Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The second time Ryoumen Sukuna came back to life was different.

It hurt.

He had never experienced such pain, not even when he had been defeated - that time, at least, he had had the satisfaction of realizing that he had lived and was dying according to his rules.

But, evidently, if a death could be blessed and painless, birth could only be painful. Pain was the price of being alive, after all.

Or, at least, it was so for ordinary mortals.

But Ryoumen Sukuna was not.

He had come into the world like anyone else, but more cursed than the others and had lived by elevating himself to a creature that had no real definition. They had called him the Honored One - like Gojo Satoru in the modern era - but from that divine height he had fallen of his own choosing, becoming the Fallen.

They had worshipped him as a god, and feared him as a monster.

They had knelt before him and called him king, they had fought him as men thought of fighting a natural disaster: desperately, with no chance of winning.

Boredom had been the only enemy he had truly feared, and he had been ready to make a deal with one of the oldest creatures in existence - Kenjaku - in order to defeat it. He had accepted death to cross the ages, had divided his soul into twenty fragments waiting for the day when he would be reincarnated.

Immortality had never been his goal, not in the flesh - in the history of sorcery he already had it.

Ryoumen Sukuna had had an existence of pure hedonism until the end.

Gojo Satoru had been the only one he had met on his path capable of making a difference, but it had not been enough.

The fulfillment of everything had happened at the hands of another.

Itadori Yuuji's face had been the last thing Ryoumen Sukuna had seen before everything was accomplished.

In that celebration of death, Sukuna had smiled and Yuuji had not.

That was the end as he had always imagined it: killed by a creature stronger and more cursed than himself.

Sukuna had taken sadistic pleasure in realizing, moments before darkness, that the brat would carry on his shoulders the glory of having defeated the invincible for the rest of his life and that he would feel no sense of satisfaction for it.

In the end, he had cursed him forever.

In the end, in death, Ryoumen Sukuna had won everything he had wanted to win.

What he had not expected was to defeat death once again.

What he had not anticipated was that Uraume would not be loyal enough to him to accept his cruel will.

The first thing Ryoumen Sukuna saw when he opened his eyes again was Yuuji's face.

But that was the beginning of a story he had never planned to write.

"You are the one who belongs to me now."

2025

6½ years after the merger

— June — 

Yuuji had no memories of his parents.

For fifteen years, his grandfather had been his only family, and that had been enough for him. At some point, as was to be expected, he had realized that all the other children had a mom and a dad and he had asked questions. His grandfather had given him vague answers, without looking him in the eye, as if talking about his late son and daughter-in-law made him uncomfortable. In his childlike mind, Yuuji had thought that their memory made him sad and had not asked any more questions. That was why he had refused to listen to what his grandfather wanted to tell him about his mother and father; Yuuji had interpreted it as his way of telling him that he was ready to leave, and he had not listened to him to hold him back for a little longer. It had not worked.

Yuuji had not particularly suffered from his parent’s absence, not how he had suffered the illness and death of his grandfather - "I think I don't miss them because I never really had them" he had once told his schoolmates. His lack of interest in his parents had raised many eyebrows of his peers but, in the end, it had become an odd thing about him among the thousand odd things. 

He had never asked himself many questions about those odd things too . He had all the answers now and he didn’t know if he regretted those days of not knowing.

The cemetery was small, in the suburbs of Sendai, close but not too close to the house where he had grown up. His grandfather had taken him there only once, but Yuuji had a vague memory of that day, as if it were unimportant. Reading his family name on that grave, knowing that his parents' ashes were stored underneath it had a different meaning now.

Yuuji knew very well why his grandfather had tried to put a distance between him and his parents. He couldn’t know how much his old man had understood about the terrible truth hidden behind his birth, but he had seen enough to know that it was something to protect him from.

Standing in front of that grave - seven years after the event that had changed his life with no way back - Yuuji didn’t know what to feel.

There was no real reason why he had chosen to visit that place, but he had felt that if he had not done so that journey into the past would have been incomplete and the thought would have stayed with him for too long. In that grave rested a man who had been unable to accept the death of his wife to the point that he had sold her body to a monster. Itadori Jin was his father and there was no doubt about that, but Itadori Kaori was not his mother. She had been used after her death to bring him into the world and nothing else. Yuuji couldn’t help but feel sadness every time he thought about her. He had not known her but he was certain that she had done nothing to deserve what they had done to her.

"I'm sorry..." Yuuji murmured. "I hope you can rest in peace now."

He looked around. Nature had stretched its hands over most of the graves, covering them with tall grass and wildflowers. It was both beautiful and sad. 

After the merger, Yuuji had found that landscape in many corners of Japan. There was no time to honor the dead for those who had survived the end of the world, because the future was too uncertain to afford to dwell on the past.

As that thought crossed Yuuji's mind, a little girl with pinkish hair - like his own - walked past him, stopping between him and his family's grave. She bowed her head briefly and then reached out to place a bouquet of wildflowers in front of the headstone.

Yuuji smiled when two honey eyes like his own lifted to look at his face.

"So the grandpa and grandma will feel less lonely," his daughter said, as beautiful and full of life as the wildflowers she had picked to honor the memory of two people she had never known. Yuuji had not told her the whole truth - it was too tragic, too complex. She only knew that in that place rested her mother's parents, and she didn’t need to know anything else.

"Yes, I'm sure they are happier now," Yuuji said, extending his hand toward her. "Come here, Ayame ..." Her daughter grabbed it without hesitation. "Where is your brother?" He added, looking around.

"He is hunting curses," Ayame replied.

Yuuji's search was brief. The black-haired child was sitting among the tall grass that covered a grave a short distance away. A small worm-like curse was crawling over the tombstone, leaving a disgusting wet trail behind it.

Yuuji was not alarmed; it was too weak to hurt anyone and it was very common to find them in cemeteries like that. The little boy raised his hand near the little monster and flicked his fingers. The curse disintegrated almost instantly. Yuuji tightened his lips, swallowing an unpleasant sensation he felt at the pit of his stomach - it will pass , he told himself. In time, it will pass.

" Shion ," he called out.

The little boy turned and four red eyes responded to Yuuji's gaze.

"Come, let's go to Grandpa's house," the young sorcerer said, extending his free hand toward his son.

The child stood up and joined his mother and sister. When Yuuji felt his little fingers squeeze his hand, the unpleasant feeling vanished.

Walking through the streets of Sendai, the city where he had spent most of his life, was a bit like walking through those destroyed cities in post-apocalyptic movies. If there had been sorcerers who had fought against the first wave of the merger, they had not been strong enough to create a safety net.

The landscape Yuuji had known all his life no longer existed. In those streets he had walked countless times to get home from school or to go out on afternoons when he had not felt like doing his homework, Yuuji could no longer find anything familiar - the destruction was, but not because it was a memory of his childhood.

Shion and Ayame walked in front of him, holding hands. He was taller than she was - he was taller than Megumi and Satoru's boys too - and Yuuji knew that difference would deepen as the years went by.

"Shion, why didn't you say hello to Grandpa and Grandma?" Ayame asked her brother.

"Because they are dead, Ayame. They cannot hear us."

"They are just dead, they didn't disappear into thin air! Do you remember Dad’s stories? They are no longer here, but they are somewhere else."

"It's not the same thing..."

Yuuji liked to listen to them talk without intervening - unless they started fighting. Their differences made them both perfect in his eyes, and together they were a masterpiece of opposites. Ayame was a ray of sunshine. She was a cheerful child, giving smiles to everyone with generosity, and it was impossible not to love her. Shion was like a moonless night: it was necessary to get used to his darkness to see the stars that quilted his sky. 

Yuuji loved them both with every fiber of his being, making no difference.

"Mom!" Ayame called out to him, turning to seek his gaze but without letting go of her brother's hand. "Tell Shion that Grandma and Grandpa can hear us even though they are dead."

Shion turned as well, and in his red eyes Yuuji read his boy’s exasperation. Make her stop this talk , he was telling him. He could be a patient child until a speech bored him. Ayame was too certain of her brother's love for her to have any qualms about it.

Yuuji chuckled. "There is no right or wrong thing to believe about these matters, Ayame," he said gently. "If Shion thinks that people who are gone can't hear us, that doesn't mean you are wrong to talk to them. You both have reasons."

Ayame arched her eyebrows, more confused than she had been before. She looked at her brother, who challenged her with his gaze to add another word.

At the end, she huffed. "Dad said he could hear Mom's voice when he was dead! I believe what Dad says!"

It was amazing how a curse could sound like something romantic said in a little girl's voice.

Shion rolled his eyes and decided to end the discussion by letting her believe what she wanted, but without agreeing. 

They continued walking. Ayame had stopped arguing about whether or not her grandparents heard her in their eternal rest, but she kept talking, and Shion answered her only when she asked him direct questions. Yuuji remained silent, watching them, then from time to time he would lift his gaze to the destroyed buildings or those in an obvious state of disrepair. There was something strange about visiting what was left of the places of his childhood with his children.

Yuuji had not returned to Sendai since the night his life had changed forever. The events that had happened between his 15th and 16th birthdays were impossible to count: in March 2018, just days before the start of his first year of high school, his grandfather had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer - he had died only three months later - and on a March night in 2019 he had conceived his children.

Among the thousands thoughts that had crowded Yuuji's mind when those two lines had appeared on the pregnancy test, one had been addressed to his grandfather. If his old man had known he was pregnant at sixteen, he would surely have been angry, but once the anger passed, he would have listened to what Yuuji had to say about it.

His children were five and a half years old now, and Yuuji was certain that his grandfather would have adored them - at least as much as he would have detested their father.

When Yuuji heard voices in the distance he stopped, as if they were a threat. His children did the same thing and looked at him. "Is it real, Mom?" Shion asked.

They were children's voices. They were cheerful.

It was a trap used commonly by curses to lure people to haunted places.

There was a playground at the end of the street. Yuuji had spent his childhood playing there, but those cheerful sounds were strange compared to the silence of the whole neighborhood. "Give me your hand," he said, moving to join his children. Shion grabbed the left one and Ayame the right one.

If necessary, Yuuji would push them behind him to shield them.

The playground became visible after a few steps, and he was happy to breathe a sigh of relief. As absurd as that image of cheerful innocence could be in the midst of so much destruction, the children who were busy playing on the slide and chasing each other were real.

Yuuji didn’t let go of his children's hands as all three of them approached. When he had left the car at the city gates, he had met people - who had passed by him with disinterest - but after the cemetery they had made no further encounters.

Perhaps Sendai was not the ghost town it appeared to be at first glance - the thought lightened his heart.

"Mom," Ayame tugged at his hand to get his attention. "Can we go play, too?"

Yuuji assessed the situation before answering her. There were about ten children in the entire playground, but there were only two or three adults. He didn’t sense the presence of cursed spirits nearby.

"All right," he said finally. "But stay together and don't go too far away. I want to see you."

Ayame broke away from his hand, running happily toward the slide. But when she realized she was alone, she stopped halfway and turned around, "Shion, are you coming?"

Yuuji looked at his son. Shion responded to his gaze with the most bored expression in his repertoire. He did not like to play games - unless the game involved some curse or cursed technique to practice with. Yuuji used to tease him that he was born old.

He did so on that occasion as well. "Come on, Shion, try not to show your thousand years of age or we’ll arouse suspicion."

The little boy looked at him as if that joke was an insult. "I'm not old, it's the children's games that are stupid."

Maybe you're not old but you have an innate allergy to fun , Yuuji thought, then sighed. "But no one is as good as you at keeping Ayame from getting into trouble." It was not his intention to give a five-year-old child responsibilities that were not his - he was their mother, he was solely responsible for their safety when their father was not with them - but Ayame was the only thing that could convince Shion to go through the experiences of every ordinary child - even if they were not ordinary children.

"Come on, Shion, come on!" Ayama called out loudly to him.

Shion thought about it, his hand still clasped in his mother's. "This city is not under the protection of our family," he said. "No one knows who we are here."

"Don't worry," Yuuji reassured him, leaning down to look into his eyes. "I am here. There is nothing to be afraid of."

"It's not a matter of fear," Shion said. "But I have four eyes, Mom. Ordinary people ask stupid questions."

Yuuji understood the problem. He stopped smiling, but only for a few moments. "If anyone says anything, Ayame will be there, ready to help you. That is your greatest strength: you will never be alone in facing the world, and you will always help each other."

Shion twisted his mouth into a grimace, as if he did not like that speech at all - Yuuji knew his son well enough to understand why.

"Shion!" Ayame called, impatient.

The little boy let go of his mother's hand. "I can help her, but I don't need her to help me," he said.

Yuuji had expected such a retort, but he was happy to see Shion take Ayame's hand as they went to play together. He moved and found an empty bench from which it was possible to keep an eye on the whole playground. He freed himself from the heavy backpack on his shoulders and sat down with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. The air had grown warmer in a short time, and Yuuji hoped with all his heart that his grandfather's house was still standing and had working plumbing - he needed to take a shower and the children needed to sleep in a comfortable place.

When he had left, he had accepted the risk that he might find a worse situation than he thought. But if those children were playing in the park of his childhood, perhaps the neighborhood was not as dead as it might have appeared.

Yuuji took the canteen full of water from his backpack and took a sip. It was hot and perhaps he should have called the children back so they could drink too. Playing in the June sun without good hydration was dangerous.

He was on the verge of calling their names, but someone called his first.

"Itadori?"

It had a strange effect on him to hear that name. It had not belonged to him for years - he was a Ryoumen now.

Yuuji lifted his gaze and when he saw the young woman with glasses he recognized her immediately. "Sasaki-senpai!"

They had shared only three months of their lives, but she was not so different from their high school days - she was just more adult.

"Itadori..." Sasaki said, as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "I wasn't sure, but ... Is it really you?"

Yuuji smiled at her and moved his backpack from the bench. "Please, sit down. I haven't seen you in such a long time." He was simply happy to see her alive.

Sasaki accepted his invitation. "You haven't changed at all," she said with a smile.

It wasn’t true. Yuuji's face was marked by the scars his battles had left on him, but there was not the right level of confidence between them for her to ask him what had happened to him.

"You haven't changed either," he merely said, then lifted his gaze to the slide to make sure Ayame and Shion were still there.

Sasaki did not notice the gesture. "What are you doing here?" He asked curiously. "After that incident at school, you disappeared into thin air."

"You're right." Following the events of the night when Yuuji had stopped being an ordinary boy, he had visited Sasaki in the hospital only once, but both she and Iguchi were asleep. He had not stayed for longer. It had been enough for him to know that neither of them had suffered permanent damage and that, once they recovered, their lives would go on. "My grandfather had died the same day, a few hours earlier. I took care of the funeral, the cremation, and once his ashes were collected, I moved to a school in Tokyo. I got my first cell phone there and I didn't know how to contact you."

"It's not a problem," Sasaki reassured him. "That night was the first in a long series of events..." She left the sentence hanging, as if she didn’t know how to define everything that had happened from June 2018 onward.

Yuuji understood her. "The world has changed," he said. "And it's not what we've known for a few years now."

She nodded. "But tell me about yourself," she added. "It's so rare to get good news these days, and finding an old schoolmate is. Why did you come back here?"

"I wanted to visit my family's grave," he said. "And I wanted to show the city I grew up in to two people who are important to me."

"Oh..." Sasaki looked around. "I thought you were alone. Where are your friends?"

"I wasn't talking about two of my friends," Yuuji emphasized, then blushed and pointed to the slide with a wave of his hand. "The girl with pinkish hair and the boy with black hair standing next to her are my children."

Sasaki's gaze shifted in the direction he was pointing at, and when she saw Ayame and Shion her eyes behind the lenses of her glasses grew large in surprise. "You..." She could not believe what she was seeing. "You have two children? But you are younger than me! You are twenty years old or something!"

"Twenty-two," Yuuji corrected her, scratching the back of his neck in a nervous gesture. "Let's say I got two unexpected surprises on my 16th birthday, more or less. The first was my pregnancy and the second was finding out I was with twins."

"Oh!" Sasaki's mouth drew a perfect O . "They are twins! This means that you-"

"Yes..." Yuuji's smile became embarrassed. "I am an Omega. I'm sorry, I never said that during those months in freshman year of high school."

Sasaki shook her head. "It's certainly not something one should feel compelled to say..." She smiled, looking at the two children playing on the slide. "Twins, huh? When were they born?"

"On October 31st, 2019," Yuuji replied - the day of the first anniversary of the Shibuya tragedy. "They will be six years old this fall, and I find that hard to believe."

"I can understand..." Sasaki nodded, then her smile turned wistful. "Seeing new children playing in this park always gives me hope. It helps me think that the world may be over, but it really isn't."

"Yes, you're right," Yuuji agreed. "I thought the same thing when I found out that they were inside me. I was very young, but..." He knew he could not tell her the whole long, complicated story. "But I am happy that fate has given me this gift."

"You seem happy to be a parent."

"I am…” Yuuji had never doubted the love he felt for his children. It was other things that had frightened him, and, in the end, that fear had never gone away - perhaps it would never happen.

"You..." Sasaki hesitated for a moment. "Are you raising them by yourself?"

"Oh, no!" Yuuji shook his head. "They have a father. He's not here with us because his duties have forced him to be somewhere else, but… No, I've never been alone." A pause. "To be honest, I wouldn't have been alone anyway. The twins and I are lucky, we are surrounded by wonderful people who care about us."

He and the father of his children were bound by a curse that could not be broken - Yuuji had had a chance to get rid of it but had thrown it away in the name of a greater good. He did not regret it. No, he did not regret it because that choice had set him on the path that led to his children.

But if he had made it, he owed it to Megumi, to Satoru, to Maki, to Yuuta… To all those people whose lives his existence had ruined but who had never blamed him for it.

“Have you been living in Tokyo all this time?" Sasaki asked.

"Yes, the friends I consider my family are there now."

"How do you live there?" Sasaki asked. "I know Tokyo was the first city to be hit. When news still traveled fast, all the news reports were about a terrorist attack that completely destroyed Shibuya. At the time, everyone believed it, even though no one was naming the perpetrators of such a catastrophe. Now I believe it all started weeks before the merger…”

Yuuji was surprised to hear that word - merger - come from her lips. Following the Battle of Shinjuku, modern society had collapsed in a short time, and in its place, a new era of sorcery had begun. Ordinary people had become aware of the secret world that existed to protect them: sorcerers, curses, everything had ceased to be an ancient mystery to become an integral part of everyone's life.

Sorcery and those able to use it had become the only source of light amid the darkness caused by cursed spirits.

But there was no Clan in Sendai that could lead people through the paths of that new era.

"Tokyo is a city that is healing," Yuuji said. "The warlock Clans living there are working to expand their area of influence so as to protect smaller cities and those without an effective protection network."

Sasaki's eyes grew darker. "No one came here," she said. "The monks in the temples defended us as best they could. Some of them succeeded and some did not. Everything we know today about sorcery and curses is thanks to them. They are the ones who protect Sendai, and when someone gives evidence of possessing a high level of cursed energy, they try to train them," she chuckled. "It's strange, isn't it? When I was sixteen, the paranormal was an exciting game for me. It's everyday reality now, and I have to admit I don't know as much about it as I'd like.”

Yuuji reflected: temple monks definitely possessed deeper knowledge of esoteric matters than ordinary people, and perhaps some of them possessed innate techniques, but this was not enough to make them powerful enough to survive that new era.

"Where are the monks you speak of?" Yuuji asked. "Where do they train their students?"

That wasn't the purpose of his trip, but in the face of that information, he couldn't turn a blind eye. Facing the past without doing something about the present of the city where he was born and raised was not in his nature.

"I know they are all at Rinnoji Temple," Sasaki said. "But why do you ask?"

"Let's say I can help out..."

The young woman parted her lips but said nothing. Her eyes noticed the black uniform he was wearing for the first time since that dialogue had begun. "You are one of them..." She said and stiffened.

"Senpai, it's okay," Yuuji hastened to say. "I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just want to help, if I can."

Suddenly, Sasaki looked at him as if he did not know him. "You… Is that why you went to Tokyo? Did they train you to become a sorcerer?" She was more incredulous than when Yuuji had revealed to her that he was the parent of twins. "What were you doing in a normal high school if-"

"I didn't know I was a sorcerer," Yuuji anticipated her - he couldn't tell the whole truth, so he said something truthful that could sum it up. "I have no memories of my parents, and my grandfather wanted to keep me away from that world I guess. After that incident at our old high school, some people… The sorcerers from the Tokyo school found me and took me with them."

"Did the Tokyo Clan send you here to save us?" Sasaki's eyes filled with tears but also with hope.

Yuuji felt his heart clench in a vice. He hesitated. He did not want to disappoint her but neither did he want to give her false hope. "I just wanted to show my children where I was born and raised," he said for the second time. "But if I can do anything to help, I will."

Sasaki nodded, then she lifted his glasses to dry her eyes. "Sorry, I shouldn't put such pressure on you. I know sorcerers risk their lives all the time and-"

"Senpai, it's not a problem. Really."

She smiled, but it was a sad expression. "Do you see the children playing with yours?" She asked, looking at the slide. "They are all orphans. I and other volunteers take care of them. Fortunately, the hospital is still functioning in spite of everything, and I am trying to study to become a nurse - although colleges as we knew them no longer exist, you learn directly on the front line now. I see many children left alone every day and I try to help as much as I can. Before, losing someone you loved was a disgrace; after the merger it's an ordinary thing."

Yuuji knew this well. "It is honorable what you do," he said. "You are really a good person, Senpai."

Sasaki gestured with her hand, as if to say he was exaggerating. "I do what I can to keep this world from ending for real."

"You have my esteem."

They talked some more, putting aside the bad stuff voluntarily. Sasaki asked him about Tokyo, what it had been like to move there for high school and what it was like now, then she asked him questions about sorcerers, Clans, and their way of life.

"The one in Tokyo is not Clan in the ancient meaning of the word," Yuuji explained. "We don't all belong to the same bloodline, but we are still a family. In Kyoto, it's different. There, a centuries-old dynasty of sorcerers holds the power."

The Gojo and Zen'in families had survived the merger too, but neither Satoru nor Megumi particularly liked the Clan’s tradition. It could be said that while the Kamo family in Kyoto continued to maintain a deeply conservative attitude, the young leaders of the other two Great Clans were creating something completely new in Tokyo. Meanwhile, thanks to Yuuji, a fourth name in the history of sorcery was becoming a bloodline.

"My twins were the first babies to be born in our family after the merger," Yuuji said. "Two months later, my best friend gave birth to another set of twins. Two boys."

"Wow!" Sasaki exclaimed. "Two sets of twins in just a few months. I guess silence does not exist in your house."

Yuuji sighed. "There are days that are harder than others, but it's a challenge we're happy to face."

”Mom!” 

When Yuuji turned around and saw that Shion was leading his sister to him by holding her hand - Ayame's honey-colored eyes were filled with tears and her lips were parted as she tried to swallow as much air as she could, as if she were choking - he felt the blood freeze in his veins, but he reacted quickly. "Hey, my little flower," he said, forcing a smile as he searched in his backpack for the inhaler he needed. He found it quickly. "Come here, Ayame, don't be afraid."

His daughter moved away from her brother to walk the last few steps that separated her from him alone. Yuuji wrapped an arm around her as he used his free hand to bring the inhaler to her mouth. "Deep breaths, honey," he said gently. "Deep breaths and don't be afraid. I am here with you."

Ayame clung to his wrist doing as she was told. Yuuji went back to breathing with her.

"That's it..." He said, pushing the inhaler away from his daughter's lips. "Feeling better?"

Ayame no longer looked at him. Her attention had been drawn to the stranger sitting next to him. "Who are you?" She asked, pointing her index finger at the young woman.

Yuuji took the small hand and lowered it. "Ayame, it's a bad habit to point," he said, as Shion joined them.

"Don't worry," Sasaki said with a big smile. "My name is Sasaki Setsuko. I was a former high schoolmate of your mother's. I was her senpai."

"Senpai..." Ayame repeated. "Like Auntie Maki?"

Yuuji nodded, putting the inhaler down safely. "Yes, like Auntie Maki."

"And what is your name, little girl?" Sasaki asked.

"Ayame!" The little girl said with a bright smile. "It was Dad who chose my name," she added proudly. "Shion's, on the other hand, was chosen by our mom."

Sasaki lifted her gaze to the black-haired child, and Yuuji saw her smile die as soon as she looked into his face. He turned to study his son's expression, but Shion held the gaze of his four red eyes high, shamelessly. He was his father's son.

"This is Shion," Yuuji said, laying his hand on his boy's cheek. "Honey, why don't you and your sister go back and play for a while longer? We'll be on our way to Grandpa's house soon."

Shion nodded, then took his sister's hand and began to walk.

Ayame waved her free hand in Sasaki's direction. "Bye-bye Senpai."

There was a long moment of silence in which Yuuji’s eyes followed his children as they returned to the slide.

"She has asthma." Sasaki was the first to speak, but he had expected some other kind of comment.

Yuuji nodded. "It's normal for twins to be born before term, but when they were born, Ayame wasn't ready yet. She didn't breathe for forty-seven seconds." It had been less than a minute and had been fine in the end, but he would never forget the image of his daughter's still little body as Shoko tried to revive her. "She is fine now, but her lungs are still fragile. Colds, dust, pollen… Anything can cause her to have an asthma attack, but her doctor is optimistic: she says the situation will improve as she gets older."

"Yes," Sasaki confirmed. "In most cases, it will resolve itself." A pause. "And what happened to the boy?"

Yuuji looked at her. Nothing had happened to Shion; his boy just looked like his father, and that was all, but he couldn't respond that way.

Sasaki saved him from the embarrassment of making up a lie. "It was because of a cursed energy imbalance, wasn't it?"

Yuuji blinked a few times. "What?"

Her cheeks turned red. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to be indiscreet, but in the hospital I've seen many babies born with malformations I've never seen. Sometimes, the situation is so severe that they don't survive for long." A pause. "But I'm glad your boy is okay. Tell him I'm sorry, I didn't want to make him uncomfortable."

Yuuji doubted Shion had felt uncomfortable about something like that, but he nodded and was glad he didn't have to lie to justify his son's appearance. "Yes, I'm lucky. They are both healthy children."

"Do they have the cursed energy to become sorcerers?”

"Yes, they started to show their powers between their second and third birthdays. They were precocious!" Not that he could expect anything different from the children of the King of Curses. "But their father and I are working on it. Fortunately, they inherited their techniques from us, so we know what to do."

“Ayame e Shion…” Sasaki repeated. "They are both flower names."

Yuuji nodded. "My best friend and I - the one who gave birth to two boys after me - agreed that we would give all our four children flower names, in honor of someone important to us."

"So the other two boys have girlish names too?"

"My best friend has a girlish name: Megumi . He didn't like his own name for a long time, and after we found out we were going to be moms together, we decided to make it a kind of family tradition," Yuuji said. "Their father chose Ayame, because it is a flower that symbolizes courage in facing challenges, and she has been fighting since the first minute of her life. Yes, she is brave and so stubborn."

She is like you , Sukuna's voice in his head whispered.

"Shion was my idea," he added. "In the language of flowers it means I won't forget you . It is in honor of the people who are no longer with me but who allowed me to be who I am now."

His children had been born a year after the Shibuya tragedy, around the same time Yuuji had seen Nanami and Kugisaki die before his eyes. He had chosen his son's name with them in mind.

"I'm sorry," he added with a nervous smile. "I think I talked too much."

Sasaki shook her head. "I was the one who asked," she said. "It's good to hear stories with happy endings these days."

The corners of Yuuji's mouth slowly turned down.

Happy endings.

He thought about what had happened after the battle of Shinjuku. He thought of Satoru's body in pieces and Sukuna's soul disappearing from within him with the satisfied smile of someone who has gotten what he has always sought. Yuuji remembered his own dissatisfaction, the emptiness inside him that silenced all other emotions, and he would never forget the tears Megumi had shed for the man he loved.

That had been their ending.

Then another story had begun.

Satoru and Sukuna had been dead for seven days - for Yuuji they had been as long as seven years.

Megumi had sacrificed the baby in his womb and Uraume his own life in order for them to return.

Despite being an idealist by nature, Yuuji no longer believed in happy endings because he had learnt that nothing could be achieved without a price. Nothing.

But he couldn’t tell this to the young woman who sat beside.

"Because you and the father of your children are happy together, aren't you?" Sasaki asked.

Yuuji did not know the answer to that question, but he nodded.

"Their father is half of my soul."

It was not a romantic thing to say.

It was just the truth.

When they left the playground, Ayame walked to the end of the street on her own legs, then she asked to be held. Her eyes were swollen with tiredness. Yuuji leaned a knee on the ground to accommodate her, and the little girl encircled his neck with her arms, hiding her face against his neck.

"I'm all sweaty, Ayame," Yuuji told her, standing up. "I don't think I smell good."

The little girl shook her head. "Mom's scent is always good."

A few steps later, she fell asleep against his shoulder. It was a hot evening and the setting sun was almost blindingly annoying. Yuuji consoled himself by thinking that as soon as it disappeared behind the mountains, the air would be breathable again.

There was no air conditioning in Grandpa's house - and if there was, it was unlikely to be usable after seven years of neglect - but the cool one coming down from the mountains surrounding Sendai had always allowed him to sleep well.

Yuuji saw Shion crinkle his eyes. "Do you want me to hold you too?" He asked. His boy was taller and heavier than his sister, but that was no problem for him - he had never been lacking in physical strength.

Shion shook his head. "I can manage, Mom."

Yuuji supported Ayame's weight with one arm, extending his free hand toward the other child. "We're almost there."

Shion grabbed it without saying anything.

Finding himself in front of his childhood home after so long caused Yuuji to have mixed emotions.

It was strange because while there were signs of merger destruction all over Sendai, in that small corner of the world time seemed to have stopped. That summer evening, as the sun set coloring the sky in vivid hues, could have been the same one in which Yuuji had closed that door for the last time, leaving behind a life to which he had never returned.

Instead, seven years had passed, the world had ended and begun again, and Yuuji himself had died and risen again - both literally and otherwise. 

It was a traditional-style but modest house. No robbers had wasted their time trying to break into it.

On the column holding the entrance gate was still written his family name. Yuuji read it over and over, as if he had forgotten the kanji that made it up.

It had been the only thing binding him to his human life for his first six months as a sorcerer. It did not belong to him now. It did not belong to his children.

Yuuji had thrown away the inheritance his grandfather had left him to collect the one his mother - Kenjaku, not Itadori Kaori - had thrown over his shoulder. But this did not mean that it was not important to show Shion and Ayame their origins - from the maternal side; the paternal side was described in great detail in all the history books of the sorcery world and was told in a few legends of the ordinary one.

Yuuji didn’t regret his choice, to have stopped being Itadori - the vessel boy of the greatest threat who had ever walked the Earth - to become the new bearer of the Ryoumen title - it was incredibly easy to get people to lower their gaze in his presence when he presented himself that way, and his family needed that kind of power - but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel guilty toward the man who had raised him.

"Mom?" Shion called to him.

Yuuji looked down and saw his son's four eyes staring at him worriedly. He was so intuitive, so sensitive. It was amazing how he looked so much like his father, but in those blood-colored irises not even the slightest shadow of evil was reflected. 

Yuuji smiled at him. He ran his fingers through his black hair in a gesture that meant it is all right , then he slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the keys he had forgotten for years at the bottom of a drawer in his old room at the Jujutsu Tech’s dormitory.

The lock made no fuss. The gate opened by itself with a squeak. The small driveway leading to the front door was overgrown with tall grass, but both Yuuji and Shion were able to walk through it without trouble.

Ayame continued to sleep against his shoulder, while Yuuji used the old keys to open the front door as well. He entered first, Shion followed.

The house was dark and the air in the room smelled like places that had been closed for too long. Yuuji stood motionless staring down the hallway, knowing his boy was staring at him, studying his expression, trying to guess his thoughts.

A cough from Ayame brought him back to reality.

"Come Shion," he said, pressing a hand against the child's back. He guided him into the semi-darkened house with confidence, as if he had never left that place.

They crossed the living room, then Yuuji opened the shoji that led onto the small garden on the back. "Shion, wait here with your sister," he said. He didn’t want to risk the dusty environment inside causing the little girl to have another asthma attack. "We can't sleep here if I don't clean everything first."

Shion sat in the engawa without objecting, and Yuuji placed Ayame on the wooden floor so that her head rested on her brother's legs. She didn’t wake up.

"I'll be as quick as I can."

The first thing Yuuji did was to open the shoji and windows of all the rooms, allowing the summer air to enter, then he took the futons from the closet and laid them on the laundry lines in the garden.

Shion watched him the whole time, absentmindedly playing with his sister's pinkish hair.

When he went back inside, Yuuji headed into the kitchen and found cleaning supplies and garbage bags under the sink, where he remembered them being. "Please, please, please..." He murmured, opening the faucet. At first, it made a bad noise, then it began to spit brown water but after a few seconds became an acceptable color. The plumbing was still working. Yuuji lifted his arms in victory, then he took off his black sorcerer's uniform jacket and set to work.

By the time he finished, the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, but the sky was still red. Yuuji left two full garbage bags outside the front gate - he doubted that the garbage collection service was still functioning in that town, but he was too tired to worry about it. He returned to the house wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Did Mom play in this garden when he was a child?"

"I think so..."

Yuuji looked out into the engawa with a smile. Ayame had woken up, but she still lay there with her head resting on Shion's legs. She played with his fingers and he played with her hair as they did their child talk. They were like cat and dog most of the time, but separating them meant hurting them. Maybe it was a twin thing, because Satoru and Megumi's two boys were like that, too - or perhaps those little ones, children of a broken and dark age, saw in each other the only certainty the future offered them.

Yuuji looked at them and hoped that fate would be kind enough to them that they would never be lonely - they were not born to be - and as he looked at them, he wondered if the day would ever come when Shion and Ayame would not make his heart burst with love. It was such an irrational feeling, no matter how natural it was considered by society. Feeling it was something else. It was beautiful.

"Hey, kids, how about some food?"

Not knowing what he would find in Sendai, Yuuji had brought some supplies with him. That would be enough for dinner that evening; the next day he would go with the children to a small neighborhood grocery store - before saying goodbye, Sasaki had given him some useful information about getting around the city.

"So this is the house you grew up in, Mom?" Ayame looked around curiously as Yuuji placed a steaming plate in front of her eyes. "It's small," she said. "I like it, though!"

"Yes," Yuuji said, sitting down on the tatami. "It is smaller than I remember." It was nothing like the large spaces of Jujutsu Tech where he lived now and where his children had been born and raised.

"Eat," he said. "Then we take a hot bath and go to sleep."

"Together?" Ayame asked with her honey-colored eyes shining with happiness.

Yuuji smiled at her. "Yes, we sleep together. Dad is not here, so there will be enough room for all three of us."

Ayame clapped her hands happily. Shion rolled his eyes. "You are such a child..."

The little girl immediately sulked. "You are a child yourself!"

"But I'm older."

"Only five minutes older!"

"Be good children," Yuuji said gently. "Eat, come on. All three of us need a hot bath."

There was something that warmed his heart to see his children moving through the spaces in which he had grown up. Yuuji was surprised by that thought shortly thereafter when he watched them sit one to the right and one to the left of the bathtub - the same bathtub into which his grandfather had unkindly thrown him countless times because there was no summer day when he did not come home dirty from head to toe.

"What are you thinking about, Mom?" Shion asked as Ayame took the foam in her hands and blew on it to make soap bubbles fly.

Yuuji shook his head, running his fingers through his boy’s black hair. "Nothing bad," he reassured him. "I was just thinking how happy it makes me to show you my childhood home, my town, and so many other places that are important to me." He invited Shion to bend his neck back so that he could wash the soap away from his hair without it getting in his eyes, then moved to do the same to Ayame. 

"Ouch, Mom!" The girl exclaimed when her mother's fingers untangled a knot.

Shion's hair was perfectly straight, like raven silk; Ayame's was wavy and unruly and easily knotted. "Sorry," Yuuji said. "I forgot the conditioner at home."

"Crybaby," Shion said, turning to his sister.

Ayame stuck her tongue out at him.

“Come on,  it's time to come out and get dry!” Yuuji took care of Shion first - it was faster to dry his hair - then it was Ayame's turn to get out of the tub. Yuuji tried to untangle the knots of the pinkish hair with the brush, without hurting her - the next day he would tie it in a high ponytail because of the summer heat.

By the time Yuuji finished drying Ayame's hair, Shion had already put on his pajamas. The young sorcerer recovered one of the futons lying in the garden, then headed to his old bedroom, followed by the two children.

There was still a poster of Jennifer Lawrence hanging on the wall, while the library was occupied mostly by DVDs or manga volumes. The school books were on the bottom shelf, as if they were forgotten items.

“Who is that?” Ayame asked, pointing to the giant photo of the young blonde woman as if it was offending her in some way.

“It’s not important,” Yuuji said, detaching the poster from the wall. “She was just an actress I liked when I was younger.” 

Ayame continued to glare at him, dressed in her white pajamas. The rebellious pinkish hair framed her loving face making her look more adorable. Yuuji couldn't help kissing her. “What's up, little girl, are you jealous?”

“No, she's just stupid,” Shion said, sitting on the futon.

“You're the stupid one!” Ayame exclaimed. “You and Dad said that I am the only woman in your life!” She added, turning to her mother.

Yuuji laughed. “And you are, my little girl,” he sat cross-legged on the tatami and held her to his chest. “You are the princess of my heart, don't forget that.”

Ayame returned the hug. “And is Dad your king?”

Yuuji's smile faltered. “Yes, something like that...” He decided to answer. “Let's go to bed. It's been a long day.”

“Cuddles!” Ayame exclaimed, sneaking under the blankets. “I want to stay in the middle!” She added, staring at his twin brother.

Shion rolled his eyes. “Do what you want...”

Yuuji waited for them to lie down, then joined them. He left the shoji open so that the evening air would allow them to sleep on that summer night. But despite the heat, Yuuji welcomed the closeness of his children with joy. Ayame snuggled up against his chest, while Shion remained on his side of the futon. The four red eyes met the honey-colored eyes of the young parent.

“Are you going to take us to the place where you met Dad tomorrow?” The little boy asked.

Yuuji's breathing stopped, but he quickly returned to smiling. “It's just a school,” He said. “I know you've heard a lot about the night your father and I met, but that place isn't as special as you think.”

That was the place where his life had turned into a curse.

Ayame looked up at his face. “But I want to see it too, Mom!” 

Yuuji squeezed his lips until they became a thin line. “I'll think about it tomorrow,” he said. “Sleep now. You’re both tired.”

He kissed his daughter's pinkish hair, then he reached out to caress his son's black hair. He watched the boy’s four red eyes close and felt Ayame's breath slowing down as she fell asleep too.

"What will we tell them when they realize that our story is not a fairy tale, Sukuna?" Yuuji wondered, rolling a lock of his girl's pinkish hair around his index finger.

Shion and Ayame knew a truth made wonderful by details that had never happened. The story of an ancient evil sorcerer who had traveled through the ages to search for someone who could defeat him and ended up finding such a person in the boy who possesses a fragment of his soul was very romantic, similar to a traditional legend of semi-divine beings and mighty warriors. 

The fact that Sukuna and Satoru had returned from the dead contributed to the surreal atmosphere. 

The legendary tones could justify everything: the battles, the deadly duels, the catastrophes. It was like magic. It was able to cleanse everything of the blood stains that soiled it.

They had decided to make it so for the sake of the children, but that was an illusion that could not last forever.

Yuuji watched Shion and Ayame sleep until the image of their serene faces calmed the melancholy that tightened his heart. 

Only after that he managed to fall asleep.

2019

8 days after the merger 

— January —

It was different from the first time.

Feeling the air on his skin after centuries of emptiness had exhilarated him, filling him with adrenaline to the point that he had not stopped laughing for entire minutes as the moonlight had welcomed his entry into the modern era. 

Waking up that night had been like winning a millenarian bet - no one had given him the certainty that by accepting the deal with Kenjaku everything would go according to plan, but the boredom had been too great to prefer an existence all the same to the thrill of risk of a ritual of that magnitude.

Sukuna did not feel that same overwhelming enthusiasm now.

The warm water caressed his skin, enveloping him in a sensation he had not felt in a long time. Every nerve and muscle in his body was relaxed, his breathing was regular and so was his heartbeat -

he could hear it in the back of his ears. He stared at his right hand as if it did not belong to him and occasionally opened and closed his fingers as if to make sure he was in control.

There was no one else in that body.

It was his, his alone.

It was a remarkably faithful copy of what it had been a thousand years earlier.

The black tattoos were still there, and Sukuna could open and close the two extra eyes on his cheekbones, but that was not the form by which the history of sorcery had known him.

That was the body of the young sorcerer who had just begun his ascent. The potential to become the natural catastrophe with four arms, two faces and a huge mouth on his abdomen was there under his skin. Sukuna could feel his powers flowing through him like the blood in his veins.

But there was more than just that.

That body reminded him of his natural mortality. It reminded him that he was made of flesh and blood. It was something he had completely forgotten about.

Playing the role of the embodied cursed spirit, that feeling of mortality had faded.

What made it all ironic - but not to him - was knowing that having his body back didn’t make him free at all.

Sukuna had not wanted to defeat death once again.

He had fallen in battle as he had wanted to.

He had lived by its rules until his last breath.

He had left satisfied.

Of that body, of that new life… He did not know what to do with them.

He tightened his lips until they became a thin line, then he closed his fingers into a fist, sinking his nails into his palm, injuring himself. Blood ran down his wrist and was washed away by the shower jet. Even the pain was different in a body of his own, inhabited only by his soul. The reverse technique made the wounds disappear within moments.

If he could, he would have resurrected Uraume only to inflict them the worst punishment he could think of. Centuries and centuries of loyalty ended in a sacrifice he had not asked for, made in virtue of bringing him back to life because Uraume, blinded by their personal feelings, had not accepted an existence without him.

Weak.

Traitorous.

Disgusting.

Sukuna hoped that his anger and resentment could make his servant's soul a curse so that they could suffer forever and ever, without rest. He stepped out of the shower and saw that a towel had been left on the edge of the sink for him. He took it and began to dry himself. 

A strange feeling on the back of his neck, one that made all the hair on his body stand up, informed him that he was not alone. 

Sukuna looked up and noticed that the door was open and Yuuji was standing in the doorway staring at him. His eyes were ice cold in spite of their warm color.

"I brought you some clothes," the brat said, reaching over to lay them on the edge of the sink. "You're ridiculously tall, but I think these might fit you."

Sukuna stared at the black jacket and pants of the same color. They looked familiar. "Are they Gojo's?"

Yuuji looked at him without replying.

Sukuna dropped the towel, not caring that he was naked in front of the brat. "Has Gojo Satoru come back?" He had met him in limbo, that realm halfway between the living and the dead where souls decide what direction to take.

Usually for those who came back there was reincarnation, not resurrection, but Sukuna and Satoru had not followed a natural metaphysical process. It had been two rituals that had made them live again, and both had come at a price.

Uraume had paid with his own life to snatch their lord from the realm of the dead.

"We don't know anything about Gojo-sensei," Yuuji said, in an atonal voice. "His body is not here at Jujutsu Tech; his father brought him back to his Clan's main residence."

Sukuna arched his eyebrows, fastening his pants. "For sorcerer Clans, resurrection rituals are blasphemy," he said. The truth was that it was almost impossible to perform them successfully because there was never any certainty of recovering a soul before it left limbo. They often ended up summoning something else, making the body of the deceased the vessel of a very powerful curse. "Was Gojo Satoru so beloved that his family decided to accept the risk?"

Yuuji stared at him. "How can you be so sure he came back?"

"I’m not," Sukuna replied. "It is not a process that depends only on Gojo, but also on the sorcerer who performs the ritual. There are only a few to bring people back to life... I just know that I was in limbo with him and I know he was hesitating about which direction to go, I've already told you."

The first dialogue they had had after the resurrection had been delirious - from both of them - and Sukuna was not sure the brat had listened to everything he had said.

"It was not the Gojo Clan that performed the ritual," Yuuji said. "It was Megumi."

Sukuna granted him his full attention. "The Ten Shadows boy?"

"Don't pretend you don't know that Megumi's power can bring the dead back to life."

Yes, Sukuna knew the Ten Shadows technique well and that was precisely why he had wanted it for himself, but Fushiguro Megumi was young, inexperienced. He was a wasted masterpiece of talent. There was no chance that he had succeeded in performing a resurrection ritual. 

"Is he dead?" Sukuna asked.

"No..." Yuuji said, shaking his head.

Sukuna stared at him. "Are you lying to me?"

"Are you really asking me that?"

There had been a time when Sukuna had been able to play with Yuuji's mind enough to deceive him, to use him, to make him miserable. It was different now. 

Kenjaku might have used a fragment of his soul to create the brat, but they no longer shared the same skin. If they were connected - and they were - Sukuna could no longer sense it with the same intensity as when Yuuji had been his vessel.

What was bothering him was that he was probably the only one who had been thrown into that dark corner.

There was only one reason Uraume had been able to complete the resurrection ritual: the fragment of Sukuna's soul inside Yuuji had wanted his missing pieces back. But to get the brat to agree, there had been another price to pay.

And this time it was Sukuna - albeit against his will - who had paid it.

"You really can't tell if I'm lying to you or not," the brat concluded.

Sukuna wondered when he had become so expressionless that it was impossible for him to read in his eyes all that he wanted to know. He decided not to submit to that game. "There is no chance that Fushiguro Megumi survived the ritual."

"Says the man who fell because of his own stupid error of judgment."

Sukuna lifted his hand instinctively, tired of that empty arrogance. His fingers never touched Yuuji, nor did his technique. An invisible slash struck his face, blinding the two eyes on his left side. Sukuna remained still in his position, his lips tight, as the reverse technique healed him quickly.

When he was able to see Yuuji with all four of his eyes, he noticed that the brat's face was dirty with his blood and a sadistic smile had appeared on his lips. "You have a short memory," he told him. "This is already the second time you have hurt yourself in an attempt to hurt me."

Uraume had not brought their lord back simply by sacrificing his own life, because a part of Sukuna's soul belonged to Yuuji… And Yuuji's rejection of the King of Curses had been the greatest obstacle to preventing the original soul from returning to the realm of the living.

And Yuuji had learnt from the best how to use the suffering of others to his advantage. The only thing that had convinced him to stop rejecting Sukuna's soul had been a binding vow, one that made the King of Curses his property - that is why his technique could not harm him.

Ryoumen Sukuna was alive; he possessed a body of his own but was a force of nature held on a leash by a brat.

Itadori Yuuji continued to be his cage, his chains.

And this time the King of Curses did not know how to get rid of it - not yet.

"Megumi is alive," Yuuji said, and this time Sukuna knew he was not lying. "But we don't know if the resurrection ritual worked for Gojo-sensei," he added, then he turned away.

"Where are you going?" Sukuna asked without any interest. "Are you stupid enough to leave me here unattended?"

"And where could you possibly be going?" Yuuji gave him a sarcastic smile that was awfully like his own. "You have been my curse, Sukuna. I am yours now."

Chapter Text

2019 

— January —

The brat didn’t do much to be his curse in the following days. On the contrary, he did nothing, neither with him nor against him.

He would come and go.

Sukuna didn’t know what he did when he went out that door and disappeared for hours, sometimes two or three days in a row - but he never disappeared without making sure someone brought him food, drink and clothes to change into if he felt the need.

The brat was the only person Sukuna saw. When his duties forced him elsewhere, someone knocked on his door to alert him that there was something in the hallway for him, and then they would leave. More than once, Sukuna had looked out of the bedroom to take a look around, but found no one. What surprised him most was that the door - like the window - was unsealed. Seals would be of no use against him, but he had expected from the brat a minimum of a security system.

When the interval between Yuuji’s visits was longer, Sukuna could see from the window of the small room the distant signs of an ongoing battle. Columns of smoke rose during the day, a sign that a destructive fight was going on in that direction, and at night, the earth shook. From the small corner of the world in which he was enclosed, Sukuna could see little or nothing of what was happening outside; everything else was just his intuitions.

The merger had occurred - Fushiguro Megumi had initiated the end of the world driven by a desperation too dark to be contained in a single soul. Sukuna had felt the onset of the event closely, like a rift between the world of earthly creatures and something else.

He had not lived to look around for long.

Sukuna had planned to fight against the monster that Kenjaku had assumed would spawn from the merger itself, changing the rules of the world as humanity had known them until then. He had not had the time to do so.

Itadori Yuuji had set out on his path - again - and revealed himself to be the sorcerer - no, the hybrid, for there was no single name by which to categorize Kenjaku's last creature - capable of defeating the King of Curses.

A thousand years to search for him, and Sukuna had enjoyed more the fact that he had soiled him forever than the fight itself. Because that was the brat, he was Itadori Yuuji.

Sukuna had not enjoyed fighting him.

Yuuji had not enjoyed defeating him.

All that long, convoluted history only to leave them both unsatisfied.

But Sukuna, at least, had died in battle against an enemy his equal. What had Yuuji won? His mentor was dead, his friends were shattered, and the boy he had so desperately wanted to save - the sorcerer of the Ten Shadows - was guilty of the greatest sin ever committed by a sorcerer.

Yet the brat kept fighting.

Yes, the brat kept fighting. Sukuna knew that when the earth shook, he was the one who made it shake. Sukuna knew that if Tokyo had not yet fallen, engulfed by a darkness no sorcerer had ever seen in history, it was because Itadori Yuuji had no intention of surrendering.

Faced with those events, Sukuna realized that he had the necessary pieces to guess what was going on out there, but he did not possess enough details to justify what had been done to him. Uraume - the traitor - had not acted alone, but Yuuji could not have gone along with him out of pure pity - even though he had shown he felt it for the servant who had given his life to bring him back to that earthly plane.

One night, as Sukuna looked out the window, Yuuji came back in such a hurry that the door slammed against the wall before closing on its own. Sukuna turned around just in time to see the brat disappear inside the bathroom.

The sound of water running inside the shower followed shortly after.

Sukuna went back to looking outside, at the bare trees, at the snow-covered ground. The sky was clear, so it would snow again that night.

Ordinary, useless thoughts, but he was good at being patient, waiting for the right moment to act, to speak. And that moment still had not come.

Itadori Yuuji walked with his head held too high, and his last victory, though it had given him no satisfaction, must have made him aware of the power flowing in his blood.

He was suffering.

Sukuna didn't need to sense the turmoil in his soul to know that he was - he still didn't know if his mentor had returned from the dead, and that presupposed a fairly tense climate between Gojo Satoru's students and the Clan of which he was leader, then there was Megumi…

Fushiguro Megumi who was guilty of the end of the world and who had performed a resurrection ritual alone. Two blasphemies in a few days. Sukuna had always thought that the boy had talent - it was no accident that Gojo Satoru had thought of him as his future mate.

In the midst of all his dead or injured allies, Itadori Yuuji was the only one still standing.

The fate of the people he cared about and the fate of that part of the world that had not been destroyed were burdens that rested only on his shoulders at the moment.

Sukuna knew he would not bend.

He knew that he would not stop.

The brat would die inside one piece at a time, but the times when he had cried in fear of dying in a juvenile penitentiary asking for his help belonged to another life.

When Yuuji came out of the bathroom, Sukuna did not turn around. He watched him through the reflection of the glass as he shed the towel, which fell to the floor without a sound, and opened the closet doors.

He dressed as if there was no one else in the room, but Yuuji knew full well that four red eyes were spying on him.

"What do you want?" The brat asked rudely as he fastened the button on his pants.

Sukuna turned around and saw that the towel he had dried himself with was stained with traces of purplish blood. "Was it a very large beast?" He asked.

There were two things: he was bored and any conversation about battles and curses was better than silence, every information from the outside world was useful for him to understand how it was best to act.

"It was just really big," Yuuji replied, putting on a T-shirt and then a sweatshirt.

Sukuna guessed that he must have killed it with a wave of his hand and that the wave of blood that had followed had been the only real problem in that confrontation. "The door to this room is always open," he told him. "Even the window," he added. "There are no seals in the whole place."

Finally, Yuuji deigned to look him in the face. "It’s a student dormitory, not a prison."

"But I am a prisoner."

"I never said that."

Sukuna tightened his lips, preventing all that nonchalance from compromising his patience. "I think you realize that this situation as it is makes no sense."

"Yes, I know," Yuuji moved so that they were face to face, although there was all the distance afforded by the room separating them. "Are you ready to talk about the terms of the deal I made to bring you back?"

Sukuna laughed in his face. "Do you really think a deal is enough for you to keep me on a leash."

"Yes," Yuuji replied firmly, without any particular intonation.

Never in his life Sukuna had heard a simpler, sharper answer. He laughed. "You are so sure of yourself, brat."

"And you not a bit," Yuuji replied. "You have not attempted to step outside this room even once. You are many things, Sukuna, but not a fool. You don't want to hear the terms of the pact that binds us, but you know the risks of going against a binding wov."

"I've been accepting risks long before Kenjaku's twisted mind hatched the idea of a creature like you," Sukuna said. "I'm taking my time, that's all."

Yuuji stared at him. Sukuna wondered to whom those golden eyes belonged. Perhaps they were from the woman Kenjaku had used to carry and give birth to him, but the coldness of those looks came from much closer. "Time for what?" Yuuji asked.

A simple question, asked without sarcasm or even curiosity.

It was just a question.

Sukuna's smile became wider - a mask to cover something else. "It would be interesting to go out there and clash with the monster generated by the merger’s core. Surely he would be a rival unlike any other, impossible to compare even to Gojo Satoru-"

"And to me," Yuuji reminded him, but he did so neither arrogantly nor proudly. He was merely reminding the defeated king how things had gone.

Sukuna stopped smiling. "Be careful what you say, brat."

"You can't touch me without hurting yourself."

That was one thing Sukuna kept forgetting - the fault of habit - and it was also the only condition of the binding vow he knew.

"Uraume was right," Yuuji added.

"Don't mention that traitor in my presence."

"Are they really?" Yuuji approached again. "They were certain that you had died unsatisfied because being defeated in battle by an opponent worthy of your esteem was your idea of fulfillment. But I am not worthy, am I? Your blood on my hands is a humiliation, not a glorious fall."

"Heroes fall in glory, brat," Sukuna retorted. "I am not one. I never wanted to be. Your words are just nonsense."

"The concept does not change," Yuuji insisted. "You hate that it was I who defeated you."

Sukuna didn't need to explain himself; it wasn't in his nature to waste his time like that. That brat, in any case, would not understand. "Any news about Gojo Satoru?"

His presence or absence within that story made a big difference.

Yuuji shook his head. "I'm working on it."

Sukuna chuckled. "Are you trying to come to terms with an ancient Clan?"

"I don't come to terms with anyone," Yuuji hissed. "I promised Megumi to bring Gojo-sensei back home, and I will. I'm going straight to the goal, the rest doesn't matter."

Sukuna curled his lips into a grimace. "You learnt one thing, at least," he said. "Did Fushiguro Megumi really survive the resurrection ritual?"

"You keep asking that."

"I still think you are lying to me."

"I don't need you to believe me."

"And that leads to another mystery not revealed yet." It was Sukuna's turn to approach the younger man. At that point they were face to face. "Why did you bring me back, Itadori Yuuji?"

Only a fool devoid of logical sense would have done that.

Or a man ready to gamble everything to achieve his goals.

Itadori Yuuji could be both.

"You demand answers but won't listen. They called you king, but you are a tyrant. You always were." Yuuji said, turning away. "I have nothing to say to a man who looks down on me."

He left as quickly as he had arrived.

Sukuna remained alone with his silence once again.

