#kenhito

GOJO X GETO

Geto is an ass man, surprisingly(Gojo who is flat) and Gojo is a tits man! Of course if you don’t have tits he’s still playing with your chest on god. Geto is the same, flat ass or not he’s still grabbing and holding. Geto is more slow, he’s honestly dominating you AND Gojo. Gojo is dominating you tho. There are so many positions y’all take but stacked with Geto on top, Gojo in middle and you on the bottom is a favorite. Another favorite is a classic spit roast, but with Gojo in the middle?!?! Yeah cause he’s a little greedy when it comes to attention, let him eat/suck you, and Geto fucks him! Switch even!

KENJAKU X MAHITO

Mahito has mounted you like an animal, Kenjaku is pulling your hair, sat back, and making you suck him off. They’re treating you like a toy for pleasure and don’t really acknowledge each other, they’re both VERY focused on you and their greed for their own pleasure. There is bondage, blindfolds, Kenjaku is degrading you and calling you a curse’s breeding bench and that maybe you want the other disaster curses to have their way with you. Mahito is twitching and humping, he’s cum at least three times, he’s biting your nape and licking, murmuring drunkenly off pleasure “my mate” or something like that.

YUJI X MEGUMI

Double penetration. Yuji has picked you up from behind like a wrestler, and is fucking up into you and Megumi is in front holding Yuji’s hips to keep rhythm as he fucks into you as well. Yuji is so eager and praising you, telling you how good you feel, how good you look, how he wants you to cum so badly. Megumi is degrading you on the other hand, saying you’re so slutty to let them both fuck into your hole like this and stretch you so much. Yuji occasionally scolds Megumi, “h-hey! They’re being so good for us! Be nice, they earned it!” And sometimes Megumi is mean to Yuji, “You’re being so rough, Trying to make this slut addicted to your pain huh?”

YUTA X RIKA

The Beginning

It did not wake suddenly.

It was not a birth, but a thickening. A sudden, violent coagulation of the air above the mass grave. The rain was cold, turning the soil into a slurry of clay and decomposition, but the thing forming in the dark was colder. It felt itself being pulled together from the invisible runoff of the village nearby. It was made of whispers spoken behind closed doors and the side-eyed glances of neighbors.

Thousands of screaming voices slammed into one another, fusing together until they were forced into the claustrophobic confinement of a single skull.

I hate him I hate her I hate them I hate it I hate–

The voices liquefied, silencing into a singular, vibrating consciousness.

It fell wetly onto the pile of discard. It was naked and shivering against the rot, its skin as pale as maggots. It tried to push itself up, its hands sinking deep into the chest cavity of a half-buried corpse, but its limbs were liquid, unready. Its skin rippled like oil on water.

It gasped, sucking in air that smelled of iron, and immediately retched.

Black, tar-like fluid spilled from its lips, splashing over its trembling knees. The bile burned, but it tasted distinct and complex. There were notes of the sourness of a broken promise and the copper tang of a knife in the back. It heaved again, trying to purge the history of the humans that had made it, but the flavor had woven its way into its very soul.

It clawed at its own face. The flesh there was soft, molding like wet clay under its fingers. One moment it had the sharp jaw of a cruel landlord, and the next, the soft, weeping eyes of a discarded mistress. It could not decide what it was. It only knew that the noise inside was deafening.

Stop it stop it stop it.

The pressure behind its eyes was intolerable. It needed to break something. It needed to turn the world outside into the same broken slush that churned inside. If it could just kill the things that made the noise, if it could just reach out and twist the shape of the world, perhaps the screaming would finally stop.

It dragged itself through the mud, a patchwork of sewn-together malice, hunting for something, anything, to unmake.

–

It found something breathing near the edge of a pit, a scavenger pulling gold teeth from the dead. It was curious. It reached out a fluctuating hand, fingers lengthening like warm wax, and brushed the man’s shoulder.

It almost expected a struggle. It wanted the noise of the soul to get louder before it silenced it. But the moment its palm made contact, the scavenger simply… popped. The human twisted in on himself, ribs spiraling into a wet, fleshy knot, head imploding with a wet crunch. There was no resistance.

It stared at the meat-pretzel on the ground, disappointed. Humans were fragile, it quickly learned. They broke before they could even be played with. There was no texture to them, no resilience. Just brittle bags of fear waiting to leak.

It looked up, bored, wiping the blood from its chin.

That was when it saw him.

Standing on the ridge of the burial mound, silhouetted against the greyscale sky, was a figure. He stood under a paper umbrella. His robes were immaculate, the hem hovering mere millimeters above the filth without taking a single stain. He was a spot of cleanliness in a world of mud.

And he was watching.

The soul inside that man wasn't like the scavenger’s. It was less of a flicker and more like a furnace. It was dense and ancient, layered with so many swirling currents that it couldn’t help but salivate.

I want to touch it, it thought. I want to see what shape it makes when it screams.

It scrambled up the slope on all fours, limbs snapping and reforming for speed, mud spraying in its wake. It launched itself into the air, jaw unhinged, its right hand expanding into a serrated fan of claws and fingers, aiming straight for the center of that beautiful, complex soul.

The man didn't move. He didn't even shift his umbrella.

Just as its fingers grazed the fabric of his kimono, the man’s hand shot out and caught its wrist.

It gasped. The contact seared. The man’s cursed energy wasn't wild like a storm. It was heavy and surprisingly dense, channeled into a concentrated point that burned against its unrefined skin.

It hung there, suspended by the wrist, feet dangling uselessly above the mud. For the first time since it condensed, the screaming in its head stopped, silenced by the sheer weight of the being in front of it. It looked up into the man’s eyes, utterly devoid of fear.

A new sensation flooded its fresh, colder than rain and hotter than blood. It was small and weak. It could be unmade just as easily as it had unmade the scavenger.

It trembled, paralyzed by the revelation that this man held its fate in his hands, not unlike a god.

The grip on its wrist loosened, but the man did not let go. Instead, the crushing pressure of his cursed energy receded, replaced by a hum that traveled up its arm and settled in its chest.

Then, the man did something inexplicable. He curled the corners of his mouth upward.

It stared. It had seen grimaces on the corpses and the bared teeth of the dying. But this was something else, something soft.

"Poor thing," the man crooned. His voice was like silk dragging over stone, smooth and dangerous. "You must be confused. You think you are a monster because you were born in the dark."

It trembled, the bile in its throat cooling. It was a monster. It was a collection of screams sewn into a suit of skin.

"You aren't a mistake," the man pushed, as if he could hear the thoughts in its mind. He pulled it closer, until the scent of incense drowned out the stench of the grave. "You are the inevitable result of them." He gestured loosely with his free hand toward the village lights in the distance. "They lie and cheat. They hate their neighbors. They hate themselves. And you?"

The man’s eyes crinkled with delight. "You are proof. You are the truth they try so hard to bury."

It blinked, the mismatched eyes on its shifting face widening. The man fully released its wrist and raised a hand to its face. It flinched, expecting a blow, expecting to be unmade.

But the man merely brushed his thumb across its cheek, wiping away a smear of grave mud. Where his skin made contact, the erratic shape of its soul suddenly went still, as if the man was pouring his own order into its chaos.

