel good? Is it my cock that makes your cheeks flush so?"

His teeth bare in a snarl as you cup his hot face, but it's all posturing. He swallows his insults, knowing you are just as petty and would happily force him to sit there and watch as you stroked yourself to completion.

"Yes," he mutters.

You cock your head. "What was that? I couldn't quite hear you."

Your dick slams into him. He lets out a low growl. "Yes!" he snarls, his bruising strength on your hips making your skin dip. His long nails dig into your skin. "Fuck!"

His arm threatens to buckle under his weight. His second mouth isn't meant for this sort of thing – it sucks and slobbers on your cock messily, less coordinated than the one on his face. Or maybe it's just as coordinated but it feels too good – making him lose his mind, turning him into a greedy, cock-obsessed whore. It salivates, strings of drool connecting your cock to his lips, as he buries his head in your shoulder. Soft, heavy grunts escape him with every rough thrust, deep oval rolls of your hips making his stomach tense up.

"Good answer," you whisper, amused. He shudders almost imperceptibly as you grab his chin and tilt his head up to meet your loving gaze. "Don't hide, Sukuna. I want to watch you while I use you."

He bares sharp teeth, face twisted in a grimace. "Whatever. Just finish quickly. I have other things to do."

"Like what?" You withdraw slightly, wrapping a hand around your length and stroking lazily. His fingers dig into your skin, slipped beneath your many layers and preventing you from backing up any farther. You smile as you lower your forehead to his, your hair a curtain of privacy around you – that smile is sickeningly fond. You murmur, "I don't think you're busy at all. I think you just want me to fight for your attention – as you do for mine."

You're either very trusting or very stupid when you push your cock back into the mouth of his stomach. He considers it for a split second. The idea is simple – bite down and you'll stop goading him. But then he thinks about your easily-given affection, and he thinks about difficult bloodstains in your white sleeves, and he discards the idea entirely.

Two of his hands travel up your sides – cupping your ribs, callused fingertips bumping up your spine. He watches silently, enraptured, as your body moves with more urgency. All that beauty collides with a physical superiority that he cannot ignore. Your hand in his hair stops him from looking away – you're barely trying, too busy chasing pleasure like the gluttonous thing you are, but he really does have to work to even tilt his head down.

Not that he'd want to look away, anyway. Perhaps it was a shame you were a curse, invisible to most humans – you could solve ten wars by supper with a face like that.

Or maybe it was better this way. More of you is his alone.

His muscles flex under his skin as you press deeper with a rumbled groan, your seed spilling across the mouth's slick tongue. It devours you, tongue swirling around your length, mouth hot and sloppy and oh-so starved. You close your eyes and sink into the furnace-warmth of his embrace, threateningly close to burning – close, but never there.

"How does it feel?" you murmur breathlessly, ever-curious about his physiology. Most of the time he dismisses your questions with a grunt, but sometimes, when he's softer, he'll divulge an answer or two. Now, as he stares unblinkingly up at you with lidded crimson eyes, you figure he's the latter.

Sukuna's lips part as he closes his arms around you, pulling you closer against him. He rests his head against your shoulder, the slope of his nose pressed against the side of your neck, and releases a heavy exhale that's more like a groan. His grip tightens on you as your tip rubs the soft back of his mouth with a particularly desirous thrust.

"Deep," he rumbles, tone brusque. He licks his lips, pressing them against the skin of your collarbone. "Very deep."

"Good?" you ask, tilting your head to allow him better access. Wordlessly, his teeth sink into your flesh to satiate his instinct to gnaw and gnash, but not enough to break skin. White clothes, still worn.

"Yes." His sharp nails leave marks in your skin. "Acceptable."

You laugh and kiss him hard. You cup his cheek – the side with the bony growths, the monstrous eyes – and pull him deeper into the kiss, stroking the thick dark line across his bicep and eventually the daintier ones along his jaw. You kiss him with both hands on his cheeks like some delicate thing you aren't, and his skin prickles as if licked by fire.

Lazily, the mouth of his stomach laps up your come, its lips and tongue glazed in a thick white gloss. It dribbles down his lower stomach, soaking into the waist of his dark hakama. You drag your fingers through the sticky mess, coating them in it, and press two fingers into his mouth – the one on his face.