2025

— June —

By the time Yuuji opened his eyes it was late at night, and he had not been able to rest even a little. For a few moments he lay there on his back, staring at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, as the song of cicadas came in through the open shojis, along with the breeze of that early summer night.

It was strange.

Usually, at that time of year, the air was more pleasant in that region than in Tokyo. The two warm little bodies lying next to him certainly did not make the situation any more comfortable.

Yuuji raised himself up on his elbow and stared at them: Shion was lying on his side and had his back to him, Ayame had detached herself from him but, although she was the smallest, she managed to occupy most of the futon’s space with her arms and legs fully extended. She looked like a star.

Yuuji smiled to see that at least they could sleep. It had been a long journey - they had worked hard over the years together with other sorcery families from the other cities to make the main roads trafficable, but that did not mean that every city in Japan was easily accessible, and they had had to walk a long distance to get to Sendai. The fact that the city was not connected to the others by a suburban network was also a symptom of barely surviving after the merger.

Yuuji sighed and eventually gave in to insomnia and decided to get up, being careful not to wake the sleeping twins. The house was small but he left the bedroom door open as he moved into the living area - he wanted to hear them in case they needed him. Yuuji had been born with particularly developed senses -thanks to Kenjaku and his experiments - but since the twins had been born, nothing seemed to escape him.

It also happened at that moment.

Yuuji stood in the doorway of the small living room and looked down the dark corridor, hearing one of the children stirring in his sleep. It was Ayame. Yuuji was certain of this, although he could not explain why. His little girl must have changed position after unconsciously sensing the empty place on the futon beside her.

Yuuji stood listening for a few moments, but no one called out to him. He continued.

In the engawa outside the living room, there was, hanging from the ceiling, one of those low-power lamps that did not emit too much light and kept insects away. Yuuji pressed the switch without any optimism but, to his surprise, the device turned on without any problems.

He sighed, then he raised both arms above his head stretching and yawning.

It was not so hot without two children attached to him, but he had no desire to go back to his room and try to sleep. He knew it would be a losing battle.

He sat on the edge of the engawa, leaning his shoulder against one of the wooden columns and looked at the dark silhouette of the mountains that he could see beyond the low roofs of the houses. That was a residential neighborhood: small houses and many parks, suitable for families. The city center with its skyscrapers and night lights was behind Yuuji.

Who knows what was left of it?

Yuuji had never spent much time there. He had left when he was fifteen, before the nightlife of a big city began to interest him. He remembered well accompanying his grandfather to pachinko. Only as an adult had he realized that it was not a place a minor should ever frequent, let alone a child.

Kugisaki and Megumi had told him all kinds of things when he had nonchalantly entered one in Tokyo. Yuuji let go another sigh. What could he say? Grandpa had done a great job with him, despite being a lonely man and as far from a care giver as there could be, but he was definitely not perfect.

The more he thought about it, the more Yuuji felt a great urge to talk to him.

He looked up at the starry sky - there was a rising moon, so the stars were clearly visible - and told himself that if his grandfather was anywhere he must be right there, in that house where he had raised him.

He thought of something to say, but of all the things he had thought, he could not put even one of them into words.

Maybe he was just too tired to make a heart-to-heart confession to a dead man.

A barely perceptible hiss drew his attention. Behind the closed shoji next to the ones in the living room was his grandfather’s bedroom. Yuuji had entered it that afternoon, he had opened it to let the dust out and the clean air in, then he had left it behind as if it did not belong to him.

In a way it was true, it did not belong to him.

His grandfather had always forbidden him to play with his things and in his space, but Yuuji had never had the curiosity to find out what lurked in an old man’s room.

At twenty-two years old he knew that Itadori Wasuke's greatest secret was not hidden in a box at the bottom of a closet, but it walked, breathed, and talked - even too much.

Yuuji moved around, looking for the source of that hissing sound: the shoji of his grandfather's bedroom had worn down over the years and was not closing properly, allowing air to enter through a tiny crack, causing that noise.

The corners of Yuuji's mouth lifted into a wistful smile. "Are you trying to tell me something?" He rested his hands on the wood and paper panels, slowly opening them.

It was impossible to guess what kind of man Itadori Wasuke had been from his bedroom, as only the bare minimum was inside it: a desk under the window, a built-in closet, and a low bookcase containing old volumes that probably had not been opened in decades.

Yuuji entered the small space one step at a time, as if he expected to hear the thundering voice of his old man promising him severe punishment if he dared to take one more step - Yuuji remembered many threats but no real punishments in his childhood, only the most mundane ones.

He began to wringing his hands, as if unnerved, but it was just him there. Yuuji was alone in an empty room, yet he had the impression that this was not really the case, that this was only the truth that his eyes could perceive.

The young sorcerer’s golden eyes wandered over the few objects present, he ran his fingertips over the desk: there was no dust on it because he had cleaned it just a few hours earlier.

The urn with his grandfather’s ashes was not there - it had a worthy altar, with a photograph, in Tokyo now, in the house where her children were born and raised. He had taken it with him to Tokyo because it had seemed too much disrespect to leave it there, abandoned, along with a past that should never be touched again.

But Yuuji had been touched by that past anyway.

It had cut his skin like invisible blades and made him bleed.

And by virtue of that spilled blood, Yuuji believed he had a right to know more. He opened the built-in closet: the futon he had found folded there was still drying in the garden, and there were very few clothes left - Yuuji had donated all the others before he left.

He rested his hand on one of the empty shelves, for no reason. It was not possible that there was a hiding place, not there. He continued his search, descending. He recognized the photo albums from his childhood, but he knew he would find nothing in those pictures. His grandfather had chosen them carefully, so as to give him a glimpse of the seasons of his life that he could have no memory of, but without showing him too much.

The young sorcerer rested a knee on the wooden floor and tried to feel the panels under the last shelf.

His breath stopped when one gave way under the pressure of his hand. He stopped. Yuuji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he calmed down enough, he grabbed the wooden panel with both hands and lifted it up, then abandoned it in the center of the room.

There were boxes under the floor. Yuuji could not see well, but the twins were asleep in the next room, and if they saw the light on they might have come to look what was happening. Yuuji did not want to: even he did not know what he had found.

Tapping with his open palms, he managed to make out the shapes of three large boxes and pulled them out one by one. He blew the dust off their covers - he would worry about cleaning up his grandfather's room the next day.

Sunlight hours were for ordinary things.

The silence of the night was for secrets.

Yuuji lifted one box at a time and, through the engawa, carried them into the living room. Eventually, he retrieved his childhood photo albums as well, before closing the closet.

Once he had them all in front of him, he sat down in the engawa, on his lap, and as he looked at what was in front of him, let the night breeze caress his back, he focused on that.

It did little to calm his raging heart.

He tightened his lips, held his breath, and stretched his hands toward the first box.

A noise in the hallway startled him and distracted him from his intent. Yuuji stood up quickly and walked the few meters that separated him from the door of the house. He remained still, his hand pressed against the wooden surface, and distinctly heard the creaking of the old gate at the beginning of the driveway.

Someone had entered.

Yuuji knew who it was. He closed his eyes and sighed in exasperation, then he opened the front door an instant before that nocturnal visitor did so from the outside.

Yuuji’s golden eyes immediately met Sukuna’s red ones.

Even with the little light illuminating the scene, Yuuji could see the livid expression on his mate's face. Well, the feeling was reciprocated.

Aware that he could do nothing without making the situation worse, Yuuji turned and took two steps into the hallway. "Come in…" He retraced his steps as he heard the front door close. He wrapped his arms around his body and looked at the small garden of his childhood, waiting for the other to speak.

"Where are the children?"

"They are sleeping," Yuuji replied, turning away. He was a step out in the engawa, Sukuna was in the doorway of the living room.

"If we have to argue, let's do it in a low tone, I don't want them to wake up and see us fighting."

"We don't fight," Sukuna objected, slowly crossing the room.

"Oh, no… We tear each other apart with invisible slashes until one of us ends up on the ground, right?"

A few moments and they were facing each other. Yuuji had grown up again during the second half of his teenage years, but he had not reached Sukuna's ridiculous height so it was always the King who looked down on him in situations like that.

But the way with which he did so was no longer the same as seven years earlier.

"I am no longer physically able to be the one of the two left standing," Sukuna said, and admitting this bothered him incredibly, as it did every event that reminded him that the younger sorcerer always had the upper hand. "What were you thinking?"

No brat or tiger. No nicknames of his own.

Yuuji understood that he was really angry, and he knew that anger had to do with the children. "You knew I'd come back sooner or later," he said, clawing at the fabric of the T-shirt that covered his hips. "I had been asking myself questions for a while, it was only a matter of time before I left to find the answers."

Sukuna nodded. "My mistake was to believe that you would do me the courtesy of warning me and not take the children to a city without a barrier."

Yuuji snorted. "You know very well why we haven't talked about it."

"Because you are childish, you always have been."

"I'm the childish one, really?" Yuuji was losing his cool after only a few lines. "I didn't run away first."

"No, but you ran away with my children."

"Shion and Ayame are safe when they are with me!” Yuuji exclaimed, then realized he had raised his voice too high and bit his lower lip briefly. "I wanted them to see the city where I was born and raised-"

"A pile of rubble, you mean."

"-and the place where it all began," Yuuji added.

Sukuna knew what he meant. It had become the reason for more and more discussions between them. "Ayame and Shion are asking questions, Sukuna," Yuuji continued. "They are asking so many questions… You turn away and pretend not to listen to them and I can't take it, okay?"

Tokyo and the cities that were their allies were a protected place. Their family would do nothing to harm the twins' serenity, but Shion and Ayame were no ordinary children. Neither were Megumi and Satoru's twins, but their story, however complex, was easier to accept. Yuuji could not expect their children to spend the rest of their lives in a gilded cage - it was impossible to contain two forces of nature - and it was not possible to prevent them from knowing the cruelty and darkness that was the basis of their story. Yuuji could not protect them forever, but he could prepare them, sparing them some of the suffering that had befallen him.

Leaving for the place of his birth had seemed to him the easiest way, first to find more answers for himself and then to give them to his children. Also because Sendai was a dying city that had been in the silent crossfire of the Clans for so long. It was only a matter of time before it became war territory. But Yuuji had not had the courage to tell Sasaki this - but that would not stop him from trying to avoid the worst.

But that was not a discussion for that night.

About their children e their origin, Sukuna’s part of the story was a bit more complex, but they had to start somewhere, and Shion and Ayame would turn six the following fall.

"I thought that by showing them where they come from… Where I come from, some of their curiosity would be quieted, that's all," Yuuji said.

Sukuna rolled his eyes, as if that existential talk bored him. "You are so full of questions…" He turned around and saw the three large boxes resting on the ground. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I didn't even start looking for anything," Yuuji said. "You interrupted me."

"Oh, excuse me, Your Majesty."

"Don't make fun of me."

"You can't ask me that," Sukuna looked him in the eye again and took another step toward him - their breaths can mix with each other now. "Mocking you is the only thing I enjoy in this miserable existence to which you have condemned me."

They stood still and looked at each other.

The red in the gold.

If there were no definite conditions regulating the way Sukuna could move around Yuuji, he would have already taken what he wanted without much preamble. But it was Yuuji who was leading that long dance of theirs now. He had done it for so many nights that they could no longer be counted.

All it took was a nod, a small gesture, and Sukuna would know he could move closer.

Yuuji allowed him to do so. For a moment, his golden eyes moved away from the four eyes of the same color as blood to rest on the lips immediately below. To that shift he accompanied that of his neck, reclining it to the side.

It was an invitation.

Sukuna moved forward.

Yuuji pressed his hand against his face and pushed him back as he pulled away. "You stink," he commented, and it was true. "Did you come walking all the way from Tokyo to Sendai?"

Yuuji peeked over his shoulder and saw that his mate’s expression was bored. Good, it amused him.

"I move faster on foot," Sukuna said. "More importantly, no one notices me."

Yuuji shrugged his shoulders. "The temple monks are the only ones who run things here, I doubt the locals really know who we are," he leaned over the portable fridge he had left by the kitchen door. "Do you want a beer? The refrigerator has not yet reached the right temperature, so it will be a little warm."

"I gladly do without that vulgar drink."

Yuuji decided to take one of the three remaining bottles - he had not taken many because he had not considered sharing. He opened the top with his teeth and swallowed a good half of it all in one go.

By the time he had finished, there was the most disgusted expression on Sukuna's face. Yuuji was even more amused. "Are those jeans?" He asked in surprise, taking a moment to study the figure of his mate. "And is that a leather jacket? Did Satoru dress you up by any chance? You look like a man of this era, it’s not a sight one often witnesses."

"I can dress myself, brat," Sukuna said, getting rid of the jacket in question. He took a few steps and went to hang it on the doorway - politeness first.

Yuuji stared at him, sipping beer from his bottle, his back leaning against the lintel of the small kitchen folding door.

Sukuna was in his house.

That thought came like a bolt from the blue and made him freeze. Sukuna was walking in the spaces he had grown up in, believing that he was as ordinary as any other person.

Ordinary was also the setting, and that ridiculously tall broad-shouldered man made the rooms look smaller, as if that was a dollhouse - it had been, in a way, because he and his grandfather had played let’s pretend for fifteen years between those walls.

"Welcome home," Yuuji said.

Sukuna stared at him.

"I mean…" Yuuji added. "Welcome to my grandfather's house, the one I grew up in."

He could not call it his own, because his was in Tokyo where his children had been born and raised. Where he lived with his mate.

But it still had a certain effect on him that Sukuna was there.

The creature that had ripped him away from ordinariness forever was in the place where ordinariness had been the only thing for fifteen years.

Yuuji took another sip of beer and stopped thinking about it. His mind was spinning around.

"I have been here before," Sukuna reminded him.

Yuuji arched his eyebrows in puzzlement.

"I was already inside you while you were packing for Tokyo," the older man remarked.

"Oh… I guess you took a long look at all the furniture," Yuuji said sarcastically.

Sukuna slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans and began to wander, looking around.

Yuuji watched as he crossed the small living room and paused in the engawa, under the light that chased away insects.

"In my time, a house like this belonged to a man who could feed his family."

"We were feeding ourselves," Yuuji said. "For modern society, we were among the lower-middle rungs, but my grandfather made me understand the luxury of having food every day, a roof over my head, and the ability to wash and dress myself."

In seven years together, this was the first time Itadori Wasuke had been the focus of their conversation.

"A practical man," Sukuna commented.

"Yes, he undoubtedly was."

Yuuji dropped the empty beer bottle into the waste basket. "Do you want to eat something? You have had a long journey."

Sukuna spotted the backpack left beside the refrigerator. "I guess you only have pre-cooked foods."

Yuuji rolled his eyes. "Kids don't whine half as much as you do."

"I'm not hungry," Sukuna cut it short, walking down the hall. "Where are the children?"

"They are sleeping in my room. It’s the last one on the right, down the hall," the young sorcerer said. "And don't tell me you're not hungry. I don't believe you." He turned and looked at his mate leaning inside the room he had pointed out to him.

From where he stood, Yuuji could see his profile: it was remarkable how Sukuna's face changed when he looked at their twins. He did not stop being himself, but his face and eyes took on extra nuances that Yuuji had noticed in other circumstances.

Ryoumen Sukuna was not a mask.

He was showing himself for who he was, just not showing everything.

This did not change anything about his original nature or make his story less blood-soaked, but it had been enough, years before, to convince Yuuji to look at him longer and more carefully.

When he was satisfied, he walked away from the bedroom where the twins slept. Halfway down the hall, his four red eyes met Yuuji’s. "I was told that my smell is not pleasing to the lord of this house."

Yuuji thinned his eyes: he knew he spoke that way only to irritate him. "I’ll show you where the bathroom is and do the laundry. You will have to sleep naked for tonight, but this heat will dry your clothes out before tomorrow but-" He was interrupted by a sweat-damp T-shirt thrown against his face.

"You know better than that," Sukuna said, bored, unfastening his jeans and letting them fall to the wooden floor. "Where should I go?"

Yuuji took a deep breath, reminding himself that he had spent half a day cleaning that house and that the blood stains were particularly hard to wash away. He reached out his hand and slid open the door in front of the taller man, showing him the bathroom inside. "Please, after you," he said sarcastically.

Sukuna did not let it be repeated twice, and Yuuji picked up his clothes from the floor, muttering that he was not his servant. They moved into the small space together: Sukuna preferred the shower to the small bathtub, and Yuuji bent down in front of the washing machine - he decided he would also wash his and the children's clothes and hang them out in the garden as soon as the washing program was over.

The golden eyes stared at the rear window filling with water and then at the clothes that began to swirl as foam formed. There were the clothes of four people in that washing machine: two children and two parents. A family.

Family.

Yuuji had learnt early in his life that that word could refer to any person worthy of having a place in his heart. People in Tokyo were no less family than his grandfather had been. Megumi was no less a brother to him than Choso was.

Yuuji turned around: Sukuna had his back to him as the hot water from the shower ran down his back, drawing the black tattoos that were there. That was the man - the natural disaster - to whom he owed his existence; that was the man who had given him his twins. That was the man who had thrown him into the darkest abyss and then put him on the highest throne in the world.

He was his mate - there were two children in the next room to prove that he was - but he was not his family. Yuuji could not see him like that.

But Yuuji looked at him and, indeed, saw a man.

A cursed man, but still a man.

Perhaps that was the privilege - or the arrogance - that no one else would ever possess besides him.

Shion and Ayame made them parents.

But what they were to each other had no definition.

And when men do not know what name to give to things, they sew on them a label that was almost synonymous to shame: blasphemy.

But Yuuji had stopped caring about that long ago, since before the twins were born, since before he made Ryoumen Sukuna his lover and, later, his mate. Yuuji had stopped seeing the world in black and white when Megumi had been guilty of the sin of starting the merger, when the young sorcerer of the Ten Shadows had gone against all the laws of their world to bring Gojo Satoru back from the dead. Yuuji himself had set aside his moral rectitude by choosing to live and pay for the sin of his birth by using his power to help others, to allow the world to have a future.

And, in the end, he had condemned his soul by bringing Ryoumen Sukuna back to life.

The other half of his soul.

Before he gave himself time to think about what he was doing - he did not care about pride at that moment - Yuuji took off his clothes and dropped them on the bathroom floor. But Sukuna only realized what he was doing when he opened the shower stall and slipped under the hot water with him.

The four eyes of the King of Curses betrayed no surprise. "What do you want?"

"It’s been a long day," Yuuji said. "Full of unpleasant thoughts. I need to vent."

Sukuna emitted a snort that was also a laugh. "Do you need a bit of stress relief?"

"I want my mate" Yuuji said, without shame. "You need to let off some steam too, after all."

They had not parted on good terms, and soon after the younger man had decided to throw gasoline on the fire by leaving for Sendai with their children. Dialogue was not the strong point of their relationship in times of tension. There were two options: fighting or sex. And at that moment they were both naked and the twins were sleeping in the room down the hall.

Sukuna grabbed Yuuji and pushed him against the cold tiles. The young Omega had reflexes ready enough to lift his hands and keep his face from colliding in a painful way. "Sukuna…" He hissed, without turning around.

He knew it would not be something gentle, but that did not mean he would not complain until he had the voice to do so.

He lost it quickly.

Sukuna grabbed his hips and his manhood slid between his thighs, giving him a taste of what lay ahead. "Did you want to say something?" The King of Curses asked directly inside his ear.

Yuuji had an obsession with that voice. There were times when he was ready to punch that sadistic mouth to get it to stop talking, but when they were both like this, every word was like a spell. Yuuji decided that the time for bickering was over: he tightened his legs, stroking his mate's erection with the soft skin of his thighs.

Sukuna slid a hand over his throat, but did not squeeze. He invited him to recline his head against his shoulder. Yuuji closed his eyes as that mouth gently tortured the skin between his neck and shoulder. Sometimes he would bite, sometimes he would kiss him. He threatened him and then reassured him.

It was the predator's game with his prey.

Yuuji knew it well and it made the blood boil in his veins more than the hot water falling on their bodies could do. He did not like to rush things, but it had indeed been a very long day and between he and his mate there was a quarrel that had not yet come to an end.

The night had just begun.

There would be time for slowness and exasperated pleasure later.

"Inside me, Sukuna…"

Yuuji felt his mate’s fangs against the skin of his neck and realized that he was smiling. "You are a little more arrogant than usual tonight, brat."

Brat. Some good humor had returned to him at least.

Sukuna did not make him wait. He took a step back, and no longer feeling his lover's chest against his back caused Yuuji a cold shiver, but it was a brief annoyance.

The Alpha grabbed his sides with his right hand, inviting him to bend over a little, exposing his backside, with his left hand he helped himself into him.

He was not slow.

It was not kind.

Yuuji bit his forearm to keep from screaming, but the pain was little - and he knew it would pass quickly - compared to everything else.

"You were waiting for me, huh?" Sukuna said, behind his back, as his erection entered fully into the wet warmth of the Omega's body.

Yes, Yuuji was aroused. He had been excited the moment he had seen him appear in front of the door of his childhood home because he knew full well what would happen.

And he wanted it so badly.

Yuuji needed that kind of daze before he could face the ghosts of his past. “Don’t waste words,” he said, bracing himself against the the wet tiles with his cheek flush against their cool surface. “Do what you have to do.”

Yuuji did not want romance or sweetness.

He wanted to stop thinking, wanted his every sense overstimulated until he could no longer distinguish reality from delusion. Sukuna was just like him. He couldn't hold himself back just to wait for him to adjust to his dick, he pulled himself halfway out and plunged ruthlessly back in. Again and again. 

Yuuji opened his mouth wide, swallowing air and emitting a series of desperate gasps. His eyes were closed, the back of his head resting on the Alpha's shoulder behind him, his back arched against his muscular chest, covered in tattoos.

It was so good.

It was like he wanted it.

Sukuna could make anything of him. Yuuji didn’t care.

The Omega felt the King of Curses run one hand up the base of Yuuji’'s spine and pushed downwards, using his other to pull upwards on the hip in his hand. He slowed his thrusts and began pulling further out before slamming harshly back in right to the hilt. The slow roughness causing all new sensations.

“Sukuna…” Yuuji moaned.

”Be quiet, brat,” Sukuna slid his fingers over his throat. He did not want to take his breath away; it was just a gesture of possession, one that was familiar to Yuuji. "We are not alone…" That hand reached his mouth, and the young Omega bit down on his mate’s fingers, stifling moans as his movements became more feverish, more needy.

There was only one thing Yuuji did not like. He could feel Sukuna's quick breath against the back of his neck, but the noise of the shower prevented him from hearing his gasps as they reached pleasure together.

It was something he would make up for later.

When he came, Yuuji bit the fingers between his teeth so hard that he felt the taste of blood on his tongue. Sukuna came inside him an instant later and the fingers slid out of his mouth.

Yuuji found himself with his forehead pressed against the cold tiles, his eyes closed and his lips parted as he tried to catch his breath. He shivered, despite the hot water of the shower against his back.

He did not stay in that solitude for long.

Sukuna turned him around and took his lips in a kiss before seeking his gaze. That was the first kiss they had given each other that night and it tasted like the blood of the King of Curses left on the tongue of the young sorcerer who possessed half his soul.

"Don't bring my children into a war territory just to spite me, brat," Sukuna hissed against his lips.

Their eyes met.

"This city is not a war territory until you decide to turn it into one," Yuuji retorted.

They were still naked, pressed tightly into each other, wearing traces of the passion they had just consumed, and they were talking about war.

"And war is not the only solution," Yuuji added. "Just because you are incapable of seeing another one doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

They were not meant for peace.

There had been moments of peace, yes, and Yuuji remembered them all in detail, one by one. Their children had been conceived during one of those.

But they were fragments of heaven for two creatures spawned from hell. 

That was blasphemy, too, after all.

2019

— January —

Ryoumen Sukuna was many things.

The world remembered him as a natural disaster.

Someone had crowned him King of Curses.

The two-faced monster. The Fallen One.

Ryoumen Sukuna was a warrior, but his bloodlust was not second to his thirst for knowledge. And curiosity was the first step of any discovery.

When Sukuna decided to test on his skin the strength and condition of the binding vow that bound him to the brat, not even a week had passed since his resurrection.

The brat had not been back to the dormitory for more than twelve hours, and judging by the constant earthquake tremors and columns of smoke rising from Tokyo, he would be busy for some time to come.

Sukuna opened the door - there was no seal, as he had already noticed in previous days. He faced the hallway: the only sources of light were those coming from outside, and he did not sense the presence of other people throughout the building. The brat had been clever to think of putting him in a place away from the other survivors, but the absence of any security system in sight was synonymous with either great stupidity or something his eyes could not see.

Both cases irritated him.

He put one foot outside the room, just one.

No, whatever spell the brat was using on him did not prevent him from leaving the room.

"Well, well, brat…" He stuffed his hands inside his pants pockets - every piece of clothing he wore was Gojo Satoru’s property, but that didn’t matter - and began to wander. There was not much to see and practically nothing of interest.

He had already walked down those hallways and down those stairs countless times while he was in the brat’s body. He wasted no time looking around and took the direction of the exit.

Jujutsu Tech still bore the clear signs of Kenjaku's attack, the one during which he had managed to recover both Tengen's real body and his mummified remains.

The earth shook more violently than previous times, and Sukuna stopped. He raised his four red eyes to the sky and saw another column of smoke and dust rise. Whatever curse it was colliding with the brat it had to be rough.

Sukuna was certain of this, although Yuuji’s soul had been silent for him since he had decided to break their bond of his own volition to steal Fushiguro Megumi’s body and especially his Ten Shadows.

He remembered that he had not yet found out what had really happened to that brat and the resurrection ritual that was supposed to have brought Gojo Satoru back.

He really did not care. He thought that if that new chapter of his story was long enough, he would find out the truth anyway.

The place to which he was headed had no name.

The brat had killed him and that no longer made him the strongest sorcerer in history, but that couldn't stop him from fighting the creature that had been spawned by the merger itself, the curse of curses.

Who knows if the brat had seen it?

Who knows if it had appeared on the Shinjuko battlefield or in some other corner of that modern world?

A natural calamity like no one had ever seen, something between earthly and something else.

Who knows how it behaved? Was it sentient, or did it wander, following an instinct that was understandable only to truly cursed creatures?

Sukuna was curious. He wanted to know.

If he could not have the epilogue he had chased for a thousand years, then he would seek a new one, and this time he would write it himself, without the intervention of others.

He did not care about Kenjaku's plan, much less the fate of the world.

Sukuna just wanted to go where he had never gone before.

It was the only way he knew how to live - even if he didn't know what to do with that life.

The first invisible slash struck him in the right arm on his third step under the trees of the forest surrounding Jujutsu Tech. He froze, then lowered his eyes to see his forearm break away from his body and fall to the snow-covered ground.

In the blink of an eye, a dark red halo surrounded the severed limb.

Sukuna stared at him as the reverse technique worked to regrow a new one. If there had been anyone to witness that gruesome spectacle, they would have said that the King of Curses had felt no pain during the whole process.

Sukuna proceeded, not at all impressed.

A second slash struck his left shoulder, a third his side.

The more the snow at his feet became smeared with blood, the faster the reverse technique flowed into his veins to remedy the damage.

"You have to do more than just use a trick like using my own technique against me, brat-"

A slash struck his carotid artery. A spray of blood stained the air scarlet, and Sukuna felt both his voice and breath fail as he instinctively brought a hand to his throat. One foot slipped on the frozen ground and he found himself on his knees, under the bare trees.

He smiled as the taste of blood filled his mouth and red liquid flowed from his lips.

It was not a defense mechanism acting automatically.

Those were not random blows.

The ground trembled beneath his feet once again, reminding him that Yuuji was not there.

"It’s not possible," he told himself, as the cut on his throat healed and he returned to regular breathing.

Itadori Yuuji could have been a prodigy - or a monster.

But he was too young and too inexperienced to balance his cursed energy to the point of fighting two battles at once with such precision.

What made that possibility more absurd was the fact that Sukuna had no enemy in front of him. For all he knew, Yuuji could have been fighting miles and miles away from him.

There is a binding vow that binds you, the voice of reason in his head reminded him.

"Yes, but that binding vow doesn’t want me dead," Sukuna said, wiping his face of his own blood with the back of his hand. "He was the one who brought me back to life."

It was Itadori Yuuji who wanted something from him. He had proclaimed himself his own curse, and that meant he would not let him go so easily.

"Come on, brat, I want to see what you can do-"

He did not give him time to speak. The next slash cut both his legs and Sukuna fell, finding his face pressed against the icy snow. He found it in his mouth and gritted his teeth hard, clawing at the mud hidden beneath the white layer.

"Don't move," came an order from the darkness.

A gash opened on his back.

Sukuna bit the snow and the ground beneath his mouth to silence a scream of pain.

The game had stopped being fun before it had even begun.

"Did you say something?" The voice demanded.

More slashes fell on him. They came like a shower of a thousand invisible blades.

But Sukuna did not scream. He gritted his teeth to the point of tearing his lower lip, but still tried to stand up.

His left arm was the first to fly off. Sukuna employed every energy he had to breathe. As long as he was breathing, the reverse technique would limit the damage.

All he needed was a direction in which to strike. Just one…

"Why do such weaklings cling so fiercely to life?"

He moved the fingers of his right hand toward the direction the voice was coming from; the blow came back at him, blinding the eyes on the left side of his face.

His right arm came off his body moments later.

"How can a creature that falls apart at a touch be so arrogant?"

He knew those words.

Sukuna lifted his head and Yuuji stood in front of him. The ground no longer shook; whatever curse had kept him busy had been defeated.

His eyes were blank but determined, his expression uninpressed.

He looked at him as he had looked at Mahito in Shibuya: a predator facing its prey.

There was no sadistic light in his golden eyes. Nothing at all.

Yuuji felt no enjoyment in seeing him like this.

For a long moment of silence they just looked at each other.

Sukuna could remember no such humiliation, not even his first defeat at the hands of that brat had been like this. He felt the reverse technique becoming weaker and it was now obvious that any attack he would use against the brat would backfire on him.

Yet he felt like laughing.

The King of Curses laughed, spitting blood and venom because in the lowest moment of his existence he had managed to turn his natural enemy into what he hated most.

"Look at you…" Sukuna managed to say. "Look at what you have become to defend everyone. Your humanity, your honor, your pursuit of happiness…" A crown had fallen, and it was only right that the victor should inherit it. "The king is dead. Long live King of Curses."

That was a curse, too.

It was an undeniable reality.

Yuuji leaned one knee on the ground to look at him more closely. "Let's see if you can swallow your own suffering now…"

A quick movement of his hand and Sukuna lost consciousness.

2025

— June —

Yuuji spread out the futon in the small living room.

He did not feel like sleeping in his grandfather's old bedroom together with his mate. His old man had never been a bigot and, consequently, neither was Yuuji, but he did not find it appropriate and Sukuna said nothing about it.

"Did your grandfather have a shodo and ink somewhere?" He asked instead.

Yuuji arched his eyebrows at hearing that question, but continued to smooth the white fabric of the futon with his hands without investigating. "Try looking in his desk drawers. His room is the empty one next to the one where the children are sleeping."

Yuuji heard Sukuna's footsteps on the wooden floor and sensed his movements in the next room. He did not hear him ask anything else, and the young sorcerer deduced that he must have found what he had asked for. Yuuji sat on his lap: the living room was small but the futon fit perfectly into the space between the wall and the low table in the center of the room. He folded the blankets and left them to one side: he doubted they would need them during the night.

"Sukuna?" Yuuji called out in a low voice, stepping out into the engawa, retracing the same steps as his mate. He crossed his grandfather’s room and looked inside the one in which the twins slept.

Sukuna was standing in front of the jamb of the open shoji, the one that led to the apartment's small garden. He had an inkwell in one hand and a shodo in the other. With precision and speed he was writing something that from that distance Yuuji could not read.

The young sorcerer asked nothing, only looked at him, fascinated.

Sukuna had that effect on people. He was a man of multiple dualities - even if it was a terrible pun - but it had taken Yuuji time to see them, to appreciate them. Seven years after their first meeting, he could say without a shadow of a doubt that - ironic as it sounded - they had never been as far apart as in the six months they had shared the same body.

When Sukuna had finished, he held up both inkwell and shodo in his left hand and pressed the palm of his right against the wooden jamb. A red, living vein through the column, as if it was about to catch fire but it did not.

The light went out in the blink of an eye.

"What is it?"

Sukuna turned a derisive grimace on him. "You learned the reverse technique in just one month, but you are completely ignorant about simple but useful things like this," he said, crossing the room one step at a time, careful not to wake the sleeping children.

"I remember someone had offered to be my teacher," Yuuji reminded him, sarcastically, as the King of Curses paused at his side.

"Yes, Gojo Satoru," Sukuna said. "An unprecedented teacher, indeed!"

"I was talking about you…" Yuuji emphasized, but the squabble was short-lived. The younger man's golden eyes followed Sukuna's hand as he moved the brush expertly, writing on the doorway of their children's room something he could not read.

"I don't know those characters," Yuuji admitted, without shame.

"It is an ancient language." When he had finished, Sukuna placed his right palm on the scribe and the black lines were crossed by a tongue of fire that went out as quickly as the first time. "The fact that a spell is not powerful does not mean that it is not effective or that it does not serve a purpose."

"I know this."

Sukuna looked at him. "In a city without barriers or other security systems, this seal can make the difference between life and death."

Yuuji sighed. "I was sleeping with them until just now."

"You said it right: until just now… An instant is an infinite amount of time for creatures like those out there, and you know that."

Yuuji admitted his guilt by remaining silent. For a while they said nothing, watching the children sleeping peacefully: Shion was lying on his side and Ayame was sleeping with the hem of his pajama T-shirt between her fingers.

"They are perfect," Yuuji murmured

"All you've been doing is repeating it since October 31st, 2019," Sukuna said.

The younger man smiled at him. "And you just keep thinking that."

Sukuna returned his gaze.

"It’s useless for you to look at me like that," Yuuji moved close enough for their lips to touch. "I know you do." He did not kiss him.

They left the door open so they could hear their little ones every movement.

They wasted no time with the blankets: it was too hot.

When they found themselves lying next to each other, the anger was gone.

"Did you vent?" Sukuna asked.

Yuuji curled his mouth into a grimace that was a half smile. "I was not the only one angry."

It was Sukuna who sought physical contact first. He reached out an arm toward Yuuji, wrapped it around his waist and pulled him toward himself. There was a vague threat in that gesture, and Yuuji pressed his right hand against his chest to remind him not to do anything too much.

"Forgive me if my mood is affected when my mate brings himself and our children to a city I had decided to attack."

"It was a matter still in the evaluation stage, but you decided to fixate on it."

"It was only being evaluated because Gojo Satoru has the bad habit of cherishing his own humanity and, in particular, his place in his mate's bed."

"No, what confuses you is that Satoru listens to and considers Megumi’s opinions. You would never waste your time like this."

"I don't waste my time, my love. You take it as if it's been your thing for years now."

Yuuji twisted his mouth into an irritated grimace. "Don't talk to me as if you were my husband now."

"It pains me greatly to remind you that I am.”

"You are my husband and this is my city. For a man of your time, that must mean something."

Sukuna let out a sigh that was also a snort. "You never showed any sentimental attachment to this place before the idea of destroying it was considered."

"Sendai is a living city," Yuuji said firmly. "It is a wounded place, but it struggles to survive. It should not be destroyed, it should be helped."

The King of Curses rolled his eyes, and his face was animated by the expression of someone who did not expect anything other than what was happening. "Sendai is a huge cursed womb, Yuuji," he explained for the umpteenth time. "An entire city without barriers, or trained sorcerers capable of holding against the cursed energy in the area. At best it will become a huge hive that will kill all the humans there and then swarm over all the neighboring territories, threatening ours. At worst, a curse could arise that was not only powerful but also sentient, capable of organizing itself and declaring war on us. Beings like Mahito are no longer an exception to the rules, you know that."

If there was one thing in Ryoumen Sukuna was superior to all, it was not powers, but an even more valuable weapon: knowledge. Gojo Satoru had bowed his head to that truth long ago. Sukuna was an ancient being but it was not just that that made him an inexhaustible source of knowledge. He was curious by nature. Anything involving sorcery had always interested him, independent of whether it was strong enough to defeat it or not. Ryoumen Sukuna was a living encyclopedia that surpassed those of the ancient clans, and he had no fear of using that knowledge without following the rules.

Yuuji knew that if Sukuna said Sendai was dangerous, then Sendai was dangerous without a doubt. But there could not be only one way to handle the problem.

Death and destruction could not be the only cures.

"I met an old schoolmate of mine at the playground where I played as a child," Yuuji said. "The temple monks fought the first wave of the merger. They are the ones who reorganized the city and are training young students to create a real support network. I think some of them are sorcerers. Of course, none of them are of your or Satoru’s level, but we can talk-"

"The democratic approach you hold so dear has failed and you know it well," Sukuna reminded him. "Your dear Megumi, accompanied by Satoru, tried that path. They didn't even listen to them. Megumi told you what they called them."

Blasphemers.

Monsters.

Fallen Sorcerers.

Because Megumi had initiated the merger.

Because Megumi had sacrificed, albeit unintentionally, the life of the Six Eyes in his womb to bring back the one who had fallen on the battlefield of Shinjuku.

"Those who have fallen…" Sukuna repeats, playing with a lock of Yuuji's rosy hair. "We are among those, brat."

"We are not simply among those," Yuuji retorted. "We are something more."

Sukuna looked him straight in the eye.

For a few moments they said nothing to each other, then the King of Curses smiled. "You want to raise some hell, brat?" 

"There is no need for that," Yuuji said, turning around. "Fear is enough." He was tired; he had no desire to argue further.

Sukuna's arm was still wrapped around his waist, and Yuuji felt his four red eyes staring at the back of his head. Yuuji waited a while, his eyes half-closed, then the song of cicadas coming in from the open shojis entered his head, eliminating any other noise.

Falling asleep with Sukuna's voice in his head had been a necessity to which he had adapted rather quickly.

Falling asleep next to Sukuna was a habit that had slipped quietly into his life, and Yuuji had noticed it one night, by accident, long before the twins were born, when he had laid in bed alone and felt cold.

Behind him, Sukuna moved just enough to make his chest touch to the younger man’s back.

Yuuji closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

2019 

— January —

Yuuji did not know what to do.

At first, he stood still, gazing down at Sukuna's body at his feet. The King of Curses was no longer moving, and there was very little white left in the snow around him.

And the red kept expanding.

Yuuji held his breath, waiting for Sukuna’s reverse technique to do what it was supposed to do.

When it didn't happen, the panic closed his throat.

"Hey…" Yuuji took a step forward. "Don't play games, you piece of shit!"

But Sukuna remained motionless and his wounds continued to bleed.

"Damn it!" Yuuji knelt in the snow, wetting his pants, his hands suspended in midair, as if he didn't know where to put them. Finally, he pressed two fingers against Sukuna's neck and he resumed breathing as soon as he sensed a faint pulse.

It was a brief consolation.

If he hesitated any longer, Yuuji knew there would be nothing more he could do to resolve the situation.

"Shit…" The young sorcerer passed Sukuna’s arm around his neck and stood up, supporting his unconscious body. Yuuji was strong, he always had been - in a way that could not be called human - but that dead weight nearly made him slip on the frozen ground.

"You're heavy, you bloody bastard!"

Yuuji needed help.

He needed someone who understood why the fucking King of Curses' reverse technique wasn’t working, but it didn't take an expert to figure out that it wasn't normal. Sukuna had made them both survive after ripping his heart out of his chest, dammit!

Yuuji wanted to scream.

"Don't you dare die!" He hissed, even though the King of Curses could not hear him.

2025 

— June —

When Yuuji woke up, the sky was beginning to clear. It took him a few moments to realize what had awakened him.

"Lower your voice or you'll wake them up." It was Shion.

"But what if Dad leaves before we wake up?" That  was Ayame's voice.

"He won't leave. He is here to take us home. When Mom is finished with his things, we will go back to Tokyo together."

No reply came from Ayame. Yuuji didn’t move, listening, and heard their small feet walking barefoot on the wooden floor, then the rustling of the sheets reassured him that they had both gone back to bed. Perhaps they had woken up to go to the bathroom and, not finding him next to them, they had looked around the house and seen him and Sukuna sleeping together in the living room.

Yuuji felt a hand touch his back and turned to the man sleeping next to him. "We got caught," he said.

Sukuna blinked a couple of times. "It wouldn't be the first time," he said, then he turned on his opposite side.

The times Ayame had interrupted their intimate moments could not be counted. For her, physical contact was everything, she sought it all the time and was so adorable in doing so that it was almost impossible to deny it to her. Yuuji was of the opinion that it was due to the fact that during the newborn phase they had held her most of the time. "It has been studied that skin-to-skin with parents for premature babies can be more helpful than any incubator," Shoko had told them.

But Ayame had not simply been born prematurely. She had been revived from an almost one-minute-long respiratory block just after birth, and her lungs, not developed enough yet, had faced many difficult challenges during the first winter of her life. Yuuji remembered a violent argument between him and Sukuna at that time. Because premature babies did not survive in the Heian Era - babies like Ayame did not survive in the Heian Era.

Yuuji remembered well when Sukuna had surrendered to the fact that their baby girl was going to die and how much he had hated him at that moment - maybe more than he had hated him in Shibuya or when, during the Culling Game, he had stolen Megumi's body.

Yes, Yuuji had hated him, but Sukuna had not gone anywhere. He had not left Ayame for a moment, because their daughter had never given up.

"Little, fragile, stubborn creature," Sukuna had called her, holding their baby girl in his arms, when the worst was over. "She is her mother's daughter, I guess."

Aware that he would no longer be able to fall asleep, Yuuji sat up on the futon cross-legged. The three boxes he had found hidden under the floor of his grandfather's bedroom were on the floor, and the photo albums from his childhood were resting on top of them. He reached out his hand and picked up the first one to flip through it. He found a photo that satisfied him and, smiling, took it between his fingers. He retrieved the phone that had fallen under the table and searched the gallery for a photo from the spring of 2020.

"What are you doing?" Sukuna wondered, looking over his shoulder. Perhaps the absence of heat next to him was bothering him, but Yuuji wouldn't bet on it.

"Look!" He said enthusiastically, showing him the photo from his childhood, placing it next to the cell phone display.

Sukuna stretched out on his back to better see what his young mate was showing him. On the phone’s display was a picture of Ayame from when she was about six months old, with a small pigtail of pinkish hair on the right side of her head - it had been taken outdoors, probably during the flowering of the sakura trees. Instead, the photograph in Yuuji's fingers portrayed a child about the same age sitting on a beach, with a terribly orange hat covering his pinkish hair. Their smiles were identical, as was the color of their eyes and hair.

"I always told you that Ayame is my mini-me, and you have proof of that now!" Yuuji exclaimed proudly.

Sukuna lifted his gaze from the two images to fix it on his face. He was not impressed at all - in fact, perhaps he was even annoyed.

"My daughter is more beautiful than that cockroach," Sukuna commented mercilessly.

Yuuji felt his jaw hit the floor. "You have four eyes and none of the four can see well, by any chance?" He hissed. He wanted to beat him up.

Sukuna stared at him. "My daughter is more beautiful," he repeated in an atonal voice.

"I made your daughter!" Yuuji replied, leaving both the picture and the phone on the table to point his index finger against his chest and emphasize his words. "But, after all, what do you know about it? While I was giving birth, you were walking in the woods!"

"Walking in the woods full of curses that could have attacked Tokyo while you were giving birth," Sukuna said, crossing both arms behind his head.

"Great! You won the Father of the Year award five minutes after you became one! A record!" Yuuji snorted.

At that point, that was no longer even a dialogue, it was just teasing each other's nerves for the sake of it. They used to do that a lot. It was the form of communication they used the most, and it could evolve into a big fight or something completely different.

In that particular case, it was evident that Sukuna was doing everything to get on his nerves for his own personal amusement. Yuuji looked at the two photos: one taken in spring and one in summer. Yes, it was obvious that Ayame was more beautiful - she had that something elegant, almost regal, that Yuuji never had. Both of his children had it, but in Ayame's eyes the sun shone and in Shion's there was something darker but it was deep, ancient.

Something Yuuji had lost himself in at the end of the winter when the Shinjuku battle had taken place.

"Ayame has longer eyelashes," Sukuna added, twisting the knife in the wound.

Yuuji curled his lips into a grimace. "Ayame is a girl, I am not."

"Try telling that to the two Gojo kids."

"But what kind of comparison is that? I still remember Kugisaki complaining to Maki about Megumi and Satoru’s eyelashes. What are they doing with them? She always wondered, then she lashed out at Megumi for no reason!" 

About a year after those events, Yuuji became a parent. Looking back, such a change in such a short time seemed so absurd.

Sometimes, when Maki would stop to play with Ayame - he was certain that she loved him a little more just for giving birth to a girl in a family full of boys - Yuuji wondered what it would be like if Kugisaki had been there with them. Ayame would have adored her.

"With what useless thought are you wasting energy, brat?" Sukuna reminded him of his presence beside him.

Yuuji closed his eyes for a moment and then sighed. "Nothing…" He replied without looking him in the eye. It didn't matter that they were raising two children together; they would never be able to understand each other.

"Your nothing makes a lot of noise," Sukuna complained.

"If my thoughts bother you, I can close the connection between us. Just ask," Yuuji said, as cold as ice.

It was a condition partly due to the fact that they were two pieces of the same soul in two different bodies, and partly it was related to the binding vow the young sorcerer had made when he had brought the King of Curses back to life. If free of any barrier, Yuuji and Sukuna could feel each other as if they were still one body, but the younger one - precisely because of the vow he had made - had the power to command that connection at will.

If Yuuji had decided that Sukuna's mere proximity was a threat to him - and in the immediate aftermath of the Shinjuku battle it had been so - the Fallen One could not even brush past him without harming himself.

The first time Yuuji had lowered that barrier, it had been the most painful experience of his life.

The second time, he had discovered what true pleasure was. A pleasure that went beyond the skin, the union of the two bodies. A pleasure that two ordinary people could never have experienced.

Once he had crossed that boundary, Yuuji had no longer felt the need to raise that invisible wall between him and Sukuna - by the way, he had found out about the pregnancy shortly thereafter - but the threat had escaped his lips on more than one occasion.

In most cases, it ended any discussion.

It had been exaggerated to use it on that occasion, because they were not really fighting. Yuuji realized this by the way Sukuna stiffened beside him, although his expression betrayed no emotion in particular.

Yuuji sighed and shook his head. He did not apologize to his mate, but went back to lying down, his golden eyes fixed on the ceiling. Their shoulders touched.

"The thought of that silence is so unbearable to you…" Yuuji murmured. It was a conversation they had been through many, many times before, but each time he found himself surprised to realize that truth.

"Every time you say it, it sounds like you don’t understand."

"It's not that I don't understand," Yuuji tried to explain himself, turning his face just enough to respond to the gaze of those four red eyes. "I feel the difference too, believe me."

"But you don't suffer it. It’s different."

"We suffered the constant proximity of each other for six months, and when you left to steal Megumi's body, you didn't suffer a thing."

"It was different…"

"In what way?"

Sukuna's red eyes fixed themselves in Yuuji's honey-colored ones. No response came from the lips of the King of Curses. Yuuji looked at the ceiling of the room again, curling his lips into a bitter smile. "You can't stand that I make you a prisoner of my silence, but you have no qualms about giving me yours," he said. It had been like that all along. Yuuji had gotten closer to the man named Ryoumen Sukuna than any other, but he had had to share his soul in order to do so, and even so, there were dark corners of the King of Cruses’ mind that he would never see.

Then the young sorcerer felt warm fingers caressing his inner thigh. "Silence is not the only thing I give you," Sukuna whispered against his ear as his warm breath caressed his neck.

Six years earlier, he had not proved himself very skilled in the art of seduction. At the age of sixteen, during their first intimate moments, Yuuji had discovered that the King of Curses was a rather clumsy lover - it was a subject he had laughed heartily about even with Megumi, only to discover that Satoru had the same flaw.

But Sukuna knew him more than anyone else now. He knew how to touch him in a way that would convince him to let go.

Yuuji was just too proud to give in at the first attempt. He chuckled - it was a joyless sound. "Don't you dare…" He said, grabbing his mate’s wrist and pulling his hand away from himself. And then he tried to get up - what could he possibly do at the crack of dawn? It didn't matter, the important thing was to try to resist.

But when Sukuna moved on top of him, pushing him to lie down again, Yuuji humored him with a pout. “You’re so annoying, Sukuna.”

"Don't talk as if you didn't plan this from the beginning," the King said, inviting him to spread his legs to make room for him. "What happened in the shower was because you needed to let off steam," he said, pinning his hands to the sides of his head. "This is for pleasure." 

Yuuji rolled his eyes, then looked away so that he would not have to suffer the fascination of those red eyes. "Where did the man who placed himself above human pleasures go?"

"It wasn't a man, it was something else," Sukuna replied - he was always so serious during sex - leaning down to hide his face against her neck. "And, if I remember correctly, you killed it."

Yuuji closed his eyes as that cruel mouth gently tortured him. Sukuna was a predator. His instinct was that of a predator; it didn't matter that Yuuji had tied him to a chain. He would never ask his permission before taking something from him; he would push him into a corner until Yuuji showed him his throat to sink his teeth into it.

When that mouth claimed his, the young sorcerer had lost all will to resist. He sighed into the kiss as he felt Sukuna’s arousal press against him. Yuuji guided his mate’s hand between his legs, allowing him to do what he had denied him just minutes before. Sukuna let out an appreciative sound as he started stroking him.

Yuuji moved against his fingers, slowly, clinging to the other's arm with the only free hand he had - the other was still pinned against the futon. They were still kissing, and neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to go all the way.

This is for pleasure, Sukuna had said.

Yuuji knew that, for the King of Curses, pleasure was synonymous with slowness. Sukuna didn't waste time with anything that didn't capture his interest, but when something did, he would do anything to make it last - and there was no difference between a fight and sex in that case.

Yuuji was breathing heavily as Sukuna's mouth was torturing his neck again. The young sorcerer felt himself easing into the King’s touch as his fingers were toying with him.

Then Sukuna stopped touching him and rose to look him in the eyes. Yuuji responded to his gaze, aware of what was about to happen. Sukuna entered him in one swift motion, running a hand up the thigh of his young mate to invite him to bend his leg and give him more room. Yuuji’s body easily accepted him, it completely surrendered, after what happened in the shower and thanks to all the attention the King had given him. Sukuna hid his face against his neck - he always did, as if he didn't want the younger one to watch him experiencing pleasure - as he started to move into Yuuji, strong fingers holding his thigh in a tight grip so he was in total control. Yuuji let him do whatever he wanted, it was too good for him to feel the need to do anything and was rewarded with what he had not had in the shower. The only sound he heard was Sukuna’s breath, so harsh now, catching and stuttering. It was hot against his skin.

It was proof of how much power Yuuji had over him even when he was not fighting for it.

In the end, it was a continuous battle.

Nevertheless, Yuuji moved the hand Sukuna was pinning against the futon, he slid it under that of his mate, and intertwined their fingers.

Yuuji held it tightly as he came.

2019 

— January —

"What the hell happened?" Shoko asked, as Yuuji deposited Sukuna's unconscious body on one of the morgue tables with little kindness.

"I need you to heal him," the young sorcerer said, breathing heavily. "His reverse technique is not working."

Shoko took a step forward, analyzing the situation closely. The doctor had always been cool and efficient when it came to her work, even in the most dramatic situations, but Yuuji could read in her tired eyes that something made her uncomfortable at that moment.

She squeezed Sukuna's wrist to assess his pulse, as the boy had done moments earlier. "He's still alive, but he won't be for long," Shoko said, as the King of Curses’ blood began to drip from the table, smearing the floor red.

"I know!" Yuuji exclaimed. "That’s why I brought him to you! I need you to heal him!"

But Shoko did not move. She continued to stare at the motionless body covered with stab wounds. Sukuna's face was so disfigured that had they both not known who it was, they would not have been able to recognize him.

"What is it?" Yuuji demanded with an impetuosity that betrayed his frustration.

Shoko gasped. It was not typical of the 15-year-old to be rough with other people. It was not typical of her to be so impressionable.

"How is it possible that his reverse technique does not work?" Shoko wondered. "He managed to keep your body alive without you having a heart in your chest."

"I don't know!" Yuuji was screaming. Those were questions he had already asked himself, too, and he had not found an answer to any of them. Why were they wasting time like that?

"Shoko, I'm asking you to help me!"

Ryoumen Sukuna could not die like that. Yuuji could not allow that. He couldn't.

"What's going on?"

Yuuji's mind was so clouded with panic that he did not hear the morgue door opening, but when he heard Megumi's voice it was impossible for him not to turn around.

His friend stood still in the doorway, his green eyes widened at the gruesome sight before him. "What-?"

"No time for explanations!" Yuuji interrupted him, clutching the edge of the table with both hands and looking at Shoko. "I need your help," he repeated more calmly, more kindly, as if the problem was that the woman did not understand him.

The hesitation reflected in Shoko's eyes did not disappear even then, but this time she lifted both hands, laying them on the nearly shredded body.

Yuuji breathed again as she closed her eyes and prepared to do what she had to do.

It was a short-lived relief.

Yuuji sensed Sukuna's cursed energy an instant before an invisible blade struck both of Shoko's hands. Her blood mixed with that of the King of Curses on the floor.

"Damn it!" Megumi moved away from the door to help her.

"I'm fine!" Shoko hurried to say as the black-haired boy grabbed both of her wrists to assess the damage. "I'm fine… These are wounds I can heal," she added.

But Yuuji could not help but notice that she was struggling to hide the pain. Her dark eyes met his. "That's what I was afraid of," she said. "I cannot help him, Itadori. Only you can do that."

Yuuji did not know what to think. He did not know what to do. His eyes were fixed on Shoko's hands, which were healing but the reverse technique did nothing to wipe away the blood.

Megumi turned to look at him. "Can we know what happened?" He asked. "I thought you were fighting one of those giant curses."

"I was doing that," Yuuji confirmed, staring at Sukuna's unrecognizable face.

"Did he try to escape?" Megumi asked, switching her green eyes from the unconscious body between them to his friend's face.

"I don't think so…” Yuuji said. "Or rather, he did but I don't think the purpose was to leave. I think he wanted to test himself or something."

"Test himself?" Megumi repeated, as if those words made no sense. "Doesn't he know the conditions of the vow you made?"

Yuuji shook his head. "I've been trying to talk to him for days," he said. "I even tried the last time I saw him, a few hours ago. He wouldn't listen to me!" He angrily kicked the table - instinctively, Megumi took a step away. "Why do you always have to be like this?" The 16-year-old yelled at the unconscious man who kept bleeding on the table. "Why do you like so much to jeopardize everything rather than stop and listen?"

This was typical of Sukuna. He knew full well that Yuuji had tied him to a chain through a vow, but rather than listen to his words he had gone out into that winter night to test on his own skin whether it was stronger him or the new fate that had befallen him.

"Itadori, listen…" As soon as she had recovered, Shoko approached the table again. "The rules of these events are not written anywhere. But if his soul is tied to a chain that you hold in your hands, then the same applies to his powers. All his powers," she emphasized that all with special emphasis.

Yuuji did not understand; his mind was not thinking clearly.

But Megumi gave him a hand. "Did you two fight?" He asked. "Is that why he is like this?"

"No," Yuuji bent his head, his hands gripped the edge of the table more tightly. "I am discovering the way the conditions of the vow materialize day by day too. I think that whenever Sukuna does something against me or against my will, his powers turn against him." The pieces began to fit together, each in the right place. "I was fighting a curse, but I could feel his presence clearly. I knew if he was going to leave, and I thought I couldn't let him."