"You are much too jagged," the man whispered, his thumb tracing the line where a jawbone was trying to form. "You are trembling with so much potential, spilling out everywhere. You must contain it."

He cupped its face with both hands now, his palms warm, his grip possessing. "Stabilize your soul. Don't let the world dictate your shape. That is for you to decide."

It gasped, the air rushing into lungs that finally stopped dissolving. It focused on the elegance and symmetry of the man’s face. It wanted to be like that. It wanted to be worthy of those hands.

"Pick a face," the man commanded, his voice dropping to a whisper. "And make it beautiful."

It closed its eyes. It reached into the slush of its own soul, grabbing the loose threads of malice and fear. It pulled and stitched, smoothing out the edges. It mimicked the calmness of the being before it. It felt the bones in its cheeks snap and reset, the cartilage of its nose straightening, the skin knitting together into a smooth, pale porcelain.

When it opened its eyes again, the world was sharper. The noise in its head had quieted to a dull thrum.

It looked at the man. The man was looking back, not at a beast, but at a creation.

It realized then that the humans in the mud were nothing. They were clay. But this man was a sculptor. He was not a human, and he was not a curse. He was truly a god of this world.

A thrill shivered through its new, stable spine. It didn't want to kill him anymore. It just wanted to be held by him.

The man stepped back then, but he did not leave it to the cold. Instead, he extended an open palm, an invitation into a world that was dry and warm.

"Come," the man said in a voice that promised secrets. "I have a home hidden away from prying eyes." He glanced down at the broken remains of the scavenger it had killed earlier, a flicker of amusement crossing his face. "You have talent, little one. But tearing things apart is child's play. Destruction is easy."

The man’s eyes locked onto its own, dark and endless. "Come with me, and I will teach you how to use those hands for art. We will not just break the soul, we will reshape it."

It stared at the offered hand, dangling over the abyss of its own loneliness. If it stayed here, it would dissolve back into the screaming mud. But if it took that hand, it would have a chance to be solid.

And so it reached out, its fingers, now pale and slender, mimicking the man's elegance, closing around his palm. The grip was firm, and for the first time, its shivering stopped completely.

I will use my hands for art, it thought, tightening its grip on the man’s palm, surrendering completely to the touch. I will be yours.

It offered a tentative, jagged imitation of the man’s smile. It had found its purpose. It existed to make this god look at it forever.

Kamo Noritoshi

The rain battered the shoji screens, a relentless rhythm that should have terrified her. It reminded her of the mud, of the screaming voices that had birthed her. But here, inside the Kamo estate, the storm was nothing more than a backdrop to the silence of the study.

She sat on a plush silk cushion, the fabric cool against her thighs. 

The jagged edges of her soul had settled into something softer, something curved and yielding. She had shifted her hips, smoothed the line of her jaw, and softened the texture of her skin until it felt like a fine rice flour. She felt more like a she tonight, not an it.

"Hold still," Noritoshi murmured, his voice humming against the back of her neck.

He was kneeling behind her, running a comb made of tortoiseshell through her hair. The strands were long, silver filaments that pooled around her waist like liquid metal. He worked with a patience that made her shiver, a deliberate grooming that felt more like worship. Every stroke of the bristles against her scalp felt like he was rearranging her thoughts, combing out the tangles of her erratic nature until everything was straight and orderly and his.

She leaned back, resting her weight entirely against his chest. A sense of belonging washed over her. Curses, for that was surely what she was, did not belong in houses. They belonged in the dark, in the rot, hunting the things that feared them. But here, enclosed in the circle of his arms, she felt precious. She felt like something that was meant to be kept behind glass.

"Your hair is finer than the silk you sit upon," he whispered, setting the comb down on the tatami. His hands didn't leave her. They slid over her shoulders, down the slope of her arms, his thumbs tracing the delicate, blue veins on her wrists. "Humans are such clumsy craftsmen. They are born with shapes they cannot change. But you, my dear, are infinite."

She turned in his grip until she was facing him, looking up at him with an adoration that bordered on religious fervor. His face was severe in the candlelight, the scar across his forehead a stark reminder of his true being. But his eyes, usually so calculating, were instead warm pools of intent.

He cupped her face, his thumb grazing her bottom lip. "You are the most beautiful thing this era has produced."

She leaned into his palm, closing her eyes, drinking in the warmth of his skin. It was intoxicating. To be a curse was to be hated, but to be his curse was to be loved.

He leaned down, and the space between them vanished. The kiss was slow and tasted of green tea, a flavor that made her soul sing. This wasn't the devouring hunger she felt when she looked at other humans, the urge to twist and break. It almost felt as if he was breathing for her, his pulse steady against her own frantic heart.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of the rain and the soft friction of silk on silk.

She pulled back just a pinch, breathless, her eyes fluttering open. The intensity in the room was suffocating, heavy with a gravity she didn't quite understand. She needed to break it, just so that she could breathe. She felt the coarse brush of hair against her sensitive upper lip and blinked.

A bubble of laughter escaped her throat, bright and childish, cutting through the heavy atmosphere.

"Heh," she giggled, wrinkling her nose and poking his lip playfully. "Your mustache tickles!"

Noritoshi did not laugh with her. Instead, the amusement in his eyes deepened into something darker, a look that pinned her to the tatami more effectively than any cursed technique ever could. He caught her hand, the one she had used to touch his lip, and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm.

"You find the human form amusing," he said softy. "But you are right to mock it. These bodies are cages, their lives nothing but a frantic sprint toward the grave. Even their love is pathetic, a desperate attempt to stave off their own loneliness before they inevitably rot."

He guided her hand down, past her throat, past her breast, resting it flat against her stomach. Her skin there was smooth and pale, unbroken by a navel. She didn't need one for she had never been born.

"They marry to bind themselves together," Noritoshi whispered, his voice taking on the cadence of a sermon. "And then, in their most primitive act, they rely on passion to create a legacy. It is all so... accidental and clumsy."

She watched him, mesmerized. His disdain for humanity mirrored her own, but where hers was a tantrum, his was a philosophy. It made her feel superior just by listening to it.

"I do not want an accident, Mahito," he said, leaning in until his forehead rested against hers. "I want a masterpiece, a union that transcends the biological limits of this era. I want to create something that only a Sorcerer and a Curse could dream into existence."

Her breath hitched. "A union?"

"A legacy," he corrected. "Children."

The word hung in the air, heavy and sweet. The concept of children was alien to her. Curses did not breed, after all. They were static in their monstrosity. But Noritoshi was looking at her as if she held the secrets of the universe in her shapeshifting flesh.

"I have the necessary components all gathered," he murmured, his hand pressing firmer against her abdomen, his long fingers splaying out as if claiming the territory. "Ordinary women are too fragile. They break under the weight of my ambition. They cannot be the bridge between the worlds."

His eyes burned into hers, intense and pleading. "But you have infinite potential. You can shape your soul into a cradle and become the womb that this world is too afraid to offer me."

A shiver of electric delight cascaded down her spine. He didn't want a human woman. He wanted her. He wanted to mix his essence with hers. It was an intimacy far deeper than anything she’d ever known. He was asking to be knitted into her very being.

