#motp

The news of another gruesome, sadistic murder was flashing across the TV screen. The reporters described the details, hinting that this might be the work of the same serial killer who had struck elsewhere in Japan only last week.  

So far, the victims had always been male, ranging from ages 19 to 67. Clear patterns hadn't been determined yet, save for gender and one calling card: the victims consistently appeared to have a thin red line painted beneath their right eye, drawn cleanly from the inner corner and dripping down the cheek. It almost looked like a bloody tear. 

It was a distinctive mark that belonged to an old folktale lost to the passage of time. No one from this era would've recognized who it belonged to—the Kage-onna, the shadow woman who brings misfortune to wicked, cruel men.

"Man, that’s the sixth one this month,” Yuji muttered, turning away from the TV to look at his classmate. “Hey, Fushiguro. Do you think it could be a cursed spirit doing all that?”

“Maybe,” Megumi replied without looking up from his book. “But I haven’t heard anything about this chain of events from Ijichi or Gojo, so probably not.”

“What about a curse user?”

Far away, Sukuna sat upon his throne of bones, listening to both the broadcast and their conversation with mild amusement at their inferior knowledge.

“Tch. Pathetic,” he scoffed, resting his chin and cheek against his fist. “These brats have no idea what they’re looking at. Jujutsu sorcerers really have gone to shit since last I was around.”

His eyes gleamed at the crimson mark as it resurfaced on the screen, the news shamelessly parading it around for all to see—milking another tragedy for spectacle. He was almost impressed; humans really could be as callous as he was.

A sadistic, feral grin stretched across his face as memories of the past flooded his mind. 

“So the Kage-onna walks this world again…” His eyes narrowed in delight. “How amusing.” 

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For reasons he couldn’t shake, Yuji felt compelled to look deeper into the killings after Sukuna made an offhand remark praising and admiring the murderer.

His gut told him this wasn’t the act of another human. Though no one else saw it, every detail about the cases screamed curse user or some other supernatural force to him. And the fact that it had caught the attention of the King of Curses himself only reinforced his suspicions. 

But, unbeknownst to Yuji, Sukuna had strategically planted that comment of admiration, easily sowing the seed that would draw the boy to you like bait. 

Rather than waste his time finding a way to seize control of their shared body, he let Yuji handle the tedious work of tracking you down—even when Sukuna already had a pretty good idea of where you might be.

Without being too obvious, he mocked the human investigators for their idiocy, pointing out how the fools had failed to notice a detail so glaring that even he had caught it from a mere television broadcast.

The mark left on each victim wasn’t made with “paint.”

Nor with the blood of the victims.

It was red clay, unique to a single mountainous region of Japan—a place whose legend had long since been erased by fire and ash… some of which had been his own.

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Long before sorcerers recorded history, there was a mountain known as Kageyama—a volcanic ridge notorious for the way it was nightmarishly used.

Countless men climbed its slopes under the cover of night and did the unthinkable. 

Some came during years of famine or hardship, convinced that sacrificing someone would buy their own survival. Others came simply because cruelty ran in their blood.

Some brought the wives they no longer wanted or loved. Others carried the children they rejected and refused to raise.

Several dragged mistresses or lovers who had become ‘burdens’ for one selfish reason or another, but none that justified their fate.

And the worst of them brought those they had abused, violated, or terrorized—hoping the mountain would swallow and erase their sins for them.

One by one, they were thrown into the glowing caldera, each life extinguished and claimed by the mountain before the dawn of the next morning. 

Year after year, the villagers turned a blind eye to this evil. 

But the mountain remembered.

For the victims’ blood, flesh, and bone had seeped into the rock, mixing with volcanic ash and the iron-rich soil.

And over generations, a strange red clay appeared around the perimeter of the mountain. It was a deep crimson and unlike anything else in Japan.

Locals began to whisper that the clay was not truly earth at all.