Megumi nodded. "The binding vow you made made him your property, after all. What you're saying makes sense."

"Yes, but I don't want him to die!" Yuuji exclaimed, lifting his head. "If it is my will that controls his powers, why is the reverse technique not working?"

"I think you have to learn to regulate the bond between you and the power you have over him," Shoko said. "It’s like learning to walk. You can't get the balance right overnight, it takes constant practice."

"I know!" Yuuji wanted to bang his head against the wall. "But what can I do now?"

"Loosen the chain," Shoko replied. "Give him back the ability to use his powers and he will save himself."

Yuuji lifted his face and looked at her as if she had asked him to do the most unthinkable thing of all. Shoko responded to his stare with the firmness of someone who is sure of what they’re saying.

But Yuuji was not. No, he was not at all.

He looked for Megumi's green eyes, silently asking him a way out that was less difficult than that, but his friend seemed to be facing his own conflict.

But Megumi had always been braver than him. "You've always managed to control him," he said. "From the first time, when you hardly knew what was happening to you. You are just stronger now. You can do it, Yuuji. You are the only one who can control Ryoumen Sukuna."

As they looked into each other's eyes and Yuuji saw reflected in those green irises all the trust his friend had for him, he remembered how Megumi had always been like that. Even in the face of what had happened in Shibuya, Megumi had sought him out and believed in him.

Despite everything, he still did.

Yuuji could not betray that trust, not after the price they had chosen to pay to give that world a chance to survive the new order of things. 

He tightened his lips as his hands moved to grip Sukuna's arm. Yuuji felt the warm blood under his fingers and forced his mind to stay clear, focused, to feel everything else.

Let him go, he told himself. Let him in.

If he had to explain it in words, Yuuji would not have known which ones to choose. He only felt the invisible wall he had erected between himself and Sukuna, the one that prevented the latter from hearing his thoughts and even approaching him, gradually disappearing.

And as this happened, the pain began.

"Yuuji?" Megumi called out, perhaps seeing on his face the signs of suffering that he could not understand.

Yuuji did not have the breath to reassure him. He did not know what was going on too. All he knew was that it hurt like hell. He lowered his head until it touched the edge of the table and clenched his teeth: he did not want the other two to know how much he was suffering.

It was like being struck by a shower of invisible blades. It was as if Sukuna's pain was passing through him, although there was no wounds on his skin.

Yuuji heard Megumi's voice shouting his name and sensed confusion around him, how his friend was trying to get closer but Shoko was preventing him.

"Don't touch him, Megumi!" The doctor exclaimed, perhaps fearing that the black-haired boy might also be pulled into that vortex of pain. "You're doing it, Itadori!" She added loudly.

"Yes, but at what price?" There was anger in Megumi's voice. "Yuuji, let go! Let him go immediately!"

"If Sukuna dies here, all this will have been for nothing!" Yuuji shouted, giving vent to the suffering that ran through his body and, at the same time, voicing his thoughts. "I have to do this! This is my curse! I chose it!"

And he had no intention of escaping it.

2025

— June —

The small garage next to the apartment in which Yuuji had grown up was a little hell of which only his grandfather had known the secrets. In that one room with the always-open shutter - it had broken when Yuuji was still a child and his grandfather had said he would have it fixed with savings he always had to invest in other emergencies, with a higher level of priority - there was everything. About everything.

Itadori Wasuke had always been a practical man, who had learned to do almost everything in life, so that he did not have to ask anyone for help - it was no mystery why Yuuji had been the only one by his deathbed - and because of this he was in possession of a large number of tools for all kinds of needs. Whether it involved gardening or plumbing, Itadori Wasuke had always done everything himself. Even the old car who occupied most of the garage space was a miracle of his: the old man had been maintaining that vehicle for years, and that engine had never stopped running.

But Wasuke Itadori had been dead for seven years and no one had taken care of his house, garden or car in the meantime.

When Yuuji had found the old keys on his old man's desk, he had almost hoped for one of those miracles from when he was a child. But after the tenth time he tried to start the car and all he received were dying noises from the engine, he began to think that his grandfather’s miracle car had definitely died with him.

Not at all willing to give up, Yuuji turned the ignition keys once more.

"If you keep this up, you will blow it up," Sukuna said.

Yuuji lifted his gaze from the steering wheel: the man had one arm bent over the car roof and was staring at him through the window. He was evidently bored by his stupid stubbornness.

Yuuji huffed and opened the door suddenly, hitting Sukuna's side voluntarily. "It can't explode if it doesn't start!" He exclaimed.

"You came here with a real car," Sukuna reminded him. "And you decided to leave it out of this town."

"The roads were impassable with it!"

"Did you at least hide it? In run-down places like this, people would kill to have a car like that."

It was not a figure of speech.

"Do I look stupid to you?" Yuuji was beginning to lose patience.

"Yes," Sukuna replied.

The younger man had not expected anything different. "Get off!" He urged him to move to the side as he looked for something at the bottom of the garage - the light bulb in the center of the ceiling wasn't working either, of course, and there still wasn't enough light outside, so Yuuji was practically searching blindly.

"Can anyone know what you are so persistently looking for?" Sukuna asked, closing the car door to rest his back against it.

"Why?" Yuuji asked, as he moved a box full of Christmas decorations that prevented him from moving forward. "Are you going to give me a hand?"

"No, it is amusing to see you in this miserable state while pretending to be angry because you cannot find what you are looking for."

Yuuji straightened his back, then stared at the darkness in front of him for ten seconds, convincing himself to keep calm. "If you think I'm still mad at you, you're sadly mistaken," he said with a sneer. "Don't give yourself all that importance. You don't have it."

Sukuna was so calm as he made him a bundle of nerves on the verge of exploding. "You are always angry with me." The King of Curses shrugged his shoulders. "You hate me after all."

"Do you want to blame me?"

"But you hate me a little more after I make you feel pleasure," Sukuna said, with that know-it-all smile that made the young sorcerer want to behead him so badly.

Yuuji opened his mouth, then closed it, then he opened it again.

When Sukuna laughed, he walked over and stood in front of him. They looked straight into each other’s eyes - he hated that the asshole was so tall.

"And do you hate me a little more after you come inside me?" Yuuji asked. "Or do you hate yourself more because I am the one who makes you come?"

Sukuna rolled his eyes. "You're just a vulgar brat."

"And you are a coward," Yuuji retorted. "You always were, after all…"

Sukuna's smile faltered, but whatever rancorous retort he was thinking, he never said it out loud.

"I told you he would stay."

They heard Shion's voice before they saw him and Ayame appear at the garage door.

Yuuji smiled instantly. "Hey!" He greeted his children. "Good morning, my little flowers!"

Ayame was still half asleep and lifted her arms in his direction to be picked up. Sukuna moved before him and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing.

To his daughter it made no difference. "Dad…" She murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and hiding her face against his shoulder.

"Did you fight with Mom again?" Shion asked, as if it was his duty to worry about such matters. Yuuji felt a sharp pain in his chest at those words - the last few days had not been the most peaceful, and Shion was so careful about everything. While Ayame had blind faith that her parents loved each other - Yuuji felt guilty about that too - Shion did not see only the beautiful things as his sister. Sometimes, their son would stare at them, and Yuuji had the feeling that he could see how bloodstained they were.

"This is none of your business, child," Sukuna replied, but he ran a hand through their son's black hair to muffle his words. 

It was those gestures that fooled Yuuji more than anything, more than sex, more than pleasure. He had never asked Sukuna to be a father, never demanded it, never even expected or imagined it.

But Sukuna was there, with their girl in his arms and their boy talking to him and looking at him with the certainty that those hands would never hurt him. And Yuuji had always been there as well, yet he still could not explain these images to himself.

"Let's go have breakfast," the young sorcerer said, brushing Sukuna's shoulder as he passed him.

2019 

— January —

Sukuna’s wounds healed, but he went from a state of total unconsciousness to a delirious one. He had stopped bleeding, but his mind and body were weakened by fever.

"Give him time," Shoko had said. "First he collapsed and now he is in a state of shock. If it had been anyone else, his organs would have begun to fail one by one and they would have died. His cursed energy is seeking balance with his body, and I think the process is made difficult by the fact that the skin he inhabits is completely new to him."

"Uraume made sure he had a body identical to his old one," Yuuji had expressed his confusion.

"The body may be identical, but it’s still new and he hasn’t been used to having mortal features for at least a thousand years. I would not worry. Given his knowledge of sorcery in all its forms, I doubt this is the first time he has been in such a state."

Nevertheless, Yuuji had chosen to move Sukuna to his room because he did not want others to see him like that. Partly it was a matter of pride: Yuuji had gone against anyone's advice to bring Sukuna back to life and had agreed to sacrifice his soul for it, and he had found himself with his plan gone to hell after only a few days and after having doomed himself.

That situation was sincerely shameful for him.

Unnecessary sacrifices did not appeal to him, and it was not in reference to himself as much as to the servant who had sacrificed his life to bring his master back to life. None of his friends would have agreed with his thinking, but Yuuji did not want Uraume's death to have been for nothing.

He owed them that at least.

On the other hand, seeing a creature as powerful as Ryoumen Sukuna, powerful enough to be called a natural disaster, reduced to that state was the kind of spectacle that brought no satisfaction in those dark times. Sitting beside his own bed as Sukuna drifted in and out of unconsciousness without clarity, Yuuji did not know how to explain how he felt but it was overwhelming.

Megumi, who had always been smarter than him, was good at giving him a hand in turning his thoughts into words.

"You should rest."

Yuuji had almost fallen asleep in the chair he had been sitting in for now when his friend's hand touched his shoulder and brought him back to reality. "Hey…" He greeted him. "Shoko said that by tomorrow morning he should come to his senses, otherwise we should start worrying. I can hold out for a few more hours."

Megumi looked down at him with obvious concern. "I don't like that everything has fallen on your shoulders."

Yuuji smiled at him. "I'm just doing what I have to do."

"Sure…" Megumi added with a note of sarcasm. "If you can't be wanted, you want to be needed, and if you can't be needed you want to be useful, until there is nothing left of you. Am I right?"

"Megumi-"

"I have already lived this story," Megumi insisted. "I have already seen a man do what you are doing. I will not stand by and watch it happen again."

Yuuji shook his head and took his hand. "You don't have to worry about me," he said. "Our Senpais fight the curses out there as much as I do. I am not alone, none of us are."

Megumi looked at the man lying on the bed, and Yuuji was not surprised to see contempt in his green eyes, but there was also something else. "It's strange…"

"What?"

"I don't know how to say it," the raven-haired boy admitted. "I feel no pity in the face of his suffering, and I don't think you can either. Yet there is something unpleasant when monsters suddenly become human."

Yuuji looked at him. Was that what was bothering him, too? He was realizing that Ryoumen Sukuna was flesh and blood like all of them and did that bother him?

"He was not so miserable even when I defeated him," Yuuji admitted, looking at the unconscious man in his bed. Sukuna's brow was furrowed and his mouth rose in a pained expression, as if he was having a nightmare from which he could not wake up.

"He was not human when you defeated him," Megumi said, stating a second time what he was thinking but in different words. "If you want a break, I can stay there with him."

Yuuji stared at him. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"I will not smother him in his sleep, if that is what you fear," Megumi reassured him. "I supported you when you chose to do what you did and I still do. I understand what you are doing, Yuuji."

Megumi understood him because he had been guilty of the same sin, but the reason he had done it was love. Yes, guilt and the greater good had played their part in his choice, but Yuuji could not help but feel that his love for Satoru ennobled everything, even the price he had had to pay.

"You are no less tired than I am," Yuuji said. "Shoko has recommended to all of us to make you rest. This is my responsibility, not yours. You have already done a huge thing, Megumi."

His friend's expression told him that he did not feel the same way. "I paid a price and I don't know if I was able to get anything in return. Until the Gojo Clan allows us to see Satoru, dead or alive, my actions are meaningless."

Yuuji would have liked to feel empathy for Gojo Ryuunosuke, Satoru's father, and the way he was experiencing the pain of losing his son, but he could not. He could not because Megumi was suffering in a way that could not be described in words, and Yuuji cared about his friend. At that moment, he was the person he cared about most in the world.

"The fact that you are alive is enough to make sense of everything that has happened," Yuuji said, and he meant it. "I am sure that is the case for Sensei as well."

Megumi did not believe that.

Yuuji knew he could have repeated it a thousand times, using hundreds of different words, but his friend would still not believe him. If they did not find out quickly whether Satoru was alive or not, Yuuji was afraid that Megumi would surrender to the darkness once again, and the fear of not being able to bring him back a second time terrified him.

"I will fix everything," Yuuji said. "I promise."

He had lost count of the number of times he had repeated it, but Megumi never agreed to leave him alone in that. His friend squeezed his hand tighter.

"You are not alone in this. I want you to never forget that."

But they were both alone in the choices that had doomed them to be cursed for the rest of their lives.

2025

— June —

As Sukuna finished eating breakfast with the children, Yuuji returned to the garage to continue his search and, without the distraction of his mate's uncomfortable presence a step away, managed to find what he was looking for.

"Shion, Ayame, look!" Yuuji said cheerfully, pushing his old bicycle into the garden. The children appeared in the engawa outside the living room.

The little girl's honey-colored eyes immediately lit up. "We can take a bike ride!"

Yuuji nodded. "We can use it to go to the supermarket, so we will sweat less and it will be more fun!"

Shion did not show the same enthusiasm as his sister. "One bicycle cannot carry all four of us," he said.

Yuuji looked at his son for a brief moment, then his gaze slid over the child's shoulder, inside the living room. Sukuna was still sitting cross-legged beside the table, his face resting on his clenched fist. He watched the scene with little interest, as if it did not concern him.

Yuuji curled his lips into a mischievous smile, lowering the kickstand and letting go of the handlebars. "Sukuna, come here."

Those four red eyes looked at him as if he were a complete idiot - as always.

"I'm perfectly fine where I am," Sukuna said. "Shion is right. That thing with two wheels can't carry all four of us."

"That's exactly why we have two!"

The King's bored expression faltered, giving way to an openly resentful expression.

"Dad can ride a bike with us!" Ayame exclaimed happily. "Are you happy, Shion?"

The black-haired child did not respond, but turned to look at his father. Yuuji could not see what expression his son was making - Shion did not make eyes at them like Ayame did, he possessed other weapons - but, at that point, Sukuna's hesitation lasted only for another thirty seconds.

"Tell me how you plan to take the children on that old iron thing," he said, stepping out into the engawa to examine the pedal-powered vehicle as if it were a cursed object unknown to him.

"Like this!" Yuuji grabbed Ayame from under her arms, lifted her up and sat her on the handlebars. "A childhood spent on the streets on a bicycle teaches you a lot of resources!"

"Yes, the bicycle is just what made the difference between life and death in your darkest moments," Sukuna commented sarcastically.

Yuuji helped his daughter get her feet back on the ground, then moved in front of Sukuna - because of the engawa the height difference between them was even greater.

"The children will be happy to take a bike ride with us," the young sorcerer said as he looked his mate straight in the eye. "Can we simply do this? A bike ride to the supermarket, nothing more."

Both Shion and Ayame looked at their father expectantly, but Sukuna was only responding to Yuuji's gaze. The 22-year-old had spoken politely, as if he were making a friendly proposition, but the King of Curses knew he didn't have much choice, and that annoyed the hell out of him.

"Just a bike ride, huh?" Sukuna did not believe him. "We'll see how many ideas have sprung up in that imaginative mind of yours by the end of this bike ride."

The ugly truth was that the King of Curses knew him too well.

"Come on!" Yuuji said to the children. "Brush your teeth and get dressed, we're leaving before it gets too hot!"

Half an hour later they were on the street. Yuuji was in the front, with Ayame sitting on the handlebars of his bike, Sukuna and Shion following them. It was a pleasant summer morning. Yuuji felt the cool mountain breeze caress his face and thread through his daughter's pinkish hair - he had not tied it back, but that was okay because the sweet scent of it was good company.

They met no one on the street, and only near the supermarket did they find any signs of life. Yuuji slowed down and Sukuna moved next to him.

Ayame waved his hand to greet his brother. Shion responded to the gesture half-heartedly - he did it just to make her happy. Yuuji looked at Sukuna out of the corner of his eye: the bicycle was too small and he had to keep his knees in a funny position to be able to pedal.

Yuuji laughed.

"Did something funny happen, Mom?" Ayame asked, tilting her head back to look at him.

"No, your mother likes to laugh at things that only make sense in his head," Sukuna replied, probably guessing what had caused that attack of hilarity in the younger man.

Yuuji continued to laugh, holding his head high to feel the wind on his face and in his hair. He was happy, even if that normalcy was only an illusion.

"Mom, stop!" Ayame exclaimed.

Yuuji pressed the brake levers without even asking why, driven to act by the urgency in his daughter’s voice. "Ayame, what happened?" He asked, reclining his head to face the little girl as Sukuna stopped beside him. "Do you have to pee, honey?"

But Ayame did not respond to his gaze; something about the landscape had completely captured her attention. Yuuji turned around, trying to understand what possessed such power, and only then did he understand where they were.

"I sense so much cursed energy in that place," Shion said.

"Do you feel it too?" Ayame turned to look at her brother. "There must be a lot of curses there! Mom, Dad, we can go hunting together in that building over there," she raised her hand, pointing to the school at the top of the hill. "Shion will definitely like it!"

"I can tell for myself whether I will like it or not, Ayame.,"

"You are so boring! I said that because I know that hunting for curses makes you happy!"

As the children bickered, Yuuji could not take his eyes off that building at the top of the hill. There was no need to get close to know that no one had set foot there for a long time, and the cursed energy emanating from that place was frightening.

It shouldn't surprise you, said a voice in Yuuji's head, that's where it all began.

"That is not a place to go hunting for fun, children," Sukuna said.

Only then did Yuuji turn his eyes away from the building of his old high school to look at the man at his side.

Sukuna's eyes betrayed interest as he stared at the hill. It was confirmation that something scary and dangerous must be lurking within those walls.

"But it is a place where we can test ourselves," Shion said, looking at his father. He was curious, and although he made less noise than Ayame, he was eager to cross the safe boundaries within which they allowed him to act.

Shion did not have Sukuna’s obsessive behaviour, but they certainly shared curiosity about the same things.

Curiosity that the King of Curses had no intention of indulging on that occasion. "I said that is no place for you and your sister, Shion," he said, coldly, making it known to the child that no other objection or insistence was allowed.

"Your father is right," Yuuji intervened more gently when he saw the disappointment in his son's eyes. "That is a dangerous place." He cast one last glance at the school on the hill. "Let's move on. We are almost there."

2019

— January —

Yuuji had managed to convince Megumi to go to sleep. He doubted that his friend would be able to close his eyes - it was a feat for everyone to do so in that dark season of their lives - but it was better for him to lie in his bed staring at the ceiling than to waste energy on him.

When Yuuji heard the birds singing, he got up from the chair he had been in for most of the night and moved to face the window. Dawn lit up what was left of Jujutsu Tech and the surrounding forest. Everything was covered in white, which somehow managed to conceal the signs of destruction.

Yuuji lifted his gaze to the sky: it was blue with no clouds. It was going to be a beautiful winter day.

It was so absurd.

Merger was the closest event to the end of the world from his point of view, yet the sun continued to rise, the birds continued to sing, celebrating the beginning of a new day, and snow fell on everything, on those who had died fighting and on those fighting to survive.

The worst had happened.

The order of things had been completely destroyed.

Yet the sun was still rising.

It was so simple and, at the same time, so difficult to accept.

If Yuuji could have replaced the apparent calm of that morning with the storm raging in his mind and soul, that blue sky would have become a utopia. He knew it was the same for Megumi. No, perhaps it was even worse for him.

The silence was interrupted by a low, barely audible lament.

Yuuji turned around and realized that another nightmare was disturbing Sukuna’s sleep. Perhaps the fever had risen again.

"How can you have nightmares when you are a nightmare yourself?"

The young sorcerer headed to the bathroom, took one of the smaller towels and moistened it under the jet of water from the sink. Shoko had said that there were no effective medicines in that situation. Sukuna's body had to react on its own, his cursed energy had to find a balance.

All Yuuji could do was try to keep him hydrated - which was impossible until he became fully conscious again - or keep his temperature from rising by the simplest means.

He sat on the edge of the bed, refreshing Sukuna's face with the wet towel without thinking too much about what he was doing. He had stopped doing this for a few days, because Yuuji knew that if he stopped to sum everything that had happened and everything he had done, his mind would surely betray him.

And he had to remain lucid.

Until his friends recovered their strength.

As long as Megumi needed him.

Until Gojo Satoru had returned home.

If he returned home, a cruel voice in his head reminded him.

Yuuji deliberately ignored it: it was an unnecessary fear at that moment. It was a thought he could not be crushed by.

Megumi needs me, he told himself, even though the man he was watching over was the last man Yuuji had ever imagined taking care of. But it was necessary.

In unconsciousness, Sukuna grabbed his wrist but the grip was frighteningly weak. It was precisely this that made Yuuji stop.

His golden eyes stared at the fingers touching him, realizing that he would only have to move his hand to free himself.

There is something unpleasant when monsters suddenly become human, Megumi had said.

Yuuji understood this but, at the same time, he rejected that view of the situation.

"None of this changes anything. It means nothing to me," he murmured coldly. "You will never be human in my eyes."

Sukuna's fingers had not yet let go of his wrist when a sound that was more than a lament came from his lips. It was a word.

Yuuji leaned over him to listen better and try to understand what he was saying.

"Mo… Mother…"

He froze.

A moment later Sukuna’s face became serene again and his hand let go of the young sorcerer’s wrist to land on the blankets. The nightmare was over.

But nothing could wake Yuuji from what he was experiencing.

He got off the bed and let the towel fell to the floor without a sound. He could not breathe.

He returned to face the window, lifted his golden eyes to that blue sky that seemed to mock him and the suffering that there was in every corner.

Yuuji swallowed air like a castaway, clenching his fists, swallowing the urge to cry and scream until he had no voice left.

He covered his face with both hands.

"What am I doing?"

He was no longer sure of the answer.

2025

— June —

When Sasaki had told him that the neighborhood supermarket was still in business in spite of everything, Yuuji had not imagined what he found before him. There was not a single building on that street that had remained standing, but somehow the old supermarket's sign was still intact, attached to a wall that was miraculously holding up.

But what Yuuji saw around him looked more like a marketplace. Curtains covered shelves where goods for sale were displayed, and some vans were parked on the sides of the square with tables full of fruits and vegetables. Yuuji got out of the saddle of the bicycle, keeping his hands on the handlebars to push it while walking. Ayame imitated him with a hop.

There were a lot of people there, more than there were at the playground the day before. Yuuji looked around in surprise, seeing neighbours casually meeting and starting to chat about mundane topics such as the summer heat, mothers holding hands with bored children, and someone haggling over the price of goods.

"I'm afraid you win this time," Sukuna said as he approached. He had gotten off the bicycle too. "Sendai is not a dying city as I thought…"

Yuuji looked at him but the four red eyes of his mate were looking around with an expression that showed both disappointment and doubt. There was something about what he saw that disturbed him terribly, and it wasn’t just the fact that the younger man had been right and he wrong.

"What are you thinking about?" Yuuji asked confusedly.

Sukuna responded to his gaze, but did not have time to reply.

"Mom, Dad, can we go to explore?" Shion had already taken his sister by the hand, as if afraid that Ayame might give in to the curiosity of exploring that place all by herself.

Yuuji looked at them, then observed the marketplace. There were many people for a dying city, but Yuuji would not have said that the place was crowded. Besides, the square was small and both he and Sukuna were there.

He nodded. "Ye-"

"No," Sukuna preceded him, abandoning his bicycle against a wall and approaching the two children. "The abandoned building at the beginning of the street was full of cursed energy. Come, let’s go curse hunting so we can see if you have made progress with your powers."

Ayame exulted by jumping up and Shion's eyes immediately lit up. Yuuji still didn't know how to take the fact that his children were taking curse hunting as a game, and it was something he and Megumi often talked about. Satoru and Sukuna had been awfully good at making something that they had experienced as a nightmare pass as ordinary, fun almost.

The result was that their four children experienced their powers naturally, without fear.

Every time Ayame came home with her pinkish hair smeared with curse blood and said enthusiastically, "That was fun, Mom!" Yuuji felt a pain at the level of his heart.

But his twins were children of the merger. The way they saw the world could not be compared to his.

Sukuna and Satoru knew how to experience that world of darkness and curses because for them - who had lived most of their existence as creatures above humanity - it was fun.

And they had passed that worldview on to their children. In that way, darkness would not touch them during their childhood - trying to predict what fate had in store for them in the future was impossible.

Yuuji watched Sukuna take the hands of their twins - Ayame on the right and Shion on the left - and walk away from him. The young sorcerer knew that something had upset his mate, but that was not the place or the time to talk about it.

"Try not to attract attention," Yuuji said, before they got too far away, but none of the three answered to him. He watched them walk for a while, then left his bicycle beside Sukuna’s and began to wander around the market.

Some of the looks he crossed belonged to people he had already seen but whose names he could not remember. Someone just smiled politely at him and kept walking, others - especially older people - stopped him and asked him questions.

"But you are Itadori's grandson!"

"Yes, it's me."

"What had happened to you? After your grandfather died, no one saw you around anymore."

"I've lived in Tokyo since I was fifteen years old."

"Oh, Tokyo! I'm glad you're alive, boy! There are terrible rumors circulating about Tokyo… Are you back in town to stay?"

"No, I will return to Tokyo soon."

"I see… Good luck with everything, boy!"

That kind of talk was repeated four times, and it took Yuuji longer than necessary to buy everything he needed. The sun was high now and it was very hot. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, thinking that he had not brought water bottles for the children, while the woman behind the cash register handed him a bag, inside which were all the ingredients needed to make onigiri

He was just returning to his bicycle when he met Sasaki.

"So what do you think?" She asked. "Impressive organization, right?"

Yuuji smiled at her. "It’s good to see how people reacted to a catastrophe like the merger."

"It makes you hope, doesn't it?" Sasaki did not wait for him to answer. "It’s easier to live in neighborhoods like this. The city center has become dangerous. Only young people trained at the temple go there now."

Yuuji thought that in the darkest hour the city center must have turned into a bloodbath and, as a result, many curses had arisen from all that death.

"Sometimes they even go to our old school, you know?" Sasaki said to him, escorting him to his bicycle. "The monks have forbidden ordinary people like me to enter there. I always said that place was full of dark energy. Do you remember the incident that night? No one wanted to believe what I was saying at the time!"

Me, Yuuji thought. I was the incident.

As he tied the bags to the handlebars, he noticed Sasaki staring at the second bicycle with curiosity. "It’s my husband’s," he said, but the word sounded so strange referring to Sukuna that he corrected himself. "Of my mate…" He blushed without a reason. "I mean, the father of my children."

Sasaki laughed. "No way! You're married, you have twins, and you're still embarrassed to call your mate husband?" Inevitably, her eyes looked at his hands searching for something. "No ring?"

"Oh, no…" Yuuji shook his head. It was already a miracle that Sukuna had been willing to create a balance with him without there being anything concrete to prove that the young sorcerer was holding him to a chain - even if marriage had not been Yuuji's idea in the first place. "We are not much for traditions."

Megumi and Satoru had on their fingers the rings they had exchanged on their special day, but their story was completely different.

Their marriage had been a kind of happy ending after so much tragedy. Yuuji and Sukuna's had been a declaration of war.

"He is tall," Sasaki said, winking at him.

At first, Yuuji did not understand. "What?"

"I saw you arrive together and stopped to look at you," Sasaki confessed. "Sorry, I know it's not polite to do that."

Yuuji shook his head, as if to say it was no big deal. "Yes, he is tall."

"You say it like it's a flaw."

It is when your relationship is a constant battle, Yuuji thought but could not say.

"You look alike," Sasaki added. "You and your husband look alike. Are you distant relatives or something?"

Yuuji thought about it before responding. "Something like that…"

"He is a sorcerer too, right?"

"Yes."

"He is older than you. I doubt he was a teenager when you became parents."

He was only born a thousand years before me. Yuuji merely nodded.

"Did he join you to help you with the monks?" Sasaki was so hopeful that his presence in the city might actually solve something.

No, Sukuna was there to bring the children home, because he considered it stupid that Yuuji had wanted to bring them to a town that was doomed to death, even if it was fighting to survive. It didn't matter how much power Yuuji had over the King of Curses, he didn't waste time saving people - especially those in a city to whom the Tokyo Clan had made an offer of help that had been angrily and resentfully rejected.

Yuuji wondered how Sasaki would react if he told her that the merger had begun at the hands of his best friend, that Megumi had tried to make amends but that the monks she trusted so much had preferred to face the darkness without possessing the necessary means, rather than shake the hand of a young sorcerer deemed blasphemous.

Yuuji wondered how she would look at him if she knew who he and Sukuna really were and what their children represented.

"Take care," Sasaki said, before leaving. "I know you are a sorcerer, but our old school is really a very dangerous place. You told me you are here to show the twins the places of your childhood, but stay as far away from that hill as possible."

"I will," Yuuji lied.

Chapter Text

2019

— January —

Sukuna felt as if he were a prisoner of himself. He could feel every fiber of his body aching, the blood leaking from the wounds caused by the thousand invisible blades that had struck him in that snow-covered forest.

His blades.

The blades of the brat.

There was no longer snow beneath him. He no longer felt the cold of that winter night.

Someone had moved him to a place where there were other people. Sukuna could feel their cursed energy, like a glint at the bottom of a dark well. He thought there were at least three people around him, but his dying body did not allow him to understand more.

The only voice he heard clearly and could recognize was that of Itadori Yuuji.

“I don't want him to die!" The brat exclaimed. "If it is my will that controls his powers, why is the reverse technique not working?"

Sukuna heard those words but could not understand them. His will was struggling, but his cursed energy was not responding to his commands and his flesh was dying. He could barely feel the brat's hands - no one else would have approached him without betraying hesitation - clutching the only arm he still had attached to his body.

Amid the darkness surrounding him, the brat's presence was like the flickering flame of a candle. He sensed him, suddenly, in a way very similar to how he used to perceive him when they both cohabited in the same body.

Sukuna tried to take advantage of this, but failed.

The darkness thinned, his reverse technique went through his body from head to toe, stitching up every wound, replacing the parts that had been cut off. Sukuna was healing and it was his cursed energy that was performing the miracle, but he was not in charge of the process.

When he had returned from the dead, it had been impossible not to notice the wall between his soul and Itadori Yuuji's. No, it was not a wall, but a dam.

It was a dam that the brat was gradually opening to prevent him both from dying and from rebelling against the invisible chain he had wrapped around his neck.

And Itadori Yuuji was suffering because of it.

Sukuna could feel the pain leaving his body through the two hands touching him.

Itadori Yuuji was saving him at the cost of hurting himself.

“If Sukuna dies here, all this will have been for nothing! I have to do this! This is my curse! I chose it!"

Those words were the last Sukuna heard before falling into darkness once again.

After that, the nightmares came.

2025

— June —

Yuuji had to return home by pushing the two bicycles and walking alone. After saying goodbye to Sasaki he had gone to the building down the street that Sukuna had mentioned and to which he had taken their twins on a curse hunt. He had found neither his mate nor the children, only remnants of small, not so dangerous creatures that were slowly fading away.

Yuuji walked the way back sweating as he had never in his life, cursing the sun, the summer, and that unnecessarily tall man who had been making his life hell for seven years.

When he saw his childhood home he was one step away from fainting from too much heat. He left the bicycles against the garage wall, freeing the shopping bags from the handlebars of his own. The living room’s shoji was open and he passed by to go inside; as he did so, Yuuji noticed that there was black writing all over the columns of the engawa. He could not read that ancient writing, but he recognized the symbols Sukuna had written with his grandfather's brush on the lintel of their children's door.

For a moment, Yuuji forgot his discontent and returned to the time when Sukuna had observed the marketplace full of people with an expression full of suspicion. Protecting their home with all those seals confirmed to him that the King of Curses had seen something he had missed completely and it was nothing positive.

As Yuuji put the groceries away, he heard the sound of water running in the bathroom next door. Ayame and Shion were talking - she excitedly, he more quietly - but the young sorcerer could not understand their words. When he was finished in the kitchen, he decided to go check if they were all right and find out why Sukuna had made him go through all that trouble to get home alone.

The abandoned clothes on the floor in front of the bathroom door were enough to make him understand why his mate and children had not returned to him and, at the same time, reminded him why he wanted to punch Sukuna until his face turned to mush.

Yuuji felt the vein on his temple throbbing dangerously as he lifted from the ground the two T-shirts worn by the twins that morning: they were both covered in curse blood and smelled like hell - and the two shorts were in no better state.

Yuuji stared at the bathroom door as if he wanted to set it on fire. "You piece of shit…" He hissed aloud, clutching the two t-shirts in one hand as he announced his presence opening the door.

"Mom!" Ayama exclaimed, happy to see him.

"Welcome back, Mom," Shion said politely but with no less affection.

And Yuuji felt screwed - again.

Sukuna was the only one who did not turn to look at him. It was impossible that he had not noticed he was there, but he was too busy doing what he was doing to give attention to him. The twins were both sitting on the washing machine, and Sukuna was drying their hair, running his long fingers through Shion's raven locks and Ayame's pinkish ones with a care that Yuuji was still surprised those hands were capable of.

Perhaps one day the young sorcerer would accept that Ryoumen Sukuna was made of a thousand shades of-dark-gray and not just the suffocating blackness that Yuuji had kept inside him for six months and subsequently imprisoned Megumi’s soul in a hopeless abyss.

Perhaps, one day…

Yuuji was certain of only two things: if Sukuna found a way to free himself from the chains imprisoning him, he would do so even if it meant killing him, but he would never harm their children. This was enough for the young sorcerer.

Theirs was not a love story after all.

"Did you enjoy yourselves?" Yuuji asked, leaning his shoulder against the door lintel.

The two children nodded.

"Dad said we were good," Shion said, smiling. He adored his father so much. Ayame did too, but their boy fed on Sukuna's words of appreciation more than his sister.

Another of the things Yuuji was surprised about was that the King of Curses was not particularly stingy when it came to compliments - except with him, of course. Satoru was magnificent. Megumi was a great wasted talent. The children were all four, each in their own way, shining promises of the future of sorcery. But Yuuji could have commanded the sun, the moon, and all the stars, and Sukuna would still have said he was a boring brat.

His mate turned off the hair dryer.

"Go and get dressed, children," Sukuna said, stepping back so the twins could step off of the washing machine with a hop.

"Dad is better at drying my hair than you are, Mom," Ayame said, with a big innocent smile, before following her brother. "When he combs my hair with his fingers, it doesn't hurt."

Yuuji forced a smile. "I'm glad to hear that, honey. I promise I will get better," he said, as he fantasized about amputating Sukuna's both hands out of spite - they would grow back anyway.

"You stink of sweat," his mate said with a disgusted expression as soon as they were alone.

Yuuji widened his eyes, indignant. "Excuse me?"

"You stink," Sukuna repeated, and to make matters worse, he removed his towel, showing himself in all his monstrous glory.

For there was something monstrous about that perfection.

And there was something humiliating about the way the young sorcerer could not help but look down, if only for a second. Yes, it was only for a second and was a completely instinctive gesture, but it was his undoing nonetheless.

Sukuna laughed. "You like to watch, huh?" He asked with one of those smiles that made him look a little bit like a maniac and a little bit like a dumb teenager.

"Does this bullshit amuse you that much?" Yuuji hissed, ignoring the fact that his cheeks were getting too hot. "Are you fifteen years old, by any chance?"

"I could ask the same of you," Sukuna said, pressing a hand against his face to move him and out of the bathroom. "You've seen me naked more than anyone else and you're still blushing. You are such a brat."

"Why don't we emphasize the fact that you don't like being dressed in the first place!" Yuuji exclaimed, then remembered the two small T-shirts he was clutching in his fist. "What about these?"

Sukuna stopped at the living room door. "Ah, yes… I'll burn them later," he said and disappeared from the younger man's field of vision.

"Burn?" Yuuji followed him.

"I doubt you can clean that blood with that old washing machine in the bathroom," Sukuna said as he put on his jeans, then huffed. "I should have brought more comfortable clothes…" He said to himself.

"Don't ignore me!"

"It’s hard to do that while you are making so much noise, brat."

"We can't throw away the children's clothes every time you take them out to hunt for curses!"

Sukuna arched his eyebrows. "I am not aware that we are poor."

"That’s not the point, it's a waste of resources anyway, and you hate waste!" It was one of the few things they agreed on, although Yuuji's concept of waste did not always coincide with his mate's.

"The children had a good time," Sukuna said, as if that justified the little incident with the clothes. "I thought that was the purpose when we left the house: to give the children a good time."

Yuuji opened his mouth, then closed it again, then opened it a second time. He could not say a single word and hated it when his mate shushed him like that, without really trying.

"Go take a shower," Sukuna said as he passed him to go to the kitchen - Yuuji deduced that he would make lunch for everyone. "I don't eat with you stinking next to me."

2019 

— January —

It took Sukuna a total of thirteen hours to become lucid again.

And Yuuji did not move from that bedroom the entire time. He almost fell asleep with his face resting against the back of the chair - he had turned it so that he could change positions - but the man lying in his bed lifted an arm, making him completely forget about the fatigue that made his limbs heavy.

Sukuna ran a hand through his hair, shaking it away from his sweaty forehead as he let out a couple of tight-lipped moans.

Yuuji continued to watch him as he made contact with reality. The dark eyelashes fluttered a few times before those red eyes managed to focus on the space all around. Sukuna stared at his own hand, opening and closing his fingers as if it were a foreign thing and did not belong to him. Yuuji remembered cutting it off in the forest, and the man was probably surprised that it had returned to its place while he was completely unconscious. He remained silent. If Sukuna had noticed him, he did nothing to confirm it, and Yuuji gave him his time - even though they had no time.

"Was it you?" Sukuna asked, reaching out to make sure all the muscles were working as they should.

"No," Yuuji replied. "I can use the reverse technique on myself, but I am unable to heal others."

Sukuna turned toward him. He was pale and there were dark marks under his eyes. It would take more than a night of fever and delirium for him to regain his strength. 

"How do you feel?" Yuuji asked.

Sukuna looked at him as if he did not understand the question. "Like I've been torn apart and put back together," he finally replied. He was sarcastic.

Yuuji sighed tiredly. He got up from his chair and walked the two meters that separated him from the bed with exasperating slowness. Their eyes remained chained the whole time, until the young sorcerer sat down at the end of the bed.

"Did you feel like talking by any chance?" He asked with an obvious sarcastic note in his voice too.

Sukuna pressed his hands against the mattress on which he was lying, lifting himself up against the headboard. Yuuji had freed him from his tattered clothes, but there were still traces of dried blood on his skin where the cuts from his invisible slashes had been before.

"I'll take that as a yes-"

"Whose idea was it?" Sukuna asked in a colorless voice. "Whose idea was it to perform a resurrection ritual, yours or Uraume’s?"

Yuuji bent one leg on the bed, searching for the right words to say. "It's not that simple-"

"No, of course not," Sukuna interrupted him a second time. "Trading something to bring someone back from the dead is not at all simple, doing it with your worst enemy is sheer madness."

Yuuji tightened his lips, filling his lungs by inhaling air through his nose. "If you don't intend to listen to me, I'll just get up and leave."

Sukuna lifted the right corner of his mouth. "Is that a threat?"

"No," Yuuji replied coldly. "But the promise to make you live through last night's humiliation again and again and again is."

"I heard you say that my death would make everything useless. You don't want me dead."

"Oh, Sukuna, you are so smart, aren’t you?" Yuuji leaned forward. "I have already defeated you. I have already killed you. Your death is something I've already achieved and it hasn't given me the slightest satisfaction but, believe me, if to get what I need I have to tear you to pieces every day for the next thousand years, I'll learn to like it." His golden eyes sparkled with a violent, sinister light.

Sukuna looked at him without any real expression. "I am here. Speak."

Yuuji relaxed his shoulders. "You heard me talking. Were you conscious?"

"No, conscious is not the right word. It was a bit like when I reincarnated inside you. I was conscious of myself, of my powers. I could feel my cursed energy in the same way I could feel the blood flowing out of my body."

"But you weren't reacting."

"I couldn't. I’m inside my flesh now, but I felt… No, I’m caged just as I was inside you," Sukuna moistened his lips. "The only difference is that I have new chains all around me, like the strings of a puppet, and you move them. You use my powers against me, you decide whether my reverse technique should work or not. I can't even decide whether to live or die, I guess." A pause. "You are the possessor of my existence."

Yuuji listened to each word carefully. "This is what you feel."

Sukuna frowned. "This is the second time you have made a surprised expression at the actualization of the vow you made," he noted. "The first time was right after I woke up on this side, and when I tried to attack you, my technique turned against me. You didn't expect that."

"Uraume tried to prepare me," Yuuji recounted. "But the first thing they told me was that ours is a unique case in the history of sorcery and therefore it would be impossible to make realistic predictions. They told me that, immediately after your return, I would have to learn quickly."

Sukuna twisted his mouth into a grimace and looked again at the hand that had been regenerated by the reverse technique. "I'm still alive and in one piece. Despite myself, you are learning," he crossed his legs, but the blanket continued to cover his nakedness. "To get to this point, you and Uraume must have made at least two vows."

Yuuji confirmed with a nod. "Uraume traded their life and their body to allow you to return in a human form - a copy of your original body, so they said."

"How about you?"

"I've actually done a few things."

"You're the first one who wanted to talk, and now you're the one giving half-answers, brat."

"The idea was mine," Yuuji confessed, looking the King of Curses straight in the eye.

Sukuna arched his eyebrows, as if the words he had just heard made no sense.

"It was my idea," the young sorcerer repeated. "You and Gojo-sensei died on December twenty-four, within hours of each other. The merger started right after that."

"I felt it start," Sukuna said. "It is one of the last feelings I have of that battle."

"You were dead for seven days," Yuuji said. “Seven days during which we, the survivors, tried to put the pieces together, rescue those who needed it, and figure out what was best to do from that point forward."

"Seven days..." Sukuna repeated. "It's a symbolic number, I guess you know."

Yuuji shook his head, as if to say it was not an important detail. "In those seven days, things happened..." There were no words to describe them. "I don't know what's going on in the rest of the world. Some of us claim that by this time, humanity outside Japan has already become extinct. I don't want to believe this, but the destruction of that week... The number of people who died, the monsters that came out of every corner..."

Sukuna laughed.

Yuuji clawed at the fabric of his pants to stop himself from punching him.

"Look at you..." The King of Curses mocked him. "You defeated the strongest sorcerer in history, overcame your mentor and saved your friends - the ones who survived - and now you're so desperate."

Yuuji's face was a mask of ice, despite the fact that in his eyes burned the flames of an anger that could have reduced hell itself to ashes. "What a brilliant insight," he said, with a sarcastic smirk. "You think you're playing with my pride or something? Of course I'm desperate, you fucking genius. For what other reasons do you think I brought you back to life by binding my soul to yours in the process?"

"Tell me about this," Sukuna said. "How are our souls connected in this new dynamic you have created?"

Yuuji inhaled deeply through his nose a second time. "When I realized that the others and I could not make it alone in this merger, Megumi and I began to have forbidden talks. He was the first, actually, but I don't want to talk about him."

"Did Fushiguro Megumi urge you to bring me back?"

"No, Megumi was talking about Gojo-sensei. None of the others really listened to him - after the battle, he didn't seem very lucid - but I did. In those seven days, Megumi became convinced that none of us could stand up to the hellish world created by the merger."

"But Gojo Satoru could," Sukuna concluded. "Fushiguro Megumi chose Gojo Satoru as the savior of a catastrophe he himself caused."

"Don't you dare talk about Megumi like that," Yuuji hissed.

"These are facts, brat. Fushiguro Megumi started it all." Sukuna crossed his arms behind his head, leaning it against the wall behind him. "I guess guilt led him to believe that dying to bring Gojo Satoru back to life was a small price to pay. It wouldn't be the first time that boy has made that kind of plan."

The chair next to the bed shattered into a thousand pieces, and instinctively, Sukuna turned to look at it as pieces of wood fell to the floor one after another.

"I told you not to talk about Megumi," Yuuji repeated.

The four red eyes returned to the golden-colored ones of the young sorcerer. Those were no longer the eyes of a child - actually, they had stopped being the eyes of a child after Shibuya, but Sukuna had not been so observant at the time.

"And while you were listening to your friend raving about forbidden rites, what were you thinking about?" The King of Curses asked.

Yuuji lowered his gaze for a moment. "Uraume and I talked a lot in those days. If I'm honest, they were no better off than Megumi, but I guess a thousand years of experience makes a difference in these kinds of events."

"What had you done with them?" Sukuna asked.

"They kept them prisoner in a room full of seals, similar to the one you and I woke up in after that first confrontation in my old school. The others said he was dangerous, but I knew he would never do anything to try to free himself. Uraume just wanted to let themself die. They said that the purpose of their existence had been fulfilled, that you had died according to your rules, and that they felt no desire for revenge."

"They told you about the rules, I guess."

"If we can call them that," Yuji said. "He confirmed things I already knew, like your essentially hedonistic nature-"

"Do you know what hedonist means? I'm impressed, brat."

"Shut up… He told me that for you there was no difference between defeat and death, and that what would happen next was of no importance. Not to you."

"The traitor must be credited with a certain honesty."

Yuuji's expression became softer. "They did not betray you," he said. "You granted them that, following your death, Uraume could do with their life what they wanted. They freely chose to sacrifice themselves to bring you back. It is not betrayal. He made of his existence what he wanted, as you had decided."

"You're playing with words, brat."

"Another thing I learned from you," Yuuji emphasized. "Or do you want to deny that too?"

"Let me get this straight... Fushiguro Megumi confided to you his desire to bring Gojo Satoru back to life, and you went to Uraume for advice?"

"Yes," Yuuji replied. "I've been a sorcerer for just six months, so I don't know all the rules and all the possibilities. Megumi talked about this Ten Shadows ritual as if it were a real thing; it made no sense to me. I've seen ancient sorcerers reincarnate, I've felt you inside me as a completely separate being, but… But canceling death for me was-"

"You don't cancel anything, brat," Sukuna interrupted him. "You barter, you make a vow, you pay a price, and you are more likely to shape a horror than to succeed."

"Uraume said the same thing," Yuuji said. "But when I told them that I couldn't stop thinking that you and Gojo-sensei were the only beings who could create balance in all this chaos, then Uraume started to have ideas."

"I am listening…"

"According to your rules, having defeated you, I could have done what I wanted with you just based on your word. But Uraume was certain that since it was me, you would never bend even to be consistent with yourself."

"And they were right."

"I'm not surprised at all." Yuuji moistened his lips. "So we decided to divide the ritual into two parts. Uraume sacrificed his body and his life so that you could be here physically. I made a vow to have control over your existence."

Sukuna stared at him. "Freedom," he said. "We are a piece of the same soul, so you paid with the freedom of both of us to subjugate me - that other half of you - to your will."

Yuuji nodded. "On the theoretical side, it made sense."

"From a practical point of view, coming to terms with death is not a straightforward process at all," Sukuna added.

"I bet..." The young sorcerer said. "Another thing I learned from you."

They exchanged another long, silent look. Yuuji moved first, standing up. "Take a shower," he said. "You are soiled with blood and you stink. I, meanwhile, get rid of the sheets and try to find more Gojo-sensei’s clothes that will fit you."

Sukuna chuckled. "I may be chained, brat, but if you think you're going to order me around so freely-"

"I have to take you to Megumi," Yuuji interrupted him.

Sukuna turned serious again. "You just finished saying I can't even mention his name."

"If it were up to me, that would be it. But Megumi wants to talk to you." Yuuji knew exactly what cards to play to pique the King’s curiosity. "You can hardly believe that he is still alive after the resurrection ritual. If you follow me, you'll be able to see everything for yourself, and Megumi will explain what happened."

"If Gojo Satoru is not alive, there is nothing to talk about," Sukuna retorted.

"But Gojo Satoru is alive," Yuuji said.

For the first time since the beginning of that long conversation - perhaps the first they had ever had - Sukuna was speechless.

"Take a shower," Yuuji repeated. "I'll get you some clean clothes, then we'll go find out together how Megumi's Ten Shadows ritual was able to bring Gojo-sensei back to life.”

2025 

— June —

While Sukuna prepared lunch, Yuuji took the three boxes to his grandfather's old room - it was better to get them out of sight before the children became too curious - then took a quick shower. When he returned to the living room, Sukuna and the children were already there.

Finished eating, Yuuji went back to the garage to look for the lawn mower. Unlike his grandfather's old car, the engine in it had not yet stopped running. He cut the overgrown grass in the garden, while Sukuna and the children watched him sitting on the engawa.

When Yuuji was finished, all four of them ate the popsicles he had bought at the marketplace. In the late afternoon, they took the twins to the playground from the day before. 

They did not take a bike ride that time. Yuuji watched Shion and Ayame walk in front of him, holding hands. Sukuna was at his side, neither too far nor too close, as if they were two acquaintances who had met by chance and not the parents of the two children. Yuuji did not care. The air had become more breathable and it was a peaceful moment, and that was enough for him.

Yuuji was happy to see that there was no one else but them.

Sasaki had been quick to justify Shion's appearance, perhaps because he was a child, but Yuuji knew that Sukuna attracted stares whether people knew who he was or not. It was hard not to notice a man nearly two meters tall, with four red eyes and tattoos on his face.

Honestly, Yuuji could not remember a time when he and the King of Curses had moved in an environment where people did not know in advance both their identities and the actions that had made them who they were. 

"Dad, will you hold this for me?" Ayame handed the straw hat to Sukuna, then climbed up the stairs to the slide together with Shion.

Yuuji looked at his mate as he approached the bench he was sitting on. Their little girl's straw hat looked tiny between his fingers. Their eyes met for a moment, then they stood in silence watching their twins play as the sun of that summer afternoon set. As they sat, their knees touched.

Back at home, Sukuna stayed to keep the children company while Yuuji prepared onigiri for dinner. After they finished eating, tired from the day, it wasn’t long before Shion and Ayame began to rub their eyes from exhaustion. They both accompanied them to the young sorcerer’s childhood room. Yuuji kissed them wishing them good night, while Sukuna watched the scene with his shoulder leaning against the lintel of the door.

"If you need anything, Mom and Dad are in the living room," Yuuji said, as Ayame lay down next to Shion and squeezed his hand.

It was the younger man's turn to wash the dishes, and when he was finished, he laid the futon on the wooden floor next to the table in the same spot as the night before. Sukuna was in the engawa, sitting cross-legged, his gaze fixed on something in front of him. Yuuji stared at his back for a few moments: they needed to talk. Before doing so, he went back to the children's room and made sure they were sleeping peacefully - Ayame clutched the hem of Shion's pyjamas shirt even that night, as if that simple gesture made her feel at home, protected.

Yuuji smiled, then returned to his mate.

"Will you tell me what's on your mind?" Yuuji asked directly, brushing the older man’s hair as he sat beside him. "You've been brooding since you saw the marketplace this morning."

Sukuna neither confirmed nor denied it, but he was responding to his gaze and that was a good sign.

"Even your thoughts make noise," Yuuji added.

The King of Curses lifted the right corner of his mouth. "And what does that noise tell you?"

"That something is bothering you," the young sorcerer replied. "And that's not something that happens often."

Sukuna neither denied nor confirmed that time either. "You knew that marketplace existed, so I guess you talked to someone about how this city is organized."

"I met a former high school club-mate of mine. It was she who explained to me everything, I told you," Yuuji said. "But, as usual, you were not listening to me."

"What did she tell you?"

"That the monks of the city fought the first wave of the merger and cared for the survivors when the worst was over. They educated ordinary people about concepts like sorcery, cursed energy and all that. Sasaki… The girl who went to high school with me, she said that in the last few years they choose and train young people who have the potential to become sorcerers."

Sukuna stared at him, and for a while Yuuji was unable to guess what he was thinking.

"Where are these monks?"

"They are located at the Rinnoji Temple. It’s a place I know and I know how to get there-"

"That's not what I'm asking."

Yuuji fell silent. "What are you trying to say?"

"Did you meet other sorcerers while you were here?" Sukuna asked seriously.

"No…" As soon as he said that, Yuuji understood what his mate was trying to tell him. "No…" He repeated, staring at the cut grass in the garden. "No, I have not met any sorcerer." It was not normal and he felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

"Tokyo is a protected city, yet there are sorcerers who hunt beyond the barrier to prevent too many dangerous curses from gathering around the perimeter of it. In Tokyo, sorcerers walk the streets. Sendai is a city without any safety net, and if there are any seals, they are so weak that neither you nor I sense their presence or feel their effects. This winter there will be the seventh anniversary of the merger and it takes much less time to train a sorcerer. If the monks are training young people with enough cursed energy to fight curses, where are they?"

Yuuji did not have an answer.

"Also…" Sukuna added. "The place where we first met…"

"Are you referring to my old school?"

"Yes. That place exudes so much cursed energy that I would not be surprised if there is a cursed womb inside." Sukuna smiled, amused. "It would be interesting to go and see what is hiding in that place, but the point is another… The monks choose who to train and that means at least one of them has received a sorcerer's education. If they really wanted to defend this dying city, they should never have left that place untouched."

"Perhaps they have some basic knowledge of sorcery," Yuuji speculated. "But they’re not able to deal with big threats. The one hiding in my old school is not one of the curses you make Shion and Ayame practice with." He remembered the creatures that were born in the places where the fingers were hidden, and after the merger, those monsters became even more powerful.

"You are so naive that you make me sick, brat," Sukuna said. "Do you mean to tell me that there is nothing suspicious in this city?"

"I'm not saying that," Yuuji replied. "You are right, all right? You are right about everything, but if the monks are not really doing everything they can to defend this place, why are they choosing teenagers to train them? What's the point. Sasaki said that the city center has become what we call a huge beehive and that students go there to practice."

"Let me guess… Ordinary people are forbidden to go to the city center or other such places, right? So no one has ever seen a young sorcerer exorcise a curse, am I right?"

Yuuji parted his lips, but Sukuna had no need for him to respond.

"Last suspicious detail," the King of Curses added. "Us…"

"Us?"

"Megumi and Satoru came here to start an alliance years ago, and they kicked them out by calling them blasphemers. It’s a very precise term: blasphemers. They knew all about the merger, Satoru's resurrection, and how both were deadly sins for the sorcerer society."

"Everyone knows about how Gojo Satoru came back from the dead for the second time," Yuuji emphasized.

"And everyone knows how Itadori Yuuji tied Ryoumen Sukuna to a chain, yet I'm sure the woman you talked to has no idea who you really are."

"Sorcerer families have taken advantage of the merger to create a new order of things and you know it," Yuuji reminded him. "Not everyone's priority is to save people. You remember the Kamo Clan of Kyoto, don't you? Not everyone who has the ability to protect wants to do that. Someone prioritize power."

Sukuna sneered. "I know you blame them for that."

"And I know you don't," Yuuji retorted. "The Kamo family was an exception."

"The Kamo family was weak to begin with."

The Kyoto mission had been the first thing they had done together, each with his own body, Sukuna tied to an invisible chain clutched in Yuuji's hands. It had happened in the spring of 2019, right after the merger. The same spring during which they had conceived their twins.

"But you are not," Sukuna added, standing up. "If you were weak, you would have died in Kyoto seven years ago."

Yuuji looked at him. He was not surprised by those words. There was a reason their children had been conceived at that very season of their lives. "There are no unlucky prey, there are only weak prey," the young sorcerer said, smiling at the memory of the day he had first heard those words. "And you were not born to be a prey, tiger."