"A perfect mix," he whispered, his thumb stroking the skin where a womb could be, if she willed it. "My seed and your infinite potential. Imagine it, Mahito. Proof of our bond, walking the earth long after the humans are dust."

She felt tears prick her eyes, manufactured just for this moment. She felt chosen and holy.

"I can do it," she gasped, her voice trembling. "I can make space for them. I can make myself whatever you need."

"I know," Noritoshi smiled. "That is why I love you."

He kissed her again, and in the heat of it, she began to shift. Internally, her organs rearranged, dissolving and reforming, hollowing out a cursed sanctuary deep inside her body. She would build him a nest of flesh and carry out his ambition.

It sat low in her abdomen, a pulsing void waiting to be filled.

She lay back on the futon, her limbs trembling from the exertion of the shift. Noritoshi moved over her with the possessive weight of a lover. He parted her knees, settling between them, and the sensation of his body against hers was grounding.

"You are perfect," he whispered, his hands sliding under her hips to tilt her upwards.

When he entered her, it felt like a collision of cursed energies.

She gasped, her fingers digging into his shoulders. The searing heat of his essence invading hers burned. The seed he carried felt like molten lead being poured directly into her core. It hissed against her insides, a corrosive, acidic fire that threatened to dissolve the delicate nest she had built.

A cry of shock tore from her throat. She arched her back, her instincts screaming at her to push him away and heal over the wound.

"Noritoshi, it–" she whimpered, tears pricking her eyes. "It hurts."

He didn't stop or pull back. Instead, he leaned down, his arms creating a curtain around them, shutting out the rest of the world. He pressed his lips tenderly to her forehead, right between her eyes, soothing the frantic energy there.

"Shh," he breathed against her skin. "I know. I know."

He moved with a slow, grinding rhythm, forcing himself deeper into her, filling her womb until it felt distended and hot.

"The pain is the proof of our union," he murmured, kissing her temple, then her wet eyelashes. "It is my soul knitting with yours. If it didn't burn, it wouldn't be real."

She sobbed, but under the ministrations of his lips, the agony began to change. The searing pain in her belly grew in intensity. It was just the sheer magnitude of his love for her, too great for a single vessel to contain without suffering.

He burns because he’s so strong, she thought, her mind hazing over with a delirious, feverish adoration. He’s only hurting me because he’s giving me everything he has.

"That’s it," Noritoshi praised, feeling her muscles relax, feeling her accept the invasion. "Take it. Keep it safe for me."

She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer. She stopped fighting the pain and began to crave it, letting the acid eat away at her insides.

"More," she whispered into his neck, her voice one of worship. "Give me all of it."

–

The novelty of being an incubator wore off sometime around the second or third month.

She was bored. Being a mother, it turned out, was mostly just sitting around being a glorified bag for someone else's shopping. She felt heavy. The thing growing inside her, the one Noritoshi had already started to call Choso, was greedy. It siphoned off her cursed energy, making her feel sluggish. She couldn't even shapeshift the majority of her body properly without risking the integrity of the womb, so she was stuck in this one form, bloated and static.

"Nori-chan," she whined, draping herself dramatically over the writing desk where he was scribbling away. She poked his cheek with a finger she had turned into a tentacle, just to be extra annoying. "I'm so bored. Can we go outside? I wanna see a human pop. Just one. Please?"

Noritoshi didn't look up. He didn't smile at the nickname, nor did he catch her hand and kiss it like he used to.

Instead, he stood up, walked around the desk, and placed his hand directly on her swollen abdomen. He ignored her completely. He just palpated the mass of the curse-womb, his eyes narrowed in thought.

"Movement is minimal," he muttered to himself. "Good. It’s holding as expected."

Mahito pouted, retracting the tentacle. It stung, being looked through like a pane of glass. But then she looked at his intense focus, the way his brow furrowed as he checked the pulse of the thing inside her.

He’s just worried, she told herself, forcing a bright, chaotic grin onto her face. He’s such a fussy dad. He’s so obsessed with our creation that he can’t focus on anything else. It’s sweet, really.

"You worry too much!" she chirped, slapping his shoulder playfully. "It's cooking just fine in there!"

"It is time," Noritoshi said abruptly.

He didn't offer his arm. He simply turned and walked toward the heavy iron door that led to the basement laboratory.

"Oh? Finally!" She scrambled up, waddling slightly, a manic giggle escaping her. "Are we really doing it? Is it birthday time? I hope he comes out with teeth. I made sure to give him lots of teeth."

The basement was different from the study, colder and much more clinical. In the center of the room, under the harsh glare of lamps, was a metal table. It held no silk cushions, but instead had gutters along the sides for drainage.

"Up," Noritoshi commanded, pointing to the steel slab.

Mahito hopped up, her bare heels drumming against the metal. "Cold!" she complained, shivering theatrically. "You really need to decorate down here, Nori. Maybe some wallpaper? Skin wallpaper?"

Noritoshi didn't answer. He grabbed her wrist roughly and pulled it to the side of the table. 

Click.

She blinked. A thick leather strap now bound her wrist to the rail.

Click. Click.

Her other hand, and then her ankles.

She tugged at them, the leather creaking. A sudden spike of confusion pierced through her.

"Ooh," she laughed, but it was high and brittle. She looked at him with wide, searching eyes. "Is this a game? You know I can just slip out of these, right? I can turn my wrists into sludge."

"Don't," Noritoshi said. He wasn't looking at her. He was arranging a row of silver instruments on a tray. "Maintain your form, Mahito. If you shift now, you might damage the specimen."

The specimen. Not the child. The specimen.

Her smile faltered. She watched him pick up a scalpel, the light catching on the sharp edge.

"Hey," she said, her voice losing its playful lilt. "Hey, Nori? You're gonna use a technique, right? You're gonna just... magic it out, or something?"

"No," he said, testing the blade against his thumb. "Surgical extraction is required for the best chance of preserving the placenta."

She swallowed hard. She was a curse. She reveled in pain. Other people's pain, that is. But the idea of being cut open while awake and tied down? That wasn't fun. That was boring, and maybe even a little scary.

"Okay, well," she stammered, straining against the straps. "Can you give me something? Or I can use Idle Transfiguration on my own nerves? Just turn them off or something? Because that looks like it's gonna sting, and I'm not really in the mood for–"

"No."

The word was soft, but it hit her like a hammer. Noritoshi stepped between her spread legs. He looked at her then, really looked at her, but his eyes were empty, devoid of the warmth she craved.

"To numb the pain is to reject the reality of our bond, Mahito," he said smoothly. He placed the tip of the scalpel against the pale skin of her lower belly. "We created this together through our shared will. This suffering is the physical manifestation of your commitment. Do you want to reject our child? Do you want to prove to me that you are just a monster who cannot understand sacrifice?"

Her breath hitched in her throat. Reject him? No, she couldn't do that. If she rejected the pain, she rejected everything she’d worked for. If she wasn't the mother enduring for her family, then she was just a thing strapped to a table being cut apart.

"No," she whispered, her chin trembling. She forced the smile back onto her face, though it was strained. "No, of course not! I love it! I bet it'll feel... exhilarating!"