He takes them without complaint, a low rumble escaping him, and he curls his tongue neatly to lick up every drop. You press against his teeth, his tongue, stroking the delicate back of his throat, but your beloved is second to none and he doesn't so much as twitch, let alone gag. You pull them away with a slick pop and you chuckle affectionately as he stares up at you, his chest rising and falling shallowly.

He licks his lips, shining with saliva. "My turn."

He tosses you to the floor – you go down easily, a smile on your face as you gaze up at him, haloed by your own hair. He throws a leg over your middle and leans down to kiss you. He grabs your neck instead of cupping your cheek, but for him, they're one and the same.

Two of his hands tear off his trousers. Properly, too – none of that awkward shimmying, nor the time-wasting stepping-out of trouser legs. Sukuna, as he does a lot of things, does it brutishly: two handfuls of cloth yanked in opposite directions. The fabric comes apart as easily as paper.

You tut, though you can't help appreciating every inch of skin revealed to you. Your hands roam down his waist to his massive thighs, grabbing and squeezing wolfishly as you go. "You will run out of clothes at this rate."

He cocks his head. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"

"Of course. Easier access."

He huffs, not quite a chuckle, as you grab his heavy cock and smear your own slick come against his skin. You stroke him languidly, being polite – for once – by not mentioning how wet he already is when all you've done is use him. "You are a dog."

"Fox," you correct, watching hungrily as he tugs off his haori and tosses it aside. "As you are fond of reminding me."

"In spirit," he concedes, not quite agreeing. He places his hands near your head, and despite his barbaric nature, he is careful not to pin down your hair. He reaches down between his thighs and lines up your cock with his entrance, though you are quick to grab his wrist.

"No oil?" you ask, lifting a brow.

Impatiently, one of his hands brushes you off. "Do not tell me what to do."

Without another word – without fanfare, without flourish – he sinks hilt-deep onto your cock.

Your eyes slide shut as you smack your head against the floor, the sheer heat of him threatening to melt you. Your hands slide higher, brushing his lower set of pectoral muscles. Lost in the bliss of his body, it takes you a moment to register his own hand lifting to grab yours. He holds your palm against his chest as he begins to move, the solid weight of his body dropping again and again onto your lap.

He would not be Sukuna if he were not gluttonous. So, he holds you, rides you, and leans down to kiss you, all at once – and you do nothing to encourage moderation. You entwine your fingers with his, caress his waist, and nip at his lower lip to provoke him into giving you more.

More. It was always more with you. More, more, more…

The suffocating heat of his body is nothing new. You have taken him a thousand times, but you'll never grow tired of it. He is addictive, and you should be pleased you are the only thing his blood has ever run hot for. No concubine has made him feel the way you do.

He grinds onto your cock, the heavy muscle of his thighs clenching around your hips. You throb inside him, sticky precome slicking up his insides and easing his movements. You lick your lips as you grab his thigh, fingers bruising his skin as you grip him and roll his ass deeper onto your cock. You even use the shallow lift of his hips to make the next thrust harder, rougher, deeper.

His heavy cock jolts, slapping your stomach wetly. You grin with sharp teeth as you wrap your hand around it once more, pumping his length from root to tip in time with every roll of his hips. He hisses as a thick bead of liquid dribbles down his glans. His tip is dark red, and you press your thumb into the slit of it, smearing his slick down his pulsing length.

You stroke him faster, making him grunt. He chases your hand, his own tightening into fists near your head. His sharp nails dig into his palms, drawing blood.

What a silly little dear he is. Four hands and not one of them feels as good as yours around his cock.

He pants and growls as he bounces in your lap, muscles flexing as he slams harder onto your fat cock. The wet sounds of your cock squelching in his ass, of his skin meeting yours, are obscene and violent – perfect for a man like him. Hot pleasure shudders up his spine as your cock kisses that spot inside him which makes his dick pulse hotly, a spurt of partially-clear liquid shooting across your knuckles. You smirk as you swipe it up and smear it down his length. Your thumb rolls over his slit and drags down the prominent vein on the underside roughly, as if you're trying to smooth it flat.

He drops his hips, putting his full weight on your cock. He rocks back and forth. You drag your lower lip between your teeth as you toss your head back, and your groan of pleasure sinks into his brain like your claws into flesh. His dick twitches, his balls tightening as he watches your heaving chest and gazes into your dilated pupils.