Sukuna stopped and looked at him over his shoulder. "You have a good memory, I'm glad," he said disinterestedly.

Yuuji watched him stretch out on the futon, then followed him. "At least you don't deny the evidence."

"I never have. Don't insult me."

It was true.

Yuuji chuckled, looking at his profile. "What about Ayame and Shion?"

Sukuna responded to the look. "What do you want to know?"

"Are they strong?"

One of the most surprising things about their complicated relationship was, for Yuuji, realizing that Sukuna was spontaneous most of the time. The King of Curses did nothing to hide the satisfaction in his eyes as soon as the young sorcerer asked him about their children.

Yuuji smiled, getting closer. "They are strong," he answered himself.

"But your brother needs to get better at teaching, our daughter is a little confused about how to use her blood."

"Is it possible that you can't live in the moment without complaining about something?" Yuuji asked, leaning his forehead against his shoulder. "Choso is not a good teacher, he never was."

"Then it's your turn to teach Ayame," Sukuna said with an accusatory note. "Piercing Blood is a technique she inherited from you, not from me."

Yuuji huffed. "I'm more concerned about the gravity technique, to be honest."

It had been Kaori's technique and was probably the reason Kenjaku had taken an interest in her. When Ayame had begun to manipulate the gravity around her, Yuuji had frozen. He could not help thinking how unfair it was that in his body, in his blood, there was something of a young woman who had been used as a human incubator to bring him into the world. But Ayame did not have to suffer for his own reasons. She only knew that she had inherited her maternal grandmother’s cursed technique and that was fine.

"I hope in my grandfather's boxes there is some information about it," Yuuji added, stretching out on his back.

Sukuna was not as worried as he was. "The cursing techniques are innate, brat. Ayame knows what to do, just as you knew how to use my technique without me teaching you anything."

"It's not that simple!" Yuuji exclaimed. "Not all Six Eyes were like Satoru. No Ten Shadows has managed to complete a resurrection ritual before Megumi. And these are two techniques that have an instruction booklet with centuries of details. Ayame does not have that confidence."

"I didn't have an instruction booklet either, and that didn't stop me," Sukuna reminded him.

Yuuji would have liked to tell him that, at the end of the long and complicated story, it was precisely a variant of his own power that had defeated him, but he knew they would then end up arguing and he did not feel like it.

"I don’t know how many times I have to tell you: it’s a mental form." The King of Curses added. While Yuuji had been crushed by anxiety, Sukuna had greeted the fact that their daughter had a technique that no one knew in detail with enthusiasm and curiosity. He enjoyed exploring Ayame's potential with her.

Yuuji rolled his eyes. "It’s a mental form," he teased him.

Sukuna snorted. "Sometimes I think only Gojo Satoru speaks my language."

"You could have gotten married and had twins with Satoru!"

"No, I'd rather spend my day wondering why the Ten Shadows didn't return him to the death he stole him from."

"Because he loves him," Yuuji said. "Love, you know? That thing you call useless. That one!"

"And that makes me think about another great mystery." Sukuna stared at him. "If the greater good was a sufficient justification for cursing yourself."

Yuuji sighed tiredly. "Stop..."

Sukuna raised himself up on one elbow to get a better look at him. "Is it your turn to give me your silence?"

"Silence?" The young sorcerer repeated. "I thought we hadn't talked about anything else for seven years."

Seven years. A third of Yuuji's life and the consequence of the choice he had made in the summer of his fifteenth year of life continued to echo against the walls of the place where his destiny had become Ryoumen Sukuna - and Yuuji had become his.

"Seven years and I still haven't heard an answer," the King of Curses emphasized.

The young sorcerer smiled bitterly, then lifted his hand to touch the face of the man beside him. Yuuji traced the black lines of the tattoos with his fingertips - he could have drawn them with his eyes closed. "Do you really care?"

"You don't answer a question with another question, brat."

"You are in no position to demand anything, I remind you," Yuuji knew that words would get them nowhere; they had wasted far too many of them. Only in silence, when neither felt like fighting with the other, could they find some peace - although the young sorcerer doubted that the concept of peace had ever belonged to the King of Curses.

Yuuji slid his fingers through the shorter hair on the nape of Sukuna's neck, pulling him toward himself. "If I granted you one wish..." The young sorcerer said, brushing the King of Curses' lips with his own. "If I granted you one wish, which one would you choose to see fulfilled?"

Sukuna grinned, indulging his light kisses. "Lie down on the table..."

Yuuji frowned. "What?"

Sukuna pulled away a little, but not enough to get rid of the hand sunk into his hair. "Lie down on the table," he repeated.

The young sorcerer rolled his eyes. "Mine was a serious question."

"And mine was a serious answer," Sukuna emphasized.

Yuuji huffed, but didn't put up much resistance. "You've always been a maniac," he said, sitting on the edge of the low table next to the futon. "But I would like to know what made sex one of your obsessions."

"To that question you already know the answer," Sukuna said, rising to his knees as he smiled at him in that unbearable way that promised both heaven and hell.

Well aware that he was trying to blame him for that sexual evolution of his, Yuuji arched his eyebrows. "I won't blush," he said, remembering how pathetic he had been that morning when he had seen his husband naked after getting out of the shower.

"No, of course not," Sukuna slipped between his legs, leaning toward him. Their lips brushed again. "Your sense of embarrassment is pure nonsense, just like you."

"Shut up..." Yuuji muttered, before lying down on the table as he was told. He stared at the ceiling, as if he was not really interested in what was about to happen, but his mate was not inhibited by it at all.

When Sukuna grabbed the elastic of his shorts, Yuuji lifted his hips to facilitate what he was doing. His husband wasted no time and slid his underwear down his thighs as well, lifting the hem of his T-shirt so as to uncover his abdomen.

Yuuji lifted his head a little. "What are your intentions?"

"You should have figured it out by now," Sukuna replied, removing his shirt in turn.

Yuuji followed the black lines of his tattoos with his eyes and then those of his pecs and abs. He wanted to touch that body, wanted to feel those muscles under his hands, against his mouth. That was the third time they had had sex in twenty-four hours, and Yuuji had not managed to get a dominant role yet.

That situation was not ordinary: back home they would not have that much time to themselves. Tokyo, along with its allied cities were officially under the rule of the Gojo Clan and Zen'in Clan, but much of that balance rested on the shoulders of Satoru and Sukuna - even though it was Megumi and Yuuji who had started it all.

With people to protect and children to care for, it was not uncommon for the young sorcerer to fall asleep even before his husband joined him in their bed. Yuuji and Sukuna had a unique sexual chemistry that was hard to explain, but in that city they were alone, surrounded by nameless mysteries, and the tension of their last confrontation in Tokyo had not disappeared yet.

Sex was the only means they had to vent it without hurting each other.

But Yuuji felt that they were both angry. Sukuna was so because his mate had involved their children in his madness; Yuuji was so because, after seven years, his husband still did not bother to listen to him. Both were angered by the silence they gave to each other. In the absence of words, physical contact was their way of communicating.

It was a way of avoiding the problem instead of solving it.

But Yuuji had too many thoughts on his mind - Sendai, its people, the monks who protected it, and his family's secrets encased in three boxes that his grandfather had hidden under the floor for years - and he needed whatever Sukuna was willing to give him.

The King of Curses dropped his shirt on the futon behind him. The four red eyes met the honey-colored ones of his mate.

Yuuji sighed and leaned the back of his head against the wooden surface of the table.

When Sukuna bent down between his legs, resting them on his shoulders, the young sorcerer understood what was coming.

"If you were still hungry, you could have said so. There are a couple of onigiri left," Yuuji teased him with a half-smile.

"Be quiet now, brat."

Sukuna leaned down and Yuuji felt his tongue caressing him. The young sorcerer let go a sigh of pleasure, closing his eyes. His husband had been an inexperienced lover during their early approaches, but he had always been good at using that hellish mouth to work miracles on his body.

Sometimes, when Sukuna was in a good mood, with more than one.

That night was one of those occasions. As his mate's lips tasted the hottest spot on his body, his fingers wrapped around his erection.

Yuuji gasped when he felt the wet caress of another tongue on his glans.

"Don't make me come too fast," he said in a trembling voice.

Sukuna lifted his head. "That's up to you, brat.” He leaned forward, licking his mate's core greedily. Yuuji moaned in ecstasy and the older man had to bite his inner thigh to get him to lower his voice. 

"I don't think you want to wake the children..."

Yuuji raised his left hand above his head, clinging to the edge of the table and biting his lower lip. No, he didn't want to wake up the children. He did not want what was happening to end quickly.

Sukuna gently sucked the clit, his tongue circling it gently, as his hand stroked his Omega's erection slowly, almost lazily - but the tongue coming out of his palm was not lazy at all. Yuuji's legs began to shake and, encouraged by this reaction, Sukuna licked him more intensely.

"Sukuna..." Yuuji called in a broken voice as the fingers of his right hand threaded through his man's hair.

Sukuna pressed his tongue into him. Yuuji’s core tightened, as he arched against the table and against that mouth. He's panting beneath the King and, as the hand around his erection continued to give him wet caresses, he had to accept that all that would not last as long as he had hoped.

Sukuna flicked his tongue against his clit - stars dance before Yuuj’s eyes. He melts beneath his mate. As the first vibrations of his internal orgasm shook him, Yuuji came on his stomach. He let go of the edge of the table, covering his mouth with his arm so as not to scream - how he wished he had the freedom to do so and enjoy that moment to the fullest.

Sukuna did not give him time to catch his breath. He was as merciless with him as he was on any auspicious occasion. The heat of his tongue was replaced by the invasion of his manhood. Yuuji's eyes widened, taken aback by the overstimulation.

It is so good! It is so good! It is so good!

He just wanted to surrender himself against that table and forget about everything.

"I think I told you to be quiet, brat."

Yuuji lifted his eyelids and found those four red eyes above him. "Suku-"

Sukuna captured his mouth and the young sorcerer felt his own taste on his lips. He moved into him and Yuuji moaned against his mouth. It was the only way to live those last moments of passions without sinking his teeth into his own arm.

The young Omega clung to his partner's arms as his every movement was a jolt of uncontrollable pleasure, like a series of multiple orgasms - perhaps they were: it had happened before.

Yuuji responded to Sukuna's kiss as if his life depended on it, stifling moans as their tongues caressed each other. He wanted to encircle his lover's waist with his legs and give him more room to move, but his muscles ached sweetly and the trembling had not passed yet.

It was erotic, passionate.

It was so good.

Sukuna's movements became faster, almost violent. He broke the kiss, hiding his face against Yuuji's neck. The Omega sank his fingers into his hair once more, holding him close, enjoying the broken breath of his mate against his skin.

When Sukuna came, he stiffened for about ten seconds, his sex completely inside the trembling body of the young Omega beneath him.

When Yuuji felt his weight rest on him, he closed his eyes and relaxed completely against the table. He liked it when Sukuna did that, when he was in no hurry to distance himself and sex became intimacy - even if they both had to be on the same page for that to happen.

"Next time, I want to lead," Yuuji said.

Sukuna's nose touched his cheek, then he lifted himself up so he could look at him. "In what way?"

The young sorcerer smiled. "With my fingers," he said, stroking his mate's pinkish hair. "With my mouth," he added, brushing the man's lips with his own."Are you afraid, King?"

Sukuna sneered. "You are an arrogant, little thing."

"I am half of your soul," Yuuji reminded him. "It would be strange if I were not arrogant."

Sukuna rolled his eyes and relaxed against him again. Yuuji sighed because he enjoyed feeling that body pressed against his as the world start to spun again and his body was still warm with pleasure.

"Let's move to the futon, brat."

"Wait a minute..."

Despite the heat of that summer night, Yuuji could have fallen asleep like that. That closeness made him feel protected, as if he could trust the man above him. But only a fool would trust the devil all the way.

A buzzing sound reached Yuuji's ears. At first he paid no attention to it, convinced it was just a passing insect in front of the open shoji. But when the buzzing became prolonged, insistent, he lifted his eyelids and what he saw made him freeze.

"Sukuna..." He called out.

The King of Curses lifted his head, staring at the creature that was staring at them. It was like a big bug, looking a little like a bee and a little like a fly.

It was a curse. Weak, of course. It was strange that it stood motionless in front of them instead of running away.

Sukuna lifted his hand and the monster smashed into a thousand pieces, falling onto the grass of the garden.

They lifted up.

"What the hell-?" Yuuji tried to ask.

"Go to the children," Sukuna said, standing up and fastening his belt.

"Sukuna?"

"Go to the children, I said!" The King of Curses repeated, as he headed for the front door.

Yuuji didn’t listen to him. He put on his shorts and his shirt returned to its place as soon as he lifted himself onto his legs. "Sukuna!"

His mate was opening the front gate when he reached him. It was almost dark, as only one streetlight works in the entire street, but both of them immediately saw the person leaning against the wall of the half-destroyed house opposite theirs.

"Oh... Sorry, sorry!"

Yuuji stopped at Sukuna's side, their shoulders touching as the stranger took a couple of steps forward, approaching the beam of the streetlight. He was tall, had dark hair, and was very young - Yuuji thought that they must be the same age

"It was not my intention to interrupt an intimate moment of yours," the stranger added, raising both hands as if to tell them that he had no ill intentions.

The cursed energy he emanated was undeniable, and it was not something Yuuji had sensed in the two days since his arrival in Sendai.

“Curious… If you didn't want to interrupt us, as you said, you shouldn't have sent a buzzing spy," Sukuna said. 

The other chuckled. "To be honest, I'm a little embarrassed-"

"Who are you?"

Yuuji knew that if he was not there, the King of Curses would not hesitate to punish the young man for his disrespect - but Sukuna would not kill him right away, not until he got some answers.

"I have to thank you for not making me end up like my curse before I even spoke," the stranger said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He smiled, relaxed, as if he didn't know what was in front of him. But the way he spoke to them left little doubt about that. "My name is Arima. Arima Hiroki, and I am the sorcerer in charge of the Rinnoji Temple."

Upon hearing the name of that place, Yuuji thought back to all that Sasaki had told him about Sendai and how it had survived the merger and breathed again. "You are in charge of the people who protect this city," he said, grabbing Sukuna's wrist.

"Yes, yes," Arima said cheerfully. "I heard that you were looking for me, Itadori Yuuji."

Yuuji blinked a few times. That was no longer his name, but that was not the right time to point out such a detail.

"Arima Hiroki..." Sukuna repeated. "Your name doesn't ring a bell, yet you are able to command curses and speak in front of us while holding your head high. That means you are either very strong or very stupid."

Yuuji studied his mate's profile and read in his expression that there was something that disturbed him terribly.

"Actually," Arima said, taking another step forward. "I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to meet you both. The King of Curses and the fragment of his soul that managed to defeat him and became his consort. There are no two other creatures like you either in this era or in the entire history of sorcery.”

"You and your allies were not so honored when Gojo Satoru and Fushiguro Megumi came to this city offering help," Sukuna reminded him.

"My predecessor is to blame for that decision," Arima explained. "I suppose apologies on my part are meaningless, but he was an old man, blinded by precepts long outdated. It was unthinkable for him to create an alliance with a sorcerer who had returned from death and another who had performed the resurrection ritual, little did it matter that they were the Six Eyes and the Ten Shadows."

The hierarchy that Satoru had wanted to break down was composed not only of the small group of madmen of the higher-ups he had killer before the battle of Shinjuku, but of entire generations who had been brought up to see the world of sorcery in a certain way. Yuuji had come to terms with that reality very soon when, a little more than a month after the merger, he had left with Sukuna for Kyoto, with the goal of forging an alliance with the Kamo Clan - and they had succeeded but at a high price.

"Arima..." Sukuna repeated, as if thinking aloud. "I don't know a sorcerer family with that name."

"My name does not belong to me, but even if I revealed my family's ancient name to you, it would make no difference: my bloodline died out a very long time ago," Arima said.

Yuuji frowned. "What do you mean?"

Arima's eyes - they were dark, but of a color hard to define - stared at Sukuna with interest. "You and I are the same."

"I don't think so," the King replied in a bored voice. "Let me guess… Are you a sorcerer from another era reincarnated in this one?"

Yuuji widened his eyes and looked at his husband, then at the young man in front of them.

Arima chuckled. "As I expected, it is impossible to play the mysterious man full of charm in front of the four watchful eyes of the King of Curses."

"Let's get to the point, because your timing tonight was so bad that it irritated me," Sukuna stepped forward - Yuuji squeezed his wrist harder, but that didn't stop him. "What do you want?"

"I'm glad you're asking," Arima admitted. "Well... My predecessor made a huge mistake with the Six Eyes and the Ten Shadows and I want to make up for it," his eyes moved away from Sukuna's face to meet those of the younger sorcerer. "Sendai is a city that fights every day, but I guess it's obvious at a glance that it doesn't compare to Tokyo, Kyoto, or any other place under the protection of a sorcerer family. Arrogance will not give us a future, and it is useless to deny that on our own we will not get very far.” 

Arima extended his right hand in Yuuji's direction. "I would like to invite you to visit the Rinnoji Temple. I would be honored and happy to show you how we train our boys and girls and how we do our best every day to build a tomorrow."

Sukuna did not trust it, and Yuuji could feel that suspicion as his own. He could not ignore it, but he knew what was reflected there in Arima Hiroki's eyes as she looked at him.

It was hope.

The same hope Yuuji had seen in Sasaki's eyes when he had told her he was one of the sorcerers of the Tokyo Clan.

Sendai had been led by the wrong people and the new generation was asking for a second chance to build a future. Yuuji could understand and respect that desire, even though Sukuna was on a completely different page. He took a step forward and, without ceasing to hold his mate's wrist between the fingers of his left hand, he squeezed Arima's with his right.

"I would like to see more," he said. "I'd like to see what you’re doing at the temple." He made no promises. At fifteen, he would not have thought twice about giving the young man in front of him all his help.

At twenty-two, Yuuji had learned not to be hasty. He wanted to help, but Sukuna was not paranoid: if something made him suspicious, it was necessary to investigate before making any decision. Moreover, Yuuji could not completely blame his mate's reticence.

"I am happy to hear these words. I will send a car to pick you up tomorrow morning and you will be our guests for the whole day, so you won't have to worry about anything," Arima said, interrupting the handshake first. "And feel free to take your beautiful children with you. I know there is no one here with you and it is not safe to leave them alone in this city.” The young man bowed his head in respect. "Well ... I think I have bothered you even to much. I wish you a good night."

Arima Hiroki merely walked down the street, his hands hidden in the pockets of his jeans.

The King of Curses and his young mate stood watching him until his tall figure was swallowed by the darkness of the night. "Let's sleep with the children," Sukuna said, turning to go back in.

Yuuji followed him without question. It was he who went to the living room to collect their futon, while Sukuna crossed the entire hallway to enter the room where Shion and Ayame were sleeping. From the silence that followed, Yuuji deduced that their twins were sleeping peacefully.

By the time he reached them, Sukuna had moved the futon with the two children on it to one side of the room - the one furthest from the open shoji - to make room for theirs. Yuuji did what he had to do - the room was too small for all four of them, but with the shoji open and a little patience they would all be able to sleep together.

Sukuna had no intention of doing so. He was sitting with his back leaning against the wooden frame that drew the boundary between the bedrooms and the engawa. He had one arm resting on his bent knee, in a position Yuuji knew very well, and his red eyes turned toward the garden.

Yuuji looked at their two children and smiled, then approached his husband. "What do you think?" He asked, touching his arm.

"An old monk who renounces an alliance because of his preconceptions and a young heir who wants to make up for that mistake," Sukuna looked at him. "Satoru at least didn't act mysterious when he went to kill the men who kept getting in his way."

"We don’t know if Arima killed his predecessor."

Sukuna lifted the right corner of his mouth. "You thought the same thing yourself, don't deny it."

Yuuji sighed, resting his cheek on the other man's knee. "Satoru did it for the greater good."

"Satoru did that because he wished to kill them with his own hands. One does not accept the role of murderer and monster just for the sake of others. Selfishness exists, brat. Satoru and I are still alive because of it"

"I know that."

"However, even though Arima Hiroki is probably a murderer, you have the curiosity to go and see what he built."

"You talk as if you have no curiosity at all."

"I want to understand who he really is," Sukuna admitted. "He said his name does not belong to him. It means he is not alone."

"Maybe he was just adopted by the old monk who was in charge of the temple before him."

"The man we both think he killed?"

"I don't know. Looking at him, he looks to be my age, which means he was a teenager when the merger started."

"You were a teenager, too. So was Megumi. That didn't stop you from doing blasphemous rituals."

Yuuji thought about it. "Maybe Arima Hiroki is the name of the body in which he was incarnated and that's it. The merger has not only affected the cursed energy of this world. It has not only touched curses or people who possess a technique. He is not the first reincarnated sorcerer we meet outside of the Culling Game."

“Reincarnation is a process that happens every day, but silently. It is not common to have such self-awareness if reincarnation is not part of a pact with another person."

Yuuji stared at him, "Are you thinking about Kenjaku?"

Sukuna shook his head. "Kenjaku is not here. Not this time."

"How can you be so sure-?"

The King of Curses looked him straight in the eye. "Kenjaku is not here," he repeated, in the tone of one who did not want to add a single word on the subject. “What disturbed me was his arrogance.” He emphasized. "I've beheaded people for much less."

Yuuji rolled his eyes. "I'm painfully aware of that. What do you think he lies about specifically?"

"Finding out if he lies about the temple will be easy. By going there we will understand many more things. Even if our eyes saw something like the Jujutsu Tech you were trained in, our minds should be able to see beyond appearances."

Yuuji frowned. "You don't just have a vague suspicion. You have a good idea of what's going on in this city."

"It's quite trivial actually," Sukuna said with a shrug. "A dying city with a temple of monks or sorcerers-in-training who do not take responsibility for protecting the streets or exorcising cursed wombs like your old school. Arima says he wants to make up for his predecessor's mistake, but it is impossible not to sense your presence among this rubble."

"The same goes for you," Yuuji said, as if he had to defend himself.

"That's the point, brat," Sukuna explained. "He took a day to observe you and our children. Perhaps he has spies among the common people and perhaps he commands hundreds of those insect-like curses, which are scattered all over the place and to which we give no heed.”

Yuuji blinked a few times. "He was waiting for you to come..."

"I thought about it, but it's crazy to face one tiger without having the skills. To face two of them is completely stupid."

There are no two other creatures like you either in this era or in the entire history of sorcery. Yuuji thought about those words. "I think he's interested in us, in the kind of bond we have. The question is why?"

"This is not much of a mystery," Sukuna admitted. "There have been Six Eyes and Ten Shadows before Satoru and his consort. But there has never been a precedent of what you and I are. The truth is that any sorcerer feels fascination with what we are, just not everyone says it out loud."

Yuuji allowed himself a moment to study his expression. "What's the plan?"

Sukuna chuckled. "Are you asking me?"

"Come on, don't tease me."

"If I had a choice, brat, I'd go have fun with that cursed womb hidden in your old school and born from the traces left behind by our first meeting."

"This is all so romantic," Yuuji said with a disgusted expression.

"Then I would go to the Rinnoji temple alone and look for something capable of entertaining me at least a little."

"And once you're done with the fun, you'd destroy everything," Yuuji concluded. "You are so predictable..."

Sukuna wrinkled his nose in a grimace and shook his head. "I'm not stupid enough to destroy a temple. I need to act cautiously in places like that."

"Oh!" Yuuji straightened his head and widened his eyes. It had come his turn to mock his mate. "There is something the great Sukuna fears."

"It's not fear," Sukuna flickered his fingers against the younger man's forehead, which he drew back, covering the stricken part with his palm. "Taking things for granted is the dumbest thing a sorcerer graced with the title of strongest can do. Curiosity, experiment, lesson... Knowledge, brat, the power of the mind-"

"Yes!" Yuuji exclaimed in irritation. "I know! I know!" Then he looked at the two children to make sure he had not woken them up. "To go beyond the rules one must first know them or whatever..."

"And imagination, brat," Sukuna added. "If you can't imagine what everyone thinks is impossible, you can never be above everyone."

"You should write a book."

"No one can read these days."

"As a professor you would have been perfect, Sukuna. You are everything Satoru is not: boring, merciless, disgusted by his own students. You would have been the asshole professor, while Satoru would have remained the funny one."

"I don't care to teach anyone anything."

There it was, Yuuji's favorite thing about their conversations, when Sukuna let loose enough to say something incoherent, no matter how small.

"The facts say something different," he said, looking at the two sleeping children.

Sukuna looked at them, too, and then huffed. "What I do with Ayame and Shion is something different, brat."

"It's teaching."

"It's making my children strong," Sukuna retorted. "It's giving them a future in this world."

"And you like doing it..." Yuuji emphasized, leaning toward him. A good atmosphere had been created. They were alone investigating a mystery that affected an entire city, and it had been a long time since that had happened.

Yuuji wanted a kiss.

Sukuna pressed a hand against his face, pulling him away from himself. "Do your part and teach our daughter how to use Piercing Blood."

The young sorcerer huffed, pulling away to lie down on the futon. "One can never have a moment with you!" He said, staring at the ceiling of what had been his childhood bedroom. "No matter what happens tomorrow, Ayame and Shion must never be alone."

Sukuna looked down at him. The moonlight coming from outside made his face dark. "Are you afraid, brat?"

Yuuji shook his head, then lay on his side to look at their sleeping children. "There is nothing to be afraid of," he replied. "You are here."

.

.

.

.

.

Rinnoji Temple was a dark and silent place when Arima Hiroki returned there. There was a barrier protecting the area, but it was a small thing against the merger-generated monsters. Arima knew very well that if the thing that was taking shape in Itadori Yuuji's old high school decided to leave its birthplace, none of those security systems would do any good. The same was true for Ryoumen Sukuna, but Arima doubted that the King of Curses posed a threat - at least as long as his consort had power over him.

The buzzing sound that broke the silence of the night reassured Arima that his curses kept the entire perimeter in check. That was fine for the moment.

He moved away from the main building, walking over the bridge that spanned one of the ponds. The small traditional-style house was hidden by trees, but the light visible through the shoji informed Arima that the person who lived there was still awake.

He was not surprised.

He was waiting for him sitting in the engawa.

"You're late," Ren said with a gentle smile. He wore a dark blue kimono, and his gray hair, left loose, framed his face, falling to his shoulders.

"I had to wait for the right moment to introduce myself," Arima said, sitting on the engawa next to him.

"Did you make it?" Ren asked and, after a long time, his eyes reflected the light of some emotion. Arima nodded.

"Tell me all about it!" Ren added.

"Tomorrow, at breakfast," Arima said, getting closer. "Tonight we are thinking of you. I have a gift you'll like."

"A gift for me?"

"Yes..." Arima murmured against his lips, urging him to lie down on the wooden floor. "Relax, Ren." He leaned his forehead against the gray-haired young man's, closing his eyes.

The images of passion he had stolen from Ryoumen Sukuna and Itadori Yuuji passed in front of his closed eyelids and flowed into Ren's mind.

A moan escaped his lips, encouraging Arima to show him more.

"Yes, Hiroki..." Ren murmured in a voice trembling with desire. "Yes, I like that…"

Arima slipped his hand under the fabric of his kimono, between his legs. "I knew you would like it," he said, before kissing him.

Chapter Text

They understood how much the meeting with Arima Hiroki had put them on alert that very night. Sukuna did not sleep. He did not even lie down next to Yuuji. He remained seated between the rooms and the engawa observing the dark garden as if something ominous might come out of the cut grass at any moment.

His young mate slept no more than he did.

In the middle of the night, a hand brushed against the one the King of Curses kept resting on the floor. When he turned around, two honey-colored eyes were watching him worriedly.

"You want me to guard the house in your place?" Yuuji asked.

Sukuna shook his head. "At least one of us had to sleep through the night."

The young sorcerer nodded and turned in the opposite direction. Sukuna saw him give a caress through the raven hair of Shion, who was closest to him. Nothing moved until the first light of dawn.

The King of Curses watched the sky gradually become clearer as the silence of the night was replaced by the cheerful song of the birds. The night was over and nothing had happened.

A moan from one of the children forced him to look away: Ayame had moved in her sleep and ended up lying completely against her brother. Still half asleep, Shion was trying to slide under her to get some distance.

Sukuna got up and reached the futon on which the two children were sleeping. "Shion..." He called out to him in a low voice, to be recognized, as he lifted him by weight to remove him from his sister's grasp. The little boy opened the four eyes identical to his own for a few seconds, but fell asleep again as soon as his head touched his father's shoulder. Before Sukuna could rise, Yuuji sensed the absence of his son beside him and snapped up, closing his fingers on the fabric of the child's shirt.

"It's me," Sukuna said, grabbing his wrist with his free hand.

Yuuji blinked a few times before recognizing him, then he let go of the sleeping little boy.

"I'll take him to the living room," Sukuna added, standing up. "I'll wake him up. You take care of her. We will explain everything to both of them while they eat breakfast."

Yuuji nodded. As Sukuna walked out of the bedroom with Shion in his arms, he watched as his mate leaned over their little girl to wake her with a kiss.

Half an hour later, both children were sitting at the living room table - Yuuji and Sukuna were on the opposite side - both still half asleep, their hair a mess and their colorful pajamas on - the girl's was pink and the boy's was red. Ayame gave a big yawn, then leaned her cheek against her brother's shoulder, who sat composedly.

"We have to tell you something," Yuuji broke the silence first. "Tonight we met someone and today we are going to a new place..." He was the one who gave all the explanations, while his children's eyes were fixed on him, listening carefully to every word.

"Rinnoji Temple..." Shion repeated.

"Is it far from here?" Ayame asked, straightening her back.

"Not very far," Yuuji replied. "It's outside the city, in the mountains, but don't worry: they will come and pick us up in a car and take us there."

The two children looked at each other in puzzlement.

"Are they Mom’s friends?" Ayame asked. "Like the friend we met in the park?"

Yuuji hesitated, and Sukuna took the floor for him. "They are not friends," the older man said, resting both elbows on the table. "They're not even allies. They will probably act nice to you, but don't trust any of them… Especially you," he added, looking at his daughter. "Have I made myself clear, Ayame?"

Feeling at fault, Ayame sought her brother's support. But Shion looked at her with one of his bored expressions. "It serves you right. You talk too much and get everyone into trouble."

Ayame wrapped her arms around her body in an imitation of a folded-arm position and puffed out her cheeks, offended.

"We just have to be careful," Yuuji added, reaching out to caress his little girl's face. "Shion is not in the habit of giving confidence to those he doesn't know-"

"Shion is boring," Ayame said and her brother rolled his eyes with a snort.

"Don't interrupt your mother and listen to what he says," Sukuna said. "This is not a game."

Yuuji grabbed his husband's wrist and looked at him. All this is unnecessary, the golden eyes said. There is no need to scare them like this.

Better they be frightened than something worse, was the answer written in Sukuna's gaze.

Those thoughts passed from one's mind to the other's like a wordless conversation. It was brief because Yuuji first realized that this was not really a situation to involve the children in, but they had no other choice if they wanted to make sure they stayed safe.

"Whatever happens, stay close to Mom and Dad," the young sorcerer said. "Never lose sight of us and don't lose sight of each other."

Yuuji did not say aloud that he was the first to be frightened by something he had not yet been able to name, but he was sure Sukuna had noticed.

2019 

— January —

When Sukuna came out of the bathroom, he was wearing one of the black uniforms that Yuuji was used to seeing on Gojo. There were really no other clothes that were the right size for the thousand-year-old but nearly two-meter-tall man, but at that moment he wasn't sure it was wise to bring Sukuna to Megumi looking like that.

"Why are you staring at me?" Sukuna asked.

Yuuji shook his head. "Follow me..."

It had stopped snowing that morning, but a white blanket covered everything. For a while the sound of their footsteps in the snow was the only thing to break the silence.

The young sorcerer walked ahead and the presence of the King of Curses behind him weighed like something physical, as if he had a boulder behind his back, but that did not stop him from keeping his head up. "There are some things I need to tell you," Yuuji said as they passed the silent buildings - that school had never been crowded, but it looked awfully like a haunted place now. "And there are others I have to ask you."

"I have no choice but to listen," was Sukuna's bored reply.

"Megumi knew that I would try to take you back and bound you to me," Yuuji said. "But I did not know that he would try to use the Ten Shadows resurrection ritual on Gojo-sensei."

Sukuna chuckled. "I see… You have started calling each other by name, but you still don't talk to each other honestly. Haven't you realized yet that by trying to protect each other you will keep ending up in the same situations over and over again?"

Yuuji turned away, his eyes as cold as the snow around him.

Sukuna paused, but he was not intimidated in any way.

"What situations?" The young sorcerer reminded the man in front of him. "Megumi and I were hurt by the same thing, the one who is walking two steps behind me now."

Sukuna twisted his mouth into a grimace. "You just can't play this role, you brat."

"I'm not playing any role. I'm just doing what I have to do."

"The weak constantly reaffirm their victories in the face of the enemy," Sukuna said, as if he were teaching something obvious to an overly stupid child. "The strong ones don't need to."

"We are not talking about that..."

"We are talking about the desperation of you and the sorcerer of the Ten Shadows, which has driven you to perform balshemic rituals. You poor things..." Sukuna approached.

Yuuji did not lower his gaze for a moment.

"Where's the pride, brat?" The King of Curses asked, stopping in front of him - he was so fucking tall. "Where is that unwavering humanity of yours? You preferred to sell your soul and bring absolute evil back to life, rather than risk it all and fight. Seven days was all it took for you and Fushiguro Megumi to capitulate."

Yuuji didn't mind defending himself, but there were things that piece of shit should not be allowed to touch - not anymore. "Don't talk about Megumi as if you knew him."

"I have been in his body just as I have been in yours."

"You had to destroy his soul because he did not allow you to fully use your cursed energy to kill me."

"You two are just stubborn brats."

Yuuji took one step forward, just one. If he moved one millimeter, they would touch, and he did not want to. But if he had to engage in a power struggle with the King of Curses to make the plan work, he had no qualms about doing so. “I told you to try to swallow my suffering, remember?" He said, coldly. "What was it like to die while it was suffocating you? Do you remember that?"

Sukuna laughed. "You threaten me, but while I am the one tied to a chain in your hands, you remain tied to the thing you hate most in the world. That amuses me."

“Good. Because for the rest of your existence you will have nothing else." Yuuji took a step back. "While you were in Megumi's body, did you notice that he was pregnant?"

Sukuna's sarcastic smile slowly died, replaced by an expression that Yuuji could not interpret. "I see..." The young sorcerer said. "I continue to be a stubborn brat, but you don't stop being the same old man who is so focused on himself that he is distracted. It is comforting to know that, at the end of the story, everything changes but you and I are still the same," he concluded sarcastically, back to walking.

Sukuna immediately followed him, proceeding at his side. "Tell me more."

"Me?" Yuuji turned a derisive grimace on him. "You just finished saying that you have been both inside my body and Megumi's. You're the one who has to tell me what you know."

"I wasn't interested in that part of his memories," Sukuna said with a vaguely disgusted expression. "Fushiguro Megumi was valuable for two things: his powers and  his informations about Gojo Satoru. The fact that the disciple was the mentor's mate was completely irrelevant to me."

Yuuji gave him a sharp look. "So irrelevant that one of the first things you did was to point out to Gojo-sensei whose body he was fighting against."

They walked away from the school buildings, reaching a staircase hidden in the trees that surrounded Jujutsu Tech. Every step was covered with snow, but they proceeded anyway. Yuuji felt his socks getting wet - his shoes were not suitable for that kind of walking - but that did not stop him. 

"Did Fushiguro Megumi know about his pregnancy?" Sukuna asked directly.

"No. I think that's why you didn't notice. Megumi didn't know and you couldn't know either," Yuuji replied as they continued up the stairs. "That's one of the pieces of news that helped make those seven days a living hell."

Sukuna emitted a half laugh. "In my time, a pregnancy after the death of a great lord was seen as good news. All consorts, women and Omegas, would lie with their husbands before a battle for that very reason."

"Oh, I don't doubt that you don't see anything dramatic about a boy traumatized in mind and body finding out that he is carrying the child of the man he loves after losing him in that horrible way."

"Of the man he loves… Was it that deep? I was certain that their relationship was decided by others for political reasons."

"Curses my ass... You are the King of Distraction."

"You said Fushiguro Megumi was pregnant," Sukuna said, stopping.

Yuuji did the same two steps later, which allowed him to look down on the other man despite their height difference. "What do you mean?"

"Was," the King of Curses emphasized. "You spoke in the past tense."

Yuuji tightened his lips into a thin line and, for the first time since they had left the dormitory, lowered his gaze. Sukuna might have been the most senseless person in history, but he could read people's soul and he had to see the pain reflected in his eyes.

"He found out about the pregnancy because he had a miscarriage following the battle of Shinjuku." It was Sukuna's intuition. "That's why finding out he was pregnant with Gojo Satoru's child helped make those seven days hellish for him and for all of you."

"No," Yuuji shook his head. "No, it wasn't that… Simple." He hated using that word.

Even the older man arched his right eyebrow, surprised to hear him use it. "Simple?"

The young sorcerer opened his lips to swallow air. He had no right to say or explain more. "Just follow me."

2025

— June —

All four of them were sitting in the engawa.

That was a warmer day than the others, and Yuuji had decided to dress the children in something comfortable. Although it was an official visit, none of them had the right clothes to be formal and, as Sukuna had repeated to him and the twins, what they were about to make was not a friendly visit. Arima Hiroki hoped for an alliance but the King's suspicions remained and in Yuuji's mind they took the form of doubts.

"Try to be still, Ayame," the young sorcerer said, as he tied his daughter's long pinkish hair into a high ponytail. Combing Shion's hair was easier, and not because he had shorter hair but because it looked like it was made of black silk - neither Yuuji nor Sukuna had it that way - and all he had to do was run his fingers through it to pull it back and fix it.

"That's it," Yuuji said, letting go of his daughter.

Ayame reached back, taking the end of her pinkish locks. A moment later, Yuuji sensed something and turned toward the front gate.

"They have arrived," Sukuna said, standing up and brushing the back of his son's head to invite him to do the same.

Yuuji nodded, imitating him and taking Ayame's hand.

A black car was waiting for them in the middle of the road, but the boy standing beside it was not Arima Hiroki.

The young sorcerer blinked a couple of times. "Good morning...?" He said, puzzled.

The boy, who already had a tense posture, blushed exaggeratedly, bowing his head in respect. "Good morning your ... Your Highnesses ... I think ...?"

There was a long moment of silence. The confused children raised their gazes to their parents.

"Who are these Highnesses?" Ayame asked.

"It's a way of calling royalty," Shion explained.

Yuuji burst out laughing, breaking the awkwardness that had set in. "Oh, no, no, there is no need to call us that!" He exclaimed as he approached. "Please raise your head. There's really no need for all this."

The boy lifted his gaze shyly. He was a teenager, with big brown eyes and black hair, dressed in a manner very reminiscent of Tokyo Jujutsu Tech’s uniforms, but the fabric was grey.

"I'm sorry," he said, straightening his back. "Arima had recommended not to make a bad impression and I messed up."

"You did nothing wrong," Yuuji reassured him. "You're not the first to talk to us like we're royalty. The title King of Curses can be confusing if you don't know the whole story." He turned to look at his husband.

Sukuna watched the scene with a judgmental expression. Perfect. They sent us the idiot.

Yuuji made a hand gesture in his direction, as if to tell him that everything was under control. "What's your name?" He asked the boy dressed in grey.

"Kato..." The teenager replied. "Kato Yoshi, my lord."

"Oh, please call me Yuuji. There is no need to be formal, I don't think I am much older than you. How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Seventeen..." Yuuji repeated. "I guess you are a student at the temple."

Kato's cheeks were still red but a shy smile lit up his young face. "Something like that..." He replied, scratching the back of his neck with embarrassment. "I am here to take you to the Temple."

"I wouldn't have said that," Sukuna commented sarcastically.

Kato looked at him and became a piece of stone, terrified.

Yuuji appealed for all his patience. "Don't mind him," he said with a sigh. "I know, it's hard because he's two meters tall and emits a terrible aura, but I doubt you'll be forced to know his bad personality too, so you can relax."

"Mom is insulting you, Dad," Ayame innocently remarked.

Sukuna placed a hand on her head, perhaps to avoid using it in more violent ways. "Yes, I'm listening, child."

Kato opened the rear seat door, then passed his eyes over all four family members. "I'm afraid you'll be a little tight."

"Don't worry, brat," Sukuna said, continuing to look at his mate. "I've been in tighter places than that," he added with an unbearable smile of his own.

Yuuji widened his eyes.

Sukuna by nature was discreet with his private affairs and half the time with his attitudes - he would get exalted in the least suitable situations, like those in high danger of death - then there were days when he decided to dare a little more and Yuuji would end up paying the price - as always.

You started it, that smile and those four red eyes said.

Kato turned purple and Yuuji feared his jaw might drop to the floor. "Have a seat. I'll take mine," he said, hastily hoping to the driver's seat.

Ayame obviously did not understand that adult talk and looked at her brother for some explanation, but Shion was five years old just like her. "I didn't get that one," he said, then Sukuna pressed a hand in the middle of both of their backs to invite them to get into the car.

Yuuji decided he was glad there was air conditioning in there.

He and Sukuna sat by the windows, while Shion ended up between them and Ayame on his father's lap.

"Do you students sleep there, at Rinnoji Temple?" Yuuji asked.

Kato cast a quick glance at him from the rearview mirror. "Yes, the place is very big and the monks have adapted spaces to make them into large dormitories. There is one for boys and one for girls. One of the buildings is completely dedicated to children, those who have recently shown their potential. They don't go through the same training as us, of course, but at the temple they have a safe place where they can learn about their power gradually."

Yuuji nodded. "We do something similar in Tokyo. How many of you are there?"

"At the moment, we are about 20 students and there are about 10 children. Taking care of us are young sorcerers who were trained right after the first wave of the merger by the old monks back then… The ones who survived, I mean."

"The first wave of the merger was almost seven years ago," Sukuna emphasized. "Where are the sorcerers of that first generation?"

The voice of the King of Curses had the power to make the 17-year-old stutter for a full minute. Yuuji leaned to the side to make sure he was still driving while looking in front of him. It did not matter that he had been defeated and that the young sorcerer who was the architect of that feat was in full control of his soul, powers, and existence, Ryoumen Sukuna would never stop being scary.

Although Arima Hiroki had shown himself to be more intrigued than frightened, if it was true that he was an ancient sorcerer incarnate then his position was completely different. Kato Yoshi was just a boy in a broken world struggling to survive.

"They are dead," Kato finally managed to answer, and the change in the tone of his voice was evident. "All but two of the sorcerers of the first generation are dead. That is why we cannot establish an efficient safety net throughout the city. The older monks and sorcerers pass on all their knowledge to us, but there is always something we lack. That's why Arima wants to make up for his predecessor's mistakes and create an alliance with Tokyo."

Yuuji looked at Sukuna, and his husband looked back at him. That brief explanation was enough to justify some of the things they had wondered about the previous day, but if Yuuji had the impression that he was putting the pieces of a puzzle together, his mate still thought there was something out of place.

"Arima is one of the two survivors of the first generation, I guess," Sukuna said.

"Yes, my lord."

"Who is the other one?"

Kato hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I think this is a question Arima himself would like to answer."

Yuuji frowned, but had no time to ask anything. Shion leaned forward, between the two front seats - in an instinctive gesture, both Sukuna and Yuuji reached out a hand to grab him to prevent him from running into the windshield at the next turn. "Are there any children with interesting techniques at the temple?"

"Oh... Well... None of us have legendary powers like the Ten Shadows or the Six Eyes-" Kato tried to say.

"That one is obvious without needing to be said," the little boy replied.

"Shion..." Yuuji scolded him, grabbing him with both hands to push him to sit back down in a composed manner - in his corner, Sukuna was silent but amused. "Not all little sorcerers are the same and you know it. Besides, we are not going to challenge anyone."

Ayame decided to make the situation worse. "Why not? We don't have to hurt ourselves. Playing with techniques is fun."

"Your and your brother's way of having fun is not exactly the same as other children's, sweetheart.” Yuuji said. It is your father's fault.

"But if we are to create an alliance, wouldn't it be better to test them?" Shion asked. "An alliance is based on exchange. This city is certainly not a territory we need, it's a pile of rubble, but maybe they have strong warriors."

Yuuji stared at his son, then turned an openly accusatory gaze on his husband. This is all your fault.

Yes, it is definitely my fault. Sukuna's expression was amused in a way that made the young sorcerer want to punch him.

Yuuji leaned between the two front seats until his face appeared in the reflection in the rearview mirror. "Don't worry about such talk, Kato," he said with a nervous smile. "They are children."

The 17-year-old nodded quickly to let him know he understood. The rest of the journey was silent. Sukuna absentmindedly played with Ayame's hair the whole time, while Yuuji looked out the window.

When the car stopped, the younger man's honey-colored eyes met his mate's bloodshot ones. The moment had come.

Kato opened the door on Yuuji's side, who got out first. It was not the first time he had seen the Rinnoji Temple in the city where he had been born and raised, but it had not been a place he had habitually frequented. His grandfather had never been a spiritual type in the traditional sense of the word - Yuuji was of the opinion that what had happened to his parents had driven him to stay away from any reality that only considered nonmaterial things.

Still, being there as one of the most powerful sorcerers of the era that had begun after the merger, alongside the man who had been a natural disaster before he was his husband and together with their twins, had a certain effect on him.

"Follow me," Kato said, preceding them under the entrance arch to the temple.

Yuuji took a deep breath and began to walk.

Once they reached the main square, it was evident that he had far underestimated the situation. Sendai was a destroyed city where someone remembered Itadori Yuuji but no one had any idea who Ryoumen Yuuji was. The young sorcerer had been influenced by this, by the rubble visible in every corner, and nothing had prepared him for what he saw there.

All the monks and students of the temple were kneeling in two neat rows, one on the right and one on the left. Their foreheads touched the ground, paying homage to their presence in a way that Sukuna took for granted but that Yuuji would never get used to. Kato also moved away from them. "Welcome to Rinnoji Temple, my lords," he said, bowing his head in turn.

There was not only respect in all that ceremony, but also deep fear. When Sendai had refused an alliance with Tokyo the first time, the monks had done so by calling one Zen'in and one Gojo - the most powerful of their names - blasphemers. Megumi and Satoru had been pitiful and that was the end of it.

The King of Curses was not known for acts of kindness and patience. In that temple, all the people present knew that to fail negotiations a second time meant not only to condemn the city to a slow and inevitable death but also to condemn themselves to a far more gruesome fate.

Ayame clung to his mother, intimidated by the atmosphere. She always did; she did not like all that solemnity. Yuuji lowered his eyes to him and found himself unable to console her in any way. He didn't like all the solemnity either; it never ceased to make him feel uncomfortable.

"This is something we've done before, children," Sukuna said, taking Shion's hand and stepping forward to offer the free one to Ayame.

The little girl broke away from her mother to grasp it.

Yuuji looked at his children, then he lifted his gaze to his husband's face.

"Head up and keep looking in front of you," Sukuna said in a voice low enough that no one else heard him, but without kindness. It was only the umpteenth time in seven years that he had repeated it to Yuuji, after all - the first time, however, he had held his hand. It had happened in Kyoto, after their first victory together. But that had not been a gesture of kindness, just of triumph.

Yuuji nodded and fixed his eyes toward the main temple building on the opposite side of the square. Arima Hiroki was waiting for them there.

He and Sukuna took the first step forward together.

They walked surrounded by a heavy silence, and when they arrived, Yuuji had the impression that that walk had been miles long.

"Welcome," Arima stepped forward and bowed his head in greeting them. That day, he was also wearing the dark grey uniform of his students. "I'm glad you decided to accept our invitation. I hope our Kato has been well-behaved to you."

"He didn't crash us into a tree," Sukuna replied, wielding his usual sarcasm. "Let's consider it a victory for the stuttering brat."

Yuuji glared at him.

Arima accepted the joke and emitted a short laugh. "I thank you for your kindness," he lowered his gaze. "We are all very honored to meet the little Prince and the beautiful Princess."

"Shion is not a Prince," Ayame said promptly, though she was holding her father's hand with both of her own. "But I'm still a Princess, my mom said so."

Yuuji smiled. Ayame had the great power to lighten any situation, like a little shining sun.

"Let me introduce you to someone," Arima turned, extending his hand toward a person whom Yuuji had not noticed until that moment. He was a young man with long grey hair, neatly combed into a low ponytail and he was wearing a dark blue kimono. He was young, as was Arima and as was Yuuji.

He smiled, but the young sorcerer could not help thinking that there was something out of place in his expression - he did not know how best to explain it to himself.

"This is Arima Ren," Arima said.

"Are you brothers?" Yuuji asked. He and Sukuna had assumed that the name by which he had introduced himself to them was not that of his true, ancient identity, but belonged to the body in which he had been reincarnated.

"No," Arima replied with an expression that was difficult to interpret.

Yuuji looked at him confused, but had no time to ask any more questions.

"Just call me Ren!" The grey-haired boy said enthusiastically, grabbing both of the young sorcerer's hands. "Let me call you Yuuji, please."

"Oh..." Yuuji blinked a few times. "Sure..." He searched Arima's eyes, undecided on how to act but the melancholy on the other young man's face suggested that humoring was the best thing to do.

"Come with me!" Ren grabbed his wrist and pulled him with such force that Yuuji almost fell. "Let's leave the boring talk to the old men. You will spend the day with me!"

"Wait... I..." Yuuji turned around, seeking his mate's eyes.

"Go with your mother, children," Sukuna said to their twins. "I have a strong feeling he needs help."

Yuuji would punch him before the end of the day, he promised himself.

2019

— January —

At the top of those stairs was Gojo Satoru's private residence. Sukuna knew this - though he could not remember from which of the two brats whose body he had possessed he had gotten that information - so he did not ask where they were headed. Fushiguro Megumi wanted to talk to him, and it was obvious that once he had recovered and been guilty of the crime of both starting the merger and bringing his mentor and mate back to life, that house was the only place that could accommodate him.

Sukuna did not know what the other sorcerers - Gojo Satoru's students and allies - were doing, but something told him that although they had fought to save him, Fuhisguro Megumi had preferred to turn away from them.

Yuuji was an exception.

"We have arrived," the brat said, as if it were not obvious enough to both of them that they had reached the top of that staircase.

Gojo Satoru's house was large, traditional in style. With the snow covering everything, Sukuna almost had the illusion that he was standing in front of the secondary residence of one of the great lords of his era - but Gojo Satoru was more powerful than any sorcerer had ever been born during the Heian Era, of that he was certain.

“Follow me…” Yuuji said.

Sukuna did so without saying a word.

They did not enter the dwelling through the front door. They went around and found an open gate leading to a driveway, but there was no car there. They continued through the snow, one step at a time, until they found themselves in a garden that looked as traditional in style as the house, but was covered in white like everything else.

Fushiguro Megumi was waiting for them sitting under the engawa, and when he saw them he stood up. As he and the brat approached, Sukuna watched him carefully: the young sorcerer of the Ten Shadows was wearing the black uniform of Jujutsu Tech students, and his appearance was no different from how he remembered him, his beautiful face was not scarred, and all his limbs were still in place. But Sukuna only needed to look into his eyes to realize that this was not the same boy in front of whom he had deprived the brat of his heart six months earlier. That boy, who, though born to command shadows, had been smothered by Gojo Satoru's, no longer existed.

Fushiguro Megumi stared at him with the same intensity. There was hatred and anger in his eyes, but his green irises were not as fiery as Yuuji's golden ones. Sukuna knew that if pushed into a dark corner, the brat who possessed a piece of his soul would be able to come out with the cold lucidity of a predator - he had done it in Shibuya, against Mahito. But the winter contained in Fushiguro Megumi's eyes was something else.

They reflected a soul that had renounced its humanity, that had embraced blasphemy out of selfishness. Sukuna was almost impressed. He smiled.

"A definitely noteworthy development," he said.

The black-haired boy's face remained motionless as Yuuji pierced him with his gaze. “Sukuna…”

"It is you brats who have chosen to talk to me," the King of Curses said, shoving his hands into his pants pockets.

Yuuji moved away from his side to join his friend. "You don't have to do this, Megumi," he said. "You can ask me and I'll talk to him."

Fushiguro Megumi shook his head, his green eyes not leaving the face of the man who had come back from the dead for even a moment. "It's okay," he reassured him, although it was obvious that nothing was okay. "You brought him back to make him stay. I'd better deal with him right away.”

"You are brave," Sukuna commented.

The two brats exchanged a long look. Yuuji's eyes were asking him if he was really sure about what he was doing, but Fushiguro Megumi had drowned in the darkest darkness too long to be afraid to talk to the man who had thrown him there.

Both boys approached him - and Yuuji made sure to threaten him silently with his eyes the whole time. Sukuna just ignored him.

Once again, as from the beginning, Fushiguro Megumi deserved his full attention.

"I am honest when I say you are brave," the King of Curses said. "Another sorcerer, after experiencing what you have survived, would not be able to express a coherent thought. You are strong Fushiguro Megumi."

"I have no use for your words, Sukuna," Fushiguro replied.

"I am aware of that," Sukuna reclined his head to one side. "The brat told me that it has been confirmed that Gojo Satoru is alive. What state is his mind in?"

"We don't know," Yuuji replied. "The news came tonight while you had a fever. Gojo-sensei is at his Clan's main residence in Kyoto. The information coming here is little and not detailed."

Sukuna arched his right eyebrow, looking at the black-haired boy. "I was sure that you and he were betrothed or something."

"Arranged marriages happen between families who hate each other but want to gain from each other," Fushiguro said.

Yes, that was a mechanism that the King of Curses was very familiar with. "And the Gojo Clan has no respect for you now that you have started the merger and committed the worst blasphemy a sorcerer can commit, I guess."

Fushiguro tightened his lips until they became a thin line. "You asked about Satoru's mental state because there are chances that he is not..." A pause. "Are there chances that he is not lucid?"

"I expect such questions from him," Sukuna said, pointing to Yuuji with a nod. "But you grew up in the world of the ancient Clans. I'm sure you knew the weight of the action you were committing when you chose to do that resurrection ritual."

"It was not just a resurrection ritual," Fushiguro emphasized. "It is a ritual that only those who possess the Ten Shadows can attempt, and that technique is mine. I did what I did out of pure selfishness, yes, but I did it using my power. I don't care what the ancient laws say, I will not apologize for using something that is mine."

Sukuna was satisfied by that explanation. "Relax, boy. I completely agree with you on this point, but I still sense insecurity in you. You know very well that there were no guarantees that you would succeed in the ritual and that no one among your predecessors has dared so much. You are the first of many things, Fushiguro Megumi."

The green-eyed sorcerer twisted his mouth into a grimace. Sukuna understood that he was disgusted by his admiration. "How did you survive?"

Fushiguro hesitated. "That wasn't the purpose."

The King of Curses sought Yuuji's eyes, but the brat was looking away - that detail of the story hurt him, too. "You were ready to die to bring Gojo Satoru back." It was not a question. "You opted for the ultimate sacrifice again." Sukuna snorted. "And I thought you had become greedier for real."

Fushiguro's green eyes became huge and, for a moment, the anger reflected in them made them fiery. "Don't you dare..."

"To do what?" Sukuna knew very well what he was doing and was amused.

"Don't use his words," Fushiguro hissed.

The older man shrugged his shoulders. "Well... That doesn't change that you performed an unprecedented ritual. How did you accomplish it? Gojo Satoru had destroyed half of your Shadows arsenal."

The black-haired boy swallowed hard. "I restored it."

"In what way?"