"Good girl," Noritoshi said.

He didn't count down from ten. He simply pressed.

She didn't scream immediately. She just stared at the ceiling, her pupils blowing wide, as the first line of red appeared on her stomach, convincing herself that the agony tearing her apart was just another form of love.

The scalpel dragged through muscle and tissue. She bit her lip until it bled, trying to hold the smile, trying to be brave. But when the spreaders were inserted and cranked open, forcing her abdominal cavity apart with a sickening crack, she lost all composure.

A raw scream tore from her throat, bouncing off the cold stone walls.

Noritoshi stopped.

He didn't offer a hand to squeeze. He just sighed, a sharp exhale through his nose that signaled his irritation. He glanced at her face, his eyes narrowing.

"Shh," he hissed, sharp and percussive. "Control yourself, Mahito. You are shaking the whole table, and I must be precise here."

The scream died in her throat, choked off into a wet, gasping sob. She saw the disappointment clearly in the set of his jaw. She was being a nuisance. She was ruining his work.

She bit down on her tongue, tasting iron, tears streaming sideways into her ears as she forced her body to go still against the straps. Be quiet, she screamed internally. Don't make him hate you. Don't make him stop looking at you.

But he had already stopped looking at her.

With a final, wet squelch, the weight was lifted from her belly. The sudden emptiness was more nauseating than the fullness had ever been. The cold air of the basement rushed into the open wound, stinging her exposed insides.

"There," Noritoshi whispered.

The tone of his voice made her heart lurch. It was the voice he used to use for her, soft and reverent, dripping with affection.

She strained her neck, desperate to see. Was he proud? Did she do good?

Noritoshi was standing with his back to her, holding a glass jar up to the gaslight. Inside, suspended in nutrient fluid, was a small, curled blob. 

Choso.

Noritoshi was smiling, tender and awestruck. He ran a thumb over the glass, caressing the container as if it were the most precious artifact in history. He looked at that jar with a love so potent it filled the room.

"Beautiful," he murmured to the fetus. "Absolute perfection."

Mahito lay there, splayed open like a dissected frog, her blood dripping steadily into the metal gutters. She waited for him to turn around, to thank her or praise her. She waited for a kiss on the forehead.

But he didn't turn. He walked over to a shelf and carefully placed the jar next to a series of solvents, humming a mockery of a lullaby.

The silence stretched, broken only by the sound of her own ragged breathing and the dripping of her blood.

The realization didn't hit her all at once. It seeped in like the cold.

She looked at the empty space in her stomach and the straps binding her wrists. She looked at Noritoshi’s back and watched as he was completely indifferent to her pain and emptiness.

She wasn't a wife or a mother. She wasn't even a partner.

He had needed a womb that wouldn't die, he’d said so himself, so he had built one out of her desperation. He hadn't chosen her because she was special, he had chosen her because she was useful.

She dissolved then, her will to fight evaporating. Lying there, hollowed out and discarded, Mahito felt once again like an it.

It stared at the ceiling, the tears drying on its face, feeling the sutures of its heart rip open far wider than the cut in its belly. It was just a petri dish with a pulse. And petri dishes didn’t get kissed goodnight.

–

And it was fucked and tied down and cut open again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again until Noritoshi finally let it bleed out and die.

Unknown

Decades had not healed the gaping wound of having its creations stolen from it. They had only allowed the pain to scab over.

The Meiji era had burned itself out, replaced by the rapid industrialization of the Taisho period, and yet the man remained constant. He wore a new face now, some irrelevant sorcerer, but the soul underneath was the same. It was that dense, gravity-well of a soul that Mahito could not bear to stay away from, no matter how much the phantom pain of the scalpel lingered in its memory.

Mahito sat on the edge of the engawa, swinging its legs. It wasn't sure if it had truly forgiven him for what had happened with their nine children. But hatred was a hot, binding emotion, and in the lonely expanse of eternity, heat was preferable to the cold. It missed the attention. It missed the feeling of being the center of a god’s universe.

"You look restless," Kenjaku observed, pouring himself a cup of warm sake. The moonlight washed over the garden, turning the moss silver.

Mahito looked at him. It wanted to be touched. It wanted to be held without being cut open, and so it needed to be something harmless. Something that wouldn’t invite scientific curiosity, but perhaps simple affection instead.

If I’m small, it reasoned, maybe he’ll just hold me.

It focused its soul. It compressed the sprawling malice and humanoid limbs. Bones snapped and shortened, skin furring over. In a blink, the patchwork curse was gone. In its place, sitting on the wooden slats, was a snow-white rabbit with eyes the color of fresh blood.

It hopped up onto the low table, twitching its nose. It nudged Kenjaku’s hand, offering its long, velvet ears to be stroked.

Kenjaku paused, his sake cup halfway to his lips. A slow, delighted smile spread across his face. Not the clinical smile of the scientist Kamo, but the indulgent smile of a glutton.

"A rabbit," Kenjaku mused, his voice smooth as oil. "They say the white ones are messengers of the moon. Symbols of good fortune and abundance."

He reached out and Mahito leaned into the touch, letting out a soft purr that no natural rabbit could produce. It closed its eyes, basking in the warmth of his palm. If it was good and soft, maybe he would be content to just love it like it wanted.

But then Kenjaku’s hand moved.

Like a clamp, his fingers locked around the scruff of its neck, hauling it into the air. Its legs kicked helplessly against gravity, paws swiping at empty space. With his other hand, Kenjaku did not reach for a brush or a treat. He instead reached for the heavy iron cleaver resting on a nearby ornate cutting board.

He held the rabbit up to eye level, suspending it between his face and the blade. The metal caught the moonlight, flashing white in a way a scalpel had once upon a time.

For a long moment, he didn't move. He just let Mahito dangle there, a shivering bundle of fur.

Then, Kenjaku’s eyes squeezed shut, turning into two dark, inverted crescents. His lips peeled back slowly, gums exposing teeth that looked too white, too sharp. The expression stretched wider and wider until it became a toothy grin that split his face in half.

Mahito’s heart fluttered in its small ribcage. He’s smiling, the rabbit thought, ears twitching nervously. He’s happy to see me like this. Is this another game?

Kenjaku didn't speak. Still grinning blindly, he lowered his hand. He pressed Mahito firmly onto the cutting board, flattening its soft, warm belly against the cold grain of the wood. He smoothed the fur on its flank with his thumb, pinning it in place.

Thwack.

The sound was wet and heavy.

Mahito didn't register the pain immediately. It just saw its own hind leg lying on the cutting board, separated from its body, twitching with residual nerve impulses. Then, the agony hit, a white-hot shriek that tore through its nervous system. It let out a desperate squeal that pierced the quiet night.

Kenjaku didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He picked up the severed leg, holding it up to the moonlight to admire the marbling of the cursed flesh.

"Fascinating," he murmured. He brought the raw, bleeding limb to his lips and took a bite. The sound of him chewing was loud. It was wet and grinding. "The texture of the soul is so much richer when it’s fresh. It has a sweetness to it, Mahito. Like fear aged in honey."