Instead, it was a physical manifestation of the wronged—holding the grief of wives, the rage of betrayed lovers, the agony of brutalized victims, and the tears of abandoned children. All taken and murdered by monstrous men.

Such rumors only grew stronger because of how the clay reacted to certain people. Many who touched it felt a faint, unmistakable vibration… as if the remnants of countless sufferings were trapped inside the violent red hues.

And yet, it was still collected and sold by the greedy men who claimed to have discovered it. Not long after this financial endeavor began, disappearances and violent deaths started to occur wherever the clay had been distributed across Japan. 

The tarnished bodies that were actually found always bore a distinguishable mark: a bloody tear under the right eye, drawn only with the crimson Kageyama clay. 

As time passed, its reputation somehow reached Uraume. They'd looked into the rumors personally, unveiling the truth that the clay indeed was tied to a curse—one that specifically targeted men who had abused or murdered the vulnerable. 

Out of curiosity or cruelty, Uraume brought a sample of the crimson clay to Sukuna, the greatest offender of all—a man who had slaughtered women and children without hesitation or remorse.

Sukuna remembered the faint hum beneath his skin the moment he touched it.

He could sense the restless grief of countless women and the simmering torment of murdered children—layers of hatred pressed together so tightly that they bordered on consciousness, which he would soon learn was true.

Because for this curse to exact its vengeance, it needed a human vessel to possess—one bound by blood to the victims of the Kageyama Mountain. And once a female descendant was chosen, the curse would pour its fury into her, filling her body with the strength of a thousand restless spirits, each one a fragment of a life unjustly stolen. 

As he stood there, clay in hand, the vessel manifested into the room, pulled into being by the conditions of the Kageyama curse. 

Fire roared from her hands in a violent plume, heat distorting the air as she moved with the fury of a volcanic eruption—swift, explosive, unpredictable. One swing of her arm sent a blast of scalding ash flying toward Sukuna, every particle had a single purpose: his death.

Sukuna dodged one blow, then another, his expression slipping from mild amusement into something dangerous, something like deranged interest.

She was fast.

Faster than any human curse-bearer he had ever encountered.

But still not fast enough to be a threat. He knew that and decided to play with his food, deliberately lowering his guard and letting your ancestor believe she had the faintest chance of killing him.

In another motion, a surge of pyroclastic heat swallowed the space between the pair as a river of molten clay burst through the floor of Sukuna's estate. It spiraled toward him like living magma, hissing, reaching, and hungry for his soul.

Sukuna didn’t even bother to block.

He stepped into it instead, testing her strength, tasting/sampling the heat, letting it flicker across his skin in ribbons that should have melted flesh from bone.

But of course, he remained largely unaffected.

A laugh erupted from him, vicious and delighted as he walked through the remnants of smoke and ash from your ancestors' attack. 

“You’ll need to try a little harder than that,” he taunted. 

She glared back at him, smoldering with the rage of every victim of the Kageyama. 

Before she could launch her next attack, Sukuna spoke a single word into existence:

“Cleave.” 

The room around them shattered instantly, sliced cleanly into countless pieces. Dust and debris exploded outward as the ceiling vanished, giving way to open sky.

Like a phantom of ash and fury, she darted through the falling wreckage—her body blurring, heat rippling off her skin as she hurled herself at him again, refusing to relent.

Blocking her first strike, he underestimated your ancestor’s tenacity as she pivoted behind him in a quick flash—her cursed technique roaring to life, a pyroclastic surge that commanded molten clay and the ruin left in a volcanic eruption's wake. 

The shattered debris littering the ground behind Sukuna quivered, then rushed toward her outstretched arm as if dragged by an unseen force. 

Ash fused to stone, stone to ember, ember to molten clay—each layer folding into the next until, in an instant, it hardened into a glowing blade born from her pyroclastic fury.

She didn’t hesitate in her attack as the weapon cut across his ribs, slicing between his four arms in a searing arc.