"You absorbed Tengen's power while you were in my body," Fushiguro reminded him. "I sacrificed it in a vow to get my shikigamis back."

Sukuna was speechless. He burst out laughing a moment later. "I admit..." He managed to say in a shrill voice. "My judgment was hasty, Fushiguro Megumi." That bout of hilarity continued for a while.

"What's wrong with you, you idiot?" Yuuji asked impatiently.

"I don't expect you to understand, brat," Sukuna pointed his index finger in the direction of the black-haired boy. "Your friend gave up the greatest power that ever existed in the history of sorcery to get his Ten Shadows back," he took a deep breath and calmed himself. "This is more than selfishness, this is pride in its purest form."

"I am not interested in immortality," Fushiguro said. "Nor do I care about a power that would allow me to become a god."

"No, of course not." Sukuna nodded. "I guess you also wanted to get rid of the power that allowed you to initiate the end of the world. I wonder more than before how you survived the ritual now."

"This is the reason I asked Yuuji to talk to you."

"I am listening."

"I know that no one knows the laws governing these events and that is one of the reasons why rituals such as resurrections are forbidden, but I think you have more knowledge than any of us."

"I am honored by the compliment..."

Yuuji rolled his eyes. "Can you stop that?"

Fushiguro squeezed his friend’s shoulder. "If Satoru is alive, it means a price was paid, but that price was not my life."

"Are you afraid someone else will pay for your selfishness?" Sukuna asked. "True, no one knows the laws governing these events - that's why they are called blasphemies. But I doubt that anyone who was not directly involved in the ritual could be influenced by it."

The green-eyed young sorcerer opened his lips and swallowed air, as if struggling to breathe. "My child was involved."

After those words, Sukuna knew what he was there for. He looked at Yuuji, and those golden eyes answered his gaze in silence. "Do you want to know if what you did was the cause of your miscarriage?"

Fushiguro nodded.

"What's the point?" Sukuna asked. "You were ready to sacrifice your life for Gojo Satoru's. The creature inside you would have died anyway."

"It makes sense to me..." The young sorcerer's green eyes filled with tears, but he was too proud to shed them in front of the man he was talking to. Yuuji touched his arm to remind him that he was not alone. "The pregnancy had only started two months ago, and no one could guarantee that that baby would be born. Were they a sufficient price to bring Satoru back?"

"The meaning of a price is decided by the person who pays it, Fushiguro Megumi. The reason you don't find it a fair exchange is because you thought that only by sacrificing your life would you do justice," Sukuna pondered for a moment. "Unless..."

A pause followed that stretched for a long minute.

"Unless?" Yuuji pressed him.

"I will give you my honest interpretation of events," Sukuna said. "I feel the same way, Fushiguro Megumi. I don't think sacrificing an embryo was enough to bring back Gojo Satoru... But sacrificing the future Six Eyes for the dead one would be."

The light in Fushiguro's green eyes was completely spent. "My child was... ?"

"We'll never know for sure," Sukuna added. "But it's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. The reason Kenjaku locked up Gojo Satoru was to prevent the Six Eyes from being passed on to another child after his death. The moment he fell in battle, that cursed technique ceased to exist in this generation, giving way to an eventual future possessor… It is just the kind of game that fate likes to play.” He had nothing more to say.

Fushiguro parted his lips and swallowed air for the second time. "Thank you for your honesty," he said, then lowered his gaze and turned away to hide his tears.

"Megumi..." Yuuji tried to touch him, but his friend did not even turn to look at him. "Wait for me at the gate," he added, turning to the older man.

Sukuna did not object: he had no reason to stay there any longer.

2025 

— June —

"This is our storehouse of cursed weapons," Arima said, opening the door to a small building hidden among the trees that surrounded the temple.

Sukuna entered the small room after him, looking with little interest at the weapons hanging on the walls: most of them were katanas, and it was not necessary to inspect them closely to see that they were neither ancient nor powerful at all.

"I know perfectly well that what you are looking at is not comparable to the arsenal of big cities like Tokyo or Kyoto," Arima added, stopping at his side. 

Sukuna looked at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to peek under the mask he was sure he was wearing - if he couldn't, he would forcibly rip it off and figure out who the man really was.

 "But we do not have great economic resources and this is what we can afford. We use them mainly with those young apprentices who cannot materialize their potential into a real technique. Their cursed energy added to that of these weapons is an excellent combination in combat.” Arima's dark eyes met his. "Is the King of Curses interested in cursed weapons?"

"If you know all the stories about me, you should know," Sukuna said, beginning to wander around the small storehouse.

"They tell so many stories about you and some of them contradict each other, making it difficult to tell which one is the truth," Arima said, standing still near the front door. "But I'm sure you used the Inverter Spear of Heaven during the Battle of Shinjuku seven years ago."

Sukuna confirmed with a nod. "I didn't understand the thinking of certain sorcerers who believe that a cursed technique does not make it necessary to learn how to use cursed weapons," he said, picking up one of the katanas hanging on the wall. He uncovered half the blade and looked at it: it was just poorly made and he would not have given it to his children even to play with the weakest of curses. But it was still a blade. "In a fight to the death, one does not stop when the level of cursed energy is low or when a sword breaks. You go forward, to the end, with everything a warrior has and everything he is willing to risk. This is the only way to prove oneself strong." He pulled the katana out completely, clutching the hilt in his right hand and the sheath in his left, then looked at the younger man. "If you are a reincarnated sorcerer, why don't you tell me your real name?"

Arima continued to smile. "That wouldn't make any sense. I was born in the Edo Era, centuries after you. My family was not yet powerful in your era and failed to be so for many generations."

"Souls reincarnate every day and some have blurred memories of their previous lives, at least so they say. But a low-level sorcerer from the Edo Era being reincarnated with full awareness of his past life is a bit of a hard story to believe."

"And who says I was weak?" Arima asked. "I only said that my family could not survive far more powerful names, but that only tells part of my story."

"Your name, reincarnated sorcerer."

"My name is not written in any great story, King of Curses."

"There are not only great stories," Sukuna retorted. "For your information, I lead a fairly boring life and when there is nothing that can entertain me, I read."

"The King of Curses likes to read. So you are a man of knowledge as well as a man of action."

"A thousand years of history is a lot to catch up on, but when you have the private archives of the Zen'in Clan and the Gojo Clan at your disposal, it is not that difficult to do so," Sukuna lifted the right corner of his mouth. "There is not a single name that those two Clans left behind in the forgotten. Not a single one. I memorized them all, so if you are really a sorcerer from the Edo Era, your name is memorized right here." He lifted the hand in which he held the sheath to point to his head. "I'll ask you one last time. What is your name? Your real name."

Arima sighed. "I guess I have no choice if it's the King of Curses himself asking me." A pause. "Asato. Reiko Asato."

Sukuna laughed. "You are telling me the name of a woman so that I do not find it suspicious that it does not appear in the records of two of the Three Great Clans," he said.

"I didn't marry in my previous life and I didn't give birth to children with an important name, so I doubt anyone had any interest in remembering me. But I'm sure that in those ancient documents you speak of, the Asato family name is mentioned a few times."

"Yes," Sukuna confirmed. "It is mentioned..."

"But you still don't trust me, am I right?" Arima approached again, though the other man was clutching a katana in his fist.

"My trust is something that does not concern you."

"And does it concern your young consort?"

Sukuna raised the blade, pointing it at the young sorcerer's throat.

Arima did not stop smiling even then. "I have a request. If the King of Curses decides not to continue with the negotiations of this alliance, I would like to be beheaded by his legendary technique rather than by any katana. I would die either way, but the honor of my departure would be different."

"You may as well stop this talk. I've heard similar ones ad nauseam. They don't flatter me, they bore me, and my boredom is easier to trigger than my anger. In addition…" Sukuna pressed the blade until a trickle of red blood ran down the younger sorcerer's throat. "That set-up in the main square… You just wanted to talk to me from the beginning. You only turned to Yuuji last night because you knew he was the one to be convinced."

"This is only half true," Arima admitted. "I wanted to talk to you alone, because we are both ancient souls who do not belong in this world. But Ren particularly wanted to meet Yuuji. He has spent his entire life inside this temple, knows little of the outside world, and is terrified of leaving this place. Getting to know Itadori Yuuji for him is like the realization of a dream and-"

"Ryoumen-"

"I beg your pardon, I don’t-"

Sukuna pushed the blade away from Arima's throat, tucked it into the sheath and let it fall to the ground, as if it were an object of no value. "His name is Ryoumen Yuuji," he said.

Arima brought a hand to his throat at the spot where he had been wounded. "The King of Curses gives me permission to speak to him privately, then?"

"Yes," Sukuna granted him, passing him on his way out of the warehouse. "Because while you were talking about that grey-haired brat you were sincere, and my consort will not decide to leave this city until he has all the answers he seeks. Whatever you have to say, pray that it will not be too boring to listen to."

Yuuji had the impression that he had ended up in another world.

Ren did not live in one of the dorms Kato had mentioned. His rooms were far from the main temple building; one had to cross the bridge over the pond and walk for a while among the trees to find them. But Yuuji believed he understood the reason for that isolation. It was not a punishment or to protect Ren from something or someone.

"Do you like it?" He asked, sitting down under the engawa of his small house.

Yuuji looked around. That place was a triumph of colors.

There were flowers of all kinds, many in which could not have bloomed in the summer. "Did you do all this?"

Ren nodded enthusiastically, then placed a hand on the wooden surface. "Please take a seat."

Yuuji accepted the invitation. His children had been as enchanted by the spectacle as he was, and Ayame moved curiously from bush to bush, pointing out each flower she recognized and asking Shion the name of the ones she could not remember.

"Is this all thanks to your cursed energy?" Yuuji asked.

Ren nodded a second time. "I don't have the right powers to fight curses. Or rather, I don't know how to use them like that. They've tried to train me, but I think I'm not meant to hurt… Not even cursed creatures," he looked at his garden proudly. "These flowers are the only way my power takes shape. It's not really a technique and it's not useful to anyone, but it's mine."

After spending days surrounded by rubble and ghosts of the past, that place for Yuuji was like heaven on earth. "I know other sorcerers like you," he said. "They can't use their powers in combat, but they can use them as sources of energy. In this age they are very valuable."

Ren's eyes sparkled at his words. "Sorry if I dragged you here. It was too much enthusiasm, and I can't contain myself very well when I'm excited. Hiroki often scolds me for this. I hope I haven't offended you or your spouse."

Yuuji shook his head. "You didn't offend me in any way," then he thought of Sukuna. "And my husband… I think he was enjoying himself" - what an asshole - "so don't worry about him either."

Ren parted his lips to say something, but then he blushed and lowered his gaze with embarrassment. "Forgive me, I know it sounds strange, but I can't believe you're really here."

Yuuji chuckled. "I'm a normal person… Or rather, just another sorcerer."

The grey-haired young man blinked a few times, confused. "You defeated the strongest sorcerer in history and then brought him back from the dead and became his consort. Your story is already a legend."

"I know," Yuuji said patiently. "The events you're talking about are what define me in the eyes of everyone else, but I'm not that… Or rather, I'm not just that." It was something he had often repeated to anyone who took the time to listen to him. 

Ren seemed fascinated by those words. "And who are you really?"

"Ryoumen Yuuji," Yuuji replied. "Just Ryoumen Yuuji." Although he was fully aware that the choice to introduce himself by that name encapsulated a more layered reality than he made it out to be.

"Ryoumen… So you don't call yourself Itadori anymore?" Ren regretted asking a moment later. "Forgive me. It sounds indiscreet , isn't it? It's just that in this city news comes incompletely, and I've always wanted to meet you."

Yes, many people had been eager to meet Yuuji after the events leading up to the merger, each for their own reasons. But he was under the impression that this grey-haired young man had wanted to meet him for a completely different reason than everyone else. "What were you curious about?"

"I'm more fascinated, actually," Ren admitted, then sighed. "Yes, I'm also curious, but the first thing that struck me was knowing that the rebirth after the merger started with you and Gojo Megumi."

Yuuji arched his eyebrows. "Megumi and I are both guilty of the worst blasphemy in the history of sorcery."

Ren made a hand gesture as if to say forget it. "That's the judgment of people who don't know what they're saying," he said. "It's easy to call forbidden something no one has ever been successful at. You and Gojo Megumi went against all the rules and saved so many lives! If the monks of this city had been as brave as you, perhaps Sendai would not be a dying city!"

"But what those monks did prevent Sendai from becoming a cemetery-"

"No!" Ren exclaimed. "Whatever seemingly good deeds those men did, especially the Grandmaster, were done for an obscure reason. I'm glad most of them are dead, especially the Grandmaster!"

Yuuji froze at that confession and the anger with which it was said. He looked at the children, but Ayame and Shion continued to play among the flowers and were oblivious.

Ren quickly went back to being the one he had been a minute earlier. "Forgive me," he said, bowing his head. "I shouldn't have raised my voice. As I told you, I often lose control of my emotions and I'm not used to talking to new people. I'm really sorry for my behavior."

Yuuji shook his head: his very existence was a bigger oddity than most. "Have you been living in this temple for a long time?"

Ren looked at his face again. "All my life," he replied. "I have never left this place. I have no idea what the world is like outside here. I only know it through Hiroki's stories."

Yuuji widened his eyes. "You never left the temple?"

"I was a cursed child once. My parents abandoned me, and the Grandmaster adopted me, if you can call it that - he was never good to me. He tried for years to cure me of something that couldn't be cured."

It was not such a rare story. Unexplainable things happened in every corner and often they never reached the ears of trained sorceres or those who would know how to deal with them. Many painful stories were a consequence of people's inability to cope with events beyond human understanding. If his grandfather had not loved him enough and failed to recognize his innocence, despite the fact that it was the walking corpse of a woman possessed by an evil creature that had given birth to him, Yuuji might have become the protagonist of one of those horrible stories.

Instead, Itadori Wasuke had kept him with him and cared for him, granting him fifteen years of ordinary life. Fifteen years in which Yuuji knew that his grandfather had saved him repeatedly, albeit without any striking gestures, and one of his greatest regrets was that he would never have a chance to thank him for it.

"What was your curse?"

Ren shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea..." He said with a bitter smile. "To be honest, I don't think I was ever really cursed, but my parents needed an excuse to get rid of me... I guess I don't have to explain to you how easy it is to convince bigoted men anxious to fight evil even where there is none. They only see what they want to see."

Yuuji nodded. "What about Arima?"

Ren's smile became softer. "Hiroki is the only beautiful thing in my life," he said, and in his eyes reflected the purest of loves. "For them, he was a cursed child too - but he is only an ancient reincarnated soul. He was bandoned and punished by the monks for a fault he did not have. I would never have survived without him."

"That's why you have the same last name," Yuuji understood. "You are both abandoned children, but you are not related."

"Actually, I hope, one day, to become his mate."

"Oh..."

"Yes..." Ren's cheeks turned red once again. "This is another reason why I have such high regard for you and Gojo Megumi."

"I'm afraid I don't understand..."

"You guys are two Omegas, right? You have no idea how important it was for me to know the story of two boys with the same second gender as me who were able to become so powerful."

In Yuuji's mind, the pieces each fell into place: Ren had been treated as a cursed child even though he had not really been one, and perhaps the same had happened to Arima, but the former had also been born with the guilt of being an Omega and had grown up in a temple of men who, when faced with the possibility of a beneficial alliance, had prevented Megumi from speaking out. He did not know whether Arima had actually killed the Grandmaster whom Ren spoke of with such hatred, as he and Sukuna had suspected. But if he had, the reason was obvious, and it was not just about the future of the city of Sendai, not on a personal level.

Arima Hiroki and Arima Ren had experienced hell on earth. 

"How old are you?" Yuuji asked.

"Twenty-five," Ren replied. "I was eighteen when the merger happened. We were born the same month, you know. Your birthday is in March, right?"

Yuuji smiled. Ren looked younger, perhaps because of the way he was talking. "Yes, I was born on March 20. What about you?"

"I was born on March 28, at least that's what the monks who raised me said." Ren turned to look at the two twins. "Are they also spring children too?"

"No, they were born on October 31."

"Oh! Halloween children!"

Ren did not talk about the Shibuya tragedy, and the young sorcerer was grateful for that.

"I would like to ask you so many questions, Yuuji."

There was both tenderness and sadness in Yuuji's eyes. Although he had experienced horrible events himself, he really could not imagine the horror of a lifetime spent in a cage like the one Ren had described, though not in detail - the mere thought of it made him shudder uncomfortably.

"We have time," Yuuji said. "You can ask me all the questions you want."

2019 

— January —

"You don't know how much I hate you," Yuuji said, as soon as they both returned to the dormitory room. He leaned his back against the wooden surface, staring at the floor: he felt like crying but there was no point in doing so, especially in front of the man who was with him.

"It was you who asked my opinion about the resurrection ritual," Sukuna reminded him.

"I'm not referring to that," Yuuji said, lifting his eyes to pierce him with his gaze. "I'm referring to the fact that Megumi is alone in that house now and he should not stay there!"

Sukuna arched his eyebrows. "I'm the one tied to a chain, not you."

"No, you're the piece of shit who decides to flee in the middle of the night while I was engaged in another fight."

"Last night I just wanted to assess a few things. And you evaluated them too, didn't you? Now you've seen what happens to me if I do something against your will."

"You're so proud that I wouldn't be surprised if you keep coming up with these brilliant ideas to have me kill you a second time," Yuuji hissed. "Death would be better than being tied to a chain clutched in my hands, I guess."

"That's a given, brat." Sukuna stopped wandering around the room and stood in front of him. "Take away my curiosity… What are you doing?"

"I'm following a desperate plan by wasting time with a piece of shit while my friend is not okay."

"Fine... But that wasn't the question."

Yuuji huffed. "If you want to say something, say it in an understandable way. It wasn't a long night just for you."

Sukuna took a step forward. "You attacked me in a group, like a pack of wolves trying to maul a much larger predator. Where is that pack now? You worry about Fushiguro Megumi as if he were your sole responsibility."

Yuuji swallowed hard. "Megumi only talks to me. He doesn't want to see others. His only exception is the school doctor, a friend of Gojo-sensei."

"Does he feel ashamed?"

"It's very difficult to name what Megumi feels right now, Sukuna," Yuuji moistened his lips. "You are here, but without Gojo-sensei there is no point."

"Why?" Sukuna looked at him as if what he was saying made no sense.

The young sorcerer snorted in exasperation. "What kind of question is that?"

The King of Curses shrugged his shoulders. "You killed the strongest sorcerer in history, Fushiguro’s soul returned intact after being cast into the blackest darkness. You are both responsible for saving everyone - more or less - and, at the same time, condemning the whole world. You ignored the ancient rules of sorcery by doing two rituals of resurrection without knowing whether you would succeed," he twisted his mouth into a grimace. "One of them is definitely successful, I am here. We don't have confirmation that Gojo Satoru is lucid, but we know he is alive. You and your friend have done everything and the opposite of everything, and in the eyes of the law of sorcery you are hopeless blasphemers. Consequently, explain to me what are you still afraid of?"

Yuuji stared at him. He pondered those words for a few seconds, but when he tried to reply he could only open and close his mouth without saying a single word.

"Gojo Satoru has the power. Gojo Satoru has the talent. Gojo Satoru was born to deal with the world that is taking shape after the merger, that is true," Sukuna agreed. "Forcing me and him to fight for the same reason is the closest thing to a total victory in the current situation. You two brats have done your math well. However..."

Those red eyes pierced Yuuji from side to side.

"If you think you are waiting for me or him to save the day, you are just two pathetic children. You have the power and you don't even know you have it." Sukuna turned his back to him, as if it bothered him to look at him. “You are both a shameful waste of potential.”

Yuuji tightened his lips, cashed in the blow, and waited for the pain to pass. He did not admit that he was right; he would never do that. But…

"What would you do?"

Sukuna chuckled and answered him without looking at his face. "Brat, you disappoint me..." A pause. "I would go to Kyoto and take what is mine."

Chapter Text

Yuuji was dreaming. 

It was strange, he did not remember falling asleep

"Don’t look up at me without permission, brat. It’s annoying.”

“Then… Get down here so I can look down on you!”

No, it was not true.

”I’ll do anything! Do whatever you want with me, but please help Jumpei!”

”No.”

”Why you…!”

”How wonderful… You’re mine! Your future and everything you’ll ever possess! You don’t have a say in this! You’re hopeless! How sad! You’re so pathetic, you stupid brat!

Yuuji wasn’t dreaming. 

“Hey brat, take a look at this…”

He was remembering

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"Head up and look in front of you."

The first time Yuuji had allowed Sukuna to touch him had not been a real choice. Tired, bloodstained from the battle he had just fought and won, Yuuji had softened his grip on the chains that bound the King of Curses without even realizing it.

Sukuna had not taken advantage of it - perhaps he, too, had been distracted by something else.

Yuuji had found the King’s fingers under his chin; they had forced him to lift his gaze, otherwise pointed to the ground. But the golden eyes had not looked ahead, at the crowd of exhausted, blood-soaked sorcerers around them, as he had been told.

No, Sukuna's four eyes were the ones he couldn't look away from.

The King of Curses had returned the gaze. Yuuji remembered every reddish hue of those irises, how they seemed to glow with their own light as they reflected the dying sun of that late winter sunset. The blood that smeared the snow at their feet was a pathetic color compared to those eyes.

"You know who you are," Sukuna said firmly but without cruelty. "Don't lower your head. Never."

Yuuji nodded but his eyes did not leave the King’s for a long moment.

They took their first step into that battle-colored snow together, and that movement was enough to convince anyone on that battlefield in the Kyoto mountans to kneel before them.

Glory.

Yuuji found out that day what it was.

The second time was an event caused by circumstances like the first. The sun had set, the bodies of the fallen - or pieces of them - had been recovered. Everyone had forgotten about the bloodstained snow. The lives lost were just specks on the frozen ground among the dark trees.

The Kamo Clan wanted to celebrate victory.

Yuuji also wiped off the blood and saw Sukuna doing the same in his own bath, a short distance from him.

No, perhaps he looked at him openly, without shame.

Their gazes crossed as the crimson-stained water slid down their naked bodies, but they said nothing to each other. Sukuna left first. Once he made sure that he would not get blood on the water in the tub, Yuuji plunged in and stayed there for a little longer, wrapping his arms around his body, letting the warmth help him relax his tense muscles.

It didn't work.

Choso called him, saying that the lady from the Kamo family had had a kimono brought for him.

"You saved our house and the city too," Noritoshi said with a smile full of gratitude. "Let us honor you as is our tradition."

Yuuji had been led to the balcony outside the council chamber, where the Clan elders gathered with their leader to make important decisions. It overlooked the main courtyard of the residence.

The atmosphere was lit by torches and lanterns, as if everything that characterized the modern era in which they lived had been forgotten, cast aside.

Yuuji stood still beside the open shoji, but he could hear the crowd waiting for him to show himself. Sukuna stood beside him, silent.

Yuuji's golden eyes sought the red ones once more. The King of Curses looked perfect in his white kimono. Everything about that moment - the lights, the atmosphere, the colors - fit him as if they had been designed especially for him.

Sukuna knew how to be regal in the way that a creature transcending human understanding was, and he was the only one who could guide him in that moment.

Even though Kenjaku had brought him into the world for that, Yuuji did not know how it had to be done - if he could have, he would have shirked that celebration of strength and accepted the thanks by saying that he had only done what was right.

But he had stopped being a cog in a story bigger than himself. He could no longer identify himself as one of Gojo Satoru's students and just do his part.

Don't put his head down. Never.

Yuuji did not.

No words were needed this time. He and Sukuna took the first step together - the members of the Kamo Clan remained three steps behind them - and the fifteen-year-old sorcerer - he would turn sixteen in a few weeks - stopped as soon as the wooden railing brushed against his chest.

The crowd below them began to cheer. All the quiet respect they had shown them in the forest had been replaced by one of another kind, more spontaneous, chaotic perhaps.

It was a way of celebrating victory that paid tribute to the lives of those who had survived and honored those who had been able to make everything possible.

Yuuji realized how stiff he was and the breath he was holding when Sukuna's hand brushed against his.

The gold met the red.

Their eyes did not move away from each other even when the King of Curses lifted the boy's hand above their heads. The crowd came alive again.

Itadori Yuuji had defeated Ryoumen Sukuna in Shinjuko and then brought him back from the dead by making him his curse. Everyone knew the facts; few knew the story.

But now, before all eyes of the Kamo Clan, Ryoumen Sukuna recognized Itadori Yuuji as the savior of Kyoto City.

It was a public demonstration. It was a political act.

Yuuji did not know what value to place on that gesture, but his eyes never left Sukuna's.

It was just them in the midst of a triumphant crowd.

That night, confused and terrified by what he felt, Yuuji realized that he wanted Sukuna to touch him.

"What is this?"

A hand pressed against a tattooed chest.

He was surprised to find that the heart under his palm was beating as fast as his.

Evidence of humanity where there should not have been any.

"I don't know..."

Yuuji realized that Sukuna used those words whenever he did not like to answer a question .

That night, they kissed for the first time.

And then the snow began to melt and spring came quickly to the mountains of Kyoto.

"Is this normal?"

They had never been like this.

Six months spent in the same body and that was the first time they had ever touched each other completely. Never as in those few moments had they perceived each other as one being.

"...No."

Eventually, Sakura's flowers bloomed.

"Today is my birthday..."

The night was lit by the lanterns hanging from the ceiling of the red gazebo and the fireflies that wandered above the pond. The wooden floor was covered with soft pillows and blankets, making it the perfect bed for that warm early spring night.

The petals of the pinkish flowers came off the Sakura trees that were on the shore and floated on the water, moved from time to time by the flick of a tail by one of the koi fish that dwelt beneath that quiet surface.

There were pinkish petals in Sukuna's hair as well, and Yuuji freed them from strands of a darker shade of pink while the King of Curses rested with his head on his lap, his eyes closed.

"I know," was the lazy response from the King.

Yuuji lifted his head. "Don't fall asleep on top of me, you're heavy!"

Annoyed at being snatched from that peaceful moment, Sukuna huffed and rose to his seat as he looked at his young lover with an annoyed expression. "Said the brat who threw a building in my face."

Yuuji lay back, smiling. "Even a car."

"You really are a delicate creature," the older man commented sarcastically, moving to rest his cheek on his mate's bent knee, beginning to run his fingertips along his thigh.

"It's my birthday," Yuuji repeated, allowing himself to be touched by that hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world - just a few weeks earlier there had been the threat of a thousand invisible blades to prevent it from happening. "Don't you have anything to tell me?"

"Are you giving me an order, brat?" Sukuna shifted, slipped between the legs of the 16-year-old lying languidly among those blankets made messy by their passion.

Yuuji welcomed him on top of him, his hands slipping over the muscular arms, lingering on the black tattoos, tracing their lines. "Would it change anything if I did?"

Sukuna lifted the right corner of his mouth. "No, I don't think so."

"Then don't use words," Yuuji raised himself up on his elbows, the tips of their noses touching. "Honor me in a way that pleases you."

On the day Yuuji turned sixteen, perhaps his twins were already growing inside him.

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2025

— June —

"Mom!"

At first, Yuuji wanted to plug his ears because his head was pounding and the shrill voice of one of his children was really the last thing he needed. Then he realized that his body was heavy and that the simple act of lifting his hand seemed like a titanic task.

"Mom!"

Shion was calling him and that meant he had to get up, do something. Yuuji lifted his eyelids but immediately closed them again, blinded by the summer sun.

"Quietly... Quietly..." A gentle voice, which he did not immediately recognize, guided him. A hand stroked his hair gently, as if to assure him that everything was all right.

Yuuji could not believe it because Shion was not in the habit of calling him scared - it was to his father that he went when he was really scared - and that meant it was not the right situation to remain calm.

"Take a deep breath, Yuuji." Only at that moment did Yuuji remember where he was and in whose company. "The more you fidget, the more dizziness will keep you from coming to your senses."

"Mom..." That was Ayame's little voice. She was trembling.

Yuuji swallowed the frustration caused by his body not responding to his commands. He focused on Ren's hand, on his voice reassuring him, and as soon as the feeling of nausea subsided a little, Yuuji tried to look around a second time.

He blinked a few times, getting used to the sunlight. His children were leaning over him: there was fear and worry in Shion's red eyes, while Ayame's were filled with tears, her small hands clinging to her brother's T-shirt.

Although his head continued to spin, Yuuji smiled. "Hey..." He managed to say and realized he had regained enough control of his body to be able to lift his hands, touch his children and reassure them. "It's okay, little ones. Mom is fine."

Ayame snuggled against his chest, seeking consolation. Shion was more discreet but laid his head on his shoulder, seeking physical contact that could reassure him. Yuuji hugged them and kissed their hair.

"Your mom is fine, there is nothing to be afraid of."

At his side, Ren chuckled. "I told you that Mom drank too much sakè and the heat didn't help."

Sakè? Yuuji looked at the grey-haired boy and then lowered his gaze. On the wooden floor was a tray with everything needed to serve saké to two people, but the young sorcerer could not remember the moment when Ren had offered it to him.

"Were we drinking?" He asked confusedly.

"Yes," the older boy nodded. "You told me that I have time to ask you all the questions I want, and I thought it would be impolite to engage in a long conversation without offering you a drink. You told me you weren't the drinking type, but I didn't think I would do such damage." Ren was both sorry and, at the same time, amused.

Yuuji honestly did not know what to think. For he could remember nothing of the moment when that tray had entered the scene.

"Aya-chan, here, was so worried about her mommy," Ren added, reaching out a hand to entwine his fingers around the little girl's tail of rosy hair.

Instinctively, Yuuji was ready to pull that hand away from his daughter, but Ayame was able to defend herself. She stepped back. "I don't want to be touched, thank you," she said it politely but also coldly. She rose to her feet and her brother was immediately beside her.

"We don't like to be touched by strangers without permission, please," Shion added, in the same tone as her sister.

Sukuna had always been very clear about that part of their children's education. The twins were not supposed to be afraid of other people - at most, they were supposed to learn to defend themselves against those who were disreputable - but it was only right that they learn from an early age to put boundaries between themselves and strangers.

"No one outside this family should think they have the freedom to touch our children," Sukuna had told him when their twins were just infants. "I don't care if it's the prominent member of a sorcerer family or a harmless passerby on the street. Our children are not to be touched by anyone other than members of our family, clan or whatever you want to call the people who are part of Tokyo Jujutsu Tech."

Yuuji had never objected.

"We taught them consent to be touched," he explained to Ren. "They do not like to be touched freely, and we respect that desire of theirs."

The other one understood with a smile. "It is a good teaching. Children are not toys. They should be touched only when they wish and by whom they choose. There should be no courtesy rules about such things."

Those words struck Yuuji in a way that hurt and he could not help thinking that there was more hidden underneath them, but he could not talk about it in front of the children. "Shion, Ayame, be polite now. Come on..."

The twins bowed their heads in respect.

"Sorry if we sounded rude," Ayame said.

"We are glad to have your understanding," Shion added.

Ren waved it off. "I'm sorry for making your mother feel unwell. I didn't mean to scare you."

Yuuji looked at the two cups of sake suspiciously again. "Go back and play with the flowers," he told his children.

Shion moved first.

Ayame hesitated for a moment. "My name is not Aya-chan. I don't like it," she said, but still in a polite tone. "My name is Ayame."

Ren giggled. "I will remember that. I apologize."

Yuuji watched them walk away and then sighed. "Excuse her," he said. "She is very proud of her name. Her father chose it and she can't stand any kind of diminutive. It's like an insult to her."

"It's nice to be so attached to the name our parents give us. It is the first gift we receive. As a parent, I would be proud for my daughter to feel that way."

"Yes, Sukuna is proud." In his own way.

Ren picked up the sake bottle and the two cups to place them on top of the tray. "I think it's best to take this inside. Some fresh water is more suitable for our talk I think."

Yuuji nodded and remained alone for less than five minutes. "What were we talking about before I...?" He pointed to the wooden floor.

"Oh, I was asking you about babies," Ren said. "About pregnancy in particular. I know it's a process that happens every day in every part of the world but ... I don't know, there is something mysterious about it. When I stop and think about it, it seems so absurd that in here," he touched his belly, "a whole new life could grow with the right conditions."

"Ah... Believe me, those two have been in the world for almost six years, they talk, they walk, they have their own personalities, and I still can't get over the fact that they grew inside me and came out of my body." Yuuji took a sip from his water bottle cautiously - Sukuna had taught him to recognize poisons and use the reverse technique so that they would not harm him - but that was just water. "There's a whole branch of medicine devoted to the process of conception, pregnancy and birth but ... I don't know, I've been there and it's a very physical experience, yet I still think of it as magic."

"Magic..." Ren watched as the two children returned to examine the flowers while holding hands. "And was it magic?"

"The pregnancy or the birth?" Yuuji laughed, still vaguely traumatized by the events that had characterized his sweet-sixteen. "Don't get me wrong, to have the two of them I would do anything a second time, but-"

"No, I wasn't referring to that," Ren said. "There were devout families who, before the merger, would leave their rebellious children - they called them that - here at the temple to have their illegitimate babies away from prying eyes. I have witnessed some births. I know there is violence and suffering in the act of bringing a life into the world. As well as much, much fear."

Yuuji remembered the total loss of control of his body as soon as the waters had broken, the fast and terrifying process through which his babies had come into the world. He remembered the disbelief and relief he had felt at hearing Shion cry, both soon shunned by the terror caused by the image of his daughter's bluish, motionless little body. Forty seconds of horror. Forty seconds in which Yuuji had forgotten about the other child crying for him somewhere in the room and had preferred to die rather than hold in his arms the tiny body of a little girl who had not even had a chance to face life.

Sukuna had not been there - Yuuji had never blamed him because if their twins had come into the world in a safe place it had been because he had fought for that place to remain safe.

But it had taken time, a year to be exact, for Yuuji to be able to think of that October 31 only as yet another battle he had won, along with his two children. He had thought of it at the twins' first birthday, sitting on either side of the cake with ridiculous Halloween costumes on, Shion unhappy to be the center of attention and Ayame clapping her little hands uncoordinatedly.

That image had convinced Yuuji that there was no reason to cling all his life to a tragedy that had never happened, that so many other beautiful images - as he had never expected to experience in his life - had followed. Perhaps it was just a way to redeem himself from his sin: but he had convinced himself that that happiness was enough to make sense of the shadows through which he had passed.

"I am grateful to have brought them into the world," Yuuji said with a loving smile. "I am thankful to be their mother."

Ren smiled at him. "It's good to hear that. It's good to know that children in this world can also be born from love and not from mistakes, from duties, from empty and irresponsible desires."

Yuuji understood that Ren was talking about himself, about Arima, about the children of shame being born at the temple to parents who were probably too young and without a family that could support them. But he could not help but think about himself too, about Itadori Kaori and, even worse, about Sukuna.

"That's what I meant when I asked if it was magical," Ren emphasized. "I wasn't referring to childbirth. I was referring to creating a life by making love. An intimate act, shared with the person you choose, that has the immense power to create life."

"Love..." Yuuji murmured distractedly, taking another sip of water. "A lot of sad stories wouldn't exist if love was the crucial ingredient that created life."

Ren stared at him. At first, he blinked in confusion. "The one about your children doesn't sound like a sad story to me."

"No, you're right, it's not." Although Yuuji believed that many of the effects of his and Sukuna's choices would really be seen when their twins became older, perhaps teenagers.

It was Ren's expression that became sad. "But it's not a love story for you."

Yuuji responded to his look. His smile was wistful but there was no trace of shame in his golden eyes. "You are right about one thing," he said. "It was magical. My children were conceived during the first spring after the merger. Three months after I killed and brought my husband back to life. Three months, the transition season between winter and spring. Too short a time to contain all that happened..." He took another sip of water: he felt his throat dry. He was not accustomed to talking about that season of his life - perhaps he had done so sincerely only with Megumi and only partially with his other friends - but at that moment, while the truth about his birth was locked in three boxes in his grandfather's bedroom, he wanted to begin being truthful out loud, even though Ren was little more than a stranger.

In that garden created by cursed energy, the only corner of paradise in a destroyed city that had been his, Yuuji realized that if he wanted to come full circle, he had to deal with the present as much as the past. The love for his children was certain, shining like an immortal star in the night of his existence.

Sukuna's presence in his life was no less a light - but more like a fire.

"But it happened..." Yuuji added with a slightly nervous smile. "I won't try to explain it to you. It can't be explained. I know it's blasphemy in many ways: me and Sukuna are two halves of the same soul, and as much as we consider ourselves two separate beings, to some sorcery theologians we are two forms of the same person. A blasphemy, no more and no less." A pause. "But that's not what hurt me. If I ever had any doubts, they were never about the matter of our souls. I could stand here and talk about Sukuna and me forever and still not be able to explain to you what everyone keeps demanding that I explain." Yuuji looked at his children, thought about how beautiful they were and how they had the power to make him feel gratitude for the man with whom he had brought them into the world, in spite of all the suffering he had caused him. "What I experienced with Sukuna gave me what I love most in the world."

Ren looked at him with his cheek resting on his knees, like a little boy listening to a good fairy tale. "How can you not call something like that love?"

"Passion," Yuuji said without hesitation. "I call it passion. There has always been so much passion, the kind that takes your breath away. It's different than love, but it's still a fire and it's enough to warm your soul." And not only that, but Yuuji was talking about souls - and he was doing it for himself as well - but as much as Ren needed more, after a lifetime of being cooped up in that temple, he was unwilling to dwell too much on details that were just his and Sukuna's. "Then there are other things, like everyday life. Bickering. Trying to create a balance for the children, watching them grow up, teaching them new things. We have a full life."

One can be happy even with a curse, was what he did not say.

He was not sure if Ren was satisfied, but Yuuji had talked enough for one day.

"But tell me about your romance with Arima," he said enthusiastically. "Your eyes sparkle when you talk about him and you dream of becoming his mate. You and he must be very much in love."

Ren blushed. "But it's just a dream for now."

"Do you want to wait until Sendai becomes a more stable city before making plans?"

"It's not about that." Ren lowered his gaze.

Yuuji noticed that he was touching his belly and a sad intuition took shape in his mind. "Oh..." He commented. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that-"

"I'm not a sterile Omega," Ren clarified, understanding that he had given birth to a misunderstanding. "It's just that I can't-" He moistened his lips. "The intimacy with another person you're talking about. The passion... I just can't..."

Yuuji's mouth formed an O as he nodded, then interrupted the silence with a very banal sentence. "Take your time, we are not all the same."

Ren smiled wistfully at him. "I'm twenty-five, I'm older than you, and I have no idea what it feels like to be caressed by the man I've loved all my life." He stroked the fabric of the blue kimono that was wrapped around his abdomen. "Pregnancy scares me, but it is something I would be ready to face with Hiroki by my side and to hold a child of our own in my arms. But I can't give myself... I can't feel what I should..."

Yuuji did not know how to help him. Sukuna had been his only lover and he remembered that there had been awe on his part, then came curiosity and soon after wonder. He had never experienced such a blockade on his skin - and perhaps if he had, he would have hated himself a little less.

"For Megumi it was like that for a while..." Yuuji wasn't sure it was right to share details of his closest friend's private life, but he couldn't think of anything else to say to help the boy sitting next to him. "I don't know… What did the monks say about him?"

"They said he sacrificed the child he was carrying to bring Gojo Satoru back to life," Ren replied. "They said it with contempt, of course."

Yuuji studied his expression. "You don't think Megumi is to be condemned for that."

"I do not know Gojo Megumi, but I dare not imagine what he had felt having to watch helplessly as his power killed first his sister and then the man he loves," Ren said. "You can't judge pain like that, maybe he didn't even want to hurt his baby in the first place. Resurrection is part of the Ten Shadows Technique, after all. He tried, out of love and paid a price. If something happened to Hiroki and I had the right power, I would... Gojo Megumi is a brave soul, but I guess the guilt ate him up."

Yuuji nodded. "He no longer felt worthy of being touched by Satoru. He had convinced himself that he could no longer deserve that… The pleasure, intimacy with his man, feeling alive. He believed it was no longer right for him to be happy."

"And what happened?" Ren asked. "His twins were born one year after the merger. Something must have happened."

Yuuji's smile grew wider. "Let's say that the spring after the merger brought rebirth in more ways and for more people," he replied. "Sukuna happened to me. Satoru happened to Megumi. I know this is a minimized version of the story, but what I want to tell you is: trust Arima... If your love is as strong as you tell me, trust him, but I'm not talking about your body. I'm talking about his soul. Whatever it is that frightens you - and I don't expect you to talk to me about it - trust it to him and the rest will come naturally. Of that I am sure."

Ren's cheeks were still red, but the light of new hope had appeared in his eyes. "Thank you, Yuuji."

2019

— January —

During the night, Sukuna slept on the floor.

The brat had changed the sheets on which he had laid during his feverish night, then tossed him a pillow more out of spite than pity. He was certain that there was a futon somewhere in that deserted dormitory, but Yuuji did not bother to get it for him, and Sukuna was too proud to ask.

He had slept in worse places.

What consoled him - and amused him - was that the brat did not sleep much either. He tossed and turned but Sukuna could tell by the rhythm of his breathing that he could never quite relax.

As soon as the first light of dawn lit up the room, he would get up and dress, then disappear for a few minutes. When he returned he would always have a tray in his hands with something to drink and eat.

It was for Sukuna.

Yuuji would set it down on the desk without a word, then leave again. Sukuna would observe him lying on the floor all the time, but he never received even a hate-filled look in response. The brat's new weapon was silence.

Only once alone did the King of Curses feed and take care of himself. He was certain that the time the brat did not spend with him, he spent with Fushiguro Megumi or out with Gojo Satoru's other bratty students, playing hero against the merger-born curses.

Sukuna was beginning to be curious about what was going on outside that school.

Snow kept falling, especially at night, a sign that spring was still far away. Sometimes the ground shook, and Sukuna knew that a confrontation was taking place that he was not allowed to participate in.

During one of their last dialogues, the brat had worried that Sukuna might decide to attempt a different escape each day only to force him to kill him again. At that rate, boredom would be the cause of Ryoumen Sukuna's death.

The first time Yuuji saw him lying in bed with a Jump volume in his hands, he laughed so hard that Sukuna had to imagine his beheading from several different angles to keep calm.

"I have adult movies if you're interested," Yuuji proposed, amused.

"I'm not interested in that disgusting stuff you masturbate over."

 "I meant action movies, or thrillers... Thrillers are intelligent movies, full of mysteries. You like complicated things, don't you?"

"This audacity of yours to talk to me as if you knew me."

"We lived in the same body for six months. My mind has touched yours countless times, as yours has touched mine." A pause. "It disgusts me to know you as I do, actually."

The next day, Sukuna woke up - still on the floor - with a dozen volumes stacked next to his pillow and a post-it note taped to the cover of the first one. "They're Megumi's, I shouldn't give them to you, but I think you have more respect for books than for people."

It was so true that Sukuna crumpled up the piece of paper and ground it into dust in the palm of his hand. Fushiguro Megumi was an intelligent boy; his reading was extremely superior in content to Yuuji's usual ones.

It was because of those books that the thought of the young sorcerer of the Ten Shadows brushed past Sukuna on the third night after the meeting in which he had found out the details about the Gojo Satoru's resurrection ritual.

"What is he going to do?" He asked, staring at the ceiling of the room, lit only by the soft light of the lamp on the brat's nightstand.

"Are you talking about Megumi?" Yuuji asked, lying on the bed. "You know very well what he wants."

"He wants Gojo Satoru back, like all of you."

"Yes, but..."

Sukuna looked at the bed beside him out of the corner of his eye - from where he was, he could not see the boy lying there.

"But?"

"I told you. It's hard to put a name to what Megumi is feeling right now."

"Because it is personal for him?"

"For all of us it's personal - we all care about Gojo-sensei. I am the newest one, but Yuuta was saved by him as I was, Maki has known him since she was a child. And Megumi... Megumi...”

"He is his mate," Sukuna concluded.

Above the bed, Yuuji moved nervously and sighed. "It's not that simple. If Megumi was really Gojo-sensei's mate, if he was officially recognized by both their families, not even Gojo Ryuunosuke himself would dare to treat his son's special person with such contempt. At least… That’s how Maki explained it to me."

"His son's special person," Sukuna emitted a low laugh to mock him. "It's politics, you brat. It's not a tragic love story."

Yuuji raised himself up on one elbow and, for the first time since the beginning of that conversation, Sukuna was able to look him in the face. "You used Megumi's feelings for Tsumiki, killing the sorcerer who had taken over her body. You tried to do the same with Gojo, otherwise you would never have asked him if he was really able to give his all while you were in Megumi's body. Don't pretend you don't know."

Sukuna had no desire to hear the romantic ravings of a 15-year-old boy. "Fushiguro Megumi was pregnant. That means those two spent at least one heat together. In my era, an Omega destined to become a consort should not be touched before the wedding - which coincidentally should occur just before an alleged heat. Whereas for Omegas destined to become concubines there were far fewer rules. According to the ones I know, by doing what he did, Fushiguro Megumi is an Omega who disgraced himself and his family and even if he were to give birth to the next Six Eyes, he will never be a legitimate consort-"

"What a load of crap!" Yuuji exclaimed as he was exasperated by all the talk.

Sukuna shrugged his shoulders. "I can't blame you. A big headache just to allow men of power to squeeze into more holes without dispersing the bloodline."

Yuuji blinked a few times. "Do you really believe that?"

"I believe in strength, brat. Fushiguro Megumi is strong. If he had a desire to fornicate with the Six Eyes, he had the right to do so. Gojo Ryuunosuke's anger is because he could not control either his son or his young lover," Sukuna shrugged. "He is weak and it bothers him, understandable, but he is pathetic like that. He put the power of infinity and the power of shadows together and then thought he could have a say? Ridiculous. Good thing the scarred woman thought of getting rid of the Zen'in family or you would end up with a headache that is hard to quantify.”

Yuuji leaned the back of his head against the headboard and pondered. "Following your line of thinking, you would march on Kyoto with the Ten Shadows to take back what is yours."

"No."

"No? It was you who said that-"

"Fushiguro Megumi's soul was compromised by what I did to him and by being the catalyst for the merger to begin. He has the Ten Shadows again thanks to a vow and survived a ressurection ritual that caused him to miscarry. You may not have the experience to realize it yet, but your friend's cursed energy is a disaster. He needs time. I am surprised that he can stand up and make sensible speeches. He is strong. He is tenacious. He is the right mate for a Six Eyes like Gojo, but if he goes to Kyoto now, they will tear him to pieces."

Yuuji shook his head. "Megumi cannot wait, Sukuna," he said and the sadness in his voice was evident. "He talks about Gojo-sensei as if he is something important to all of us, but I know - I feel that he will go crazy if he doesn't see with his own eyes that he is all right, that what he did was not in vain. Control is part of Megumi's personality but, underneath it, he is crumbling."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

Yuuji blinked a few times as his face was hit by the soft light of the bedside lamp. He was so young. At the same age, Sukuna had not looked so young.

"At this very moment, with me tied to a chain, Gojo Satoru in an unclear condition and Fushiguro Megumi forced to his knees. You are the strongest sorcerer of this post merger era," Sukuna laid on his side, his back to the teenage boy. "You and the cursed brat with the katana."

2025

— June —

Arima led the King of Curses into the main building of the Rinnoji Temple. "Before we converse alone, I would like to introduce you to the people with whom I have been running this place since my predecessor passed away," the younger sorcerer said, opening the doors to a large circular room.

As soon as Sukuna appeared in the doorway, a dozen heads lowered before him.

"Your majesty," someone said.

"Your grace," someone else murmured.

A more neutral "my lord," came from one of the men to his right. It was obvious that they had no idea how to address him. Ryoumen Sukuna was a unique and unrepeatable event in the history of sorcery - if you excluded Yuuji and the bloodlines they had given birth to together. The Heian Era had crowned him as King of Curses. Sukuna had never really been interested in that crown per se; it was his strength that spoke for him, but heads that rose too high in his presence were destined to roll at his feet anyway, unless he decided otherwise.

"These are my trusted men," Arima said, lifting his right arm toward the group of men. "Let me introduce you-"

A list of names followed. Sukuna did not waste a moment trying to memorize them - it was just a waste of time - but it was on the details that he focused. Arima was the only one dressed in the grey uniform similar to that of Tokyo sorcerers; the others wore monk's robes. There was nothing surprising about that - they were in a temple, after all - the fact that none of them appeared to be in their thirties was suspicious.

Arima had mentioned a predecessor - the old bigot who had refused to create an alliance with Tokyo and had labeled Satoru and Megumi as blasphemers - but there was something extremely suspicious in that room.

"Where are everyone else?" Sukuna suddenly asked.

Arima fell silent and blinked a few times. "I beg your pardon?"

"Most of the men in this room were barely teenagers when the merger began," Sukuna said, leaning his shoulder against the lintel of the door - he had not bothered to take a step further. "Where are the men who fought in the winter of 2018?"

"All dead," a round-faced boy dared to say, then blushed - almost turning purple - and lowered his face. "The generation that fought the first wave of the merger is no longer part of this world, my lord."

Sukuna arched his eyebrows. "I know that they were still alive when the Gojo spouses came to this city to offer their help."

"That was some years ago," Arima interjected. "If I remember correctly, it was summer and Gojo Megumi was carrying his twins."

"Yes, someone had the brilliant idea of wishing death on those two unborn babies out loud," Sukuna said. "Were it up to me, after such an offense, instead of this town there would be a crater, and believe me, I think the thought crossed Gojo Satoru's mind too." He curled his lips into a grimace that was the disturbing parody of a smile. "I mention this because I would like to avoid completing my friend's work. Gojo Satoru can be argumentative and I have little patience."

Sukuna began to walk inside the room. After each step, he saw the young monks acting as if the air was beginning to run out, even though the shoji were open.

"Let's get to the point..." He said, stopping in front of the round table that occupied the center of the room - it was covered with maps of the city and papers with writing on them. "Who killed the Grandmaster?" Sukuna looked at Arima. "I thought you were the only culprit but now I have some doubts. It has been seven years since the merger and there must have been a transfer of power in this temple recently. If the Grandmaster was so hated I doubt he survived for seven years without support. I change the question… Who killed the Grandmaster and his followers? The total absence of true veterans throughout the temple is a more than clear signal, and don't waste time blaming curses. I know a war between generations when I see one. Gojo Satoru started one, my spouse and his sent it on." He looked around. "And I also know a war council. They have organized many because of me."

No one dared to utter words.

The air was so tense that Sukuna was convinced that if he snapped his fingers, those brats would start screaming. He did so, purely for his own amusement, and everyone present - except  Arima - took their head in their hands, as if afraid it might snap off its neck.

Sukuna emitted a low laugh, enjoying the harmless terror he had created.

Now it was the other side's turn to make a move.

"Leave us alone," Arima ordered. The enthusiasm with which he had shown him the weapons warehouse and then led him there was gone.

The young monks did not say a word. With their heads tucked between their shoulders, as if they were truly afraid of being beheaded as they passed by the King of Curses, they exited the council room as if they were fleeing.

Once the doors were closed, Sukuna laughed again and began to walk around the round table. "If these are your best men, I fear for those you send to fight on the front lines."

"They are not my best men," Arima corrected him, walking in the opposite direction. "They are the ones I trust the most. It's different. They are orphans, left at the temple because no occult school noticed them in time."

"I know very well what happens when children who are not ordinary at all are born from ordinary people," Sukuna said. "In my time, people accepted things without rational explanation more easily."

"Anything that is not human is synonymous with demonic now."

Sukuna lifted the right corner of his mouth. "That always has been. What cannot be explained is scary and what is scary is evil. It is the logic of the weak, of the masses. Don't think you can teach me anything."

"I wouldn't dare," Arima said. "But if there are people at Jujutsu Tech in Kyoto and Tokyo who are prepared to cultivate talents beyond human comprehension, there are families who simply rely on blind faith to find answers in the wrong places."

Sukuna lifted his red eyes from the maps. "Sorcery schools, clans, criminal organizations... Sorcery society is a web of light and shadow. I have no trouble believing that children deemed cursed by their parents were abandoned here, but I have trouble thinking that the temple of a city like Sendai was outside this net."

"You forget one detail, my King."

"And what is that?"

"This is the city where your consort was conceived, delivered and raised."

Sukuna stopped suddenly, as if an invisible wall had appeared in front of him.

Arima understood from the way he looked at him that he understood the reference. "This temple has never been connected to any school, Clan, or even any of those illegal organizations you speak of."

Sukuna's expression did not change, but the hand he held resting on the table closed into a fist. "Kenjaku..." He only had to utter that name to feel the terrible taste of lethal poison in his mouth.

Arima took a few steps forward. "I guess I don't have to tell you that you don't bring a creature like your Yuuji into the world overnight."

Sukuna thought about Choso, about the other eight Death Paintings and what had been done for them to exist - experiments, failures, missteps to learn which ones were the right ones to make.

"What do you know about Itadori Kaori, my King?" Arima asked.

Sukuna thought of the three boxes Yuuji kept hidden in his grandfather's house, thought of the time he had confided to him that he had ever wanted to know much about his parents and that his old man had never really been willing to talk about them until he had found himself on his deathbed. But, at that point, it was Yuuji who had been unwilling to listen to him.

Stupid brat.

"Not much," Sukuna replied.

Arima nodded and lowered his gaze, disappointed by the answer. "I was hoping to get some answers from you and your spouse?"

"Yuuji found out who his mother really was when he was fifteen," Sukuna said. "It was his grandfather who raised him. If anyone is completely useless at giving you information, it's him."

Arima leaned his back against the table. "He doesn't remember anything about his mother, does he?"

"No." At that point, it was another confirmation Sukuna needed. "Was this temple another of the places where Kenjaku performed his experiments?"

"If they were not doing it, the monks were following their instructions," Arima explained.

Sukuna did not ask for details; the history he was aware of was more than enough to imagine the rest. "You were their guinea pigs," he concluded.

The sorcerer in front of him looked at the maps of the city. "I don't know what the Grandmaster's arrangements with Kenjaku were. But he was convinced that the merger would not touch us."

"It was impossible to make predictions after the merger," Sukuna said. "Kenjaku did not have the power to promise anything."

"The Grandmaster believed that the knowledge of a five-thousand-year-old creature was a guarantee. But it wasn’t. It was a massacre.”

"What happened next?" Sukuna asked.

"What you know: everyone tried to get back on their feet and the Gojo couple came here to try to save Sendai. The monks in this temple wouldn't let them, and we survived for seven years."

Sukuna stared at him. He knew there was more, much more, that there were large bloodstains hidden under the wooden boards of every room in that place. "When did you decide you had enough?"

"Too late," Arima replied with a bitter smile. "Sendai is what it is and we have failed to save it, alone we will never be able to. We have failed to save our people, but not to take revenge. Fate has granted us at least that."

"How did it happen?"

"Poison."

"Poison?" Sukuna found it too elegant, not very satisfying.

"Yes..." Arima picked up one of the goblets resting on the table. They did not know who had drunk from it, but it was not important. "They all died together in this room. We took the bodies to where we knew the curses would do the rest - it is not difficult in this age, and we took both the freedom that had been taken from us and the responsibility of making this city survive." The young sorcerer left the chalice on the table. "You are our only hope, my King."

"Yuuji is your only hope," Sukuna corrected him. "Not me."

Arima looked him straight in the eye. "I got the impression that your consort trusts your judgment a lot. He won't do anything for us without your consent."

Sukuna chuckled. "I'm afraid you are underestimating the power of Yuuji's will. It takes the strength of a god to bend it, and it is virtually impossible to break it."

Arima's eyes lit up in surprise. "Such words from the King of Curses himself..."