The rabbit hung in his grip, bleeding out onto the lacquered table. The pain was blinding, but the words cut through the haze.

Kenjaku liked it. He was putting it inside him.

He isn't discarding me, the thought bloomed in its delirious mind. In the lab, he took the babies and threw me away. But this is different. He’s consuming me. He wants me to be part of him.

It was a twisted mimicry of intimacy, but it somehow felt far closer to a union than anything it had ever had with Noritoshi.

As Kenjaku swallowed, he looked down at it, specifically at the bloody stump where its leg had been. He looked expectant and hungry.

"Don't die on me yet," Kenjaku said softly, a hint of a challenge in his eyes. "The meal has barely started. Surely your devotion runs deeper than one leg?"

Desperate to please, desperate to prolong the moment where it was the sole focus of his hunger, it pulled at its own soul. It forced its cursed energy to surge and bone extended from the stump. The muscle knit together in a frenzy of red fibers, white fur rapidly covering the wound.

In seconds, the leg was back, pristine and trembling.

Kenjaku’s eyes lit up with genuine delight. "Wonderful," he praised, stroking its small head with his thumb. "Good girl."

Thwack.

The cleaver came down again, this time on the other leg. Mahito let out another high-pitched squeal.

"Oh, exquisite," Kenjaku hummed, picking up the second offering. He ate with gusto, blood staining his lips. "You really are endless, aren't you? An infinite feast. A god could starve to death, but not with you around."

It regenerated again. And again.

Thwack. Heal. Thwack. Heal.

The cycle became a blur of agony and euphoria. The table turned slick with red, the smell of copper overpowering the scent of the gardenias. It was stuck in a loop of butchery, offering up its flesh like a sacrament.

I’m nourishing you, it thought, hysterical tears leaking from its beady red eyes, mingling with the blood staining its fur. I’m inside you. We’re becoming one.

But by the twelfth cut, an ear this time, the euphoria began to curdle.

It looked at Kenjaku’s face through the haze of pain. He wasn't looking at it with love. He wasn't even looking at it with the possessiveness he had shown Kamo Noritoshi’s wife.

He was looking at it the way a man looks at a bowl of rice.

Kenjaku was absent-mindedly stripping whatever meat he could from its severed ear while gazing at the moon. He wasn't even savoring its soul anymore, he was just eating because his mouth wanted something to do.

The intimacy was a lie. This pain wasn't a bridge between their souls.

Thwack.

Its front paw lay on the board.

Kenjaku reached for it, grinning, his eyes already drifting back to the sake bottle, probably wondering if he should pour another cup.

Mahito looked at the stump on its arm. It felt the vast reserve of cursed energy waiting to rush in, waiting to fix the damage so the game could continue, so the love could continue.

No, it thought suddenly. The thought was quiet and dull. I don't wanna play this game anymore. I’m tired.

It didn't knit its flesh back together again. This time, it simply let go of its shape.

"Hm?" Kenjaku paused, the paw halfway to his mouth.

The white rabbit in his grip began to lose cohesion. It didn't melt into mud, it simply faded, becoming translucent, like mist burning off under the morning sun. The weight in Kenjaku’s hand vanished. The blood on the table evaporated into grey smoke, leaving no stain behind.

"What a shame," Kenjaku said, wiping his lips with a napkin, looking at the empty space where the creature had been. "I was still hungry.”

He poured himself another cup of sake and turned his face back to the moon, forgetting about the rabbit before the taste had even left his tongue.

Itadori Kaori

He had decided to be a boy this time. 

A young man, barely out of adolescence, with patchwork skin and eyes that didn't match. He liked the weight of it. It felt harder, sharper, better suited for breaking things.

It took him months to find the trail. The soul he craved had changed yet again, burying itself deep within the mundane hum of a suburban neighborhood. But he found it. He would always find it. It was the gravity that held his stitched-together body intact.

Mahito slipped through the wall of the Itadori house like oil seeping through paper.

The house smelled of normalcy. It was disgusting. It was like the kind of weak, fragile life he had learned to reject. He crept down the hallway, following the hum of that ancient soul, until he reached the living room.

There she was.

Kenjaku was wearing the skin of a woman this time. She sat in a rocking chair, bathed in the orange glow of the late afternoon sun, knitting something small and yellow. The scar across her forehead was the only familiarity on the stranger’s face.

But Mahito didn't look at her face. He looked only at her stomach.

It was distended, swollen tight against the fabric of her maternity dress.

Mahito felt a crack forming in his chest.

"You," he hissed, the word scratching his throat.

Kaori stopped knitting. She didn't jump or scream. She slowly raised her head, her eyes sharp and knowing behind her soft features.

"Mahito," she said calmly, as if he were a cat that had wandered in from the rain. "You took your time reforming."

He didn't answer. He walked toward her, his movements jerky, twitching with a sudden, overwhelming mania. He pointed a grey, scarred finger at her belly.

"What’s that?" he demanded, his voice pitching up into a whine. "What’s inside you?"

"A vessel," she answered simply.

"A vessel?" Mahito let out a high, fractured laugh. He grabbed his own hair, pulling until his scalp started to tear and bleed. "A vessel? You're doing it yourself? You?"

Memories of the Meiji era flooded his brain. The cold table, the straps, the scalpel, the feeling of his own soul being hollowed out to make room for Noritoshi’s experiments. He remembered the pain of being the incubator, of being discarded.

"Wasn't I good enough?" he screamed, kicking a side table over. The vase atop it shattered, but Kaori didn't flinch. "I carried nine of them! I tore myself open for you again and again! And you took them away and threw them in jars!"

He lunged, stopping a breath away from her face, his breathing ragged. "And now you're doing it yourself? You found a better womb? Is this one gonna work better? Is it gonna be perfect?"

He looked at the swell of her stomach with hatred. He could feel the life inside. It was quiet, disturbingly sturdy, nothing like the cursed wombs.

"It's unfair," Mahito whispered, tears of black bile leaking from his eyes. "You’re cheating. You just wanted to hurt me so you could learn how to do it right yourself."

He reached out then, his hand transfiguring. The fingers elongated, turning into sharp, needle-like points. He hovered his hand over the tight skin of her belly.

"It looks tight," he giggled then, the sound coming out wet and unstable. "Like a balloon. A big, fleshy balloon full of blood."

He pressed one needle-tip against the fabric of her dress, right over the center of the mass.

"If I pop it," he grinned, his teeth sharpening into rows of serrated daggers, "will you look at me again? Will you cry? If I scramble the soul inside, will you want to use me again instead?"

"Mahito," Kaori said, her voice a harsh warning.

"I'm gonna pop it!" he shrieked, raising his hand high, ready to plunge it down and twist the fetus into a shapeless abomination. "I'm gonna pop the balloon and make a mess, and then you'll have to look at me!"

He was trembling, vibrating with the potential energy of the destruction he was about to unleash.

But she didn't flinch. She didn't move to protect her stomach. Instead, Kaori raised a hand and gently cupped his cheek, the patchwork cheek he had stitched together from his own misery.

"My dear Mahito," she purred, the sound resonating in his chest. "You are confused."

He froze. The anger was still there, a white-hot coal, but her touch confused him. "Confused?" he spat. "You replaced me!"