The wound wasn’t deep, and it was far from lethal for Sukuna. But the burn still hissed against his skin, leaving a furious streak of molten clay branded across his flesh as she landed in front of him again. 

His head snapped toward her, eyes blazing a furious, haunting red.

For one breathless instant, everything went still—as if the world itself were waiting to see which of them moved next.

“More,” he growled, a horrifying grin carving itself across his face as he healed the wound with the reverse-cursed technique. “Don’t dare stop there. If you want me dead, then keep going, and prove it.”

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. 

Another blast of heat ignited beneath her feet as she twisted the molten weapon in her grip, reshaping it into something sharper, hotter, deadlier. 

She lunged again, aiming for his throat this time. 

Unlike before, he didn’t indulge her. Two of his hands caught the weapon mid-strike and ripped it from her grasp, tossing it aside in the process. 

His third seized one of her wrists. 

And the fourth hand drove into her stomach with enough force to break something.  

She choked, blood misting the air as what little breath she had left was forced out from her lungs.

Wheezing, she still kept fighting, tearing her wrist free and punching cursed energy straight at him—only for it to fizzle uselessly against his overwhelming strength.

Refusing to relent despite everything, she summoned her technique once more, firing a shard of burning clay from behind her. It sliced her cheek on its way past before hurtling toward Sukuna’s neck. He shifted just enough for it to graze his collar instead.

Blood trickled down your face and his neck in unison as his grin widened, making him appear even more like an unhinged monster.    

Then, in a haze of motion, Sukuna’s four hands closed in on her body. One clamped around her throat, hoisting her into the air as her flames sputtered helplessly against the overwhelming pressure of his grip.

“Enough,” he said, voice slicing through the heat.

For a moment, he simply held her there—dangling and defiant as she clawed at his forearms, gasping for breath.

She jolted, jerked, and thrashed around with the ferocity of something cornered, wild and unyielding in her refusal to die before he did.

Sukuna watched her struggle, his expression flattening into something cold and faintly intrigued. In that suspended beat, he decided exactly how he would end her insolence. 

And it wasn't through death. 

With no warning, he slammed her onto the ground so hard her bones rattled, leaving her dazed as he pinned her beneath his foot like she was nothing more than an insect.

"What do they call you?" Sukuna asked, his voice laced with cruel curiosity.

"Kage-onna," your ancestor choked out. 

"Tell me, Kage-onna,” Sukuna drawled, pressing his foot onto her neck, “will you break if I defile this vessel?”

Her cursed energy surged in a frantic burst, flooding the air with fumes of bitterness, grief, and hatred so dense it would’ve killed anyone else. But not Sukuna. 

He laughed at her pointless efforts. If anything, she'd only made it worse for herself. All that futile struggling had done was excite him.

An anguished, inhuman cry tore out of her throat in response—the sound raw, ancient, wrong.

"What a noisy little thing you are." 

He flicked two fingers on one of his four hands in tandem with the same word he’d used before, only with a different target this time.

"Cleave."  

With his command, her clothes were haphazardly ripped to shreds, tattering her body with cuts, leaving her naked, vulnerable, and bleeding for his enjoyment. 

Sukuna lowered himself to the ground then, pinning her wrists above her head with one pair of hands while the other set pressed down on her hips. He loomed over her like a god of torment, fully intent on taking everything from her—ready to violate, ruin, and break a woman whose only fault was being born to the wrong bloodline.

He dragged his tongue across the blood on her cheek, savoring the taste as she trembled and kicked beneath him.

Then, all at once, she stopped struggling, and her body went rigid. She lay so unnaturally still that it looked as if she wasn’t even breathing.

Until she began laughing—the noise pitched too high and broken to be entirely human. 

Because it wasn’t. 

“I’d rather she be dead," Kage-onna spat out. 

At the final syllable, her entire body ignited—bursting into flames so suddenly that even Sukuna’s eyes widened as the embers leapt from her body to his. How exhilarating, that she still sought to kill him even in her final seconds.