Sukuna rolled his eyes. "Is this an act?" He was not amused at all. "Everyone knows that Yuuji killed me and brought me back to life. Do you think such feats can be accomplished by an ordinary soul?"

"No, definitely not," Arima hesitated for a moment. "After all, his soul is half of yours, and there is no one in this world who should be reminded of who you are… Or who you were."

Sukuna did not like those words; he sensed in them some of the arrogance Arima had shown him in the weapons storehouse, with a katana pointed at his throat. "I don't like to repeat myself," he said. "So avoid having to remind you that I don't like to play games." Unless I'm leading the game.

"Mine is only a curiosity, my King."

"Then express it clearly and accept the consequences without being a coward."

Arima moved one step closer. "I was taught that there are predators that are impossible to tame," he said. "That's why Geto Suguru was unique. The way he bent curses to his command made it seem so simple."

"I am not a curse, you idiot."

"From my point of view, you are not even a sorcerer," Arima retorted. "They crowned you king, feared and respected you. They have knelt before you and challenged you - finishing in pieces. They have called you by many names, Ryoumen Sukuna, but one fits you more than others: natural calamity."

A pause.

"A natural calamity cannot be defeated. It does not contain itself. It simply... passes. And so did you. No one defeated you, you disappeared to cross the ages and fulfill a personal desire of yours, and in the end, you succeeded, didn't you? You found the one who defeated you."

The goblet next to Arima's hand shattered, struck by an unseen force. Glass scattered all over the table, over the maps of the city that ended up partly soaked by the liquid in them. The young sorcerer's face remained motionless and so did that of the King of Curses.

"You are bothering me," Sukuna said.

"Forgive me..." Arima bowed his head for a brief moment. "It's just that I can't conceive of how such a powerful creature, so regal, could end up clutched in chains."

Sukuna moved away from the table and Arima held his breath.

The door to the council chamber opened at the same instant. If everything had happened a second later, all that would have remained of Arima Hiroki were bloody scattered pieces on the floor.

"Forgive me, my lords!"

It was Kato, the boy who had accompanied the King and his family to the Rinnoji temple. He threw himself to the ground, touching the floor with his forehead.

"I am truly sorry for interrupting you, but this is an emergency!"

Arima's eyes remained glued to Sukuna's for a moment longer, and when it was clear that nothing grisly was going to happen, he breathed again and turned around. "Lift your head and speak, Kato."

The boy lifted his face, but remained on the floor. "The little girl..." He said, out of breath. "She and her mother were in Ren's garden, then she had difficulty breathing-"

Sukuna did not wait to hear the rest. He walked away from the table and out of the room, passing Arima and Kato as if they were not even there. He was the first to follow him into the hallway. "Let me accompany you."

"It is not necessary," the older man said as he descended the stairs. He did not even turn a glance at him.

"You don't know where they were taken!"

"I don't need anyone's help to find my spouse," Sukuna said, without any particular intonation in his voice.

2019

— January —

The first thing Ijichi loaded into the trunk of the car were the chains for the snow. "This is crazy," he said, closing it up, then leaning over to check that the tires were okay. They should have had no trouble on the highway, but with Japan reduced to a post-apocalyptic state, it was hard to predict what they would find outside Tokyo.

"This is crazy," he repeated, standing up and meeting Yuuta's gaze.

The young sorcerer's expression told him he felt the same way. "We have to give it a try," he said, sliding the katana off his shoulder to rest it on the back seat.

Ijichi put his hands on his hips, took two deep breaths and began to nod frantically, as if to convince himself. "All right, let's do this madness!" He convinced himself, stepping up to the driver's port.

Yuuta walked away from the car, back to his classmates, but turned especially to Maki, as if he was worried about her. From where he stood at the top of the stairs, Yuuji could not hear what they were saying but he had no trouble imagining what thoughts were plaguing his mind.

"When you get into that car, go ahead and warn the cursed boy that he can avoid getting lost in useless thoughts," Sukuna said. He was standing at his side, his arms crossed against his chest. "If any of these brats can pose a real challenge to me, it is the woman."

He was referring to Maki.

"No matter where we are," Yuuji reminded him, piercing him with an icy stare. "The conditions of the vow that binds us do not lose effect with distance."

Sukuna rolled his eyes. "Spare me the refrain, brat."

"You and Maki will stay at the school. You will take care of Megumi, everyone else is on the streets dealing with what's going on in Tokyo."

"What about me, brat? Do you want me to keep reading?"

"You take care of the perimeter," Yuuji said, as if it were a matter of life and death - it was. "If a lot of things show up or if something big shows up, you tear them apart. Whatever happens, Tokyo must not fall until I, Yuuta and Ijichi are back with Gojo-sensei."

Sukuna curled his lips into an amused grin. "Believe me, after weeks of rotting in that stinking room of yours, it will be more of a pleasure for me than for you."

Yuuji wrinkled his nose in a disgusted expression. "I had no doubt. Abstinence from violence must be hard to handle..."

A distinctive clicking of heels caught both of their attention. "Ready to go?" Shoko asked, a cigarette between her lips, and Sukuna's presence did not seem to disturb her in any way.

"Megumi?" Yuuji asked, thoughtful.

"He's asleep," the doctor said. "I gave him something for the pain, but the bleeding seems to be within expected limits."

Yuuji's eyes grew big. "Is he still in pain?"

"It's his fault, he can't keep still," Shoko said, taking the cigarette between her fingers and throwing out a cloud of smoke. "He spends all night trying to regain full control of his body and power. He is tired of being treated like a sick person and pretends not to see that he is only making things worse. Megumi is a bad breed, always has been, he's just one of the quieter ones, but nothing I haven’t faced before."

"Tenacity," Sukuna commented. "Pride."

"Shut up..." Yuuji shushed him.

"I may shut up, but your dear Fushiguro Megumi will have a lot to say when he realizes what you went to do and how you left him behind."

"I know!" Yuuji exclaimed. He didn't like what he was doing and part of him believed he didn't even have the right to do it, but the time for waiting was over. "Shoko-"

"You come back with Gojo," the doctor said. "Everyone's hysterics - because there will be a lot of them - we'll deal with them later."

Yuuji nodded. He trusted her, trusted Maki. He trusted his friends.

He did not trust the two-meter man standing next to him who was the only thing saving the city from certain destruction.

But he had no other choice.

He took a deep breath and walked down three steps.

"Brat..."

Yuuji turned to look at Sukuna.

"Gojo Ryuunosuke knows who you are," the King of Curses said. "He knows what you have done and he knows what you are capable of. Don't spend unnecessary words reminding him. And don't spend precious time hesitating. You know what you want. Don't put your head down and take it-"

"Fuck you..." Yuuji destroyed the solemn moment by walking down the stairs with an annoyed gait.

Sukuna watched him walk away with arched eyebrows, but he was not at all surprised.

Shoko laughed, as if the one beside him was not the man who had been compared to a natural disaster. "Adolescence..." She said, turning away. "Growing up, he will get worse."

Chapter Text

Yuuji had prepared himself for having to remember so many little things all at once. For months he had been hearing how fast babies grew - indeed, how rapidly they changed in the first few hours outside the womb - and how losing a moment of them meant losing it forever.

So he had prepared himself to watch everything, memorize every detail and treasure it as if it were a precious thing. For there would be nothing more his in the world than the birth of his children - even though those two lives would never be his property, he was only tasked with nurturing them, protecting them, giving them a chance to write their own story, and loving, loving, loving them throughout the process.

Yes, Yuuji had prepared himself to remember everything.

No one could ever erase from his mind the silence of death that followed as soon as he felt the second child leave his body, as quickly and easily as the first. Shoko's happy expression announcing the birth of a girl was immediately replaced by an alarmed, terrified one.

The emergency took precedence; Yuuji received no explanation. One moment they were celebrating the birth of his daughter and the next, Shoko was taking her away from him without even allowing him to see her. Shion was crying in the background, but it had stopped being a hymn to life to be a litany of death.

"Yuuji, look at me," Megumi tried to take his face between his hands to prevent him from even remembering the precise moment when his daughter would be declared dead. "Yuuji, please look at me."

He was pregnant too. He was pregnant after losing a baby less than a year earlier. 

But Yuuji had prepared himself to remember everything.

So he remembered that too: his daughter's little blue body - she was dead - which suddenly moved, turned pink and her little lips sang a song of life along with his brother's.

No, Yuuji could not forget.

But the first beautiful memory concerning Ayame was another.

The girl had been the first one he had held in his arm, but Shion had been the first one he had nurtured - his daughter needed more medical checkups and they had not been able to enjoy each other the right amount of time to be close and to get to know each other.

Shion had sought his nipple urgently but all that hurry had been over in moments.

"It's normal," Shoko had told him. "He is also very tired and has to get used to life. It's lucky that he attached the right way and took what little he needed. He's fine now; he has to regain the strength he used to come into the world."

With his daughter it had been a completely different experience.

Sukuna was back, he was there, with them, and there had been time to clean up Yuuji, dress him in a clean kimono suitable for the occasion, and move him to the large bed in their bedroom. The scene around them was almost dreamlike, cleansed of all the blood and all the unpleasant details concerning childbirth.

Yuuji was dressed in white and white were the sheets in which he was lying, while Sukuna sat by his side wearing a wine-colored kimono. He, too, had been cleansed of the traces of the battle from which he had just returned. Shion slept peacefully, in the cradle next to his parents' bed.

There was no place for death in that bedroom.

Yuuji felt as if he had gifted the future to an ancient bloodline - he had done so - and that, little by little, all the important people of the Tokyo court - their family - would come through that door to officially welcome the twins into the world.

But for the moment they were alone.

Neither he nor Sukuna were speaking.

The only, tender sounds to break the silence were those emitted by the baby girl as she fed at his chest. Yuuji could not remember ever having listened to anything so intently: the sound of a new life feeding because she wanted to remain attached to that world, despite everything.

Unlike Shion, she had been going on for a while, as if her brother had stolen her food for nine months - a little less - and now she had to make up for everything she had lost. Yuuji looked at her and was lost in the details: the dark eyelashes - they were already long - resting on her rosy cheeks, her hair as pinkish as her two parents’ that went in every direction - combing it would be a battle.

Her tiny fist had clenched around Sukuna's little finger when her father had first tried to touch her, and the King of Curses had not moved, as if chained.

For a moment, Yuuji’s honey-colored eyes lifted, meeting the four red eyes of the father of his children. The father of his children, Yuuji repeated it in his head even though it was not the first look they had exchanged since the twins were born, but now he had time to realize it. Ryoumen Sukuna was the father of his children. He and Sukuna were parents.

Yuuji needed to repeat it to himself in disbelief - he wondered if Sukuna was also doing the same in his mind.

The bedroom door opened, and the young Omega felt his heart ache as Shoko entered pushing an incubator in front of her. It was a possibility they had already talked about, an extra security for his little girl.

But the idea that she would be under supervision in a doctor's office whenever she didn't need him for being fed, while Shion could be cuddled whenever he wanted, made Yuuji's heart ache.

Shoko, however, stopped in the middle of the room, observed the scene for a few moments, then left she the incubator to approach alone.

"Well… Well… Well…" The doctor approached, but she did so discreetly, as if she was afraid of desecrating something unique.

Yuuji did not understand. He felt too much fear to realize that Shoko was smiling in satisfaction. "Please, can we..." His big eyes passed from the newborn to Sukuna quickly. "She doesn't have a name yet. Can you give us a few minutes to choose one before you take her away? Her brother already has one, and if anything should happen-"

"Nothing will happen," Shoko reassured him. "Actually, I don't think the little punk needs to go anywhere. She seems to me to be very comfortable where she is."

Yuuji felt his heart fill with relief but he didn’t want to give too much away. Hope was dangerous without an explanation. "What does that mean?"

Shoko looked at the King of Curses. "Can you try to pick her up and pull her away from Yuuji?"

Sukuna was as confused as he was, he was better at hiding it - the young Omega could sense it - but he made no objection. As soon as the little girl felt the contact between her small lips and her mother's nipple become less secure, she moaned loudly, letting go of her father's finger looking for something to hold onto and continue what she was doing.

"That's enough," Shoko said quickly.

Sukuna stepped back a little and Yuuji adjusted his daughter so that she could return to feeding herself comfortably.

"Does she hurt you?" The doctor asked.

"Not really, no," Yuuji replied. "At first a little bit... With her brother it was different. I have a feeling she wants to devour me." He did not have to turn around to know that one of the corners of Sukuna's mouth had lifted.

Shoko leaned forward. "Okay, little punk. Tonight I decided to trust you."

"What does that mean?" Yuuji asked.

"She's breathing on her own, asking to be fed, and doing it on her own without problem," Shoko said. "Her coming in was destabilizing, but right now I think she needs the closeness of her parents and twin bother more than an incubator."

Yuuji felt his eyes fill with tears.

"It's going to be a long night," Shoko added. "I need at least one of you to watch over the twins, especially her."

The 16-year-old nodded, leaning down to kiss his baby girl. The only thing he could understand was that no one would take her away from him, that she would remain safe, with them. Fatigue was not important.

"I can do it," he said, confident.

Shoko stared at him. "You had a precipitous twin birth, Yuuji," she reminded him.

"I can’t use the reverse technique but I have suffered worse. I-

"What I mean-" Shoko left the sentence hanging as her eyes shifted from the young Omega to his silent mate.

It was impossible to ask Sukuna to be reassuring, but he said what he was expected to say. "I'm not going anywhere."

Shoko nodded. "Pay attention to the times when the baby girl is sleeping. I know you can notice changing in vital details just watching, only you know how you do it, try to make sure the rhythm of breathing and heartbeat remain regular."

Sukuna nodded.

"Very well..." Shoko moved the incubator to a corner. "We're leaving this one here because we can't leave anything to chance, but ignore it. Stay with her, choose an appropriate name for her. It will be a long night, but take it as a chance to get to know your babies. At dawn, this room will not be so quiet."

They remained alone, and the soft sounds of the nurturing child became the only ones filling the room again. Sukuna tried to touch her again, seeking the little hand's grasp, but the baby girl preferred to squeeze it on the fabric of Yuuji's kimono. She had already been betrayed once; she would not let herself be cheated a second time.

"Brat..." Sukuna said.

Yuuji laughed for the first time since all that delirium had begun - a soft, cheerful sound, so as not to disturb the hungry little one and the sleeping infant. "It was an inevitable judgment, huh?" He felt he could be happy now. "I was surprised you hadn't said that yet. Is that what you choose to call your daughter? Brat? It could get a little confusing. Don't you think?"

Sukuna began stroking the child's pinkish hair with his fingertips. "Ayame..."

Yuuji's cheerful smile turned into something else, an expression tinged with the same disbelief with which he had looked at Shion as soon as he was born and they had showed him to him. "Ayame?" He repeated, with an edge to his voice.

The idea of naming children after flowers had come from Yuuji and Megumi, although it was Satoru who had inspired it. Sukuna had shown no interest in the matter, and that was precisely why his young mate had put him under duress: "I will choose the name of one of the children, but you will choose the other."

"Ayame..." Yuuji repeated. "It is the name of the Iris flower."

He had not believed for a moment that Sukuna would do that.

Sukuna lifted his red eyes to the sleeping child in the cradle. "You chose Shion for a reason, didn't you?"

I won't forget you.

"For a baby born on this day, it is a name with a very specific meaning."

It was October 31st, the first anniversary of the Shibuya incident.

"Do you know the meaning of the flower Iris, tiger?" Sukuna looked at their little girl, continuing to touch her. "The shape of its leaves resembles that of a sword. Tradition holds that it is a flower suitable for those who possess the spirit of a warrior."

Yuuji looked at his mate, eyes shining with a feeling he rarely allowed himself to show. But Ryoumen Sukuna was that, too, and it was one of the most difficult and beautiful truths he came face to face with every day.

"And she is a warrior," Yuuji agreed. Sukuna nodded slowly, but the focus of his four red eyes was on the baby girl. "In the language of flowers, Iris means courage and good news. In my era, little girls like her did not survive, but she is here. She is strong. She is tenaciously attached to life. Ayame… I think this is the right name for her."

The little girl decided she had fed enough and pulled away from her mother's chest with a soft sound. Yuuji lifted her in his hands - she weighed nothing - so he could look at her and show her to her father.

"Ryoumen Ayame."

The girl lifted her long eyelashes, looking at her parents with curious eyes - they would not be as red as her brother's.

"I think it's the perfect name for her."

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2025

— June —

Yuuji looked at the little girl lying in the center of the large bed with a smile. He had loosened her hair so that she was more comfortable, and pinkish waves framed her small face with flushed cheeks, making the image adorable. She was still so small, but she was no longer as small as the day he had held her as she fed tenaciously from his chest. 

Although the tenacity had never left.

"I'm sorry," Ren kept repeating, standing still at the foot of the bed.

Yuuji shook his head. "You couldn't have known. I am her mother and I should have intervened earlier, but I didn't think..."

The bedroom shoji opened and Sukuna appeared on the threshold, occupying it all with his giant figure. The first eyes he sought were Yuuji's, and the young sorcerer smiled at him, reassuring him that nothing serious had happened.

"What happened?" The King of Curses asked, approaching the bed to check the situation with his own eyes. Behind him, Arima appeared with an agitated expression and shortness of breath. He saw Ren and moved to his side, giving the couple space to talk.

"It wasn't an asthma attack like usual," Yuuji explained. "Ayame sniffed a little too many flowers in the garden created by Ren's energy, and in the end, her lungs got a little temperamental. She didn't even need the inhaler."

"I am sorry, Your Highness," Ren repeated for the umpteenth time, bowing his head.

"Pollens don't usually bother her so much,” Sukuna said, looking at his mate.

"It was a lot of flowers," Yuuji emphasized.

Sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the bed, Shion said what he thought bluntly. "She was stupid," he said, looking at his sister with an exasperated expression. "As always."

Neither Sukuna nor Yuuji had time to scold their son for his way of speaking, that Ayame suddenly became animated again. "You were there playing with me and those flowers. If you thought I was being silly, you could have said so!"

The little boy shrugged his shoulders. "Why should I have denied you the pleasure of getting into trouble? It’s fun…”

"You get scared when I get into trouble, though! You worry about me and care about me, even though you always offend me!"

Shion blushed, crossed his arms against his chest, and turned his gaze away, pouting.

Aware that she had won the battle, Ayame turned a bright smile to her father. "Dad, do you know that Ren can make flowers bloom with his cursed energy? He has a garden full of colors, and there are also flowers named after me and Shion and also Ume and Hasu's and-"

"She looks like the usual chatter box to me," Sukuna said with a half smile that showed both relief and amusement. He squeezed one of Yuuji's shoulders and leaned down to place a kiss on his daughter's cheek. "I think we've all had enough excitement for today," he added, looking the young Omega in the eyes. "I think it's time to call the brat who was about to have that panic attack just now and have him take us home."

Ren looked at Arima. "Kato?"

The grey-dressed sorcerer rubbed his nose. "He entered the council chamber as if a tragedy was occurring. We thought the girl had something serious."

"Oh, typical Kato..."

It was Arima's turn to bow his head. "I ask your forgiveness for that too, Your Highness."

Yuuji shook his head. "There is no need to be sorry. As I said, it all happened because of my distraction, and I know that an asthma attack can be scary when you see it, but we are experts," he looked at Sukuna with some wistfulness. "We know when to worry and when not to."

"However..." Arima took a step forward, but was blocked by the gaze of the four red eyes of the King of Curses. They reminded him that it was by pure chance that he still had his head attached to his neck. "It was our intention from the beginning to ask you to stay and reside here, at Rinnoji Temple, as our honored guests."

Yuuji's expression stopped being relaxed. "Live here? Us?"

Ren looked around. "I brought you to this pavilion for Ayame to rest because that was what they had prepared for you. There are two large rooms, for you and the children, and the living room’s engawa it’s over a pond where you can bathe. We can ask a couple of our apprentices to take care of your domestic needs while-"

"We can take care of our domestic needs ourselves," Sukuna interrupted them.

Yuuji looked at him with wide eyes, surprised that he was actually considering the idea. The older man understood that they needed to talk before making a final decision.

"Wait for us outside," Sukuna ordered the other two, unkindly.

Arima and Ren bowed their heads again in respect and left them alone.

"Shion, can you keep your sister company?" Sukuna asked, but a no answer was not allowed. "Your mother and I will be in the next room talking."

Shion looked at his sister as if she were a boring fly that kept buzzing around his head. Ayame stuck her tongue out at him. Yuuji got out of bed and followed his husband, knowing that he had no reason to worry about the children.

They walked until they reached the living room. The shoji were open and Yuuji could see the pond Ren had mentioned - the house seemed to be surrounded on three sides by it.

"It looks a lot like the house we have in Tokyo, don't you think?" Sukuna looked at the landscape, avoiding his gaze. He was digressing.

"Do you want the children to stay here, at the temple?" Yuuji asked, staring insistently at the back of his head. He would be able to admire the scenery later.

Sukuna cast him a glance over his shoulder. "If you'd rather have them stay at your old man's house alone..." He said sarcastically.

"That's not what I mean," Yuuji said, then spread his arms wide to point to all the space around him. "In this place we are surrounded."

"In this city we are surrounded anyway," Sukuna retorted, turning and stopping in front of him. "There is something here… There is something we cannot ignore."

Yuuji arched his eyebrows. "What happened?"

"You wanted me to investigate, to observe and come to my own conclusions, brat," Sukuna reminded him. "I did, and I tell you it's better to stay here at Rinnoji Temple than in that old house."

Yuuji wanted to ask him what he had found out, but he knew that was not a conversation to have at that moment, in the open. "Yes," he confirmed. "Yes, there is something in this temple."

Sukuna stared at him. "I guess we will have a long conversation when the children go to sleep."

Yuuji nodded. "Let's keep being friendly for now," he said.

"I almost decapitated the black-haired idiot. It's too late for friendly play," Sukuna confessed.

The younger sorcerer opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "You what...?" He was speechless. "Why?"

"Another conversation for later. Now let's do what we can to come together and get them out of our way as quickly as possible." Sukuna spoke like a general on a battlefield.

Yuuji gave him his complete confidence. "Let's stay here, then," he concluded, although he was not convinced. Then he stared his husband straight in the eye. "Sukuna, whatever has caught your attention-"

"I will never endanger our children," Sukuna interrupted him, in the tone of someone who is forced to repeat the same refrain hundreds of times to a complete idiot. "It irritates me that I have to keep pointing that out, you brat."

The children were playing serenely in the bedroom. The two parents gave them a quick look, without intervening in their conversation, and went outside the house, where the other sorceres were waiting for them.

It was Yuuji who spoke. "We will be honored to be your guests," he said with a smile. As he had expected, Ren's face lit up with enthusiasm. Arima merely lifted the corners of his mouth in a polite expression - Yuuji was certain that he had said nothing of the risked beheading to his lover. That was a matter that would remain between him and Sukuna, as souls not belonging to that era.

"If possible, I would like Kato to accompany me to my grandfather's house to get our things," Yuuji added. "I have nothing here for us and the children and-"

"You won't need anything!" Ren exclaimed happily. "We have the clothes and everything you need. There is no reason to bother going back to town."

Yuuji thought of the three boxes with his grandfather's secrets contained inside.

"Our children are at an age when they need to have familiar objects nearby to feel safe," Sukuna intervened. "Toys, small items… Stuff of little value to us adults, but which is very important to them. Sendai is not their city, but they were happy to sleep in their mother's old house. This is a completely foreign place for them. Their mother knows what they need. Order the hysterical brat to accompany Yuuji to his old home and he will take what is needed."

Sukuna looked at his consort, and Yuuji understood that he was offering him a brief escape route to settle his affairs while he would take care of the children in his absence.

"We are happy to have Your Majesties as our guests," Arima said. His expression was impossible to decipher after what Sukuna had confessed to him.

"One last thing," the King of Curses added. "It has not been said, and perhaps you take it for granted, but I think it bears pointing out. With the same freedom with which we decide to stay, we can be free to leave."

Against all odds, Arima chuckled. "I'm afraid that even if we wanted to, we would never be able to detain the Curse King and his consort." If it was a joke, it did not make people laugh.

Even Ren became serious.

"No," Sukuna confirmed. "No, you would never be able to."

"So be it..." Arima nodded twice. "Your every wish is an order, Your Grace."

Yuuji could not help but sense venomous sarcasm in those words.

Kato was a discreet boy and waited for him on the street while Yuuji entered his grandfather's house and did what he had to do. He put the futons in place, even though it was a completely unnecessary action. It came naturally to him, as when he looked out over the kitchen to make sure all the dishes were washed. His grandfather would not be coming back anytime soon to scold him about the way he kept the house, but Yuuji could not help but think that that was where his old man’s soul rested - even though his ashes were in Tokyo, with him - because it was within those walls that they had written their story. That home, though modest, deserved the same respect as a temple.

"I'm doing what's right for this town, Grandpa," Yuuji said to the empty bedroom, writing on the lids of the three boxes kanji representing seals - it wasn't ancient magic like Sukuna used, but if someone had put their hands where they shouldn't, the young sorcerer would have known even from a distance. "I hope I'm making the right choices," he added, hiding the three boxes under the boards of the built-in closet where he had first found them.

Yuuji then devoted himself to gathering his own things and those of his husband and their twins. It took him less than an hour to do everything. He closed the shoji and the front door as if he were to return that evening. His family name - his grandfather's name - was still written on the wall, although the kanji were scratched in several places.

Yuuji covered it with his hand. "I won't be gone long this time. I promise."

He and Kato chatted about everything and nothing on the way back. The young sorcerer decided not to make further inquiries through the teenage boy: one, he was sure the apprentice knew nothing important; two, things at Rinnoji Temple were too strange to risk getting that boy into trouble.

When they arrived near the house where Yuuji and his family would live for the next few days, Kato stopped the car and offered to help him with his luggage.

"No, thank you," Yuuji said with a polite smile. "I know I'm not a two-meter giant like my husband, but I can manage on my own."

Kato greeted him respectfully and left him alone.

Yuuji had a backpack slung over his left shoulder, one slung over his right shoulder, and one in his hands. As soon as he stepped into the hall, he was greeted by a wonderful uproar of laughter and excited voices. He left the three backpacks by the front door and slipped off his shoes, then went into the living room. He allowed himself to enjoy the view just then.

The room was at least three times the size of those at his grandfather's house - someone could have held a banquet there - and the engawa overlooking the pond with the trees in the background really reminded him of their home in Tokyo. But it was not that natural spectacle that caught the full attention of his golden eyes.

Sukuna was in the center of the pond - he was tall enough to touch the bottom without a problem - and children were swimming around him, smiling happily. Shion climbed onto his father's shoulders and Sukuna lowered himself into the water to ease his movements, then held his hands until their son felt ready enough to jump and dive into the water.

"Me too!" Ayame exclaimed, moving closer. "Me too!"

Sukuna had his back to him, and if he had noticed that his spouse had returned, he did nothing to make it known. Yuuji decided not to show himself. He remained with his shoulder leaning against the shoji that served as the boundary between the entrance and the living room, enjoying that familiar scene and all its shining innocence.

That was something Yuuji would not be willing to share with anyone - he would not even know how to do it in words. It was simpler to see Ryoumen Sukuna for who he was and Ryoumen Yuuji as the young sorcerer who had killed him, brought him back from the dead, and then bound the King of Curses to him forever, first with a binding vow and then with an actual marriage vow.

Yuuji had spoken to Ren about passion, and that was there, had always been there - it was not ordinary what he and Sukuna shared in flesh and spirit, and there was little debate about that. Yuuji had not spoken of love.

He never did.

“How can you not call something like that love?”

When Yuuji was enchanted by scenes like that, he asked himself the same question, and although his heart was filled with happiness at what he saw, it hurt. It ached so much.

He felt tears well up in the corners of his eyes and turned to disappear inside the house before his family noticed him. Too late. As soon as Ayame re-emerged after the plunge, she saw him.

"Mom!" She called him loudly.

Sukuna turned and as soon as Yuuji met those four red eyes, he knew he had no escape.

"You made yourselves comfortable right away, I see." The young sorcerer forced a smile, stepping out into the engawa and sitting cross-legged. The children swam up to cross their arms over the wooden edge, looking at him expectantly.

"Are you coming with us?" Shion invited him.

Yuuji shook his head. "No, my sweet boy. I think I'll stay here and watch you play. Dad seems to me to have the situation perfectly under control."

"Yes, perfectly under torture," Sukuna said, as the children swam back in his direction.

"Ooooh!" Yuuji laughed, though it was a fake glee. "You've survived worse," he said. "And the one you didn't survive brought you back. So I guess you're safe."

Sukuna ignored the joke. He had noticed that something was wrong, but they would not talk about it at that time.

Yuuji hoped they would never talk about it.

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Yuuji was brilliance.

Sukuna was speechless.

The infants were snuggled against their young mother's chest. The first - a boy - had already been cleaned, wrapped carefully in a white sheet and was looking at the world around him with his four curious eyes. He was serene.

The second - a girl - was crying vigorously, reassuring everyone of her state of health after forty seconds of sheer terror. She was still smeared with blood and other birth fluids, but her pinkish curls went every way. Yuuji whispered sweet nothings to comfort her, repeating how much he loved her and that there was no longer any reason to be afraid because they were together.

Sukuna had just returned from a battlefield, bearing the marks on him. He lifted his hand over the two children - it was huge compared to the two little bodies - but he did not touch them because it was smeared with blood.

"Do you still feel pain?" Sukuna asked his mate.

Yuuji was evidently in pain, although there were tears of joy in his eyes and his smile was brighter than the sun. "It will pass. It's all right now. It will pass."

Physical pain was only physical pain for Yuuji.

All he needed to be strong was in his arms.

Sukuna did not hesitate. The hand with which he had thought to touch his newborn children adhered to his young mate's cheek. Yuuji lifted his large honey-colored eyes. It was impossible to tell what was reflected in the red ones of the King of Curses. The cursed energy that came out of his fingers was like a gentle caress that pushed the pain away from the younger man's body. 

Yuuji closed his eyes and leaned his face against that hand confidently, welcoming it. The gesture smeared blood on his face, but it was of no importance.

Their little girl continued to sing her hymn to life.

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Ren awoke from that memory - it was not his, it did not belong to him, he had stolen it from a sorcerer younger than himself who had given him his trust - crying, one hand pressed against his empty belly.

It hurt.

That emptiness hurt.

He got up from his futon and, barefoot, walked out of his small house among the trees. The sky above Rinnoji Temple was tinged with the colors of sunset as he crossed the small bridge to the main building complex.

Everyone was at dinner at the time, and no one saw him walking down the corridors and down the stairs leading to the dungeons. No one was setting foot there. Apprentices were forbidden to go there, and the council members had no desire to visit the rooms that had been the scene of their suffering.

That was a place of death. A cemetery in its own right. One where there was no peace of eternal rest and where no one went to pay their respects to the dead.

But in that place, in one of the dark rooms, was kept a piece of Ren that had been ripped away from him. So many pieces of him, to be exact.

He concentrated the cursed energy in his right hand and it took shape in a greenish light that allowed him to continue walking in those forgotten corridors.

The room that was his destination no longer had a door, but an indefinite number of seals had been hung on the lintel, on the walls, as if that place contained the worst monsters.

Ren knew that this was not the case.

The real monsters were the ones responsible for those tragedies; they were the ones who had filled that cemetery.

He crossed the threshold, and the large built-in closet that covered the wall in front of him was the first thing he saw. As he crossed the room, his feet crushed numerous wilted flowers, gifts that he had left there in the past, corroded by time.

Arriving in front of the red wooden closet, Ren knelt on the floor and looked up. More kanji were written there, more seals. No names.

But Ren knew all those of the creatures who rested behind those doors.

The greenish light around his hand branched out, and before long the room was filled with flowers emitting a soft light. Those were the only things he was able to give life to, a short, transient life. Those were his gifts to those who never had one.

"What are you doing here?"

Ren did not need to turn around to know that Hiroki was behind him.

"I missed them," Ren replied, stroking the wooden surface of the closet. "Did you see how beautiful the children of Yuuji and the King are? As I looked at them, I imagined ours the whole time."

Hiroki approached, without stepping on the flowers created by his lover's cursed energy. "In the not-too-distant future, you won't need to imagine them."

Ren smiled sadly at him. "I opened a passage to spy on Yuuji's memories," he said. "There is nothing of what you think. There is no forbidden knowledge about the nature of souls. Nothing. There is only him and Sukuna, the fragments of their history. Nothing more. And do you know why there is nothing more? For the same reason that a newborn baby breathes as soon as it enters life. He does not know why he does it but he does it. Yuuji is aware that the case of his and Sukuna's souls is unprecedented, but he is not the keeper of any secret that explains their nature. They just exist as they are."

Hiroki did not seem surprised by that account. "You saw memories with emotional value."

"I saw love," Ren confessed. "I saw a story of enemies who became lovers. Yuuji doesn't even realize the power of the bond he has with his husband."

"But that's just his point of view," Hiroki emphasized.

Ren frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I played with fire today," Hiroki confessed, touching his neck. "I almost got burned."

Ren grabbed his hand. "Challenging the King of Curses is dangerous."

"I know that, but today I saw exactly what I wanted to see, and it's not what Sukuna shows in the sunlight."

"Explain further."

"What do you see by looking at those four, Ren?"

"A family." Ren didn't need to think about it. "A king, his consort and their beautiful children."

"Yeah... You see the fairy tale."

"It's not a fairy tale, Hiroki. It is life." Ren pulled his hand away from hers. "Stop treating me like a child."

"I'm just warning you."

"From what?"

"From the beast," Hiroki replied. "The beast that struggles in the chains created by Yuuji, but which has not been tamed at all. On the contrary, I wonder how it would be if it got its freedom again."

Ren stared at him, "What do you want to do?"

"Yuuji does not have the knowledge we need. Despite the way he was born, despite what he did, he never stopped being human. Sukuna did. And despite that, he feels pain if he is hurt and take pleasure if he is loved, as is supposed to happen to a man."

"Ryoumen Sukuna is not an ordinary man, Hiroki."

"No, but even if he were the closest thing to a god on earth, it doesn't change what I said. He bleeds, he feels desire. He is able to bring healthy, strong children into the world. It is his knowledge that we need, not Yuuji's."

Ren was unconvinced. "How do you intend to do it?"

"I want to offer him his lost freedom."

The other swallowed hard. "Do you want to kill Yuuji?"

"No, I can't. One of the reasons Ryoumen Yuuji avoided a war between sorcerer families after the merger is because his life is closely tied to Sukuna's. The consort dies and so does the king."

"And how do you intend to divide them?"

Hiroki smiled. "Yuuji's mother left behind more legacies than her living children know."

Ren knew he did not fully understand at least as well as he knew it was useless to say no. "What if Sukuna refuses?" He asked. "What if Yuuji is worth more than the freedom you can offer him."

Hiroki chuckled. "This is another one of those fairy tales you like so much, Ren."

As they had been promised, there was everything they needed in the kitchens of that house. Yuuji cooked dinner and the children helped him do so. When they had finished eating - Shion and Ayame continued to talk about Ren's garden and how much fun it had been to play in the water with their father - Sukuna thought about cleaning up while his mate took care of the children. Although the house was large, he could hear Ayame continuing to chatter - their girl was quite a chatter box - as he washed the dishes and put them away. When he was done, he went to get ready for bed - the children's voices had quieted down and only Yuuji's came from the room down the hall.

When Sukuna came out of the bathroom, the house was silent and almost completely dark. Without asking himself too many questions, he walked down the hallway and looked inside the children's room: there was a single four-poster bed in the middle of the room, combining traditional and modern styles, and Shion and Ayame slept comfortably in it - but Sukuna knew that his daughter would end up seeking physical contact with her brother, despite the heat, during the night.

He sensed nothing suspicious, and he moved on.

His and Yuuji's room was not so different from their children's, it was just larger, perhaps more elegant, the shoji were open and the engawa overlooked the pond, like the one in the living room. There was no sign of his consort within those four walls.

Sukuna looked around, as if the younger man might have been hiding behind one of the canopy curtains to play a trick on him - he would have been capable of it. But the only thing to prove the passage of another person in that room were the two backpacks at the foot of the bed.

Sukuna did not worry: if his mate wandered off or was in danger, he would sense it. Yuuji was nearby and he was fine. He knew in the same way he had known which way to go when that brat had interrupted the dialogue between him and Arima to inform them that Ayame had had a respiratory crisis.

Sukuna always knew where to find Yuuji.

Yuuji always knew where to find Sukuna.

It had been an uncomfortable reality to come to terms with at the beginning of that new chapter in their relationship, but it had also been one of the conditions that had allowed Yuuji to do what he wanted with him without the other sorcerer families declaring war over the blasphemy he had committed. Using the Ten Shadows ritual to bring Gojo Satoru back to life was one thing, but bringing back from the dead a natural disaster with no precedent or successor like Ryoumen Sukuna was an act of another weight.

Yuuji had faced the consequences without ever bowing his head.

"I learned from the worst."

Sukuna was not sleepy and had a lot of thoughts on his mind, which he would have to discuss with the brat who had gone off to wander who knows where, so he decided to occupy the time by opening his backpacks and pulling out what was in them. Yuuji had already arranged their children's things in the next room; what was left was theirs.

Sukuna used the built-in closet, although he couldn't predict how long they would stay there - he hoped as little as possible - but the alternative was living with Yuuji's habit of leaving clothes on every surface of the room, and his nerves jumped at the mere thought. Sometimes - just sometimes - he thought about Uraume, how he would be shocked at the way Yuuji handled household chores and the way he involved him in each of them. That was not a real problem: Sukuna had not been served his whole life, and having Uraume by his side did not mean that he did not know how to do things himself.

When he had finished emptying the first backpack, Sukuna began to get annoyed. He and Yuuji needed to talk, and the brat could not spend all night wandering through the trees surrounding the temple just because his mind was crowded with his usual useless thoughts.

A noise outside, in the pond water, caught his attention as he was arranging a silly T-shirt with sushi written on it. Sukuna lifted his back and turned around. He could see the image of Yuuji through the drapes of the canopy, like the picturesque frame of a portrait that could not be imprinted anywhere but in the four red eyes of the King of Curses.

As soon as he emerged from the water, Yuuji ran his hands through his wet hair, pulling it back. The trickle of water reached under his sternum, showing enough but not all that Sukuna would have liked to see. Forgetting his irritation, the King of Curses took a step forward and moved the curtains aside so he could observe the scene more carefully. He did not want to be seen. Not yet.

Sukuna wanted to watch.

There were times - and that was one of them - when watching Yuuji managed to occupy his entire mind in a way that was unlike any other. Sukuna could almost call it fulfilling for him, a man - a monster - who had made fulfillment the reason for his existence and remained perpetually disappointed.

"The thought of needing someone to fulfill me never crossed my mind."

That had been Ryoumen Sukuna.

The same Ryoumen Sukuna who had felt disappointment in the face of any opponent not worthy of him.

The same Ryoumen Sukuna who now looked at the creature that had been created from a piece of his soul as if there was nothing else in the world worth looking at.

Sukuna could not understand himself, and for that reason he would never be able to explain himself to Yuuji.

There was no way to fill the void left by the silences between them.

It was a matter of no use nagging about, Sukuna had long since stopped doing so. But he knew that Yuuji was still trying.

Something on the bank of the pond caught the attention of his consort, who smiled, leaning forward.

"Hello..." Yuuji said.

A frog. He was talking to a frog.

If he could have, Sukuna would have beheaded himself for all the wasted fascination. He continued to watch the scene.

"Were you watching me?" Yuuji asked.

Sukuna could not see the small, useless creature he was talking to but the boyish smile that lit up Yuuji's face made him roll his eyes. He had hoped that, as he grew up, his attitudes would also become more adult but, evidently, there was no hope.

Hope was not something that belonged to either of them.

Suddenly, the frog decided to jump off the grass in which it was hiding, landed on Yuuji's nose with little kindness, and then disappeared somewhere in the night. The ridiculous scene added to the young sorcerer's indignant expression was enough to make the King of Curses chuckle.

Yuuji heard this and turned around, and those honey-colored eyes immediately met his. "Have you been there long?"

"Long enough to see a frog humiliate you," Sukuna replied, circling the bed. He did not wait for his spouse to say anything to him; he took off his clothes before stepping out into the engawa, then dived into the pond to join him.

Yuuji pursed his lips. "I don't remember inviting you."

"If I see my spouse bathing naked in a pond, I don't need any invitation."

The younger sorcerer rolled his eyes. "You are such a king."

"Do you know many kings?" Sukuna teased him. "I was not aware of them. Enlighten me."

"I don't need to know others. You are enough to create a standard." As Yuuji swam away from him, he looked at him suspiciously. "Are you in a good mood?"

"How can you tell?"

"When you're insufferable more than usual and talking bullshit, it's because you're in a good mood," Yuuji replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Maybe..." Sukuna replied. "Or maybe I just like the scene. I like what I’m seeing.”

"You are seeing what you see every day," Yuuji downplayed.

"In everyday life, we don't often get to bathe in a pond under the moonlight."

Yuuji stopped turning around to avoid him and looked at him with a smirk. "Are you trying to tell me something, Sukuna?"

"I'm telling you that I like what I'm seeing, that's all." Sukuna would argue no more than that.

That seemed to be enough for the younger sorcerer because he stopped swimming in circles to get closer. "We need to talk..." He said, and he was right. "Can you check if someone has poisoned me without me realizing it?"

Sukuna became serious suddenly. "Did something happen?"

"While I was talking to Ren, I lost consciousness. He says we were drinking sake, but-"

"How many times do I have to tell you not to drink from glasses that are served to you?" All of Sukuna's good humor died there. "Besides, after what happened in Kyoto, I taught you how to recognize poisons and defend yourself against them! The children were with you and you let your guard down like that, you brat?"

"You don't even let me finish talking!" Yuuji exclaimed. "I never drank that sake. Ren insisted that we were drinking while chatting, but I'm sure that never happened."

Sukuna calmed down, although he was still grinding his teeth. His expression became no kinder, but he extended his hand. "Come here..."

Yuuji knew what was coming and obeyed. He rested his hands on his husband's arms as the King encircled his waist with one arm and pressed his lips against his neck. As soon as Yuuji felt the canines penetrate his skin he closed his eyes and tightened his lips to stifle a moan of pain - ?

The process lasted no more than a few moments.

As soon as they pulled away, the reverse technique made the wound on the younger man's skin disappear in moments. Sukuna ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the excess blood. A gesture that did not escape Yuuji's attention.

"I don't think you have anything in your system," the older man said. "That doesn't mean you didn't have it. Some poisons disappear quickly."

"I know..."

"Still, you were uncaring while the children were with you."

"The children are fine and I'm telling you I don't remember drinking anything!"

"You were unconscious, though."

"Yes, and I'm telling you about it because I have suspicions."

"About the brat with grey hair?"

Yuuji sighed and lowered his gaze, as if afraid to say something wrong. "This temple is not a good place, Sukuna. Terrible things have happened here and there are children who-" He told what he knew, and his husband listened, but he did not seem particularly impressed by anything Ren's stories about the Grandmaster implied - he was not surprised. "And something else happened."

Sukuna's red eyes stared at him attentively.

"While I was unconscious, I began to relive memories - our memories..."

Sukuna frowned. "What kind of memories?"

"Memories of Kyoto," Yuuji replied. "Our first triumph together. Our first kiss. The first time... I remembered the night of my 16th birthday."

The King of Curses reflected. "Those are memories that have personal value not political or otherwise."

"I thought so too, but I can't help but think that..." Yuuji hesitated again. "I don't know, I feel that there is something wrong with believing that Ren had bad intentions, but I can't help but think that he used his cursed energy to dig into my memory."

"I thought you were past the habit of believing that someone who has been a victim in his life cannot become a slayer," Sukuna said, coldly.

It was a story they had seen repeated countless times. Those who suffered cruelty were not immune from committing it. It was a reality Yuuji only half-understood - he too had been cruel to his enemies when he had found it necessary - but it made his heart ache to think that Ren, the boy who had spoken to him with shining eyes about his dream of love with Arima and his desire to give birth to his children, had intended to harm him willingly.

"Ren has never left this place," he said, as if to justify it. "His soul is tormented by so many fears that he cannot leave the cage in which he has been locked all his life. Maybe he just wanted to-"

"Steal fragments of your life to feel free," Sukuna concluded, but without the slightest trace of empathy. "It doesn't matter how desperate he is, brat. I don't care. He took something of ours from you without permission. Don't you dare let your guard down in front of him again."

Yuuji felt guilty and, at the same time, continued to feel sorry for Ren. He did not want to believe that behind the face of that young man with the enthusiasm of a child was something horrible, but Sukuna was right: Yuuji had lost his senses while the children were with him.

"I won't let my guard down again."

Sukuna nodded. "In any case, the children are coming with me tomorrow."

Yuuji widened his eyes. "What are you trying to say?" He asked, as anger began to boil in his blood.

"You know very well what I mean," Sukuna said and turned to leave.

The younger sorcerer grabbed his arm. "Our children are safe with me!"

"Yes, you proved it," Sukuna replied sarcastically. "You proved it when you brought them with you to this cursed city just to spite me, and you proved it today by letting someone hit you from behind while they were with you."

Yuuji's honey-colored eyes were large and reflected the way those words had hurt him. “If you keep getting hurt by my words after all these years, it's not my problem”, Sukuna said. "Particularly when my words speak the truth." He leaned his arm on the wooden edge of the engawa to lift himself out of the water. He did not.

"The same words with which you said you liked what you were looking at," Yuuji reminded him firmly, although the tremor in his voice was a symptom of tears.

Sukuna knew that he could be as cruel to him as he wanted, and the brat would always leave the scene with his head held high, but there were two things that really hurt Yuuji: the first was judging him as a bad parent, and the second was...

Sukuna turned around: his consort had his back to him, his arms tight around his body, he was standing and the water line came up to touch his lower back.

If he was crying, he didn't want to show it.

"Kenjaku was in control of this temple and its monks," Sukuna confessed, without using any particular tone. Thanks to the light coming from the bedroom, he could see Yuuji's shoulders become rigid as he held his breath.

When he turned to look at him, he was crying.

"The horrible things that happened to those children… The grey-haired brat didn't describe them to you in detail, but they were all Kenjaku's experiments. Rinnoji Temple was just another place where they cultivated his grotesque interests, seeking knowledge in their own way.”

Yuuji was devastated. "Kenjaku... Kenjaku has..." He swallowed air from his mouth and tried to calm himself.

Sukuna knew that that was something his spouse would never get over. They were married. They had two children. They were something Yuuji could not fully explain to others or to himself. But they existed.

Kenjaku was something Yuuji could not get over.

"Brat..." Sukuna approached, walking on the bottom of the pond. "Brat, you need to breathe..."

"It's my fault," Yuuji said to someone who was not there. "What happened to Ren, Arima, all those children… It's my fault."

Sukuna knew what was happening. He had seen it happen countless times before - some times, because of him. This was what happened to be Ryoumen Yuuji and to possess that unwavering humanity.

"Tiger..." Sukuna adhered his hand to the back of his mate's neck. Yuuji trembled crying, not looking at him. "Tiger, let me in. Let me in and breathe."

Sukuna's voice was firm, almost cold, but it was that inflexibility that his consort needed. Yuuji needed something solid to hold on to, not something that was unstable along with him - even if that meant relying on someone who had no empathy for his pain.

Yuuji listened to him. He parted his lips and let go of the breath that had stuck in the center of his chest and was making him choke. Then he breathed again, slowly.

With each breath, Sukuna felt the boundaries between them become thinner, until it disappeared. Yuuji's pain passed through him, under his skin, and he welcomed it without complaint, because it did not belong to him, because he was able to devour it without letting it bite him.

Sukuna's soul took what Yuuji's could not take, at least part of it. It was the only form of consolation he was able to give him.

Breathe.

Slowly, Yuuji relaxed against him, resting his cheek against his shoulder. Sukuna's hand was still on the back of his neck, his fingers sunk into his pinkish hair. They stood still in the water for what seemed an eternity, then the King of Curses felt his body against his shudder.

"We'd better get out of the water."

Yuuji tightened his fingers around his forearm, holding him where he was. The King of Curses asked no questions. The bridge between their two souls was still there.

"Yuuji..."

"You can feel me," Yuuji lifted his face. There were still tears in his honey-colored eyes and perhaps there was despair in his heart, but there was also more. Much more. "You can feel all of me."

It was no question.

Their breaths were mingled, their lips brushed.

Sukuna just nodded. 

Their mouths collided.

Yuuji seemed in no rush. He held him firmly in place, his lips moving over his, soft but insistent until he couldn't help but stop resisting, shut his eyes, and tilt his head to deepen the kiss. And with the first gentle touch of his consort’s tongue to his, his mind went wonderfully blank. Sukuna knew that feeling, he knew what Yuuji wanted that night and was willing to give it to him without a fight, as a total surrender. There was no pride that could stop him from experiencing what was about to happen.

The hand of the King of Curses sank into the pinkish hair of his young mate in a possessive gesture, and Yuuji clung to him, held him close. That dance of bodies and souls began under the moon of that summer night and continued in the large bedroom bed.

Their bodies were wet, but it did not matter. Yuuji lay back between the sheets, his golden eyes chained to his lover's red ones. His hand rose to touch his face, and Sukuna devoured his lips again as he slid over him and Yuuji welcomed him in his arms.

How long had it been since they had allowed each other to feel that sweet despair, that of a soul split in two trying to overcome the confines of skin through the sweetest way granted to two separated bodies?

How much foolish pride wasted in punishing each other with the deprivation of a pleasure that no other creature on that earth could ever experience. 

Sukuna brought down a shower of kisses on Yuuji's body, nibbling him where the skin was softest. His mate's hand was in his hair, guiding him without forcing it. There was no need to do so. The promise of pleasure was written clearly in the four scarlet eyes that rose to meet the honey-colored ones of the younger sorcerer.

Yuuji could read it and felt it on his skin as soon as Sukuna kissed his inner thighs first, working up till he reached his folds, running the flat of his tongue against him, as his hand stroked his erection.

Yuuji closed his eyes, melting into the sheets, arching his back against his lover's mouth. He felt against sensitive skin the vibration of a moan from his King. He smiled: it was hard to hide when pleasure was no longer confined to each other's skin.

Yuuji slipped out of the attentions of that expert mouth, earning that of those red eyes. "Come here..." He made him lie down under him, and Sukuna humored him.

"I want to devour you too," Yuuji said.

And he did.

Sukuna relaxed completely against the sheets, his hands at the sides of his head, as the creature who had cursed his existence and blessed him as only he knew made what he wanted with him. Yuuji was not a hurried lover. He liked to enjoy the moment.

He touched his husband's nose with his own, brushed his lips and then pulled back with a sneer when Sukuna tried to taste them with his tongue. It was a game the King liked.

He liked it when his consort spread his legs wider by rubbing his sex against his abs, and it was even better when he felt his skin become wet thanks to that contact. Yuuji kissed his neck, biting it as the King did before - if the young Omega decided to sink his teeth in and taste his blood, Sukuna would enjoy that, too.

But Yuuji was a gentle lover.

He devoured slowly, brought arousal to exasperation, and on nights when the boundary between their souls no longer existed, it was all too much even for a being as ancient as the King of Curses.

"Yuuji..."

"Shhh..."

Yuuji's tongue traced the black lines on his chest, played with his nipples, his hands pressed against the muscles, traced the hard lines they drew.

It was a lot, it was too much.

Both of them were in danger of coming without even loving each other the way they wanted to.

"Yuuji..." Sukuna hissed, grabbing his side.

"I know, I know..." Yuuji agreed with an edge in his voice.

The younger one inhaled and looked up at Sukuna with a near terrifying intensity, an all-consuming stare, eyes golden and dangerous. He looked like a predator. For lack of a better word, he was wild.

It was at moments like those that Sukuna thought that that creature, that piece of his soul that was his but stubbornly asserted his freedom, was his mate, his consort, his companion in an existence in which he was supposed to be one and only. Yuuji was his - as far as Yuuji would allow him - and that, in spite of all the rules he had imposed on himself in his long existence, gave him fulfillment.

Yuuji welcomed him inside with a warm moan.

And Sukuna couldn’t get enough of him. 

In their way of experiencing each other that was making love. When Yuuji allowed Sukuna to touch him completely under his skin, allowing their pleasures to  merge because the boundaries between their souls were so blurred that the only way to overcome them was to love each other more intensely.

Yuuji could feel the pleasure Sukuna felt as he sank into his warmth, as his body trembled from the sensations that ran like liquid fire through his veins.

For Sukuna it was the same.

There were no roles. There were no boundaries.

The pleasure was one and, at the same time, multiplied.

Yes, it was their way of making love.

When their souls, two halves of a whole, touched with only the desire to reconnect. There was no more anger, no more resentment, there was only the desire to make two parts of something that was born to be whole come together again.

On nights like those, Yuuji could almost surrender and accept that he was in love. Condemned, yes, he was in any case, but in love.

In love with that part of him that had been born a thousand years before him and for which he had been created. But he refused to believe that that beauty was part of a plan, an orchestration by a five-thousand-year-old being who did not even have a real identity. Yes, he refused to taint that blessing by imputing it to anything other than fate.

They were fate. They were above definitions, above the imposed boundaries of human understanding.

They were them.

Their words would never be honest - there was too much darkness between them - but in the intimate surrender of their souls, neither of them could lie.

Not even the King of Curses could. Yuuji’s long legs straddling his hips, muscular still wet with the pond’s water. The way he moaned his name, bouncing up and down in Sukuna's lap, taking his own pleasure. Yuuji threw his head back and the soft light of the bedroom illuminated the line of his throat - Sukuna wanted to sink his teeth into it, make the younger one his even more, because it was never enough for him. 

Yuuji’s lips were swollen and bitten, hair tangled and free. The portrait of freedom, the one that Sukuna no longer had, the one that Sukuna could touch with his hand, feel around him, inside him, at that very moment.

And when Yuuji moaned uncontrollably, Sukuna rose to capture his lips and shush him. It did no good. They moaned against each other's mouths, desperate, trembling, as the King's seed poured into his consort and Yuuji spilled over onto their skin.

The climax of passion became silence, filled only by their breaths. Sukuna did not hide as he usually did, as if pleasure were a shame he had to hide, Yuuji's fingers were in his hair, lips grazing lips as their breaths returned to a regular rhythm.

When the boundary between their souls became perceptible again, they looked at each other.

The gold in the red.

It was a royal juxtaposition of colors - they had even told each other once.

Yuuji stroked Sukuna's face, disturbing the extra eye on his right cheekbone until it closed. His husband shook his head to one side with a bored expression at the little spite he had received.

Yuuji laughed and kissed him slowly.

"How can you not call something like that love?"

Maybe I can, Yuuji thought.

Chapter Text

Their first time was not romantic at all.

It was passion in the most primal sense of the word. The passion born of the adrenaline of battle, of the fire of victory. It was not a crescendo, but a firework.

One moment they were washing the blood off each other's bodies slowly, the next Yuuji found himself on the bed - he was still wet from head to toe and so was the other man, but neither of them gave importance to that detail - Sukuna was on top of him, kneeling between his spread legs.

It was their eyes, chained to each other like a spell, that had ignited the flames.

The desire of both of them was as undeniable as their arousal.

No kiss.

No caressing.

No words.

It had all started with an exchange of dangerous glances, and it was with an exchange of glances that Yuuji confirmed what he wanted. Only later would the younger sorcerer wonder if Sukuna's hesitation was really due to a scruple to obtain his explicit consent or if the King of Curses was simply bewildered by what was happening. Just like him.

There had already been a kiss between them.