"You misunderstand," she whispered, her thumb brushing away a streak of black bile from under his eye. "This thing inside me is not a child. It is a vessel for the King of Curses. It is a tool, just like the death paintings were tools."

She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper, the kind lovers shared in the dark.

"Kaori’s husband, Jin, was necessary for this," she murmured. Her eyes drifted toward the hallway door. "He possessed a rare lineage that I was able to use for my purposes. I needed his seed, you see."

Mahito blinked, his pupils dilating. "Husband?"

"Yes," she confirmed, looking at Mahito with a glittering indulgence. "But the vessel is secure now." She smiled, cruel and beautiful. "I have no more use for him."

Mahito felt the air shift. The jealousy that had been focused on the unseen fetus suddenly found a new target. The biological father. The one who had touched her, slept with her, filled her. The one who thought he was her husband.

"You don't need him?" Mahito asked, breathless.

"He is clutter," she sighed, picking up her knitting needles again. "Do what you will."

As if summoned by the devil himself, the door to the living room creaked open.

"Kaori?" A voice folate in, warm and human, dripping with concern. "I heard a crash. Is everything okay? Did you drop something?"

Mahito turned.

Standing in the doorway was a man with pink hair and glasses. He looked soft and oh so very breakable. He looked at the overturned table, then at his wife, and then, finally, at the patchwork nightmare standing amidst the wreckage.

Jin blinked. He didn't have time to scream.

"Husband," Mahito giggled.

He didn't use Idle Transfiguration. He didn't want to simply twist the man’s soul and pop him. That would be too quick. For the filthy human who had dared to touch his Kenjaku, he wanted something visceral. He wanted to feel the wet, viscous reality of the man coming apart beneath his hands.

Mahito lunged.

His arms didn't remain humanoid. They split at the elbows, bone and gristle elongating into four massive scythes of grey flesh. He crossed the room in a blur of motion.

The first swing took Jin’s arm off at the shoulder.

Bright red blood sprayed across the green wallpaper. Jin made a sound that was less of a scream and more of a wet gurgle, stumbling back.

"You touched her!" Mahito shrieked, swinging his other arm.

The blades raked across Jin’s chest, shredding his shirt down to his skin and through his ribcage. Mahito wasn't looking for art. He wanted to turn this man into paste.

Jin fell backward, crashing into the hallway wall, sliding down in a smear of crimson. Mahito was on him instantly, straddling the dying man. He abandoned the blades and turned his fingers into hooks, digging them into the soft meat of Jin’s torso.

"She doesn't need you!" Squelch. "She has me!" Snap. "I’m the only one she needs!" Tear.

He ripped and pulled, flinging meaty chunks of what used to be a person over his shoulder, painting everything it could reach. He turned the hallway into a slaughterhouse, laughing uncontrollably as the warm blood coated his face and hands like a comforting blanket.

Jin stopped moving. He stopped making sounds, now just a pile of wet meat.

Mahito sat there for a moment, panting, his chest heaving. The silence returned to the house, heavier now, smelling of copper and bowels. He looked at his hands, which were stained red. He was covered in the man’s life.

He felt so much lighter than he had before.

Slowly, he turned his head back toward the living room.

Kaori was still sitting in the rocking chair. She hadn't even stopped knitting. The rhythmic clicking of the needles was the only sound in the dead house.

She looked up at him, taking in the gore still dripping from his chin. Mahito made sure she would see the absolute devotion in his mismatched eyes this time.

She smiled.

"Better?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he breathed, the word bubbling up through a throat slick with mucus and excitement. "Much better."

He stood amidst the ruin of the hallway, his chest heaving.

Kaori didn't recoil at the sight of him or look at the pile of meat that used to be her husband. She simply set her knitting needles down on the side table and opened her arms.

It was an invitation.

Mahito stumbled. He moved with the desperate, clumsy urgency of a child waking from a nightmare, seeking the only safe place in the world. He crossed the threshold back into the living room, leaving wet, crimson footprints on the carpet.

He collapsed at her feet first, then dragged himself up. He was much too big for this, his current form was that of a young man, so he didn't care to maintain it. He folded his limbs, condensing his shape, making himself smaller, softer, more fluid. He crawled into her lap, heedless of the blood dripping from his body, of the mess he was making of her pastel maternity dress.

She took his weight without complaint. He buried his face in the crook of her neck.

"There, there," she murmured against his ear.

Her hands, cool and steady, moved into his hair, not minding the shreds of meat. She raked her fingers through the blood-matted strands, scratching his scalp with a soothing pressure. She began to rock the chair.

Kaori started to hum. It wasn't a song he knew. It was a slow, melancholic tune, something ancient that belonged to an era before cities. Mahito closed his eyes. The adrenaline crash hit him all at once, leaving him boneless and heavy. He felt safe. He felt forgiven. The man was gone. The clutter was cleared and it was just them again. Things were back to the way they were supposed to be.

He shifted, sliding his head down until his cheek rested against the taut curve of her stomach.

The fabric of her dress was damp where the blood had soaked through, mingling with the heat of her skin. He listened to the wet, rushing sound of the fluids inside her, the heartbeat of the thing she was building.

Thump.

A sudden impact struck his cheek.

Mahito’s eyes snapped open, but he didn't pull away. He stayed frozen, his face pressed against her belly.

Thump.

It happened again. A kick, strong and violent. The vessel inside, the cage for the King of Curses, was greeting him.

A slow, crooked smile spread across Mahito’s bloody face. It wasn't kicking him away. It was acknowledging him. It was a greeting from one monster to another.

"He’s awake," Mahito whispered, his voice muffled by her dress.

"He is strong," Kaori hummed, not stopping her song, her hand continuing to stroke Mahito’s sticky hair. "He knows his family is here."

Mahito closed his eyes again, pressing closer, letting the blood from his victim dry like a crust on his skin. He felt the kick against his cheek, the hand in his hair, and the gentle sway of the rocking chair.

And for the first time in his couple rounds of life, Mahito fell asleep without screaming.

Geto Suguru

Kenjaku’s robes were bunched up around his waist, pooling on the floor like a puddle of ink.

She straddled him, her hands planted firmly on his broad, muscular chest. Mahito was a she again, having molded her soul into something soft and insatiable. Her skin was a pale patchwork of scars and smooth porcelain, glistening with sweat in the dim light of the apartment.

"Hah... ah!"

She gasped, throwing her head back as she bounced down on him, taking his cock deep inside her.

This body was different. Kamo had been clinical and sharp, and Kaori had been soft and maternal. But this body was a weapon. It was dense with muscle, heavy with the lingering scent of the curses it had swallowed, and possessed a physical power that made her shiver.

She ground her hips, feeling the friction, feeling the way this body reacted to her. It was so responsive. It was so alive for a corpse.

"You like this one," she panted, looking down at him through a curtain of silver hair. "I can tell... you really like... driving this one."

Kenjaku looked up at her. His eyes were narrow, fox-like, filled with a darkened amusement. He gripped her hip with his one hand, his fingers digging into her flesh, bruising the malleable soul beneath.

"It has... excellent specs," he grunted, matching her rhythm, driving upward with a force that made her vision blur.