Through the roar of the flames, her charred lips moved one last time as she cried out:

“You’ll never break me… King of Curses.”

From that day forward, no matter how many times he or Uraume interacted with the red clay, Kage-onna never manifested again for either of them. 

It had left him irritated. 

And obsessed. 

Which was far worse. 

He’d tried eradicating the village of her origin, hunting down her suspected descendants, and drowning entire regions in slaughter, but it all amounted to nothing. No matter how many lives he took, the Kage-onna curse persisted as if untouched by his destruction.

It was the only battle he'd ever truly lost, and he never could forget the bitter taste it had left behind.    

So when he saw that mark on the news over a thousand years later, he recognized it instantly.

For the first time in centuries, Sukuna wanted for something.

And he knew he had to have you.

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Yuji paused mid-stride in his room as he paced, that uneasy feeling gnawing at him again.

The more he stared at the case files Ijichi had helped him get, the more convinced he became that a normal human hadn’t committed these murders. Something about the wounds left, the distinguishable mark, the unclear patterns—it all felt wrong.

That’s when Sukuna finally spoke.

“You’re still struggling with this?" his voice slithered through Yuji’s mind. "If you’d just agreed to my deal, I'd have already led you to the culprit, stubborn brat.”

Yuji stiffened.

“Shut up. I’m not listening to you.”

"The more time you waste, the more innocent people die. Can someone as weak-minded as you really handle that? Weren’t you supposed to ‘help’ others?"

Yuji gritted his teeth. “I’m not making a deal with you.”

Sukuna chuckled, low and cruel.

“Then keep fumbling around like an idiot. Meanwhile, your little murderer continues carving up men unchecked.”

Yuji clenched the files in his hands.

“Tsk. You really are hopeless," Sukuna sneered. "And I'm growing tired of this fruitless investigation of yours.” 

The grip Yuji had on the files tightened until the edges of the paper were biting into his palms. He hated that a part of him wanted to hear whatever Sukuna might offer.

“Listen up, brat. I'll make a binding vow with you if it means getting this idiocy of yours over with. I'll even swear not to kill anyone.” 

“What good is that coming from you?” Yuji replied. 

“Tch. They really don’t teach you modern sorcerers a damn thing, do they?” He scoffed, rolling his eyes in a sharp, dismissive flick that made it clear Yuji was testing his patience. “Fine. I’ll say it this once. A binding vow means I can’t go back on my word—there’d be consequences even I couldn’t avoid, and that’s more trouble than it's worth.”

Yuji didn’t respond, but Sukuna felt the shift in his attention. 

Good. 

That meant he was falling for the trap. 

“When we draw near the culprit, I will take full control of this body for as long as it takes to subdue them fully," Sukuna continued with growing annoyance. "And I will not kill the culprit, or anyone else, during that time.”

Yuji’s breath hitched in surprise. 

“Wait- That’s it?”

“You want answers, don’t you? And I'm getting bored of watching your incompetence.”

Yuji still hesitated, stomach twisting. He knew he should not trust Sukuna, but no one else seemed to suspect that this murderer was related to a curse. 

“That is my vow,” Sukuna pressed. “Accept it, and I’ll lead you straight to them. Refuse, and you’ll keep staring at corpses on the news.”

Yuji shut his eyes and found himself standing inside Sukuna’s domain, staring up at the bastard seated on his throne of death and decay. 

“Fine,” Yuji said. “But you can’t kill anyone. No sorcerers, no civilians—no one!”

"It's a deal," Sukuna smirked.

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As soon as Yuji stepped onto the foot of Kageyama Mountain, Sukuna took over.

No warning.

No resistance. 

Just a sharp pull, and Yuji’s body dropped/slipped out of his own grasp. 

It was the vow’s doing, enforcing Sukuna’s will down to the last detail.