There had already been something forgotten between battles, smothered by their duties, like a dream that disappears at the crack of dawn. There had been a kiss and they had never spoken of it again.

There had been a kiss and they had pretended it had never happened.

What was about to happen would leave indelible marks.

What they were about to do would forever change who they were to themselves and to each other.

Enemies becoming lovers.

It was a trope for a good story, but that was real life and theirs was complicated even without feelings. No, feelings had always been there. Hate was a feeling as strong as love, certainly more destructive, perhaps more enduring even.

Pity, anger. There had been compassion at one point.

They did not hate each other that night. There was no time for pity.

Sukuna's red eyes searched Yuuji's honey-colored ones for something that might make sense of what was happening. But Yuuji had not turned sixteen yet, he had never been touched by another person's hands before, not like that, and was no less lost than the man looking at him with an all too human expression. Only two things were certain in his young mind: there was liquid fire coursing through his veins and he knew exactly for whom he was burning.

A nod of assent was all he served, and Sukuna's fingers were between his legs. It was the last slow moment of that first intercourse dictated by an instinct that belonged to neither of them.

Yuuji clutched the sheets tightly as the King of Curses' fingers violated him, preparing him for what was about to happen without kindness. But Yuuji did not demand it.

They looked at each other the whole time, even as those impetuous caresses brought out the first hot moans from Yuuji's trembling lips, and his sex reacted, wetting the fingers that touched him.

They looked at each other as Sukuna moved one of Yuuji's legs over his shoulder and grabbed his hips to pull him closer to him. But he remained on his knees, as if trying to keep his distance, as he slowly but ungently penetrated him. It was not violent, but it was firm.

Yuuji held back a choked groan, swallowing the pain the loss of his virginity caused him, his golden eyes fixed in the four fragments of hell that never let him go.

Sukuna did not give him his time, his fingers sinking into his thigh as his manhood sank into the heat of that young body, never violated by any man before.

And Yuuji liked it.

It hurt, but the desire was so strong that his body did not stop at that. He felt something else too. He wanted more than that, although inexperience prevented him from getting it and instinct was not enough, because the lover on top of him was a giant of almost two meters and it was difficult to move without knowing how to do it.

It was a quick intercourse from start to finish.

Sukuna came inside him without even asking permission, but Yuuji could not care less: he was an Omega but he was not in heat, he had never had heat in his life, maybe he would never have one - he was too old to present his fecundity, it was too late for him.His golden eyes were only interested in the King of Curses, in the way his cheeks had coloured through pleasure. Sukuna looked so human at that moment.

In Yuuji's eyes, he had never looked more beautiful.

The boy was so entranced by him that he tried to lift a hand to touch his lover’s face, but Sukuna was quick to hide from him - a habit he would maintain for a long time.

The moment their bodies parted, Yuuji first felt the burning between his legs and then the sudden cold. The latter bothered him more than the former.

Sukuna sat on the edge of the mattress, hesitated for a moment, then he stood up. He was no longer looking at him, but he wasn't going anywhere.

Yuuji watched him as he went out into the engawa and that's when he took his time. He counted out ten breaths, then he sat up and looked at the semen and blood of his virginity mixed between his legs. There were stains both on his skin and on the sheets.

The sunrise would not wash them away.

Should Yuuji have given it some value? In the world they were in at that moment, the world of the ancient Clans - of the Kamo Clan, in particular - that blood mixed with that seed would have been a proof, something to give meaning to something else.

All that solemnity did not belong to Yuuji.

His mind did not even dwell on what he had done and with whom - that was a problem for later. There was an unknown force moving him at that moment. He was himself, and yet he was not.

Even though he was very young, Yuuji knew it was useless to torture himself to seek answers if he could not even ask himself the right question.

He felt pain but it was bearable; what was not was the feeling that something was left unfinished. He had felt pleasure, tenuous, a crescendo - that had ended too quickly. Perhaps Sukuna had left the bed because he was ashamed that he had not been man enough to pleasure him during their first time. Or perhaps that fact did not affect him at all, as he claimed that most earthly things did not affect him.

As if Yuuji could blame him. As if he could mock him for the first proof of humanity the King had shown him in nine months that they were one part of the other's existence.

Yuuji wouldn't. That humanity, that imperfection… He liked it.

He got out of bed, as the proof of his lost innocence slid down his legs. He followed his curse, the other half of his soul, his enemy turned lover.

Sukuna's red eyes immediately met his.

Yuuji did not hesitate to express his desire. "I want more..."

2025 

— June —

It was not a night of rest for Ren.

After finding him in the basement of the temple, where he had made new flowers bloom in memory of all the little unborn lives that were buried down there, Hiroki had accompanied him to his little house in the middle of his garden. He had not stayed with him: he had a plan to be given final shape and had to study it in detail or the King of Curses would not be merciful to him a second time.

Ren would have liked to blame fear for his inability to fall asleep, but he knew that was only a small part of what hurt him. He trusted Hiroki and knew that he would make their wishes come true even if he had to come face to face with the strongest sorcerer in history.

Ren trusted Hiroki.

But trust was no longer enough for him.

The memories he had stolen from Yuuji kept swirling around in his head. They were fragments, moving like fish in an aquarium, with no real logic. Ren's power was weak.

He had not created a bridge between his mind and that of the younger sorcerer - if so, he doubted he would still have his head attached to his neck. His technique was simpler but, at the same time, more subtle. In the few minutes that Yuuji had been unconscious, before the twins noticed and intervened, RenHe had collected memories from his mind as if he had picked flowers from a garden.

Ren had chosen those with the most vivid, bright colors, hoping to get something that would be useful to Hiroki's plan.

This had not happened, but now images of a life that did not belong to him but struck him like hundreds of invisible blades kept running through his mind. Ren had been genuinely happy to meet Ryoumen Yuuji and had considered it an honour to be able to talk with him face to face about matters that had nothing to do with the politics of that new world ruled by sorcerers.

And yet... And yet...

Ren could not help but feel that Yuuji had not been honest with him, that all his kindness and patience toward him had been nothing but masks. Because if words could be deceptive, memories were not.

Ren saw what Yuuji had not told him, his lies, his omissions.

Ren saw clearly the way Yuuji had tried to lower himself to his level, describing himself as a cursed soul capable of understanding him. To truly understand him, Yuuji should not have had even half of what he had and did not value.

Ryoumen Yuuji was kind, strong, brave despite his curse.

Ryoumen Yuuji was blessed and he was too stupid to realize it or too ungrateful to appreciate it.

It had been less than twelve hours since their first meeting and Ren thought he hated him. He thought of those two beautiful, bright-eyed children - a girl who looked like her mother and a boy who looked like his father - and he thought of those poor creatures locked in darkness, who could have no other company than his flowers, destined to wither in turn.

"It's not fair..." Ren murmured to his sleeping flowers. "It's not fair..." He caressed the petals of an Iris - the flower that Yuuji's daughter was named after.

The name the King of Curses himself had chosen for his daughter.

But Yuuji did not value those gestures.

Yuuji did not see what he had.

And if he didn't see it, why should he deserve it?

"Why is he allowed these fragments of happiness and I am not?"

For the second time, Ren left his small home, walking barefoot, seeking solace in the one creature who had been his companion in that darkness. He would not accept being alone one more night.

2019

— January —

Fushiguro Megumi had not yet awakened, but Sukuna had a feeling that they were waiting for that moment the way someone expected the imminent attack of an enemy army.

Well... If he decided to use his shadows the way Sukuna knew he could use them, they would be facing an army for real.

"Would you like a cigarette?"

The King of Curses turned to his right, only then remembering the woman's presence at his side. It was barely snowing and she was wearing a dark blue coat to shield herself from the cold, but he could see the hem of her white medical uniform at knee level.

Sukuna didn't know why he had chosen to leave the brat's room - perhaps to combat a little of that sense of claustrophobia mixed with boredom that was driving him completely crazy. He had wiped the fresh snow from above the small wall that marked the perimeter of the dormitory courtyard and leaned his back against it, slipping his hands into the pockets of the black jacket he was wearing - Gojo Satoru's jacket.

When the doctor had caught up with him, he had given her an oblique glance but she had acted as if he did not even exist.

Unusual attitude, the King of Curses had thought, but he had done nothing to break the silence.

Before the woman's proposal, they had continued to ignore each other for whole minutes of silence.

Sukuna stared at the plasticized packet in her hand and the cigarette sticking out of the hole in the side.

"I'm not trying to poison you," the woman reassured him. "Oh, yeah, even if I wanted to, I couldn't… Right?" She added to herself.

Had the circumstances been normal, Sukuna would not have hesitated to confirm. "In my current position, I'm not sure," he said.

"Ah, yeah..." Finally, the woman brought the pack to her mouth and pulled out the cigarette that was initially intended for him with her lips. "I guess you and Itadori are still trying to figure some things out."

There wasn't much to figure out, Sukuna thought. His existence was chained to a piece of his soul endowed with its own body, its own history, and its own free will. A piece of soul that belonged to a fifteen-year-old boy who was the perfect summary of everything he found unworthy of existing.

Yet he defeated you, an evil voice in his head that sounded like Kenjaku's - or Geto Suguru's, it made little difference - reminded him.

Yes, the King confirmed to himself, that five-thousand-year-old being was indeed doing the most gross experiments.

"Itadori doesn't smoke, does he?" The woman asked. Perhaps she was bored, too.

"He never did while I was in his body," Sukuna replied.

"I thought so..."

He really could not remember the doctor's name. He knew her power and knew why she was valuable to Gojo Satoru and his students, but her name had slipped into oblivion, along with many of Yuuji's useless memories - memories to which he no longer had access, of course.

"Itadori has the attitude of a sportsman," the woman continued to speak. "He even has the body of an athlete, actually... Just turned fifteen, and when I saw him naked on the morgue table, I thought Gojo had fished him out directly from among the athletes selected for the Olympics." She looked at him, unafraid. "Or was all that muscle mass your doing?"

Looking at her, Sukuna was certain of two things: the woman had no fear of him although she was aware of who he was and, beyond that, little or nothing was reflected in her dark eyes. Yuuji had said that she was an old friend of Gojo Satoru's; perhaps her blank stare was due to the sorrow she was feeling.

But if that was the case, why stop to talk to him, Gojo Satoru's killer himself?

Sukuna hardly wasted time questioning the logic of human behavior in mundane situations - that didn't mean he didn't know how to interpret them - but that woman had an objectively strange attitude.

"No," Sukuna replied. "No, it was not my doing. My presence in the brat's body did not particularly alter him."

The woman shook her shoulders. "That makes sense. It was created to be your cage, wasn't it?"

"So I was told..."

"Why?"

Sukuna did not understand the question, but no words came out of his mouth. Only his gaze became quizzical.

"Why go to so much trouble to create the creature we know as Itadori Yuuji?" The doctor asked. "Your ally with the creepy brain-"

"Kenjaku..."

"Yes, they-" The woman inhaled from the cigarette and then threw out a cloud of smoke - the light breeze blew it into the face of the 1,000-year-old man who wrinkled his nose at smelling the acrid odor.

She chuckled, "Not like what you used to smoke in the Heian Era, huh?" The woman shifted so that the smoke no longer hit his face. "You used to smoke in your era, didn't you?"

"Sometimes… You were talking about Kenjaku." For the first time, Sukuna showed interest in their conversation.

The woman herself was surprised and showed it by arching her eyebrows. "Would you call Kenjaku a person of science?"

"I would define Kenjaku in many ways," the King of Curses admitted. "But you seem particularly interested in them."

The doctor shrugged. "I'm curious."

"About what, exactly?"

"I spent my years here at Jujutsu Tech trying to find a more scientific approach to sorcery, and in some things I succeeded. In your time, did you know why cursing techniques don't show up until the age of three or four?"

"It's because of the brain development process of children," Sukuna replied. "No, in the Heian Era we didn't know that. I know this because the brat learned it.”

She hinted a smile. "With other things I gave up. Like what happened to you and maybe what happened to Gojo. I won't get a headache over something that can only be called divine or monstrous. To a doctor, death is just death."

"For Kenjaku it was not,"

When he had come out of the four walls where the brat had left him, Sukuna had not expected to have an entire conversation with anyone, especially with a woman and with Kenjaku as the central topic. But in spite of the fact that he could not remember her name, Sukuna thought that the doctor had an interesting point of view to express and wanted to hear it.

Kenjaku themself had not given him much explanation.

Rather, Sukuna had not been interested enough to listen to them.

"Beyond all the disagreements of the case," the woman continued to speak, smoking her cigarette. "It is hard not to be at least intrigued by a millennial being who has tried to put his theories into practice to the point of carrying and giving birth himself to the last of his experiments."

"Do you consider that one worse than the nine Death Paintings?" Sukuna asked, genuinely curious. The morality of people of science was hard to interpret - Kenjaku had none, that woman was hard to read.

"I studied what little was not destroyed of Kamo Noritoshi's experiments," the doctor recounted. "The useful part is obviously lost forever. But as cruel as they were, those experiments were performed on a third person. Kenjaku did nothing different from what I would do with an animal in my laboratory."

Sukuna arched his right eyebrow. "So do you justify their actions?"

"No," the woman said without hesitation. "I didn't say that. I only said that if Kenjaku has no difficulty seeing human beings as guinea pigs, then there is a logic in what he did with Choso's mother. It is the next step that surprises me, the one where the scientist becomes an integral part of the experiment. As a woman of science, I think only the thing I want most in the world would drive me to go that far. And that brings me to the question I've been meaning to ask you all along. What was Kenjaku's wish?"

It was Sukuna's turn to chuckle. "Is the purpose of this talk just that?" There was something about the situation that amused him. "I have no idea." His answer was sincere. "Kenjaku spent five thousand years making pacts and experiments, setting the perfect stage for what occurred only after their death: the merger. They believed that humanity could evolve through cursed energy or something like that. I was just very bored and intrigued by a bet I made with myself that would allow me to fight the world a thousand years after my time."

The woman stared at him. "What about the obvious fixation they had on you? Don't deny it. They had it."

"Perhaps I was the perfect example of that evolution he sought so much."

"Uhm..." Shoko thought about it. "An anomaly. A one-time event."

"In my day they called me a natural disaster."

Something that was neither a curse nor a human being, but it was dangerous, destructive, powerful and incomprehensible.

"Kenjaku tried to replicate what nature and fate had created once and only once," the doctor was thinking aloud. "Maybe that's why Yuuji was born. Once we got a living, healthy child with all the right characteristics, then that evolution could repeat itself again and again and..." She paused, looked at the nearly six-foot-tall man in front of her, and then shook her head. "No, it's quite the opposite."

Sukuna crossed his arms against his chest. "I like to call myself a man of knowledge, but I'm afraid you'll have to guide me in this final argument of yours."

"Oh, you know how to be modest..."

"I like to learn." Sukuna was not ashamed to admit it.

"Interesting..." Shoko admitted, dropping the finished cigarette in the snow and crushing it with her heel. "I try to explain my point of view. If Kenjaku saw in you the perfect evolution between humanity and cursed energy, it is normal that he used you as a model. In fact, he used a piece of your soul to create Yuuji. He artificially reproduced something that was unique and unrepeatable, but the experiment was still a failure."

"Why?"

"Because Yuuji is a part of you. Yes, he is a different being from you, he has his own body, his own personality but… He is a part of you. He is not something new. The unique and unrepeatable event that you were has not been repeated. It is still the same but in a different form." The doctor thought about it. "That's why Kenjaku created the intricate web that over the centuries led to the merger. You cannot recreate something unrepeatable, but if you change the rules of the world itself ... Humanity can only evolve or succumb."

Sukuna followed the woman's theory without any difficulty. "It makes sense..."

"But that's just my point of view," the doctor said. "The truth was cut out with a blow of Okkotsu's katana." She pulled out the pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. "Take it."

She threw it and Sukuna caught it without difficulty.

"I guess you're bored and, from what I understand, you like to try new things. It's not healthy, but we have stressful days ahead, so..." She left the sentence hanging. "Thank you for allowing me to voice my curiosity as a woman of science and for the adult chat." She added, moving away from the small wall. "Adults. They're very scarce around here."

Sukuna looked at the blue and white pack of cigarettes without particular interest. "I killed Gojo Satoru." He had killed so many other people. He had caused the carnage that had made Shibuya a crater full of death. He had turned Shinjuku into an unprecedented battlefield.

The woman looked at him as if she did not understand the reason for the obviousness. "I know," she said. "When you tore him apart, I was looking at you."

Still, Sukuna continued to see into the void in her dark eyes not anger, not resentment, not real sorrow.

"Is it your custom to offer a whole pack of cigarettes to those who kill your friends?" Sukuna asked, betraying a note of sarcasm.

The doctor was also sarcastic in laughter. "We just said that, didn't we? The rules of the world have changed. You were born for this world, and honestly, I think most of the kids at this school will be able to adapt as well. I do the same. You are part of the new order of things. Itadori decided this, I understand the logic of his choice, and, objectively, I cannot fight it, so I accept it."

Sukuna had changed his mind: that woman was interesting in her own way. He regretted not having memorized her name.

"Or maybe..." She added, before walking away. "Seeing you here is just confirmation that Megumi has done justice to the meaning of his name and that Gojo is on his way home. If you meet him before I do, offer him one of those cigarettes - he'll never say no to you, he's too proud - and enjoy the show. Believe me, you will thank me."

2025

— June —

Yuuji looked absentmindedly at the curtains of the four-poster bed moved by the summer breeze coming in from the open shoji. The sound of water was soothing, accompanied by the croaking of a few frogs and the singing of crickets. The young sorcerer drew invisible circles around his navel with the tip of his index finger, thinking of a distant spring, of when a miracle had come to life during a night little colder than that but lit by the same fire.

Sukuna returned to the room a moment later and his honey-coloured eyes shifted to his tall figure automatically. "We are safe," Yuuji deduced, before his husband could say anything.

"They sleep like stones," Sukuna reassured him.

Yuuji moved a little to allow him to lie down beside him.

"Although Shion is in danger of being smothered to death by his sister in his sleep, as always," the older man added, remaining raised on one elbow.

Yuuji chuckled. "Ayame sleeps attached to him?"

"Sooner or later she will have to grow out of that. They won't sleep in the same bed all their lives."

"That was the position they had inside my belly. She had physical contact with him before anything else, it's normal for her to seek him in vulnerable moments, like in sleep. If we separate them, Shion would suffer as much as she did."

"I don't recall saying a word about the possibility of separate them."

Yuuji nodded, running his fingers over the black tattoos drawn on his man's chest. "The twins have a special balance, even though they are fraternal. We often talk about this with Megumi and Satoru, too. Ayame and Shion will find their balance as they grow up. All we can do for them, aside from what we already do every day, is to try to make this world a better place for them."

Sukuna stared at him. "It's a utopia you're talking about and you know it."

"No, it's hope." Yuuji knew that his husband did not share that way of seeing things, but it did not matter.

They both gave their children something fundamental: Sukuna taught them to be strong, to accept their nature - raising them pretending that they were children like everyone else would have been the first step in condemning them to their destruction - Yuuji protected their humanity.

"Do you remember the night we made Shion and Ayame?"

Yuuji blinked a few times, taken aback by that question. There was no particular expression on Sukuna's face, but it was so strange that such a question had come out of his mouth. Usually, it was the younger sorcerer to recall those kinds of memories, telling their twins about the spring in which they had been conceived, why it had happened in Kyoto, and why, later, the events of that season had been called the Fall of the Blood Dynasty. The Kamo Clan still existed, but the other sorcerer families were well aware that Kamo Norithoshi - the young one - would be the last of his bloodline and that the next Piercing Blood's heirs would bear the name Ryoumen.

It was a thought that often crossed Yuuji's mind and was a topic that was not kept quiet in the Grand Council meetings of all sorcerer families. It was a promise of power for Ayame and the children she would have.

In his heart, Yuuji hoped that Noritoshi would succeed in having an heir and relieve her of such an honor.

Being his and Ryoumen Sukuna's daughter was more than enough of a burden for his baby girl.

"But his children will never be more powerful than your daughter," Satoru had told him one day. "Don't be afraid. There are two Clan leaders here who can help. Ayame is the daughter of two powerful sorcerers and has a family, not just by blood, that supports and protects her."

But Ayame was still five years old, and Yuuji and her father would not let her go anywhere for a long, long time. It was a happy night - it really was if Sukuna had decided to recall happy, important memories - and Yuuji wanted it to stay that way.

"I don't remember a night," the young sorcerer said with a mischievous smile. "I remember starry skies, sunrises, sunny days and colourful sunsets."

Sukuna rolled his eyes. "I said night just for the sake of saying, brat. I remember what we did in the nest of blankets in that gazebo. I'm ancient, not old."

Yuuji sighed. "I kind of regret not knowing the time when it happened, you know?" He admitted. "The moments were many and all beautiful. Only one thing I'm sure of: I was already pregnant on the night of my 16th birthday."

Sukuna lay back on the pillow. "You always said that," he said. "But I never understood where this confidence of yours came from."

Yuuji shrugged his shoulders as his fingers continued to run along the black lines of the tattoos, going up the ones on his husband’s neck and then on his face.

Their eyes met.

"There was a moment when nothing was the same anymore."

Sukuna arched his eyebrows in a puzzled expression.

"I don't know!" Yuuji exclaimed, settling back against his husband's chest. "At one point, I felt everything differently. My body, yours, the way our souls touched. There was more, it was no longer just the two of us. The shapes of our souls was different," he laughed in a soft way. "I know it's absurd. Nothing could have proved my pregnancy at that time."

Sukuna lifted his hand as he began to draw invisible circles around Yuuji's navel, as the younger man had done to himself just minutes earlier.

"You were almost poisoned to death a few days later," Sukuna recalled, bending an arm behind his head to allow the younger man to lay on him as he preferred. "Your body was tortured through your blood. If you had not been you, there would have been no chance of salvation even with the reverse technique."

Yuuji became serious. "Why are we talking about this?" He was good at enduring physical pain, but what he had experienced because of that poison... Even giving birth to twins had not hurt that much.

"Because you were definitely pregnant when you were poisoned," Sukuna said. "A hypothetical pregnancy was one of the reasons why the lady of the Kamo household tried to kill you, even though we didn't know about the twins yet. But Shion and Ayame survived anyway. From a medical point of view they were little more than nothing, as you said. From all other points of view, our children were already there and they were strong enough to fight and survive." A pause. "I believe you were right when you sensed a difference in the shape of our souls. But we were both unprepared, we couldn't know."

They had been so unprepared that they had failed to recognize those days of passion in that gazebo as Yuuji's first heat - the young sorcerer had never received a real Omega education, and the symptoms had been so mild that not even Sukuna had had any suspicion. He had blamed the desire they felt for each other for everything, the desperate attempt of their souls to become one again through the one act that allowed two people to unite in the flesh - in their case, even in another way - without asking further questions. Pleasure had dazzled them.

Their children had immediately proved worthy of them by taking them by surprise, surviving something that should have erased their existence forever.

Such strength had convinced Sukuna to accept the event for what it was - strength was his measurement meter for everything, after all.

Yuuji's choice had been more complex. Sukuna had not brought a life inside himself; it had been easy for him to make a judgment, make a decision, and keep a distance.Yuuji had been unable to distance himself even if he wanted to, because his body had reminded him of what was happening to him even in the smallest details, even before his belly had been visible. In the end, in the midst of so many doubts that he had not been able to count them, Yuuji had found himself thinking two things: he had no right to end a life that had already fight so hard to have a chance, and, more importantly, he could not do so when he knew how dazzling the light that had enveloped him while that life had been conceived had been.

Then they had discovered that the life in question were two. Twins.

It had been worse than finding out about the pregnancy itself. Because if for Yuuji it had been just one more challenge - and challenges did not scare him - it had been certain doom for Sukuna.

For weeks, the King of Curses had spoken of macabre stories of fetuses being devoured by other fetuses, destined to become creatures of a nature impossible to explain.

"It happened to me!"

"There is a scientific explanation for what happened to you, only in your time you couldn't know! The children are fine! The children will both be fine!"

The level of paranoia had reached the point where Yuuji had begun to become cruel.

"What are you really afraid of? That a creature stronger than you will be born? I am sorry to have to remind you, but it has already happened! I am stronger than you, and if, one day, our children will supass me and you… You will bow your head and accept it!"

Pointless pride.

Pointless anger.

Pointless paranoia.

Sukuna had been the one who had never detached himself from Ayame's incubator when their baby girl had gotten a bad infection in her lungs - already weak from birth - during her first winter. Yuuji would never forget the way Sukuna had spoken to her through the glass, and he would never forget his daughter's big eyes - which had been beginning to turn honey-colored - as they had been looking confidently at her father. 

The certainty that as long as he was around, nothing bad would ever happen to her. Even if Sukuna had been helpless the entire time.

Yuuji would never forget that helplessness because it had been his too.

The strongest ones.

The strongest ones.

The strongest.

Only to see their baby girl being shaken by coughing blows so violent that they could have broken her bones.

It had ended with that baby girl held safely in her father's strong arms. "She just doesn't know what it means to give up," Sukuna had said, looking at her with a pride that Yuuji had rarely seen reflected in his red eyes. "She is stubborn. She is her mother's daughter."

Perhaps that had been one of the moments when Yuuji had thought he loved him. A moment, as there had been others, alternating with those in which he had hated him with all his being.

But not that night.

That night was for them.

"I'm sure the children would be happy to be with you tomorrow," Yuuji said.

Sukuna stroked his side with his fingertips. "Is there something you are not telling me?"

Yuuji shook his head. "Nothing in particular, but I want Arima to know that our children are loved as much by me as by their father. There is a big difference between a child and an heir, and I want everyone in this temple to know what Ayame and Shion are to us."

"Do you think they are so stupid that they don't understand that?"

"I think they just can't understand us," the younger sorcerer replied.

"This is nothing new. Why should it be a problem for us? The people you want to be understood by can be counted on the tips of your fingers, you never cared about everyone else. It's never been a problem for me to waste time with."

Yuuji lifted his gaze. "I want it to be obvious that our children are untouchable."

"I'm telling you that they would be perfect fools to think otherwise."

"Any sorcerer who has tried to challenge you can be judged insane, yet there have been hundreds of them."

Sukuna surrendered to the evidence with a weary smile. "The children will stay with me tomorrow," he decided. "They are both smart. They might notice something interesting."

"Thank you," Yuuji settled back against his husband's chest again. "I doubt the conversation between Ren and me is over. He is also a creature of Kenjaku in one way or another. Let's work as a team and everything will be fine."

They were silent for a while, but neither of them was sleeping. There was a chaos of thoughts in the younger man's head, and the King could not hear them as his own - Yuuji had been clever to raise the wall between their souls again - but he could guess them.

"That name must cease to have such power over you," Sukuna said suddenly, looking at the curtains of the four-poster bed.

Yuuji rose a second time, and the coldness in his eyes was softened a little only by the wistful smile on his lips. "It is my darkness," he said. "It's there. It's always been there, even when I didn't know it, and it will always be there. You should know better than anyone else."

Sukuna snoozed, lulled by the spring breeze that threaded through the branches of the flowering sakura trees. Yuuji had disappeared over the bridge connecting the gazebo to the land and returned half an hour later with a tray full of things to eat.

"It's lunch, do you want some?"

Sukuna did not even open his eyes to see what the food was. He was not so hungry as to end the state of comfort he was in. He was fine and merely shook his head to inform Yuuji that he could eat on his own.

"Your loss!" The boy exclaimed. Perhaps he had prepared that meal with his own hands especially for the two of them - Sukuna was not in the habit of lavishing compliments on the other half of his soul, but the brat could cook well - and the King of Curses was ruining his romantic plan with his laziness.

They would both get over it.

They had eaten together before and would eat together again.

If spring continued to bless them with those beautiful days, Sukuna doubted they would leave that gazebo too soon.

Their mission in Kyoto was not yet over, but a break would not affect the final outcome. The Kamo Clan knelt before him and Yuuji as if they were the lords of the city. The feats they had accomplished and the victories they had achieved together had served three-quarters of the purpose.

That left the political part, the more tedious part, which Sukuna was not in the habit of wasting time with - a couple of blown heads could accomplish more than hours of useless talk - but there was a new world to be built, and it was his and Gojo Satoru's brats who had started the process, one blasphemy at a time.

After all, that chapter of the King of Curses' story, written after the epilogue, was not as bad as he had thought during the first few scenes.

Lost in his state of comfort, Sukuna took a while to realize that two honey-colored eyes were staring at him with some insistence. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was not the feeling of well-being that distracted him, but the fact that by now Yuuji's closeness was a completely natural thing for him.

If he had thought about it too much, he would have thought it was a disgusting thing. In order not to spoil the atmosphere, it was necessary to interrupt both the flow of his thoughts and his stupor.

Sukuna lifted his eyes and saw Yuuji eating ungainly - there was not a single fiber of elegance in that brat - staring at him. But he was not looking at his face; rather, it was one part of his body in particular that was the object of his undivided attention.

Sukuna smiled in amusement. "Couldn't you see it well enough in the moonlight?" He had no clothes on - the number of hours that had passed since he had last bothered to put on his kimono was impossible to count now. Yuuji himself was in no more decent state than his own.

He had dressed in a hurry to go cook lunch, but he had knotted his obi the wrong way and the fabric of his kimono had slipped off his right shoulder, leaving the pale skin exposed.

In a few minutes, the King of Curses knew they would both be naked again.

Yuuji blushed to the tips of his ears and turned toward the pond surrounding the gazebo, as if he had not been caught in the act. "I've already seen everything there was to see," he mumbled, continuing to eat.

"It would be stupid not to take a good look at something before putting it in your mouth," Sukuna said to tease him.

Yuuji glared at him. "Sometimes you bring up this brothel vulgarity..."

"Are you an expert on brothels now, brat?"

"I'm surrounded by men who are and who talk to me as if I should be, too."

Sukuna knew what he was referring to. "Men born and raised in the great clans are boring beings by nature. They think that carnal pleasure is the highest level of entertainment. They are repetitive and primitive."

"And isn't it?" Yuuji asked.

Sukuna arched his eyebrows.

"Isn't carnal pleasure the highest level of entertainment?"

It was a trick question. It was an unequal duel.

Whatever Sukuna answered, Yuuji would come out on top. He decided to play a bit of a coward for once and turned his gaze away with a sigh.

Yuuji, of course, laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "Your body and soul are more honest than your words."

Sukuna decided that continuing to remain silent and ignoring him was the right strategy, but Yuuji had decided that by now they both had to descend to the level of brothel chatter, and, made more confident by the small victory he had just got, he decided to put embarrassment aside.

"Does it get bigger?"

The question forced Sukuna to look him in the face. "What did you say?"

Yuuji took the napkin from the tray and wiped the last traces of rice from his mouth. "The form you have now is a faithful copy of your… Human body, right? This is the aspect that you learnt to create because of the cursed energy because it is a more practical body to move among human beings."

Sukuna nodded, not understanding why they were talking about such an old topic. "I'm glad that sometimes that little brain of yours works when I explain things to you. I was born cursed and before my glory days I had to learn how to survive. But why are we talking about these things? You already know everything."

"But if I wanted to..." Yuuji hesitated. "You can manipulate your cursed energy so as to become... That other one."

"That other..."

"You know exactly what I mean! You can take on your real appearance if you want to, right?"

"You want to know if I can become the Ryoumen Sukuna of the legends again," Sukuna concluded. "The creature with four arms and two faces."

"Yes, and that..." Yuuji imitated a shape with his hands, perhaps that of a giant mouth, but gave up soon after, shaking his head. "Never mind... My question is, if you took that form...?" The sentence remained suspended.

Sukuna put the pieces together and burst out laughing, but at that point he wanted the brat to humiliate himself to the core. "I didn't hear the question."

"You don't need to hear it, because you got it." Yuuji's face was so red that he looked like he was about to explode. "When you turn," he made a vague hand gesture toward the older man's pelvis, being careful not to turn to look at him for even a split second. "I mean... Do you get bigger?"

"I don't know."

Yuuji looked at him as if he wanted to beat him with the tray. "What do you mean you don't know?"

"That is my cursed form..."

"That is the form you were born with."

"It's the same thing," Sukuna shrugged. "Do you think someone wanted to fornicate with a monster? You are naive but not that naive."

Yuuji huffed. "I guess there was a line to fornicate with the King, though."

"That's called hypocrisy… Or thirst for power, as the case may be. We are not talking about that. I use that form to fight or to be ready to fight. I don't waste time taking measurements."

Yuuji stared at him with the most disappointed pout in his repertoire, then went back to eating his lunch as if the conversation had never happened.

By the time Sukuna spoke the proposal had been on the tip of his tongue for a few minutes. "Would you like to try?"

Yuuji froze for a moment, then continued eating. "Now?" He asked, after a while, without looking at him.

"No, I don't think it's wise to play these kinds of games in the house of the Kamo Clan," Sukuna replied. That scene was particularly amusing him, and the prospect of what Yuuji was offering lit something under his skin that he did not know but had every intention of exploring. "I didn't expect you to want to fornicate with the monster, brat."

Yuuji laughed and Sukuna was taken aback by that reaction.

"Monster..." The younger sorcerer repeated, as if it were a funny word. "What I'm talking about is just an erotic game. A forbidden fantasy, call it what you like... But fornicating with a monster..." Yuuji huffed. "You are you, Sukuna. I know the shape of your soul and that doesn't change. Never."

Hiroki was in the council room when Ren found him.

The black-haired sorcerer was busy examining some maps of the city, perhaps thinking about how to organize another team to exorcise the central districts, where the curses were greater in number and were more powerful.

Ren didn't know, didn't ask, didn't care.

It was a summer night, but he felt cold.

He had felt cold all his life and was tired.

Hiroki asked him a question, maybe asked him what he was doing there or something. Ren barely listened and did not bother to answer him.

His lips adhered to Hiroki's a moment later.

It was not an innocent kiss. It was a request - desperation.

Overcoming the initial inhibition, Hiroki responded to the kiss with the same slow passion. Ren smiled against his lips.

They loved each other. They wanted each other. This had always been and this would never change.

Instinctively, Hiroki urged Ren to sit on the table, inviting him to spread his legs to make room for himself, while his hands were busy with the obi and the fabric that separated them.

For Ren it was like breathing again. He stretched out on the round table, over those maps that contained their survival plan - it would not last much longer and could wait for at least one night.

The fabric of the blue yukata opened and the young Omega's skin was caressed by the breeze of that summer night as Hiroki's mouth descended on him. It was a shower of kisses but they were not gentle: that mouth wanted to devour him.

Ren could not remember the last time he had felt that liquid fire coursing through his veins. He could not remember the last time he had felt so alive.

I can have what Yuuji has too, he repeated to himself in his head. I can have it, too. I can.

Hiroki's mouth stopped at the level of his navel. "Do you want me to use my mouth or my hands?"

Ren lifted his head. He smiled. He was drunk with passion. "I want you..." He murmured. "I want you inside me."

The fire died out as quickly as if it had been swept away by a sudden winter.

Hiroki stared down at him from above, his hands resting on the sides of his body. He said nothing as he straightened his back. Ren felt the cold return as violently as death.

"Hiroki..." He called to him, seating himself on the edge of the table and grabbing his arm.

The grey-dressed sorcerer had no intention of moving away, but the absence of light in his dark eyes was enough to confirm to Ren that his wish would not come true on that summer night.

"We can't," Hiroki said, shaking his head.

Ren sank his fingers into the gray fabric of his uniform - his hair was the same color, but it had not always been so. "I trust you."

"It's not about trust, Ren. The facts are other."

"Your imitation is perfect!" Ren exclaimed, exasperated. "No one noticed - no one could say - you are a human being, Hiroki. You can love me as a human being, I know you can!"

"Lower your voice," Hiroki sighed, looking around, even though he knew the whole temple was asleep. When his eyes returned to rest on Ren's face, they were a little blacker than before. "You have to be careful about the words you use."

Ren wanted to start crying. "I have to be careful about the words I use, I have to be careful about what I wish for, I have to be careful not to demand too much… Even if that too much is just one night of love with the person I love."

Hiroki took his face in his hands. "Do you think I don't want you? Do you think I don't love you?" His eyes weren't human, but the desperation that made them glow was, it sure was.

Arima Hiroki was a contradiction, a blasphemy, something that should never have existed.

But Arima Ren had wanted him and wanted him with all his heart.

"Give me time to talk to the King of Curses," Hiroki said. "I have told you what my plan is, and I am sure he will be willing to share his knowledge with me if I offer him the freedom that-"

"Ryoumen Sukuna is already free!" Ren exclaimed, despite having already been told to lower his voice. "Ryoumen Sukuna does not need what you can offer him! If you take Yuuji away from him, you will die. Do you understand that? You will die!"

Hiroki adjusted a strand of grey hair behind his mate's ear. "The memories you stole from Ryoumen Yuuji confuse you. You cannot know what goes through the King's head, but I felt that destructive force… I felt it, Ren. Ryoumen Sukuna is not free. He is a natural disaster locked up in a cage called Itadori - because that is his real name - Yuuji, and all he wants is to be able to unleash that power again, that destruction."

Ren cried. He lowered his gaze, surrendering to the cruel reality. "It's no use, Hiroki," he murmured. "There is no hope for those like us, no hope on the path you have chosen to follow."

Hiroki clenched his fists, and the anger he felt fill his chest made his eyes even blacker. Ren was not afraid of the creature before him. It was the irony of his life: he had never been afraid of the monster under his bed because everything he had been around all his life had been infinitely worse. He had realized early on that the monster was as lonely as he was, and by combining their respective lonelinesses they had become what they were.

But the Grandmaster, the experiments of the creature called Kenjaku - Yuuji's mother - and all the darkness that had ensued had doomed them forever.

Hiroki calmed down and wrapped his arms around Ren in an embrace that encapsulated all the promises they had exchanged since they could remember. "I will give you the happiness I promised."

Ren hid his face against her shoulder. "You will pay the price, Hiroki."

His only hope was that when the tragic day came, he would be granted freedom from that curse too.

2019

— January —

Sukuna had said that he would go to Kyoto and take back what was his. But Megumi had already done so.

He had moved through the shadows to prevent others from accompanying him, but in his haste he had not closed the portal he had created, and Yuuji and Yuuta had followed him as soon as they had noticed.

Megumi had done so while bleeding, ignoring the pain running through his body from the ongoing miscarriage, and the shadows had managed to take him beyond the barrier of the Gojo Clan, inside that golden cage from which the head of the family itself had escaped without looking back.

Megumi had dragged himself while trying to reach Gojo Satoru, but it had not seemed pathetic, not even for a moment.

Yuuji remembered the fire in his green eyes, made all the more dangerous by the pain both his skin and his soul felt.

Yuuji remembered the pride with which he had faced Gojo Ryuunosuke, who had done nothing but look down on him as if he were nothing.

Yuuji remembered feeling hatred for the man he did not know as he had lifted Megumi off the floor - despite his weakness, his friend had fought to sta y -and carried him home again.

Megumi was not with them on that occasion, but Yuuji had not forgotten anything about the hell of the seven days following the Battle of Shinjuku. Yuuji had not forgotten the pain, the despair, and the thought that dying would be an easier fate for all of them - it was a darkness that was not part of his nature, but it had touched him all the same. The opposite would have been impossible.

There were tall trees in front of Yuuji, as there were on all the mountains surrounding Kyoto. But his honey-colored eyes looked beyond, to something that was not visible. Not yet.

"Are you ready?" Yuuta was at his side.

Yuuji looked at him.

Ijichi had left them by the side of the nearest road. The plan was simple: if Gojo Satoru's two students did not return within two hours, the auxiliary manager would start calling everyone they knew in Kyoto.

They would find out that day whether they had allies there or were completely alone picking through the rubble of Tokyo as the merger expanded.

Yuuta really did not need an answer.

Yuuji had not come all that far to turn back.

"Do you want me to do it?" The older student asked.

"No," the 15-year-old sorcerer who had killed and brought Sukuna back to life raised his right hand. "They better recognize right away the power that is threatening them."

Yuuji may have been an idealist - or perhaps he was no longer - but he was not so naïve as to believe that there would be room for diplomacy in that meeting. Gojo Ryuunosuke had made his choice the moment he had been cruel to Megumi in front of his eyes.

"Let us begin..."

A thousand invisible slashes attacked the barrier that hid the Gojo Clan's main residence, reducing it into a thousand pieces.

2025

— June —

Sukuna was not the first to wake up the next morning.

He turned his face, but he saw that Yuuji was still asleep, lying on his side. He remained watching his bare back, as the breeze of the early hours of that summer morning entered from the shoji that had remained open, moving the curtains of the four-poster bed. Sleep let go of his mind gradually, and after a few moments, he realized what had awakened him.

"Ayame speak softly. If you keep this up, you will wake them up."

"I am speaking softly..."

Sukuna heard an exasperated sigh from Shion.

"You just aren't able to talk or move without being chaotic."

Well… Yuuji was the same.

The King of Curses got out of bed. The night before, he had folded his clothes on the wooden floor before joining Yuuji in the pond. He wore only his underwear; he would return later to get the rest to get ready and start the day.

First he wanted to figure out what had happened that was so interesting as to wake the children so early. As he adjusted the elastic fabric around his waist, his four red eyes rested on Yuuji's sleeping face. His mate was sleeping peacefully with his lips barely parted, one hand tucked under his pillow and one beside his face.

He had not noticed that he was left alone on the bed.

Sukuna left the room quietly, and the children's voices reached him in the hallway.

"He will not be happy that we came here," Ayame said displeased.

Sukuna froze and stood, listening.

"He told you that Mom is a fool too," Shion replied.

"But he said it in a loving way! The way you do when you say I'm stupid-"

"I don't say it in a loving way. You are stupid for real."

The sound of a slap interrupted the conversation.

"Ouch!" Shion groaned. "Keep those hands down, you fool!"

The absence of a tone-deaf retort made Sukuna sense that his daughter must have stuck her tongue out at her brother.

"I think he wanted to talk to Mom," Ayame continued in a lower voice - perhaps sadder. "He wanted to talk to Mom, but he didn't know how. And now he's left alone in that house again..."

"Don't think about it, Ayame," Shion said in a practical tone. "Mom and Dad don't want to stay here at the temple for a long time."

"How do you know?"

"Because neither of them likes this temple."

"I know, but that doesn't mean we'll go back to Mom's old home anytime soon."

"We will. Mom wants to go back to the old house, and when we go back there, he won't be alone anymore. You don't have to worry."

"Who is he?" Sukuna appeared in the doorway of the children's bedroom without warning.

The twins were sitting in the middle of the big bed, and Shion was still massaging his arm where his sister must have hit him just before. The way they both fell silent and stiffened confirmed to the King of Curses that he had heard something that should have remained a secret.

He did not like it at all.

"Did we wake you up, Dad?" Shion asked.

"Excuse us, Dad!" Ayame said immediately, pointing her big golden eyes at his - little bratty strategist. "We didn't mean to wake you up."

"I asked you a question." Sukuna had no desire to play. "Who is he?"

"Ayame has an imaginary friend," Shion said with the bored expression of someone who is forced to listen to too much nonsense too often. "And she's worried because now that we're here at the temple, her friend who doesn't exist is left alone at Mom's old home."

Ayame puffed up her cheeks in offense.

The absence of hesitation in Shion's answer left little doubt about his sincerity. This meant two things: either the twins were not hiding any secrets or they were very good at it.

Sukuna knew his children too well not to know what the right answer was.

He took a couple of steps inside the room. "I'll ask you a second time," he said, serious. "Who is he?"

Children had imaginary friends, it was a common fact, always had been. But not those who could see things that ordinary people did not even suspect existed.

Both children remained silent.

Sukuna looked at his daughter. "Ayame-"

"Don't hurt him!" The way she looked like Yuuji sometimes disturbed him. "He is not a curse. He is not dangerous."

Sukuna was losing patience. "I asked you a question, children."

Ayame held up her gaze, proud and not at all afraid. She was her mother's daughter, there was little the King could do about it. The only difference was that Yuuji had never had any adoration for him, and in his daughter's place, he would have told him to go to hell long ago - Sukuna feared her adolescence a little.

Shion decided not to waste his time. "There is a spirit in Mom's old house."

The four red eyes of the King of Curses shifted to those identical to his own on his son's face. "What kind of spirit, boy?"

"An echo," Shion replied.

He was referring to the traces of a soul that had remained attached to the earthly world for reasons not always understandable. They were usually harmless, ghosts that often did not even have self-awareness. They could either pass to the other side independently or remain imprisoned because of their own darkness and become curses.

In cases of suspected haunting, a sorcerer was required to intervene even in the absence of serious facts.

In Sukuna's judgment, no place was better suited to hold a ghost from the past than Yuuji's childhood home.

"Did he tell you who he is?" He asked in a more patient voice.

The children shook their heads.

"All he said was that he knows Mom and was worried about him," Ayame said.

"And he said Mom is an idiot," Shion emphasized, as if that fact offended him deeply.

Sukuna decided not to comment on that last part. "I'll go check-"

Ayame ran out of bed and clasped his hand between her small ones. "Don't hurt him!"

Sukuna sighed, calling on all his patience. "I said I'll go and check. That's all I said." He was lying.

It did not surprise him that the spirit - whoever it belonged to - had chosen the children to manifest itself. They were innocent souls, unlike him.

If Sukuna had felt that this nonearthly being could pose a problem, he would have acted as he should, and it mattered little if Ayame had cried. Yuuji had a habit of crying over lost causes too.

Sukuna ran his fingers through his daughter's wavy hair. A gesture to reassure her about the matter - even if it was a lie - and to move on to the next matter. "You will both stay with me today," he said, passing his eyes from the girl to the boy. "Let your mother rest."

As soon as night fell, he would return to town without telling anyone and investigate the nature of the spirit haunting his spouse's old house.

2019

— January —

Sukuna did not know where he was.

People passed in front of him as if he did not exist.

No one was stopping. Everyone had a place to head to.

It must have been a station, and he was sitting on one of those waiting chairs placed on the platform between two tracks.

His mind took him back to one of the last acts of the Battle of Shinjuku, when Yuuji had shown him his humanity, explaining to him in words his the value of life.

That had been the moment when Yuuji had felt pity for him, igniting in him an anger he had never felt before.

The event he was experiencing at that moment was similar and completely different.

Yuuji was not there but he was not the only soul moving in that dimension.

For a while, the King's red eyes stared at the crowd moving in front of him with no real interest.

If he was dreaming, he did not remember falling asleep.

If he was in the Domain of a Curse, he would have come out easily. But his instincts told him that was not the case.

"He didn't give you a choice, did he?"

Sukuna turned to his right.

There was a man sitting two chairs away from his. He knew him. His white hair and blue eyes would have made him recognizable among a thousand people.

"Everything you are and have been is because of a choice you made," Gojo Satoru looked at him with a smirk that was a little wistful and a little pitying. "But in the end, you couldn't even choose to die by your own rules."

Sukuna clawed at the fabric of his pants. "What about you?" He asked, provoking him. "Did you choose?"

Gojo Satoru chuckled. He was a shadow of the warrior he had fought against in Shinjuku. There was still a little of his arrogance in his smirk, but he was tired. He looked sick.

"What did we really choose?" Gojo asked. "And what was just a simple acceptance of what fate has decided for us?"

"I admit you are disappointing me," Sukuna said, leaning his shoulders against the back of the chair. The crowd around them continued to move. "In a thousand years, you are the only man for whom I have felt respect."

"I am honored."

"Don't spoil it after the epilogue."

"What epilogue?" Gojo asked. "You're back, aren't you? The story is not over yet..."

Sukuna stared at him and for the first time since the beginning of that conversation realized what was really going on. "What about you?" He asked. "Even though it was not your choice... Did you came back?"

Gojo Satoru did not answer him; he merely gave him an enigmatic smile.

An instant later, Sukuna was back in the real world. His four eyes stared at the snow at his feet. He had not moved away from the little wall he had been leaning against throughout his conversation with the woman doctor. The pack of cigarettes she had left him was still clutched between his fingers.

Perhaps only moments had passed since she had given it to him.

Sukuna lifted his gaze: around him there was only snow and silence.

Inside him was the knowledge that Gojo Satoru's soul, wherever it was, had managed to find and touch his own.

2025

— June —

Yuuji woke up in a very good mood.

It was the song of the birds that made him open his eyes slowly. The shoji had remained open, and the sound of water from the pond accompanied that ode to the new day in a way that seemed to invite him back to sleep.

But the sun was high and it was time for him to rise as well. He took a seat in the center of the large four-poster bed, lifting both arms to stretch with a smile. It had been weeks since he had slept so well - it had been weeks since he had made love to his husband.

Yuuji let himself fall back into the sheets, enjoying the way his smell had mingled with Sukuna's between the sheets.

It had been a beautiful night.

Yuuji got out of bed with a hop and a jump and opened one of the wall cabinets to check what was in it. As they had been promised earlier, there was everything he needed to take care of himself and get dressed. He chose a light green yukata, then headed to the bathroom to get ready. As he walked down the hall he looked out into the children's room: it was empty and everything was in order. Sukuna had made Shion and Ayame tidy up, before leaving the house together as the two of them had agreed the previous night.

Yuuji was alone.

All he had to do was to go to the kitchen and check what the pantry offered to prepare breakfast.

He walked down the hallway whistling a cheerful tune, but whose origin he could not remember. His cheerfulness was short-lived and so was his certainty that he was alone.

"Good morning." Ren was kneeling in front of the low living room table, while a young girl - she could not have been more than fourteen years old - poured him tea.

Yuuji stood in the doorway of the room as if he was frozen, but Ren smiled at him. A friendly smile, but one that had nothing sincere about it.

"You woke up late this morning," said the grey-haired young man, taking his cup of tea and motioning the girl to leave. "I've been waiting for you for a while, you know. It's not good manners to keep guests waiting."

Yuuji watched the girl leave with quick step and low gaze. "I didn't know I had guests," he said. It was not a justification, but a veiled accusation.

Ren's gaze turned cold. He had never looked at him like that before, and Yuuji felt as if his mask had fallen off.

"It is you and your family who are guests in our house, don't forget that," Ren said, as if offended.

He was not even the twin brother of the young man Yuuji had spoken to the day before. His personality was completely different and so was his attitude toward him. Sure, Ren had exhibited strange behaviors before, and Yuuji had all blamed them on the difficult life he had lived, but that was something different.

The Ren who had tea in front of him was not the same person Yuuji had met upon his arrival at Rinnoji Temple.

"Come, let's have breakfast together," Ren invited him.

The 22-year-old had no choice. He moved slowly as he approached, studying the grey-haired young man - it was gathered in a low pigtail at the base of his head - carefully, as if he might attack him at any moment. Even if he did, Yuuji knew he would have no problem defending himself. But he preferred to avoid hurting anyone unless it was strictly necessary.

He sat cross-legged on the opposite side of the table and noticed only then that there were other items on the table: an already prepared breakfast, covered with cellophane and a note stuck on top of it.

Shion and I cooked, was written in Ayame's still uncertain handwriting. Dad says it's not poison. See you later, Mom. We love you!

If Ren had not been there, Yuuji would have smiled as if he were the happiest person in the world. Faced with that stranger of dubious lucidity, he had the impression that that simple gesture of love did not play in his favor.

"Don't you like it?" Ren asked, placing the cup on the table.

"I didn't say that."

"You don't look happy."

"I'm not happy that something that was meant for me, only for me, ended up under someone else's eyes."

Ren huffed and then, without warning, reached out his right hand and clenched his fist on the note written by Ayame, crumpling it up as if it were trash. "If it has no value to you, we may as well throw it away."

Yuji's eyes widened as his daughter's note was thrown across the room and landed on the engawa. Fortunately, it did not end up in the pond. "What the hell-"

"You should show gratitude for the gifts you are given," Ren tried it again, as if he were talking to a wayward child.

If Yuuji had had any doubts about Ren's lucidity, he had none now. It was useless to show his anger at the act he had just suffered. He had to maintain control because it was evident that the young man in front of him had none on his mind.

This is what happens when Kenjaku decides to play with other people's lives, a voice in his head whispered.

But Sukuna was right, Yuuji could not allow that name to have such power over him.

He was aware of what was in front of him and could deal with it.

"Drink with me," Ren said, taking the teapot the girl had left on the table to fill the cup Ayame and Shion had chosen for their mother.

"With all due respect," Yuuji replied coldly. "I decline the offer..."

Ren smiled as if he had expected it. "The trust between us was short-lived, huh?"

Yuuji did not judge Ren's attitude as the right one to create an alliance, but it was now obvious that that was Arima's project in which his mate was not that interested.

"What can I do for you, Ren?" Yuuji asked. He wanted to ask him to leave, but he knew it would be useless.

Ren huffed, "You're boring, you know that?" He threw the teapot the same way he had thrown Ayame's note and it smashed into a thousand pieces, behind him, as the tea in it created a puddle a on the wooden floor. "You continue to be kind, even though you have no desire to be. I can see it in your eyes that you don't want me here."

Yuuji tightened his lips until they became a thin line. Who he had become since the day the merger had begun was a completely different person from the fifteen-year-old boy whose life Megumi and Satoru had saved. Some still called him Itadori Yuuji, but Itadori Yuuji had died sometime between the Shibuya Incident and the Battle of Shinjuku.

"Give me one good reason why I should no longer be kind, and the way you leave this house will only be a consequence of your actions," he said, frostily.

Yuuji knew very well what kind of look had appeared on his face, the same look as the fifteen-year-old sorcerer who had offered the King of Curses a final gesture of mercy before giving him death.

Ren's expression changed immediately.

Perhaps he saw something frightening in the eyes of the creature in front of him - perhaps he saw his own decapitated head roll away, he saw its blood mixed with the tea on the floor.

Whatever he saw made him lower his gaze. "I need you to tell me something," he said in a decidedly gentler tone.

Yuuji decided to give him that chance. "I'm listening..."

Ren raised his large, desperate eyes to his. "How did you turn a monster into a man?"

Chapter Text

Yuuji did not know if the power to touch souls had always been his.

Sukuna was certain about it.

"I never saw any curses before the night we met," Yuuji said, taking the clothes that had just come out of the dryer to fold them on the kitchen table. He would put them in place later, when Ayame woke up.

"It doesn't mean anything. How you managed to contain my soul without dying is no longer a mystery, and the fact that you have part of my cursed technique is a direct consequence. After that, being able to assimilate Piercing Blood as your own is not that surprising. Also, you had out-of-the-ordinary abilities even before you met me, you were probably born with Heavenly Restriction and this could have been either a planned thing or a fluke. We do not know exactly the circumstances surrounding your birth," Sukuna replied. "And I understand that this generation of sorcerers has no idea what can be done using sorcery without setting rules for themselves. Maybe Gojo can imagine it, but he never did it." He stood hunched over the baby bathtub placed on the opposite side of the table, his arms dipped up to his elbow to support Shion's small body

"The rules are to prevent men with great powers from becoming uncontrollable calamities."

Sukuna turned his gaze away from their son to address him with a smirk. "Curious choice of words, tiger." He moved his right hand under the baby’s back as he washed him with his left. "I lived in a time that had such rules that you could never accept and, at the same time, there were none."

"Human rights," Yuuji said, separating the twins' clothes from his and his mate's. "The two key words you don't know are human rights."

Sukuna ran his fingers through Shion's black hair, and the child let out a whimper when a drop of water landed in his eye. "All right, all right," he told him.

Shion trusted his calmness and became quiet again immediately.

Yuuji stood still with his hands resting on the laundry basket, observing the scene with a smile. "Shion and Ayame are in love with your voice." And he understood perfectly why. "Don't ever laugh out loud in front of them, please."

"It's just a voice they know," Sukuna downplayed.

"They know mine too, but I assure you that when I talk to them, they don't look at me like that."