"You ride cock like a seasoned whore, my lord," you whisper, chuckling as he clenches around you in annoyance. "Nowhere else can I find someone who takes it as easily as you do."

He clicks his tongue, squeezing punishingly around you. You grunt as his tight, gummy walls stroke your slick cock. "Of course I am the only one. You are twice the size of a man. Your cock would break them."

You smile up at him, your eyes half-lidded. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

His eyes flash. His lips curl into a sneer as he leans down to wrap his hand around your throat, nails digging into your skin.

"You have me," he growls, grip tightening. "Speak nothing of others."

He would pulverise bone had you been weaker, but as it stands, all it does is pin you down, the warmth of his palm against your skin making your cheeks heat up. You bite back a smile. You adore it when he glares at you. There's a red flush to his cheeks that he steadfastly ignores.

You squeeze his ass, hand roaming back over his thigh. Playfully, you pinch the thick black line circling his leg. "Is my lord jealous?"

He bares his teeth with a low growl that sounds more animal than man. Your cock throbs. His glare deepens.

You smirk, smug as always, and go as far as to slap his ass, which makes him jolt in shock as the sound cracks like a whip in the room. His glare returns, this time with a roll of all four of his eyes, and he presses you punishingly into the tatami mats. His hole, hot and slick, swallows your cock with ease.

"Fox," he hisses.

"My lord," you reply with a smile. "You're close, aren't you? I can feel your pace slipping."

"Do not test my patience. I will leave you here with nothing."

The threat is an empty one – you know he desires this as much as you. The mouth of his stomach drools, thick and wet, as your cock punches so deep he swears he can feel it at the back of his throat. You both know he would never leave you unattended when he could watch himself be your undoing.

Despite it, Sukuna looks pleased with himself when you offer a begrudging silence. His stomach mouth grins widely as your dick pulses with newfound hunger. Your eyes slide shut as your cock carves a path through the slick heat of his insides, again and again, until his body learns your shape. Your tip leaks, thick and sticky, and he lets out a harsh exhale, his own cockhead dripping with every pump of your hand.

He chases the slick ring of your fist, his low grunts mixing with your unabashed groans as he rides you closer and closer to your shared climaxes.

He barely blinks as he watches your high peak – he has to swallow roughly before he salivates like some barbarian. Your come bursts creamy and thick inside him, hot as lava, and heat rushes up from his chest to his head as he admires the way you groan his name and thrust up sloppily into him. All that natural grace of yours is tainted with the pleasure you take in his body – you are unwound, undone, by a savage like him.

Then you flip him over, throwing him to the floor as if he weighs nothing. He lands with a huff, opening his mouth to complain, but his words die in his mouth as you begin to drill into him, burying your head in his neck and breathing him deep. Every slick clap of skin on skin has your seed leaking out of his stretched hole, white and creamy, and it smears his ass and thighs with each brutal thrust of your hips.

He lets out a sound like a cornered animal. "Fox," he snarls, nails tearing at the floor as your cock demands every lick of his attention. He struggles to keep his voice even. "You – hah – you damned insatiable fox—"

"Insatiable?" you purr. "You haven't come yet. I'm being a good husband and making sure you do."

His hole slurps you up like some vulgar pussy. The filthy volume of come inside him makes every pump of your hips sound like you're in a brothel. Your claws sink into the meat of his ass as you fold him up – crimson blood beads along his skin, and he twitches as your teeth part skin and muscle to mark up the side of his throat. You pull back with a breathless groan that settles deep into his ear, listening to the slick churning of your scarlet tongue as you lick his blood from your teeth and lips.

You dive in again but he tangles his hand in a fistful of your hair, halting you half an inch from his scalding skin. You growl, eyes gleaming, with teeth stained red.

He jolts as your cock slams into his abused prostate, barely able to subdue his shout into a low moan.

"White," he mutters, jaw clamping to silence himself. "No chewing."

Your lips press together in a pout but you settle for lapping at the bite mark, your hips pumping hungrily against his ass. You suppose he's right – taking a chunk out of him always makes you surprised at the amount of blood that spurts out, no matter how many times you do it. But he just bleeds so beautifully – you can hardly control yourself.

Your head is foggy with lust. You press yourself into him, burying your face in the other side of his neck so you aren't tempted to take a quick bite. You leave a trail of open-mouthed kisses up his jaw, lips brushing the black markings that decorate his honeyed skin.