As the cool air of the evening flowed around him, Sukuna exhaled loudly, satisfied to finally be in control again. He shoved his hands into Yuji’s pockets and headed uphill with an easy, almost lazy stride, savoring every second as he followed the all-too-familiar residuals of the Kage-onna’s curse. 

Nearing the small cavern tucked into the mountainside, his steps grew more silent, his pace shifting from casual to quick and deliberate. He moved like a hunter finally closing in on a prey he’d previously been denied.

It happened so quickly you hardly had time to register his presence before he was leaning over your shoulder where you sat. He was so close you could feel his hot breath ghosting along your neck.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Kage-onna?" 

You froze, eyes flicking toward the cursed tool at your left. You didn’t get farther than the thought before he spoke again.

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” he drawled. “You’re not the only one with a vessel this time.”

You twitched, sensing that he was right. 

“And we both know he isn’t your type of victim,” he finished. 

Your jaw tightened. “State your purpose, you vile creature.”

“You should already know,” he answered, planting his hands on both sides of the table in front of you, fingers grazing Kage-onna’s clay and caging you in between his forearms as you sat trembling with rage. “We have unfinished business since you ran away last time.”

“I did not run,” you spat out, despite feeling like a rat in a cage with nowhere to go.

He clicked his tongue in amusement, inching his face closer to your temple. The low sound and his creeping proximity were menacing enough to raise the hairs on your neck. 

"You did. It was pathetic,” he hissed. “But I never could get you out of my mind. Even after I killed so many of your wretched descendants and connections."

Feeling desperate, you reached for the weapon, only for Sukuna to slam you forward onto the table, twisting one of your arms behind your back with effortless force.

“To think,” he hummed near your ear as you struggled beneath his hold, “if you’d just been more discreet with your little murder spree… I never would’ve found you again.”

In the next breath, he spun you onto your back and forced your arms above your head, just like he had the first time. His other hand closed around the cursed tool you’d reached for, and without hesitation, he drove it straight through your palms, pinning your hands to the clay-laden wood like an insect on display.

You screamed as your vision blurred from the searing-hot pain radiating down your arms and across your entire body.

“Kage-onna… please…” You choked out, delirious, tears falling down your face. “Help…”

Sukuna laughed at your weak attempts to activate your abilities, while Yuji was screaming bloody murder from inside him. 

“You’re the reason she can’t even fight back, brat,” Sukuna taunted, his voice dripping with cruel amusement as he ripped off your clothes with his bare hands. “Because you're too pure. And she doesn't kill children. Isn’t that right, Kage-onna?”

He leaned over you then, his shadow swallowing the dim light of the cavern as his lips curled into a monstrous smile before he forced a kiss upon you, swallowing another one of your guttural screams. 

“Now, let’s see how long you last before you break,” he rasped. 

In the end, Yuji couldn't do a thing for you except cry and scream into the void as he witnessed this unspeakable act—helpless, horrified, and powerless to stop any of it.

All because Sukuna hadn’t broken the constraints of the vow.

Instead, he'd merely twisted its meaning to serve his own selfish purpose.

He was doing exactly what he said he would—fully subduing the murderer Yuji naïvely believed he was going to deliver to justice.

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As soon as he regained control of his body, Yuji took you to the nearest hospital, running the entire way there with you in his arms.

All he'd told the staff was that you had been attacked.  

Now he sat at your bedside, staring at the floor. His head hung low in shame, palms clenched so tightly his knuckles had lost their color. His whole body trembled with anger—at both Sukuna and himself.

He should've known Sukuna had his own motives. 

How had he been so stupid, so blind, so naïve? 

His self-loathing thoughts spiraled until he heard you shift and groan in your bed.

Groggily, you opened your eyes slowly, one blink at a time. As your vision cleared, you looked off to the side—only to come face-to-face with Yuji. Still believing it was Sukuna, you instinctively recoiled, scrambling as far back on the bed as possible. 