She let out a wet, breathless laugh. Mahito leaned forward, bracing her weight on his chest, bringing her face centimeters from his. Her eyes locked onto the everpresent stitches. The coarse black thread traversed his forehead, holding the top of his skull in place. It was the only part of him that was truly him.

She reached out, tracing the line of the scar with her thumb, feeling the ridge of the healed skin. It was her favorite part. It was the zipper on the suit.

"Tell me," she moaned, sinking her nails into his flesh as her pleasure spiked, turning electric and jagged. "Tell me his name again. I want to know… who’s inside me."

Kenjaku smiled. It was a charming, deceptive smile that didn't belong to the body's original owner. He reached up, grabbing a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back to expose her throat.

"Geto," he rasped in a voice deep and resonant, vibrating through her chest. "Geto Suguru."

She shuddered. Geto Suguru. A Special Grade curse user. A man who had hated monkeys. A man who was now just useful meat for her god to wear.

"Geto," she whispered, tasting the syllables, grinding down on him harder, faster, desperate to consume the ghost of the man he had stolen. "Geto... Geto..."

But the rhythm he had allowed her to set soon became boring.

"Enough," Kenjaku grunted.

He didn't wait for her to dismount. With a surge of strength, he gripped her waist and flipped her. The world spun and Mahito gasped as her back hit the futon, the air knocked out of her lungs. Before she could scramble for purchase, he flipped her again, shoving her face-first into the sheets.

He pinned her down with his hand on her back, his weight crushing her into the mattress. There was no tenderness now. His fingers were digging in hard enough to leave bruises that would fade only when she willed them to as he entered her from behind.

His cock slammed into her with a possessive thrust that made her cry out.

"Ah–! Geto!"

He didn't answer. He didn't lean down to whisper in her ear or kiss the nape of her neck. He simply used her. He drove into her with violence, reducing her to nothing but an object.

The sound of skin slapping skin was loud and wet. It echoed off the bare walls of the empty apartment, filling the silence where conversation would have been. 

Mahito buried her face in the pillow, drool pooling at the corner of her mouth, her eyes rolling back. She felt like she was being torn apart again, but this time, it was purely for his satisfaction.

And she loved it.

She felt his hand tightening on her back, treating her like she was nothing, like she was just a thing he could break and fix later. She was a warm hole for him to empty his borrowed body into.

Use me, she thought deliriously, her body jerking with every impact. Use me until I break. Until I forget my name. Just take what you need.

The violence of the sound, the wet slapping of his thighs against her ass, soon became the only rhythm that mattered.

–

The room was quiet again, save for the ragged sound of their breathing and the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchenette. Mahito lay sprawled on her stomach, limbs loose and liquefied, feeling like a puddle of warm wax. The sweat on her back was beginning to cool, sticking the sheets to her skin.

Kenjaku sat up, swinging his legs out over the floor. He rolled his neck, the heavy muscles of Geto’s shoulders cracking audibly, and looked down at the right side of his body.

"You still need to fix this," Kenjaku said, his tone shifting instantly to something more administrative. He tapped the cauterized stump of the right arm. "It’s inconvenient, needing to do everything with only one hand."

He sighed, looking at the stump with annoyance. "Geto left his body in such a sorry state. I had to do so much cleanup just to get his heart beating again."

Mahito rolled onto her back, her hair fanning out like a halo. She giggled, lazily tracing the line of a vein visible on his skin.

"But I like it," she teased, looking at him upside down. "It adds character."

She sat up, sliding closer to him, her eyes gleaming. She reached out, her fingers elongating, sharpening into serrated shears. She hovered the blades over his left arm.

"Actually..." she whispered, a wide grin splitting her face. "Wouldn't it be even better if they matched? Symmetry is beautiful, right? What if I just... rip the other one off?"

She snapped the shears near his skin.

"Then you’d be perfectly balanced," she laughed, her eyes wide and chaotic. "Like a doll. A little armless doll that I get to feed and take care of. Wouldn't that be cute, Geto?"

Kenjaku didn't flinch. He slowly turned his head to look at her, his expression completely flat. The amusement and warmth was gone.

"Touch the left arm," Kenjaku said softly. "And I will condense you into a ball the size of a marble. I will seal you inside a Special Grade cursed object, encase it in concrete, and drop you into the Mariana Trench."

He leaned in, his eyes boring into hers. "You can then spend the next thousand years discussing your impulses with the tubeworms in total darkness. Do you understand?"

Mahito froze. The shears instantly melted back into soft, human fingers. A shiver raced down her spine, not of fear, but of delight. She always loved it when he got mean like this.

"Okay, okay," she pouted, though her cheeks flushed. "You're no fun. So touchy about your upholstery."

She crawled into his lap, straddling his thigh to get closer to his face. She reached up, her fingers brushing aside his bangs to find the coarse black thread traversing his forehead.

"So grumpy," she whispered, digging a fingernail under one of the stitches, tugging it gently. The skin around the stitch puckered. It was fascinating, the boundary between the brain that plotted the end of the world and the body that would execute it.

"There's a gap," she whispered, her eyes losing focus, drifting into a haze. "Even when we're touching, there's a tiny bit of air. It’s annoying."

She didn't ask for permission. She simply let her soul bleed out through her fingertips.

The tips of her fingers, still resting on his forehead, lost their solidity. They melted, turning into a warm, viscous sludge that seeped into the pores of Geto’s skin. She didn't stop there. She leaned forward, pressing her own forehead against his, right over the stitches.

"Let's close the gap," she breathed against his lips.

She pushed her cursed energy into the contact point. Her skin dissolved. His skin, reinforced by her technique, softened just enough to accept the graft. The flesh bubbled with a wet, squelching sound.

Mahito moaned in ecstasy. She could feel it. Not just the texture of his skin, but the electrical impulses of his nerves connecting to hers. For a terrifying, beautiful second, she felt the thrum of his thoughts, the ancient weight of his consciousness pressing against her own frontal lobe.

She fused her hands to his shoulders. She fused her chest to his. She was melting into him, becoming a parasitic growth on his host body.

"We’re the same now," she giggled, the vibration of her laughter rattling through his skull because they shared the same bone structure now. "One body. One soul. You can't leave me in a trench if I'm you."

Kenjaku sat still. He allowed the invasion. He let her knit her cells into his, let her believe that she could bridge the infinite distance between a user and a tool.

Then, he sighed, a heavy exhale that vibrated through their joined chest.

"You really are just a child," he said. "You think proximity is the same as understanding."

"It is!" she insisted, trying to fuse deeper, trying to reach his brain.

"No," Kenjaku said. "It's suffocating."

He didn't activate a technique or attempt to absorb her. He simply stood up. He moved with an abrupt, unstoppable force and pulled his head back.

The ripping sound was nauseating, like heavy canvas tearing, or the sound of tape being stripped off wet paper.

"Ah–!"

Mahito screamed, but it was cut short as the connection severed.

Because Kenjaku’s body was the anchor, and hers was the mutable fluid, she was the one who gave way. He tore his forehead free from hers and ripped his shoulders out of her grip, now towering over her on the futon.