"Sukuna," you breathe, two of your fingers pushing into the mouth of his stomach. You can still feel the creaminess of your own release on its lips. You stroke its tongue and a low, magnificently beastly sound escapes him as his head tips back. The bite mark on his neck bleeds more profusely, pulsing in time with his quickened heartbeat.

"Don't—" He groans as you push one thigh higher, pinning it to your shoulder. It is heavy, with muscle like steel. "Slow—"

"What was that?" You drag your inhumanly long tongue against his calf with a wicked grin, leaning forward. He grits his teeth at the vulnerability of the position. "'Slow down', did you say? Can't my king handle a little roughhousing?"

His cock twitches visibly at the title. You laugh at him, your pace never slacking, and you press a kiss to his calf on your shoulder.

"You're holding back," you say, amused. You angle your hips, thrusting up to kiss that sweet spot inside him, and you delight in the way his back arches for half a second before he corrects himself and glares at you. "My lord, it'll be easier on you if you come. I'll stop trying so hard."

"Shut it."

He hates the way you use his hard-won titles like pet names. Such little respect. If you were anyone else, you'd be cleaved into tiny cubes before you could finish laughing, but then he would have no dancer and his days in your forest would be silent and boring.

You press your finger to his leaking slit. He clenches his jaw. Stubborn. Still, his swollen cock jolts as you grind into him, adjusting yourself above him to fuck him harder, deeper – one way or another, you'll get it out of him.

Suddenly, your pace quickens, and the sound echoes off the walls. The weight behind every thrust jostles his body and he curses you like a war cry, two of his hands grabbing you as the other two hold him up. You lick your lips at the sight of his flushed skin and the sweat beginning to collect at his temple and across his collarbones.

You can't help it. You swoop down and drag your tongue over his chest, and the tang of his sweat mixing with blood makes your head spin with desire. He groans, deep and throaty. Your hips clap against his ass hard enough to make him shout out, and as your teeth sink into the unmarred side of his neck and bite all the way down, he comes with a humiliated, thunderous roar.

You moan desperately into his skin as you follow him over the edge, his clenching insides achingly hot and tight. You fill him up with lazy thrusts, and he twists his hand in your hair so hard you feel lightheaded. He yanks you off his bleeding neck with a growl – you hang from his fist with a drunken grin and ruby-stained teeth, your jaw working slowly. Blood drips down your chin.

He can feel the cold sting of the air against his exposed meat and veins, a neat little scoop taken out of his shoulder. It annoys him that his cock throbs at the feeling, and his chest heaves as he pushes your grinning face away. His face is hot.

"You… Tch. I told you not to chew," he grumbles, healing it with a roll of his massive shoulder. He goes to wipe off the blood dripping down his chest but you beat him to it, cleaning him up with your tongue. You use the moment to mouth at his nipple, tongue laving across it, and pop off before he can smack you away.

You chuckle as your tongue slides over your front teeth, your voice rich and husky. You wipe your chin, smearing it. "But you liked it, Sukuna. It pulled such pretty sounds out of you."

"I—" He clicks his tongue, breath catching slightly as you pull your cock out of him with a slick, sticky pop. His thighs twitch as you grab his messy length and coat your fingers in his release, pumping him twice before lifting your hand and admiring the white glaze sticking between your fingers. He watches silently as you push two fingers into your mouth with a pleased groan, then lap up the rest when it drips down your wrist.

"Finish your sentences, my lord," you tease, tossing his own words back into his face. He rolls his eyes as you pause to suck your ring finger clean. "Maybe I should bite you more often. You taste like bliss. Come, now – tell me how much you enjoyed that."

Chest still heaving, Sukuna sits up straighter, widening his legs to fit you comfortably between his thighs. You kneel there – lazy, satisfied, practically glowing. Your robes pool around you like scattered starlight as you wait for his answer.

"You are impertinent, troublesome, and spoilt," he sighs, voice a low rumble. "But fine. Yes, I enjoyed it. No, you will not do it again. Today."

You wilt like an abandoned flower. "Why?"

He rolls his eyes and pulls you into his arms, heavy and possessive. He reaches up and swipes his thumb over a trickle of blood from the corner of your mouth, and you press your lips to the pad of his finger, licking it up. "There is blood on your clothes."