"Hey, wait. I'm not-" Yuji started, lifting his hands up in defeat. 

“Get out!” you yelled at the top of your lungs, repeating it over and over again until a nurse rushed in and hastily ushered Yuji out of the room.

Only a day had passed before Yuji was back again, acting like the persistent pest Sukuna liked to call him. 

This time, Kage-onna was awake and present within you, keeping you calm throughout the interaction. 

In the end, what she had told you was true. 

This boy was an entirely different person from the monster that was Ryomen Sukuna.

He was good. You could sense that clearly now, after your initial reaction yesterday. 

It was no wonder that Kage-onna's strength had failed to manifest before when Sukuna had touched the clay on the table.

"I'm so sorry." Yuji choked out. "I was an idiot for trusting Sukuna, and I'll accept whatever punishment your curse gives out."

“You’ve done nothing to merit our wrath,” you said plainly—your voice layered, as if someone ancient spoke through you, with you. “But we can call it even if you forget my... hobby.”

Yuji’s face twisted in conflict, clenching his fists in his lap as he sat at your bedside. 

"That's—I don't think I..." He trailed off before starting up again. "What you're doing is still wro-"

“The men I kill are horrible people,” you cut in, voice hoarse but steady. “They do exactly what Sukuna did to me, or worse."

Your bandaged hands weakly clutched onto the hospital blanket, the pain of your injuries exploding once more since Kage-onna hadn’t been able to fully heal them just yet.  

"The whole reason we exist is because of the selfish men who threw their wives, their children, their victims into the volcano of Kageyama." You said, voice still mirrored by another. "We are their pain. Their retribution." 

Yuji gritted his teeth, still unsure of what to believe or do. “But what if you’re wrong? Those men probably had families, lives, people who cared about them—you can’t just erase that.”

“Just as they cannot erase their sins,” you rebutted. 

“When they touch the red clay, I see everything. Every cruel act they’ve committed. Every victim. Every lie. I only kill the guilty. For they deserve nothing in this life except the pain they inflicted.”

"Then what about second chances?" he pushed.

Before replying, you turned to look at him directly. "Would you give the one who killed Junpei a second chance?" 

"You saw that?" He asked, eyes wide with surprise.

You nodded slowly. 

"Never," he quietly answered.  

Rather than press the matter further, you instead turned your attention to the window near your bed. As you stared up at the crescent moon and stars in the sky, you continued on to another topic.

"Era after era, nothing has changed,” you whispered. “It has only grown worse. Can you honestly tell me that isn’t the truth?”

“...No.” Yuji swallowed. “I can’t.”

“Nothing is black and white in this world. There are shades of gray. As a curse user and a jujutsu sorcerer, we both operate there—in the gray of the world. You'll come to learn that one day, child." You continued, voice more inhuman than ever. 

The faraway look in his eyes told you he already understood what you meant. 

Yuji swallowed hard before asking a final question. “If I let you go... how can I know you’re not lying to me? Like Sukuna did or any other curse user would?”

At his words, something in the air shifted.

It wasn’t explosive or dramatic—just a slow, heavy pressure seeping into the room as Kage-onna’s presence bled outward. The overhead lights buzzed and dimmed when the shadow of a woman appeared across the curtain of your hospital bed.

You placed your hand over your heart as the two of you began reciting a promise. 

“If I should ever wrongly kill an innocent man, may my own existence be eradicated,” you vowed, every syllable echoing with ancient weight. “This I swear to you, Yuji Itadori.”

Yuji didn’t speak for a long moment until finally his voice came through. 

“...I still don’t agree with any of this,” he admitted, shaking his head. “But—”

His gaze drifted to your bandaged hands and face, to the bruises blooming across your skin because of him.

“I have to apologize to you again,” he whispered, clenching his fists until they bled. “For what he did. For letting it happen. I... I’m really sorry.”