Mahito fell back, her hands hovering to her face.

The skin of her forehead, nose, and upper cheeks was gone. It remained stuck to Kenjaku’s face, a ragged, dripping mask of pale flesh hanging from his scar.

On the futon, Mahito was little more than a raw, red skull. Her eyelids were torn, her sinus cavity exposed to the cool air of the apartment. Blood gushed from the ragged edges of her face, blinding her.

"Ow," she whimpered, the sound wet and bubbling as it was formed by her half-torn lips. "Ow, ow, ow."

Kenjaku only looked into the mirror on the wall. He reached up and started to peel the strips of Mahito’s skin off his face, tossing the wet, fleshy scraps onto the floor like used tissues. He wiped the blood from his stitches with his thumb, checking to make sure she hadn't damaged the thread.

"Don't cling so much," he said coldly, turning to look at the bleeding, faceless being on his bed. "It makes you look desperate."

–

The snow was falling. Or maybe it was ash. It was hard to tell with only one working eye.

Mahito dragged himself through the slush that covered Shibuya, his breath coming in ragged, wet hitches. His legs, or what was left of them, scraped uselessly against the concrete.

I like fighting, he tried to tell himself, spitting out a tooth. I am the curse of hatred. Fighting is my nature.

But that was a lie.

He didn't like fighting. He liked breaking.

He liked it when humans looked at him with that delicious widening of the eyes, the moment they realized their biology was about to become a much more fluid concept. He liked the sound they made when he twisted their spines into knots. He liked popping them like bubble wrap.

This? This wasn't fun.

He cast a frantic look over his shoulder.

The boy, Itadori Yuuji, was still coming. He wasn't running at him with the desperation of a hero anymore. His eyes were dead. There was no fear to taste, no anger to manipulate. Just a wolf staring down its wounded prey.

He’s too strong, Mahito whimpered, his hands slipping in the mud.

I don't want to play this game anymore, Mahito thought, tears leaking from his remaining eye. The rules aren't fair. The toys are biting back.

He scrambled over a pile of rubble, his fingernails cracking. He didn't want a warrior’s death. He didn't want a philosophical conclusion. He wanted to go home. He wanted to curl up in a lap and have his hair stroked and be told that he was the most special, most dangerous thing in the world.

He wanted Kenjaku.

Kenjaku would fix it. Kenjaku always had a plan. Kenjaku would look at Yuuji and make him stop.

"Geto!" Mahito screamed, his voice cracking into a pathetic, high-pitched wail. "Help me!"

He saw the familiar silhouette up ahead.

Relief, hot and humiliating, washed over him. He wasn't the predator anymore. He was the rabbit once again, bleeding out on the cutting board, desperate for the hand that held the cleaver because at least that hand was familiar.

Mahito’s heart leaped with a frantic, pathetic hope. He scrambled forward, his limbs flailing in the slush. He reached out with a blood-slicked hand, desperate to grab the hem of Kenjaku’s pristine gojo-kesa, desperate to anchor himself to the god he had worshipped for more than a century.

"Please–!"

He lunged for his ankle, but Kenjaku took a single, fluid step to the left.

Mahito’s hand grabbed nothing but empty air. His momentum carried him forward, and he faceplanted into the freezing mud where Kenjaku’s feet had been a second ago.

Mahito froze, lying flat in the dirt. The rejection was more violent than a blow.

Slowly, shakily, he looked up. Kenjaku was standing just out of reach, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. He looked down at Mahito with a faint curl of disgust on his lip.

"You are dripping, Mahito," Kenjaku said softly, frowning at him. "Try not to stain my robes. I have to wear this body for a while longer."

Mahito trembled. The cold seeped into his marrow. He remembered the beginning, when Noritoshi had taken him in regardless of the mud that covered him. He remembered not all that long ago, when Kaori had let him stain her dress with blood as he slept in her arms. But now? 

Now he was just filth.

"He’s going to kill me," Mahito sobbed, not daring to reach out again, curling in on himself in the ash. "He’s going to break me. Please. Please don't leave me here."

Kenjaku looked past Mahito, locking eyes with Yuuji in the distance. He then smiled and looked back down at the wretch in the mud.

"Shall I save you, Mahito?" Kenjaku asked. His voice was light and conversational, but devoid of any real comfort.

Mahito looked up. He saw the hand Kenjaku was extending, not to hold, but hovering above him. It was wreathed in black miasma, the swirling, suffocating vortex of his technique.

It was a technique designed not to partner, but to enslave. To dominate. To swallow whole.

Any other curse would have run. Any other curse would have chosen the dignity of being exorcised by a sorcerer’s fist.

But Mahito looked into that black swirl and understood. He wasn't allowed to touch Kenjaku from the outside anymore. He was too dirty. The only way to be close, the only way to be kept, was to be cleansed and taken inside.

"Yes," Mahito choked out, tears of black bile streaming from his single remaining eye. "Yes. Take me in. Put me inside. I want to be inside."

"As you wish," Kenjaku said.

The pressure was instantaneous.

It didn't feel like a hug. It felt more like the universe collapsing.

An invisible, crushing gravity seized Mahito’s body. There was a sickening crack as his ribs imploded. His femur snapped. His skull, the beautiful patchwork skull he had crafted for himself, began to fracture under the weight of Kenjaku’s cursed energy.

He tried to scream, but his lungs were squeezed into paste.

He was being folded. Compressed. Distilled. The chaos of his soul, the millions of voices, the malice, the playfulness, was being ground down into a dense, flavorless singularity.

It’s happening, Mahito thought deliriously, his vision warping into a tunnel of black static. He wouldn't let me touch his hand, but he’s going to let me touch his soul. I’m going to be part of his bloodstream. I’ll get to live in his veins.

But as the compression reached its peak, as the concept of Mahito was squeezed into a marble, a final clarity pierced his delirium.

He felt the edges of his consciousness fraying. The memories of movies he’d watched, the humans he’d popped over the years, the sensation of rain, the sound of Kenjaku’s heartbeat, the feeling of their stolen moments, the fluttering in his chest… His memories and experiences weren't being stored. They were being burned.

He was being stripped of his ego to fuel Uzumaki.

I am disappearing, he realized. I am going to cease to exist.

And then, a wave of relief hit him.

It was like a tsunami of ecstasy, colder and deeper than any fear.

No more thinking. No more plotting. No more trying to define the shape of his soul. No more desperate attempts to make Kenjaku love him. No more rejection. No more sidesteps.

To be eaten was to be loved. To be used was to be worthy. To be nothing was to be safe.

Thank you, my God.

Kenjaku brought the bright sphere to his lips and opened his mouth wide.

Mahito didn't scream. He didn't fight. As the darkness of the gullet descended over him, his final emotion was a silent, joyful surrender to the void.

Kenjaku swallowed.

He felt the heavy, warm slide of the sphere down his throat. He waited a moment, feeling the cursed energy disperse into his stomach, settling like a heavy meal.

He didn't mourn or even pause. He just turned his back on the empty spot where Mahito had been and looked at the Vessel and his ragtag team of Sorcerers with a refreshed, well-fed smile.

"Now then," Kenjaku said. "Where were we?"