You glance down to where he points at your sleeve. Your eyes widen and Sukuna braces himself. On cue, you grab his arm and begin to complain directly into his ear, nails digging into his freshly-healed shoulder.

"Sukuna – what is wrong with your body? Why does it bleed so much? My sleeve was nowhere near your neck! Look at what you've done – do you know how hard it is to ensure the cloth washes white and not pink? You ask so much of me – entertain you, keep this estate hidden, smith you a dozen weapons from myths and fables – which is ridiculous, I say, do you know how difficult it is to create cursed tools? – and all I ask in return is to not bleed on me, yet here you are, bleeding on me, like some—"

You are cut off with his lips on yours. You stiffen slightly in surprise, then melt into it, leaning in and tilting your head. He groans softly as your tongue curls with his, your hand lifting to twist in his hair. You smooth it off his forehead, tracing his hairline with a light touch, and he pulls you closer with three hands. The last one cups your hand on his face.

He pulls away to breathe. You sit back on your heels, pupils swallowing up the gold of your irises. You blink slowly as you steal another kiss, lips smacking halfway to indecency again. He leans back before you can drown yourself in him and try to push him back to the floor – a very unseemly place to do such things, in his opinion.

He lifts a brow. "Calm, yet?" he asks, absently pulling the collar of your robes over your shoulder.

"Enough," you acquiesce, watching him move over to grab his discarded haori near his table. He shrugs it on, his lower pair of arms not letting go of your body. You smirk. So jealous, even when nothing threatens to take you away.

"That is better than nothing."

"Mm." You crawl closer and walk your fingers up his arm. "Write me a poem, beloved."

His eyes snap up. He bares his teeth in a sneer that does nothing to dissuade you. His grip tightens on your hip. "What?"

"A poem," you say with infinite patience. "Whichever type you prefer. I know you enjoy praising me through poetry – my face, my sorcery, how I 'revel in the fires of your chaos'! Oh, yes, I've read a few of those volumes you've made, pushed to the back of your drawers." You smile, a dark edge to it, as you meet his glare unflinchingly. "This time, I want no secrecy – I want to observe your artistic process. Perhaps I will forgive you for staining my clothes if it is sufficiently flattering."

"Why are you rummaging through my quarters?" he scoffs. "Those poems are not for you."

"So you say. You refer to me in everything but name. If you truly wanted to keep them secret, you would've burnt them." You shift to sit beside him, leaning forward to pull the paper and inkwell towards the edge of the table. "Go on. Write."

He rolls his eyes. He adjusts to sit sprawled, lazy, one arm resting upon his knee and two around you. It brings a smile to your face. He was always terribly voracious for your attention, like a feral animal you feed once and cannot escape. No matter how he feels, no matter the company, he would always bend to your whim.

You grab his thigh, pawing at the meat of him like a kneading cat, and you almost laugh aloud when he pointedly tosses the hem of his haori over his cock. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck, sliding your palm up to the crease of his thigh, and cast your gaze down to the paper, the poem from earlier half-complete.

"'Kitsunebi'?" you muse, tilting your head. "Foxfire. Not for me, you said?"

He exhales sharply, shooting you a warning glance. In response, you pluck the brush from its resting place and smile sweetly as you grab his hand and push it into his palm.

How ridiculous it is that he must hide his belongings in his own home. The logical thing to do would be to rid himself of you and your curiosity. Instead, he simply lowers his gaze and rolls the brush tip in the black ink.

—

When Sukuna opens his eyes from the kiss, you have already begun to pull away, to step back – and he is reminded of his physical limitations once more.

"Greedy," you chuckle, swiping your thumb over your lower lip. "Go now – let the boy have his body back. Perhaps I will see you again. Follow my foxes; they will lead you to me."

Something compels him to speak. "And you?" he murmurs lowly. "I refuse to waste my time searching for a dead spirit."

Will you be safe? The question is unsaid but clear as day. You hum.

"If I can hide from you, I can hide from anyone. Rest assured, no one but you will ever spill my blood." You step behind him, pushing him towards the school campus. "And… Sukuna?"

"What?"

"I really did miss you."

He turns, but in your place is a nine-tailed white fox, silent and watchful. Your ears flick. After a lingering second, you rise from your haunches, curling around him and batting his side with your tails, before slipping away and leaping into the treeline to vanish completely into the forest's shadows.