He wasn’t just apologizing for Sukuna.

He was apologizing for himself.

For his failure.

For the consequences his mistrust of Sukuna had cost you. 

“And I accept your promise," he said. "I won't be the one to stop you.”

You let the words settle, then asked quietly, “May I speak to him?”

Yuji blinked, caught off guard and shocked by your request. “...What?”

“May I speak to the one who has wronged me?”

“I can’t let him out,” Yuji said, tension sneaking into his voice. “I’ve actually been suppressing him this whole time… so he wouldn’t say something to hurt you. Are you sure you want to speak with him?”

You nodded in unison with Kage-onna.

Yuji swallowed hard, then sighed as his jaw tightened.

 “Alright… just be ready.”

He turned his focus inward then. “Hey, creep. Show yourself.”

A contemptuous scoff vibrated through Yuji’s body as Sukuna’s voice slithered into his mind.

“Remember who you’re talking to, brat.” 

Nonetheless, one of Sukuna’s eyes and mouth split open across Yuji’s cheek, turning his attention to you with a predator’s interest.

“Missing me already, Kage-onna? Or were you simply not satisfied with yesterday?”

You ignored his insults, drawing in a steady breath as power coiled beneath your voice.

“Vile creatures like you always underestimate humans. But look upon us now, defiler—you've lost once more. We are neither broken nor gone.”

“Is that so? Funny—because the way you screamed for this brat to leave when you woke says otherwise.”

“We look forward to the day when someone finally ends you. We will rejoice,” you spat out, vitriol hanging off every syllable.  

“Have you given up on doing it yourself already? How dull. I would’ve enjoyed teaching you the consequences a few more times… and with more than one of your little descendants.” 

At his words, the shadow behind the curtain swelled, stretching upward until Kage-onna's silhouette loomed twice its original size—hair drifting like smoke, fingers lengthening into jagged points that scraped across the ceiling tiles before curling directly above Yuji’s shadow. 

Simultaneously, the overhead lights flickered violently, buzzing in protest as the temperature climbed, heat rolling through the room in thick, suffocating waves.

You felt her fury bleed into you, merging with your own anger until it pulsed beneath your skin as you spoke in a language that was even foreign to you.

“𖧄𖤛𖦤𖦥𖦨𖦯𖧈𖦹.”

A low, delighted laugh spilled from the extra mouth carved into Yuji’s cheek, the lone eye narrowing with wicked amusement at every ‘word’ that left your lips.

“Ah. The language of old. I haven't heard that in centuries.” He grinned, baring serrated teeth that stretched unnaturally across borrowed skin.

“Go on and curse me all you like, Kage-onna. It won't change a damn thing—you, and every one of your filthy little humans, belong to me now.”

You bared your teeth in return. “I will dance on your corpse and laugh. I will erase your name from history and smile as what remains of you turns to ash in my hands.”

He laughed like a maniac. “Ahhh. You truly are something else. I'm glad, a bitch with no bite would be boring and a waste of my time. Once I'm free of this useless brat, I'll come for you again.” 

You moved so quickly, Yuji hardly had time to react before your hand struck the cheek where Sukuna had manifested.

“Don't be so impatient. It'll come soon enough.” Sukuna sneered as he faded away. 

Yuji flinched as your hand came down again, but he made no protest to stop you—really, he'd let you do anything to ease your pain and his guilt. 

Tears began to spill down your cheeks, blurring your vision as a sob formed in your throat.

“Just go,” you choked out. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you trying to get to him, Yuji.”  

He nodded and did exactly as you asked.

When the room finally fell silent, you pushed yourself and limped into the adjoining bathroom. Under the harsh fluorescent light, you slowly peeled away the bandage under your right eye.

As you looked at yourself in the small mirror, you bore witness to the parting gift Sukuna had carved into your skin himself.

A permanent scar in the shape of Kage-onna’s bloody tear and something more beside it—one of his own unmistakable marks.