His skin prickles with the fading remnants of your cursed energy. He clicks his tongue, jaw clenching. Your cloak will not last much longer, and he can sense the brat waking up. He presses his fingers to his lips, savouring the memory of your sharp, sweet warmth.

He closes his eyes, already feeling his control over his incumbent vessel lapsing. He spends his last moments of autonomy replaying the moment his lips touched yours, a moment a thousand years in the making.

Moonlit silk, ribbons of stars, a smile sharp enough to cleave bone. The world fades to soundless oblivion.

────✴︎─

you kiss the blonde man, tender. “i’ll ask you again, are you sure about this?”

he smiles against your lips. “yeah. piece of cake.”

how the hell you ended up getting him on the bed with his wrists cuffed together to the headboard, you wouldn’t know.

a light mention of your nasty curiosity during a conversation was all it took, and then leon was interrupting you mid-sentence, asking questions, dropping hints for you to elaborate. and here he was now, boxers helplessly lowered to his ankles.

“alright. if you need me to stop, you know the word.”

“mhm.”

when you begin to slowly run your hand up and down his cock, he doesn’t sweat it.

the first time, he’s panting quietly, and the only warning you get from him is a word muttered under his breath; “close.”

your touch turns fluttery—light in a matter of seconds after his confirmation. not enough at all. he bites his lip, silent still.

it went on like that for a few more times. you had to admit, he was going strong.

the fourth time and beyond—that’s when you start to tease him a little more. running your free hand over his abs, or rubbing at his tip and smearing the precum there.

now, you can visibly see when he’s going to finish.

his hips will chase your fist almost imperceptibly but not quite. he’ll throw his head back with a low groan, and purse his lips together to muffle himself.

although, the part where he gives up on trying to stay quiet is by far your favorite.

it’s been about an hour—and possibly a half? leon can’t tell—and you still keep him on his toes, teetering on the edge of orgasm.

“damn it,” he huffs after the seventh time, sweat running down his brow.

you wish he could’ve felt the exhilaration you get from watching him squirm. your gut twists every time he nearly whines or moans or lets out an equally humiliating sound before he manages to catch himself—it’s bliss. you don’t know why it feels so good to see his thighs twitch with need.

“you’re doing so well, baby,” you croon.

it’s so unlike him, and maybe that’s what’s so deliciously enticing—the stoic, badass facade broken down into a mess. it sounds impossible, but you’re hopelessly in love with the idea.

the idea that is becoming reality now, right in front of you.

as you praise him, your hand speeds up and pumps his cock with fervent enthusiasm. he lets out an audible breath, then—

“hnn, fuck, m’bout to cum…”

his voice cracks; rises into an almost-whimper. god, it’s like he’s teasing you back, isn’t it?

“don’t be shy, let me hear you.” faster. harder. a squeeze on the upwards stroke that makes precum leak out every time.

“shit—! shitshitshit, please, god, so close—“

he downright sobs when you stop abruptly, hand stationary on the base of his dick. “that’s what i like to hear,” you say sweetly, and right before he can adjust, you start to pump his dick again—picking up at the speed where you left off.

“please,” he squeaks, a pathetic sound, somewhere from the back of his throat.

you see him—feel him—on the verge of release. he’s one breeze away from falling off the goddamn cliff with how close he is to the edge. “hold it.”

“can’t,” he sputters. his hands jerk against the restraints and yank and yank and yank—

“if you break those handcuffs, i swear to god, leon…” the quick rhythm of stimulation you were giving him breaks as you stroke him slower;

and then he lets out a hiccup.

“shit— sorry, fuck, keep going—“

“babe, are you crying?”

he sniffs. “i’m fine.”

you look closer at his face, and yeah, the inner corners of his eyes are shiny and wet (just like the head of his dick, you can’t help but compare).

you try to bite back a smile but to no avail. to be frank, you’re so aroused at the moment you feel woozy. “i can go on, yeah?”

“don’t look so happy that i cried,” he scoffs, playful if you ignore how hard he’s panting. “you’re too into this.”

“i can’t help it. you look incredibly hot.”

“so now you’ve finally noticed. what, are your eyes closed every oth-… ohhh, fuck—“

you start stroking him once more—just to hear him break mid-sentence, if you’re being honest—and push on his stomach with your free hand.