"Because yours is irritating."

"Because yours is irritating," Yuuji repeated with a grimace, folding two more T-shirts and two onesies - one pink and one blue - then he lifted his eyes to enjoy that scene a little more. Sukuna changed completely when he was with the children. He did it so much that the young sorcerer was surprised that his mate allowed him to witness those moments. His husband could be both brutally honest and a skillful liar, but with Ayame and Shion he wasted no time in making an effort to do or be anything.

Their son sneezed, and Sukuna decided that that bath had lasted even too long. "Don't throw a tantrum, brat," he said in anticipation, but when the little boy was lifted from the water, he did not like the change in temperature at all. "Shhh..." His father laid him down on the towel he had already prepared on the table.

Yuuji walked over, using the flap of the towel to dry his baby’s black hair, while Sukuna thought about the rest of the small body. Seeing them together, Shion consoled himself by shoving a fist into his mouth and staring at them with big red eyes.

Yuuji laughed. "He is glad to see us."

"He saw you and realized that the sooner we finish here, the sooner he can go back to his favorite activity."

A few minutes later they were both sitting on the couch, the half-folded laundry forgotten on the table, while Shion enjoyed his moment of comfort clinging to his mother's chest.

"Quietness..." Sukuna said, as he looked at them.

"Yeah..." Yuuji agreed. It was a more unique than rare event in a home with twins only a few months old. “If my technique of touching souls has always been mine, why don't I know its name?"

Sukuna shrugged his shoulders. "You were never ordinary as a boy, and you are not ordinary as a sorcerer either. There is logic in that."

"And a sorcery nerd like you has no guesses about a case like mine?" Yuuji smiled amused. "That disappoints me a bit."

His mate leaned the back of his head against the back of the couch. "I have two, actually."

"You never told me that."

"We're just talking about this now."

"Then talk to me about your hypothesis.”

"You absorbed cursed energy from both me and the Death Paintings and your body and soul reacted accordingly. The domain you used against me is yours and yours alone, not dependent on anything you absorbed, but needed to be brought out by an outside force. A good modern comparison might be with an organ transplant. If you replace a diseased organ with a healthy one, there are chances that the healed person will be able to do things he could not do before. Although I believe that Heavenly Restriction is just another kind of power and not a disease, as the sorcerer society has thought from the dawn of time until now."

It made sense.

"And what is the second one?” Yuuji asked.

Sukuna looked him straight in the eye. "The second is that you are you," he said. "We are talking about a power that is not offensive - unless you decide it becomes so - and that touches people's souls by granting them a chance to be saved. Benevolence toward the enemy. I can't think of a cursed technique that could be more yours than this."

.

.

.

.

.

2025 

— June —

Yuuji was uneasy.

Ren could not know it, but that question took him back in time, to a scene in his past that he wished he could erase: the worst fight he and Megumi had had, during the first weeks of Yuuji's pregnancy.

"Do you listen to yourself when you speak?" His friend had asked, incredulous, betrayed, hurt. "You talk about him as if he were a man."

Six years and many events later, Yuuji had no different explanation than the one he had given Megumi. 

"Sukuna is a human being," he said. "He was born as such and came back as such. I did nothing except defeat him in one form and bring him back to life in another."

Ren rolled his eyes. All the respect - almost adoration - that he had shown the previous day toward him was gone without a trace, as if it had never existed, pulverized by deep despair that alternated with searing anger. 

Ren was not a particularly clear-headed person, Yuuji had realized this from the first moment, but there was far too much reasoning in the way he sought answers from him.

"You contradicted yourself," Ren said. "You said Sukuna was born human and became human again. What was he before you defeated him?"

"A spirit," Yuuji replied. "A spirit divided into twenty fragments."

"A cursed spirit."

"Certainly he wasn’t a blessing."

Ren arched his eyebrows. "You seem to be making an effort not to call your husband a curse."

"Because he is not." Yuuji would never change his mind about this. "He never was."

Ren didn't understand, it showed in his eyes. "They called him many things. Calamity, Fallen, King… None of these titles were to honor glorious deeds."

"That's not entirely true," Yuuji retorted. 

The gray-haired man reclined his head to one side. "You were so willing to talk yesterday. What's the matter with you now?"

"You were kind to me yesterday, too. Both of our moods are not the best right now, I guess." 

The previous day, Yuuji had wanted to help by indulging the curiosity of a person who had never had a chance to really live. But Ren had dared too much, and although Yuuji had no intention of harming him, he was unwilling to give him more than he needed. He just wanted to understand what lurked in the shadows of Rinnoji Temple and he knew that Kenjaku's experiments were only part of the truth. Sukuna thought the same thing.

Yuuji could not pass up the chance to take a step forward. "Who is the monster you would like to make human, Ren?"

If the other had feared him, it had been a short spell. Ren slammed both fists on the table. "I'm the one asking the questions here!"

"If you are so convinced that I can help you, let me do it!"

"No! No! No!" Ren took his head in his hands, pulling his hair. "You have to listen to me! You must answer my questions!"

Yuuji had never been happier that the children were with Sukuna than at that moment. "Ren, breathe… Breathe and talk to me. I will listen to you.” 

"I don't need your understanding," Ren hissed, but his voice trembled. "I need answers-"

"Sukuna is without mercy, he is capable of indescribable evil, but-"

"I can't understand... I don't... I can't understand..."

Yuuji was not sure he was talking to him. "Wickedness is born in the human soul, Ren. Curses are born from that, from the darker side of people. Not everyone can see it, not everyone can understand it, but evil things are human phenomenons."

"I have no need for you to explain this to me."

"I know."

"Then why are you wasting your breath?" Ren lifted his gaze slowly. "You say that evil is human. So what we call monsters are nothing but the worst exponents of humankind?"

"Everything begins and ends with the human soul, even things so cruel that we cannot accept them." A bitter smile appeared on Yuuji's face. "The first time I felt hatred was because of a curse. I doubt it was a coincidence that the curse in question defined itself as the manifestation of the contempt people feel toward each other."

"You're not talking about Sukuna," Ren emphasized.

Yuuji shook his head. "At the age of fifteen, as all the events that made me known occurred, I drew a line between human beings and curses. I considered Sukuna to be one of the latter; he identified himself as such. It was a simple, almost reassuring, distinction..."

"And then you gave yourself to him..."

Yuuji shook his head. "No, it happened before, in Shinjuku. It happened that our souls touched, for an instant, and in Sukuna I saw myself, what I would never have been but could have become." He had not thought much about that moment; the world had ended soon after and Sukuna had returned just seven days later. They had never spoken again about the moment when Yuuji's pity had won over Sukuna's anger. Two dazzling feelings, both very human.

The young sorcerer thought about it now, almost seven years and two children later.

"And I'm sure, looking at me, Sukuna saw the same," Yuuji added. And then he laughed, lightly. "Sukuna used to have this ability to… He still has it, actually: he can convince you that he's above all human emotion - and he's totally convinced of it himself - until his emotions explode. He is so loud when he is excited, he has a shrill laugh that makes you want to sew his mouth shut, then when the fun is over he clams up and pouts. He is moody, childlike. Even his anger is like that of a child: destructive to the point of excess, so much so that it seems to conceal a note of despair.”

Yuuji remembered his own coldness in threatening him with death. He remembered the mad anger Sukuna had shown when he had realized he was showing him mercy.

In hindsight, Yuuji had already won in that moment, forcing the King of Curses to look at him and only him.

"That is the most honest thing you have said about your husband in my presence."

Yuuji blinked a few times, remembering that he was not alone. Ren looked at him, and in his tired eyes he saw a gleam of reasonableness that was not there just before.

The young sorcerer inhaled deeply through his nose. "No, I was honest with you yesterday, too."

"Yes, when you were talking about the children."

"I was sincere about everything."

"No, you were not about Sukuna," Ren insisted. "You called it passion. You said that what you experienced with your husband that led to the birth of the twins was magical."

"I also said I could talk about it for hours without being able to explain it." If Yuuji had doubted that Ren had done anything to him during those few minutes of unconsciousness the previous day, he was certain now. He had come to him seeking answers, and suddenly he was talking to him as if he possessed more certainty than Yuuji did.

Ren shook his head. "No, I don't think there is anything as complex as you think," he said. "Your nature and history are. The feelings you have for each other are simple."

Yuuji was beginning to lose patience. "How can it be simple? Sukuna is my curse, but also the father of my children. I killed him and brought him back to life. We are two halves of the same soul, two forms of the same person! Tell me what would be simple about that!”

"Two halves of the same soul..." Ren repeated, his eyes filled with enchantment. "Two forms of the same person..." He sighed sadly. "It's so simple and you don't realize it." He shook his head. "No, maybe you have forgotten."

"I haven't forgotten any-!" Yuuji froze, putting aside his anger as a thought made its way through his mind. "My memories..." He said as if thinking aloud. "That's what your technique allows you to do, isn't it? You can see my memories."

"It's a more rudimentary and weak power than you think it is," Ren said, not at all upset that he had been discovered. "I have no power over your mind or your memories," he leaned across the table. "I can only steal from your soul what has marked it irreversibly, for better or worse. And your soul, though young, has been touched countless times."

Yuuji had no time to ask questions.

Ren touched his face, and the room around them vanished.

"It is time for you to remember, Yuuji..."

Yuuji understood how difficult it was to feel something that could not be explained in words when he realized that loving Ryoumen Sukuna as a whole was difficult, but loving pieces of him was terribly easy. 

The cruelty Yuuji had known through him was like a stain on a dark fabric. It could be washed, but in the sunlight a trace would always be visible that was impossible to erase.

Only in the intimacy of the moon's glow, that stain did not exist. Yuuji knew it was there, that not even an unstoppable force like death had been able to erase it, not for him. But in that comfortable darkness, Yuuji saw beyond the fire that had forged the myth and curse of the King of Curses.

The silver rays caressed Sukuna's wet skin little by little, and Yuuji, little by little, fell in love with him.

Living in the new house was like living in an ancient era. Yuuji was not used to the large spaces, the fine cloth clothes, the quiet nature outside the shoji of their rooms. He felt like the consort of a noble lord, and in a way, he was. 

"What are you doing here, brat?"

There was an artificial pond in their garden. It was located at the back of the dwelling and bordered the forest. It was a beautiful place to show in the sunlight, but it became intimate when night fell.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

But they had not allowed themselves to enjoy it.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I felt you, Sukuna."

Looking beyond the fire was not enough.

Yuuji had learnt to see beyond Sukuna's lies. It was like a cryptic language, something the strongest sorcerer in history had created for himself without realizing it. Yuuji had been the first to learn to read it, but it was not possible to decipher a soul in words. 

Sukuna did not ask him questions, but Yuuji answered them anyway as his yukata ended up on the grass without a sound. 

Summer had come, bringing with it a beautiful baby belly and, for the first time after months of emotional roller coaster and inner struggle, a smile had appeared on Yuuji's face again. He was proud of it.

He felt Sukuna's red eyes on him, a brushstroke of warm color in a landscape of cold hues. 

Beautiful.

"Give me your hands..."

It was easy to fall in love with Sukuna's hands when they touched him as if they did not know what to do. Hands accustomed to cruelty, unaware of kindness. It was easy to fall in love with his eyes when hesitation was a gentle glow in those red irises, the echo of a broken, forgotten humanity.

"It's like magic, isn't it? It makes you feel better right away."

Their fingers intertwined on the visible proof that the two lives they had generated together were growing.

"I wanted to ask you…Is it possible for me to feel them?"

"The doctor said it's too early to feel them move, you brat."

"No, I mean..." Everything about them was so difficult to put into words. "I feel their souls." A laugh, a nervous smile. "Or their cursed energy, I don't know... But I feel them... They are here, they are real."

"Your teacher says he feels the cursed energy of the twins in Fushiguro Megumi's womb. That is what his Six Eyes are for. Your domain is related to souls, I am not surprised that you are sensitive to two that are growing inside you. You play with mine as you please."

"Is that an accusation?" 

But Yuuji was smiling.

"I don't know..." 

Sukuna was looking at his belly, tracing invisible lines around his navel.

"One of them will have your mother's name."

Scarlet eyes met his. Yuuji was not asking a question or making a proposal. He had decided it, and nothing his mate would say would change his mind.

"You didn't even know her."

"I got to know her through your words and memories."

"Brat..."

"She had a flower name, Sukuna. Maybe it's a worthless sign for you, but I can't ignore it. I can't." The voice of fate was whispering something to him. "Shion..." He smiled, already in love with something that did not exist yet. "It means: I will not forget you. It is for her. It is for all the people to whom I owe this present of mine."

"You talk as if you owe her something too."

"I owe her everything. Don't pretend you don't understand. You can lie to everyone, but not to me."

Sukuna's eyes were cold and, at the same time, contained a fire. "You never met her..." He repeated in a threatening hiss.

Yuuji was not afraid. "Was your nightmare about her?"

Sukuna stopped touching him.

"I hope one of them has black hair," Yuuji added, looking at his belly. "Then it will be easier to decide which one to name Shion."

Those red eyes returned to look at him.

"I thought you were afraid that one of our children might look like Itadori Kaori."

"I'm beginning to see things in a different perspective. I cannot decide who our children will look like, nor can I deny that there is something of Kaori in me." A pause. It hurt him to talk about these things. "But I thought that if both of our mothers had black hair, then there's a high chance that one of our children will have it, too. And if so, I'd like them to look like your mother, because she chose you and our twins have the right to look like her… Kaori didn't choose anything."

Yuuji knew that Sukuna did not understand the pain he felt for the young woman who had been used to bring him into the world, just as he could not understand his mate's stubbornness in wanting to erase a mother who had loved him.

But they were like that.

Their souls could touch, but there would be an eternal war between them, with neither winners nor losers. Yet, if they were what they were, it was precisely because of the defeat of an undefeated king.

"Shion..." Sukuna said, as if it were a foreign name and not the first one he had learned to pronounce.

"Shion..." Yuuji confirmed in a whisper against his lips. "Ryoumen Shion..."

When Yuuji woke up - no, he did not wake up because he had never slept and what he had seen was a memory and not a dream - he found himself bent over the living room table, his head bowed and his mind clouded.

It was as if the line between past and present had been lost, leaving him in a state of confusion that made him doubt whether he had returned to reality.

Yuuji had been a spectator to that scene, but he had also been part of it. He had felt Sukuna's gaze on him, the water in the pond in the garden of their home in Tokyo, and then his husband's hands on his belly, the feeling that something was growing inside him. Yuuji pressed a hand against his abdomen, but his babies had already been born.

Ayame and Shion.

Shion, who had been born with his grandmother's black hair as he had hoped.

"So you lied about that, too."

That voice reminded Yuuji that he was not alone and who had made him relive that episode from the past. He lifted his head with difficulty and Ren was there, sitting composedly on the opposite side of the table. The mask of frost on his face was still intact.

"What does that mean?" Yuuji asked, pressing his hands on the table to help straighten his back.

"You told your high school senpai that you had chosen the name Shion in honor of the one you lost."

Those words were like a slap in the face. "And what do you know about what I told Sasaki?"

Ren huffed. "Stop pretending to be naive, Yuuji - or maybe not," he mused. "Maybe you really are. You came to this city alone with two children, after all. Sukuna joined you out of his own will and not because you wanted him to."

Arima must have been keeping an eye on them through his cursed bugs from the moment Yuuji and his children had set foot in Sendai. They had never been safe. Never.

Sukuna was right. Sukuna was damn right.

"How selfish..." Ren judged him mercilessly. "You dragged Ayame and Shion into something that was only about you, without thinking of the danger you were putting them in in a devastated city like this. No, it's not just selfishness, but also arrogance. Did you think you were untouchable, Yuuji? What mother would do this to-"

"I have the power to destroy this city with a snap of my fingers." Yuuji had officially stopped being nice. Neither of them had moved from that table, but the real naivety was believing that this was not a clash between two sorcerers. "If you had come to me and my children with ill intentions, they wouldn't have even found the pieces of you."

"But you would never hurt innocent people..." Ren leaned over the table. "Ayame and Shion are not here, so I'm sure before you attack me you will resist." He stroked his jaw line down to his chin. "Because, my dear Yuuji, you know very well that you could survive me but that I would be hopeless against you, and the guilt of what your mother did to me is eating you alive."

Yuuji had grown up by the sea.

His grandfather disliked confusion and if they were in danger of being surrounded by too many people, he avoided taking him there. Yuuji had learnt to swim in an ocean that reflected the bright colors of sunset or the gentler colors of sunrise, and he had taken long runs on the beach at any season of the year. That was how he had learnt to love the sea even in the fall and winter, when the wind blew through his hair and brought with it the scent of saltiness.

Yuuji had always associated that scent with the freedom of a boundless horizon.

He and Sukuna had gone to the beach together only once, and that had been the only day they had spent together that could be called a date. Their children had been born the following week.

It took more than two years for the beaches near Tokyo to be safe enough to go back again.

Yuuji could not remember the first time he had been to the sea - perhaps there were photographs that had captured the moment somewhere in the house where he had lived with his grandfather in Sendai - but the moment when Shion and Ayame saw the sea for the first time would remain vivid in his memory forever.

"Look, Mama!" It was a spring day with the sky covered in clouds, but there was sunshine in his girl’s eyes. "Look! Big!" She exclaimed, jumping into the shallow water.

"Be careful not to slip, honey," Yuuji told her. Her enthusiasm filled his heart. The warm wind tousled her hair, and he slipped a hand into his pants pockets to check for a hair-band. "Come here..." He pressed a hand against her back to pull her away from the water, then knelt on the sand and styled her hair into a low ponytail. "There you go! It's more comfortable this way, isn't it?"

A white-haired child approached them, taking Ayame's hand. "Come! Come!" Hasu exclaimed and they ran off together.

"Don't run too far," Megumi said, as he slid the bag of toys and beach towels onto the sand from his left shoulder and held Ume against his side with his right arm - the little black-haired boy had fallen asleep on the trip and was still not very keen on socializing.

"Don't worry!" Satoru exclaimed, walking toward the small pier with a fishing rod in one hand and a box with all the needed supplies in the other. "There are dads on watch!"

Sukuna was behind him, exasperated even before the day began. It was not for the children, not for the four two-and-a-half-year-olds at least.

"The dads are going to treat you to a nice little lunch of fish caught by them with love today!" Satoru was the happiest of the group. He began to whistle as he sat at the end of the pier and opened the box to assess which bait to start with. Sukuna calmly followed him, clutching a second fishing rod in his right hand. Yuuji was watching him, smiling cheerfully. Simplicity. Serenity. They were all working so hard to offer that to their children, and those four beautiful flowers did not know that they were repaying them with the same gifts simply by existing.

Sukuna indicated something to him with a nod, and Yuuji turned around: Shion was standing next to him, staring out to the sea with his red eyes widened, as if he couldn't believe what he was looking at.

"Hey..." The 18-year-old lowered himself so that he could look into his face. His son immediately responded to his gaze: this was a good thing. "Do you like it here?"

Shion nodded.

"Do you feel like running with Hasu and your sister?"

The little boy shook his head. He knew how to communicate and now pronounced several words correctly, but verbal language was not his favorite.

Yuuji ran a hand through that black silk hair. "We have toys for playing with sand. How about trying them out with Ume?"

Shion nodded a second time and grabbed his mother's hand as they both approached Megumi and little Ume. For a while everything was filled with the sound of the sea and the happy laughter of Hasu and Ayame.

"Hion, come..." Ume stood up, the handle of the bucket clutched between the fingers of his small right hand while his left was outstretched toward Shion. He had been the first of Megumi and Satoru's twins to be born, and Yuuji had been the first to hold him as his friend was giving birth to Hasu. He was a calm, gentle baby with big green eyes. Yuuji thought Ume looked like Megumi in the same way Ayame looked like him, but with less unruly hair.

He was a good friend to Shion because sometimes both the black-haired little boys needed a break from the chaotic enthusiasm of their twins. But Ume, though he was of few words by character, talked.

Yuuji and Megumi watched them as they bent down to fill the bucket. The water was shallow for many meters and they could allow them some freedom, but without ceasing to keep an eye on them.

"Ume and Shion are communicating without difficulty," Megumi said. "Hasu, however, is on a whole other level. He is the one who speaks for him, as if he is reading his mind. Sometimes I think he has the power to do it."

Yuuji looked at him and found such understanding in the other 18-year-old's face.

"I can hear your thoughts all the way here," Megumi added.

Yuuji sighed and sat down next to him. "Will this constant fear of being wrong, of not doing enough, or of not noticing the signs of something in time ever end?”

"I wonder that myself, but I don't know anyone who can give me a real answer."

It was not easy to become a parent.

Being so without ever really having been someone's child made everything a little more difficult. It was ironic that the only one of the four of them to have had a parental figure was Sukuna himself - even though the "love is worthless" curse had begun with his mother of all people. 

Satoru and Megumi had never had a chance to be children from the beginning. The former had been considered the embodiment of a divine power, capable of changing the balance of the world; the latter the bearer of an equally great power but born with the shame of being an Omega and the good fortune of being aesthetically pleasing.

A child soldier and a child bride.

They should have been each other's doom, but together they had broken the chain of cruelty of two families who had written the history of sorcery and had had no difficulty doing so by torturing, punishing, and sacrificing their children.

Hasu had been born with Heavenly Restriction, like his grandfather and aunt. That beautiful child, with a smile brighter than the sun and with two shards of sky in his eyes, who was the perfect reflection of the great Gojo Satoru had been born with what the Zen'in family had called a curse, shame, but which the King of Curses himself had called power. 

Hasu would never have suffered what had turned Fushiguro Touji into a mercenary, devoured by his demons to the point that he had failed to be a father to his only son, and which had driven Maki to become what she was. 

Satoru had spent half his life trying to prevent his generation from making the same mistakes as in the past; he had done so as a mentor, a teacher, the strongest. 

Yuuji believed he should do the same thing as a parent, but each time he lost himself in those thoughts he ended up facing a closed door. It was not locked and had always been there, available for him to open, but Yuuji had silenced his curiosity to find out what was behind it to respect the emotions he had sensed in his grandfather during childhood and, until he was sixteen, he had managed to ignore it.

Finding out why he had been born, how it had happened, and, soon after, getting pregnant, had changed things. Yuuji could no longer ignore that door because he knew what was behind it now, but curiosity had been replaced by fear of discovering something worse.

But Ayame and Shion were there, reminding him of what he had probably been saved from, but of what he had never had too.

"Do you regret it?" He asked, watching the children play in the shallow water. He felt Megumi's gaze on him.

"What are you referring to?" He asked as if he already knew the answer, but needed confirmation before touching the subject.

"To when your pregnancy convinced you to ask Satoru about your father..."

A long minute of silence followed.

Yuuji shook his head. "Forgive me, Megumi. It's a nice day, we're here to have fun. I shouldn't have made you think of unpleasant things-"

"No," Megumi replied. "No, I didn't regret it. Honestly, knowing that my mate killed my father didn't hurt me. It was worse to find out that Satoru was aware of what the Zen'in would do to me from the start. But at the time he was a kid, he was younger than I am now... I didn't feel happiness in knowing that Touji was dead, but neither did I feel sadness: I didn't know him." A pause. "What has really changed is the relationship I have with my name, you know."

Blessing. Only a child born of love could have a name like that.

Yuuji knew he could not have even that consolation.

"What are you thinking of doing?" Megumi asked him.

The pinkish-haired 18-year-old clutched his knees. "I would like to have an answer," he said. "I remember when my grandfather was everything to me and I wish I could go back to that time. I wish I could look at my children and just think about how angry my old man would be at me for getting pregnant at sixteen. Yes, I think if he were still alive, he would be very disappointed in me, but I'm sure he would give my children everything he gave me. He wouldn't leave me alone." A sigh. "I wish that telling Ayame and Shion about him was the same as telling them who I am, but it is not, and this world is too dangerous for me to keep such a secret from them. We don't know if Kenjaku is-"

"They are cruel, not stupid. They know well that to approach our mates without their consent is a death sentence."

"I know, but I feel the need to prepare Shion and Ayame for something - I don't know what. I cannot know because the beginning of my story is a black hole. And without the beginning, how can there be everything else?"

Megumi moved closer. "You are here," he told him. "You know the reason you were born, but you have only yourself to thank for being the master of your destiny."

Yuuji smiled wistfully. "That is not true."

"It was you who destroyed the King of Curses."

"I did not fight alone."

"I'm not talking about the battle of Shinjuku," Megumi retorted.

Yuuji arched his eyebrows. "I don't understand what you mean."

Megumi twisted his mouth into a grimace. "How annoying for me to have to be the one to tell you..."

"What?"

"Sukuna's defeat in Shinjuku was just a period."

"Yes, I know that."

Megumi's green eyes became very eloquent, but even then Yuuji could not interpret the message between the lines. "I will tell you the way Satoru told me."

"You and Satoru talk about me and Sukuna?"

"Does that surprise you?"

No, it didn't surprise him. Satoru had been the only one who, in the beginning, had tried to understand him.

"What happens if you kill a curse?"

"Megumi, really, I don't understand-"

"You can't."

"What? I do all-"

"I'm not referring to those curses," Megumi interrupted him. "I'm referring to Touji never being treated as a son and not being able to be a father, and that brought me into the Zen'in house. This caused Satoru and Geto to lose each other and from that rubble, years later, Kenjaku conceived the plan that led to the destruction of Shibuya."

Yes, Yuuji understood now. "What happened to Shion convinced Sukuna that love is worthless, the rest of the world called him a curse, and he became one. Kenjaku took an interest in him, they made a pact, and over the centuries he has tried to understand Sukuna's nature, trying to recreate it… And I was born.”

Megumi nodded. "Curses expand, change form, become someone else's."

"But they can be broken."

"Yeah... Look at them now."

Yuuji lifted his gaze: Hasu and Ayame had joined Shion and Ume. They were so small, so innocent, so beautiful.

"Do they look cursed to you?"

Yuuji felt a knot tighten in his throat, but it did not hurt.

Oh…

Yes,clearly saw what his friend was showing him, and a wave of gratitude swept over him.

Megumi's words had reassured him to the point of moving him.

"Thank you," he murmured. Ayame and Shion were safe because Yuuji and Sukuna would never allow their curses to touch their children.

The chain had been broken - at least in part.

Yuuji still had time to decide what to do.

"Ayame does, too…” Yuuji added, returning to the topic with which that conversation had begun. “Speaking for Shion, I mean."

"Good. This means either that both she and Hasu have psychic powers or that Shion can communicate perfectly, but not in a way we can understand."

Megumi was trying to reassure him about that too, he knew. Yuuji had often thought that all Shion needed was time and nothing more, that he would find his voice freely if they would just support him, let him grow up in a peaceful environment. But worrying had become a constant in his personality since becoming a parent.

"Sometimes I think it's our fault. His father, sister and I talk all the time, and maybe he just wants some peace for himself. Other times I have a serious fear that his first meaningful sentence will be a domain expansion," Yuuji joked - or maybe not.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Megumi admitted. "Do you know anything about the bet?" He asked.

"What bet?"

It must have been something absurd because his friend bowed his head and laughed softly. Fushiguro Megumi laughing in amusement was an event.

"I'm scared now, Megumi."

"The strongests," Megumi pointed to the two men sitting at the end of the pier, "have made a bet on which of the children will take down a curse first."

Yuuji blinked a few times. Obviously Sukuna had said nothing to him because he was aware of his own idiocy and wanted to maintain an apparent dignity. "And what did they bet?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Political duties, of course," Megumi replied. "I don't know whether that's a sign of enormous trust in each other or visceral irresponsibility."

A moment of reflection followed.

"Both..." They said in chorus and then giggled.

The present world stood on sorcery, whatever form it took in the corners of the world, and holding that precarious balance were two gods who were willing to kill each other - again - as long as they did not sit at a table playing diplomats with the other sorcerers.

"They both have the power to destroy and save the world, but they don't even see it," Yuuji said.

Megumi nodded. "The only world that matters is theirs. Saving everything else is only a necessary condition, not the goal."

"Yes, but I really wish Sukuna would not experience other Clans' threats of war with the same annoyed attitude with which one watches a fly buzzing over their head."

"To them they are not threats, just annoyances. I know you have an adoration for him, but don't think Satoru is any better."

"At least Satoru takes other people's lives into consideration and responds to threats with teasing. Sukuna wouldn't say a word, he would go straight to eliminating the problem!"

Shion and Ume returned with the bucket full of water, Hasu and Ayame were behind them. They set it down, then they took the plastic shovels from the sea bag and, at the end, the four of them sat down between their mothers to dig a hole.

"What are you building?" Megumi asked.

"A bread,” Ume said.

“A burger!” Hasu exclaimed.

“No, a bububebe,” Ayame corrected them.

Yuuji had no idea what a bububebe was.

"A bridge," Shion said suddenly, surprising everyone. "Bridge, Mom..." He repeated, drawing the word in midair with his little fingertips.

"Yes, my love," Yuuji said, taking one of those hands and kissing the back of it - he didn't care that it was covered with sand. "Mom heard you."

It was a beautiful day.

When the memory ended, Yuuji's arms could not support his weight and he collapsed onto the low table. He clenched his fists, repeating to himself that the children were with Sukuna and there was no one else who could keep them safer than their father. All he had to worry about was himself.

"Unable to use cursed energy offensively... What bullshit..."

A few drops of blood fell on the polished wooden surface, and Yuuji knew he was bleeding from the nose.

"And then I'm supposed to be the one to lie?"

He lifted his head slowly. Ren was still sitting composed, but he was breathing hard and bleeding from his nose as well: he was not used to fighting, it did not matter how great his potential was.

"Your mother was so intrigued by my technique," Ren recounted. "Forcing the soul to relive memories, even good ones, creates a traumatic event for those who suffer it. The more meaningful the memory, the greater the harm. Even past happiness can be harmful, you know. Anything that creates a state of well-being but is temporary is. It is an instant, which we chase in a desperate attempt to grasp it again, even though we know it would last no longer than the last time. Then we chase it again… It is a cycle, like a curse."

"Curses can be broken..." Yuuji wiped his face with the sleeve of his yukata. "Do you think you can call happiness just a dazzling moment that takes your breath away and changes the trajectory of your existence? That's not happiness, that's drugs."

"You talk like you think you can impose your concept of happiness on others."

"No, because I think there are existences that are objectively sad..." Yuuji inhaled deeply through his nose. "And yours is."

On impulse, Ren parted his lips to reply but not a single word came out of them. He swallowed air as if he were choking, then held his breath and tears filled his eyes. "I've never been to the sea..." He said. "I have stood and watched it many times from the highest windows of the main temple building. Far away. Unreachable. A freedom that did not belong to me and would never be mine."

Yuuji pulled up with his nose. "That's where you're wrong," he retorted. "You're still alive, Ren."

"Alive?" The other sorcerer laughed. "All the flowers in my garden are just tributes to dozens and dozens of unmarked graves that are nowhere to be found. When we return the body of one of our young socerers who has fallen in battle, I think this is how death should be. Many people mourn, many people remember..." Ren's gaze was filled with hatred. "But what difference does the death of the invisibles make? A child who comes into the world without having cried, one who has finished all his tears because no one cared to make them feel safe. You don't know how many secrets this place hides, you don't know what happened there. You don't know what was done to allow your mother to get to you."

"I never knew them-"

"That's just an excuse and you know it perfectly well!”

There was a voice in Yuuji's head screaming the same way, repeating the same words. It had been happening ever since he had become a parent, ever since Ayame and Shion had forced him to look back and realize that the part of his past he had chosen to ignore was a horror story.

"Ren..." Yuuji tried once more. "What happened to you is not your fault. Whatever Kenjaku, the Grandmaster and all the monks of this temple did to you and Arima is not your sin. You were not born cursed. They are your curse, but curses can be broken. I can help you. Let me..."

"Do you and Megumi think you have broken yours just because you managed to give birth to healthy, strong children? It was not because of you, it did not happen because you made it happen, it was fate that decided to give you these gifts!"

Ren's voice was shrill. He was like cracked glass, and it would only take a little to make him fall apart. But Yuuji looked beyond that despair, glimpsing a truth that was worse than he had imagined. His mind took him back to his brother Choso, to the mother of whom he had no real memory.

"Ren..." Yuuji hoped with all his heart that he was wrong. "Did they force you to have children?"

The gray-haired man opened his mouth, making a choked sound, as if an unseen force was suffocating him. Yuuji could recognize the onset of the panic attack.

"Ren!" He leaned forward to grab his hand. He wanted to reassure him, to tell him that he knew how he felt and that it would pass, he just had to keep breathing. As for the horrors Ren had not told him about, Yuuji felt only an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

But that was a problem for later; he had to worry about helping him breathe first.

As soon as their fingers touched, Yuuji found himself in another memory.

The ground was a carpet of pinkish petals. 

"Are you afraid, little one?"

"Have I ever been afraid of you?"

"No. Never."

The air was filled with the scent of sakura trees.

"No... Ren..."

No one answered him.

"Don't do it, Ren..."

Ren probably did not even know what he was doing at that moment.

"This is mine... This belongs only to me and Sukuna, you have no right to-"

Yuuj had never felt so enveloped.

It was a feeling of protection that he had not known even in childhood, not in that physical way. That was the apotheosis of the actualization of his curse but, at the same time, he had never felt so at peace.

He felt no shame for himself, only a deep sense of wholeness and fulfillment. Sukuna was still on him, inside him, warm and powerful, and Yuuji felt an intimate pleasure in knowing that he was the first to have him that way.

The world would never understand how it was possible to let go in the embrace of a monster, but Yuuji's eyes saw otherwise.

History could not be erased, but death had put a period to it. The present and the future belonged to them alone. The four arms that held him could have torn him apart at any time, but Yuuji knew they would not.

He felt Sukuna's soul touching his with the naturalness of two pieces of a whole coming together again after so long.

The others could call it a curse.

Yuuji no longer cared.

"Are you okay?” Sukuna whispered in his ear. The sound of his voice in those moments made him lose his mind.

Yuuji looked away from the pinkish petals falling around them to meet the gaze of the other half of his soul. He lifted his hand and stroked the right side of Sukuna's face.

There was no longer any mask to hide it.

Yuuji smiled, then slid his fingers through his lover's hair and gently pulled him to himself to make their lips meet in a kiss.

"Am I still so fragile in your eyes?"

Sukuna turned one of his smirks on him. "If you were, I don't remember anymore...."

Perhaps Yuuji had been wrong for years.

Perhaps they had conceived their children that night.

Yuuji was lying on the ground, without strength. The bleeding nose had completely soiled the lower part of his face and the neck of the yukata he was wearing. He felt the reverse technique operating on his body automatically, but did nothing to make the healing process faster.

Time had sort of stopped and his heart ached, but Yuuji had no desire to fight it. He accepted it, waited for it to pass through him, like the memories he had relived.

He did not know where Ren was, and at that moment he did not care. He felt violated in a way he had not even felt when he had awakened in Shibuya and found out what Sukuna had done using his body.

His eyes looked up at the ceiling, but he saw sakura blossoms and petals swirling in the air, brushing against his face. He caught a movement to his left out of the corner of his eye and knew Ren was still there.

"Are you going to keep lying?" He asked him. "Do you really want to convince me that you don't know how to turn a monster into a man?"

You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. Those were Satoru's words. Yuuji knew that, he had experienced that reality on more than one occasion; starting with his grandfather who had not wanted to resort to extreme treatment to cure an disease that would never go away, all the way to Megumi who had only been able to react to the pain when he had felt his friend’s despair - but that had not stopped the end of the world.

"I felt pity for him," Yuuji said. "I felt pity for him and tried to save him, but he refused me."

"What does that mean?"

"What I've been trying to tell you since the beginning of this conversation." Yuuji sat up and when he looked at the other, he realized that Ren was in a worse state than he was. "I brought Sukuna back from the dead, but the man he is now is not because of me. It is the result of his own choice, nothing else."

He always was, for better or worse.

"You said you could help me..." Ren no longer had the strength to yell at him, but the anger remained.

"Not in this, I'm sorry." Yuuji did not look at him. He was calm, but the cold anger coursing through him was dangerous. He didn't want to hurt anyone. "I want to be alone, Ren."

The other, perhaps out of desperation or perhaps out of dullness due to his lack of lucidity, did not grasp the danger. "You're a monster yourself," he said. "You were born to be one. All this kindness, all this humanity... It's just a beautiful lie with which you try to conceal what you really are. You say curses can be broken, but you have embraced yours. Because sometimes learning to live with a curse is easier, more reassuring, than trying to get rid of it, isn’t it?”

Yuuji moved his arm.

The palm of his hand touched the floor without a sound.

An invisible slash went through the room, cutting the table that separated him and Ren in two as if it were a piece of paper. Startled, the gray-haired sorcerer recoiled until his back touched the wall.

"I lied, yes," Yuuji admitted, rising slowly. "You asked me how I could not call love the feeling between Sukuna and me, and I told you a lie. There are days when I love him," he confessed in the coldest, most detached tone he had. "And there are days when I hate him. I left for Sendai with the children after a day like that."

Ren was shaking, crying. It was obvious he was afraid, but he was crazy enough to speak again. "But Sukuna followed you. He came to you."

"Because he loves me too, but, sometimes, he can’t help but hate me," Yuuji said. "But I don't expect you to understand it." He had never demanded that others do so.

"Do you love him or is it just a curse that binds you to him?" Ren inhaled air through his nose. "Are you his love or are you just his curse?"

Yuuji curled his lips into a terrible smile, bitter but also disturbing. "Is there really a difference?" He turned and walked out of the living room. "Leave now..."

Chapter Text

"Who hurt you?"

"Who could ever hurt me, little boy?"

"To believe that love has no value, you have to know what it is. You must have felt it, maybe someone felt it for you. And then you lost it and it hurt."

"I don't know what you're talking about, brat."

During his childhood, his world was very small, enclosed within the walls of a temple. A boundless forest used to divide that place from everything else. He spent a lot of time there, climbing trees, exploring rough trails, learning to swim in the waters of a lake or a river, even when it was too cold to do so. 

Nature was his first teacher. He respected it because he knew that it was something ancient and powerful. Observing it, he learnt many things without being influenced by the moral rules of a society of which he could not be a part. He saw life and death succeed each other in an endless cycle that spared no one and could not be stopped. 

Sometimes it was a beautiful, flourishing season, full of gifts that guaranteed survival. Other times, it was a storm, a flood, an earthquake. 

Life and death.

Nature distributed them both with indifference. 

Nature was powerful, impartial, and beautiful. 

"It may seem cruel," his mother said, as she cleaned the corpse of an unnamed child from the mud that had swept over him in his sleep, killing him - the rain had fallen incessantly for days and, eventually, the ground on the mountainside had given way, destroying the village below. "But you can't defeat a natural disaster, you can only wait for it to pass."

Sukuna understood; nature had taught him that lesson many times. But one day that deep helplessness in the face of fate and all the ways it took shape had begun to bother him.

"What if someone had the power to bend nature itself, redefining the cycle of life and death that characterizes all things?"

His mother listened to him without judging him. "Your mind is dancing, my love. I'm happy about that."

"Yes... But what if it happens?"

She smiled at him. "I don't know, my love. Can such power really be called a gift? Yes, maybe… But it would require great willpower and an indomitable spirit to be able to bear such a burden."

"Why should being powerful be a burden?"

"It depends on how you want to use that power, I guess," his mother said. "Fate is indifferent to our moral rules, but if there were to be someone with the power to bend nature itself, I hope they are a kind person... Even though their kindness might become their curse."

Curses were Sukuna's second teachers.

If nature was cruel in an unbiased, unconscious way, curses taught him that human beings were cruel by their own will.

"He already knows how to read and write, you know?"

There were not many people in Sukuna's world, and no one talked to him. He had learnt about people through closed doors, listening to the sounds of their voices.

"He is intelligent, curious. He likes to read but also spends a lot of time outdoors. Talking to him is enchanting, you'd love it."

Sukuna spied the scene from the ajar shoji. His mother could not help but smile whenever she talked about him. She was so proud of him, so full of love. Those feelings made no sense.

"When will you stop talking about him as if he were a child?" The man in front of her asked. Sukuna could not see his face, but he knew that deep voice all his life. It was always cold, animated by shades of resentment and disgust.

His mother no longer smiled. For a moment, just one, she allowed herself to be hurt, then she became cold too, but in a proud way. "Because he is a child," she said, firmly. "He is my child, blood of my blood. He is your grandson-"

"He is a curse..."

His mother stood on a battlefield where she knew she had already lost, but she did not lower her gaze even then. "I always believed you were a man of rare intelligence, father," she said. "I was so proud to be your daughter and my boy is... I see so much of you in him and that makes me happy, because I know he will be a strong man, but... Give him a chance."

Sukuna was born different. The circumstances of his birth could not be explained through the rules of nature. There was no father for him anywhere, there never had been one. His mother had not been an unfortunate or naive girl. She was a sorcerer, she was instructed in arts that women were usually not allowed to know.

"I am teaching him what you taught me," his mother said. "He is still very young, but he is an outstanding student. He learns quickly. To be honest, I think my teachings are superfluous, that if I left him alone with his books and his imagination, he would be very capable of becoming a sorcerer on his own."

"A curse cannot be a sorcerer."

"Give him a chance!"

His mother cried. Sukuna did not understand how she could love so much a man who continued to hurt her.

Stupid mother.

His grandfather slid something across the floor, toward her: it was a box.

"I was proud to be your father, too, Shion."

Another wound, another betrayal, another abandonment.

His mother never learnt: her love for her father was a useless echo of a past life. He had erased it, he had erased her.

Sukuna got up and moved quietly, returning to the engawa, where his mother had told him to wait. His four red eyes watched the rain fall in the garden for many minutes before his mother came to him. She was smiling, her face was dry, but all her pain was reflected in her golden eyes.

"Your grandfather brought you a gift," she said, setting the wooden box down, beside him. She lifted the lid, showing the mask inside. It was as if one half was missing.

"With this, the sun will no longer burn you where your skin is most sensitive," she said, taking the gift in her hands - how much had she had to pray for it? 

Sukuna let those hands touch his face.

"There you go," she said, looking at him. "How does it feel?"

It was a new feeling, but Sukuna knew he would get used to it. It was the constant questions in his mind that disturbed him. “Why?” He asked. “Even if I wear it, I remain a curse.”

His mother grabbed his chin, inviting him to look at her. “You are not a curse,” she said. “And this mask is not for others. The burn on your face must not get too much sun. It's bleeding too often, and I don't want you to be cooped up inside these walls all summer long. It's for you, just for you.”

His mother's hands were always warm. Her love was unstained by anything, neither anger nor despair. She loved him, pure and simple. 

“Why?”

“You are full of questions today, my love.”

He always was. 

“Why do you love me?”

His mother's smile disappeared but only for an instant. “I am your mother...” 

That was just an excuse.

“That's not an answer. Your father doesn't love you.”

Her hands on his face began to shake, but she did not take it out on him. She took his words for what they were: the cruelty of a child too smart for his own good.

“You are right. Love is not something that can be imposed either by blood ties or by someone else's will,” she said, pulling back his pinkish hair with a caress. “Love is a choice. I chose to love you. I chose you to be my son and not just because I carried you and gave birth to you. I chose you because I love you and I love you because I chose you.”

It didn’t make sense.

Ryoumen Sukuna never chose love.

He chose strength and solitude. He bent nature to his will, redefining the concepts of life and death. 

Until love found him.

.

.

.

.

.

2025

— June —

For as long as humanity had memory, unexplained things had always happened in the world. Those deemed miraculous were remembered, told from generation to generation, written down so that they would not be lost to history. For blasphemies, things were very different.

Ryoumen Sukuna was a blasphemy.

If her mother had been pregnant by a lover she would have been a disappointment to her father, perhaps a whore. But a man's hand had never touched her. She had never known that kind of caress in all her short life. It had been a cursed spirit that had violated her flesh, marking her forever.

She had had no guilt, no choice. She was a sorcerer and had been cursed while performing her duty. Fearing for her life, her Clan had tried to save her, but no ritual had helped. Then the torture had begun. They had tried to tear that cursed being from her womb, had forced her to drink any kind of poison. They had locked her up without giving her food for days, certain that her weakened body, one step away from death, would eliminate the parasite growing inside her.

That had not happened.

When Ryoumen Sukuna had been born, on a day that was not remembered by history, everyone had surrendered to the fact that his mother would die.

That had not happened either.

The first baby that had been born was a decomposing corpse. It had been small, as if its growth had stopped too soon. Someone had said it looked as if a ferocious animal had torn the small body apart.

Ryoumen Sukuna had come into the world a few minutes later. A deformed baby boy, with four arms and four eyes, but alive. 

In everyone's eyes he had been just a curse imitating an infant. In his mother's eyes he had been a son.

She had tried to save him, to remove from him what was cursed about him, but she had failed. The ritual had nearly killed him, burning the right side of his face. Deformed, scarred.

His mother had lost her status to raise him in the shadows, granting him an illusory freedom made of nature and books.

She had loved him.

"Weren't you disgusted the first time you saw me?"

"You were so cute, with two rosy chubby cheeks. And your eyes… You were so curious about the world around you. You were born with an old soul, my love."

She had died loving him.

Foolish mother.

Then Yuuji had given him Shion. And in his son, Sukuna had seen exactly what his mother had described to him and he had never stopped looking at him. At five years old, Shion was a portrait of him, with the corners smoothed by the gentleness he had inherited from Yuuji, but there were no scars on his face. When he had been born, no one had thought he was cursed, that he should be saved.

Sukuna lifted his hand and adjusted a lock of raven hair behind his son’s ear, brushing his cheekbone with the fingertip of his thumb in a caress. Shion did not distract himself from what he was doing, because being touched with affection by his parents was natural for him.

"Is this okay, Dad?" Ayame asked, sitting on his lap, showing him the paper on which she had written her own name. 

Sukuna had left the house as soon as the children had finished breakfast, leaving Yuuji to sleep. He had not looked for Arima; he had merely headed for the council chamber that had been shown to him the day before. Sukuna had met someone along the way but, of course, no one had spoken to him or dared to stop him. The round table was covered with maps and sheets of paper as the day before, and after a brief search, he had also found some brushes and ink.

To entertain the children, Sukuna was making them do writing exercises.

"You are becoming more precise, Ayame," he said, then he looked at the little boy who was continuing to write. "You haven't finished yet?"

"Give me a minute, Dad," Shion said, without lifting his gaze, completely absorbed in what he was doing. When he was done, he lifted the paper with both hands to show it to his father.

Ayame's honey-colored eyes widened, surprised. "Dad, look!" She exclaimed, pointing to her brother's work with her own brush - Sukuna invited her to lower her hand, before black ink stains landed on the boy’s paper. "Shion wrote the names of all four of us!"

The paper had no smudges and the kanji were written almost perfectly. The boy held his work up in a way that covered his face, and Sukuna took it between his fingers to look at it more closely, but really he just wanted to see his son's expression. Shion looked at him, expectantly. His scarlet eyes betrayed no particular expectation on the surface, as if his father's judgment did not interest him. Sukuna could see deeper.

"I did not teach you how to write my and your mother's name," he said.

"I memorized the kanji lines," Shion explained.

And he had memorized them perfectly.

Sukuna placed the paper on the table. "Do you think you did a good job?"

Confused, Shion passed his gaze from the kanji he had written down to his parent's face. "It is you who-"

"Don't depend on my judgment, Shion," Sukuna said. "Do you think you did a good job?"

The child looked at the four names written black on white. He hesitated.

"Shion's handwriting is so good," Ayame intervened on his brother's behalf.

Too proud, Shion did not willingly accept his sister's affection. "Stupid sister..."

"Shion," Sukuna brought his son's attention back to himself. "Ayame..." He added, when the little girl turned a foul tongue to her brother.

"Why are you only doing it with me?" Shion objected. "I've done more. I have done better. Why are you questioning me?"

Sukuna was sincerely grateful for that show of impertinence. "Because you don't have to give me the power to decide whether you are good enough or not," Sukuna said, even though he knew his children were too young to fully grasp that concept. "You two must not give anyone such power,” he added, looking at his girl. "When you make a decision, there must be only one voice in your head, and it must be your own."

"But you and Mom tell us when we make a mistake," Ayame was a little confused. "You tell us what to do and what not to do."

"We are your parents. We have to pass on our experience and guide you, but that doesn't mean choosing or thinking for you."

"And what happens if we make a mistake?"

"You learn."

Ayame stared at him. "I guess that's a grown-up thing, Dad."

Sukuna had only taken a thousand years to understand that lesson. "You have time, child," he said.

"What if we hurt someone by making a mistake?" Shion asked, his red eyes were inquisitive and his words had something provocative about them. There it was, the first reason Sukuna did not want his son to be dependent on his judgment: if his boy used him as his absolute role model, he would end up destroying himself.

Sukuna could not tell Shion that hurting others had never been his limit, not until Yuuji had forced him to realize that what he was was not contained in his skin alone. But that had made him a father, perhaps a mate and a husband - he was in no position to judge his own role in the perspective of other people - not certainly what common thought called a good man. He would never be one.

Yuuji had the means and experience to come to terms with that reality; Shion was five years old.

"Your old man likes to make complicated speeches," Sukuna said, avoiding a direct answer. "One step at a time..." He encircled Ayame's waist with one arm and reached out the other to place his hand on Shion's head. "Your mother and I are not going anywhere for quite some time." Time had begun to have value for him only after they were born. Having a long life had never been his goal, let alone immortality. His journey through the ages had only been a whim born of endless boredom.

Sukuna was curious, he liked to take risks, make bets and experiment, but he was not like Kenjaku or Tengen. He had never embraced great ideals or great goals. He had lived for himself, by his own rules, until his last breath.

Then Yuuji had forced him to breathe again.

Sukuna had begun to value time when his spouse's belly had begun to grow. Suddenly, there had been something to wait for, an event that would irrevocably mark a before and an after, a second reinterpretation of himself after the defeat he had suffered had already forced him to change his perspective. When the twins had been born, time had acquired not only a value but also a weight.

Sukuna had never cared about living forever.

Shion and Ayame were pushing him to wonder if the time he had was enough. And if not, he would take it by force, bending the laws of nature and fate as he had learnt to do.

"Will they be fine without me?"

It was Yuuji's voice.

But Yuuji was not there.

"The doctor, Satoru, his mate and the one-eyed girl are with them. The older brats are keeping an eye on the perimeter of Jujutsu Tech. You have nothing to worry about."

"But they know nothing but me. It must be terrible for them to be in this big world without me taking care of them."

"You will take care of them, but first you must be taken care of."

Sukuna turned around, but he was no longer in a real place.

They were both stained with blood, but only one of them had returned from a battlefield. Yuuji had experienced violence of a different kind. A small scarlet puddle was spreading near his leg on the bathroom floor. Death could be gentle, quiet, clean, but birth never was.

As the sound of the shower filled those four walls, Sukuna took off his clothes soiled with mud and the residue of cursed beings. His eyes never left Yuuji's face, but his consort looked away, his expression blank.

When Sukuna had entered their bedroom, where the event had quickly, mercilessly consumed itself, Yuuji had greeted him with a trembling smile, their children clutched to his chest and his tear-filled eyes illuminated by a dazzling light, despite his fear and exhaustion.

Now it was as if he wasn't even there, his fingers convulsively clutching the bloodstained hem of the T-shirt he had on and that barely covered him. It belonged to Sukuna; Yuuji had been unable to be comfortable in his clothes for the past few weeks because his belly had grown faster than it had at the beginning of his pregnancy.

"Tiger..." Sukuna grabbed his wrists in an unspoken invitation to let go of the red-stained fabric.

Yuuji's eyes met his face for an instant. He was lost. It was not the first time he had seen him like this, but the silence was deafening. Sukuna helped him shed the one garment that covered his body. Yuuji clenched his legs as if there was something to be ashamed of, one hand brushed his now empty belly, as if something was missing.

"You did it," Sukuna said.

Yuuji lifted his gaze.

"You did it," he repeated. He would have done it a third time if that would have put it in his head. Sukuna held out his hands to him and Yuuji grasped them, but when he saw that his husband was leading him to the shower, he broke the silence.

"I can manage by myself."

"I know."

This did not mean that Sukuna would let them do it. Yuuji understood this and wasted no time with useless objections. Under the jet of hot water, his young consort let out a sigh that was also a moan of pain. Sukuna stared at the pool of red water created at his feet for a few moments to make sure it did not turn darker. Yuuji would bleed for a while. It was a physiological process, but the intensity of the bleeding had to remain within certain parameters. When Sukuna saw the water becoming clearer, he proceeded to wash away from his skin the last traces that the curses he had killed had left on him: he could not touch Yuuji with that filth on him.

"Can you stand by holding on to the wall?"

His consort nodded. Sukuna took Yuuji's sponge - it was the yellow one - and tried to be gentle as he passed it over his skin. He felt the younger sucking in air from his parted lips.

"Do I hurt you?"

His consort shook his head.

"Look at me..."

Yuuji turned and did so. Sukuna allowed himself a moment to look at his mate’s face, but when he concluded that those golden eyes had no intention of responding to his gaze, he rested one knee on the ground. He washed away the last traces of blood between Yuuji's legs.

"Does it still hurt?"

"Your reverse technique helped. But I can't feel my cursed energy, I can't feel you anymore. I don't know... It's like my body is no longer mine."

"Your innate technique has to do with souls, tiger," the King said, standing up. "And, less than an hour ago, there were two more in your body. The imbalance of your cursed energy does not surprise me. Give yourself tim-"

"She was dead..."

Sukuna barely heard him above the sound of water.

Yuuji continued to stare at a point in the void. "She was dead," he repeated. "He was born first and cried immediately, but when I held him to my chest he calmed down and he looked at me." Their eyes met. "And I saw you… I looked at our son and I saw you." He sobbed. "My heart broke when Nobara took him and he began to cry again, but the fear was gone and the pain had suddenly become bearable, even though it was tearing me apart. Giving birth to her was easier..." A pause. "I was in a hurry to meet her, and when Shoko announced that she was a girl I was so happy, but ... But she didn't cry. I held out my hands to hold her to me as I had done with her brother, but they wouldn't let me. They took her away from me. Megumi tried to keep me from seeing, but that little motionless thing on the table was my baby girl... She was my baby girl and she was dead…"

Yuuji began to take short, quick breaths, as if something was choking him, and Sukuna felt the bridge between their two souls slowly open. "Then I thought about when you said we were both born cursed and-"

"She is alive," Sukuna interrupted him. "Our bloodline is cursed, there is no doubt about that, but you have a special talent for breaking curses, tiger. And you did it again this time. She is alive."

Yuuji was listening to him and understood every word he said, but Sukuna felt that his voice did not really reach him. He watched as he touched his deflated belly with his fingertips, then wrapped his arms around his body. Despite the warm water, he was shivering.

"I want to go back to them."

"Yes."

Sukuna got out of the shower first, drying and dressing himself, then returned to his consort, helping him put on his robe. He used the hood to dry his pinkish hair. Yuuji grabbed his wrists, not to support himself, but to get his attention.

"Did you look at them?" He asked.

"Barely," Sukuna admitted. "I looked at you."

"They are ours..." Yuuji still sounded as if he was about to start crying, but the light in his eyes was becoming more vivid. "We have a boy and a girl."

They were parents.

It was October 31st. One year had passed since what had happened in Shibuya.

Ten months had passed since the day Yuuji had defeated Sukuna in Shinjuku and then brought him back from the dead. And now they were parents.

Sukuna still couldn't realize it, not while he had the feeling that he was putting Yuuji's pieces back together after a battle and not after a birth. Maybe there wasn't that much difference.

"Which one is Shion?"

"The boy..." Yuuji needed time, but he would be fine. "We need to think of a name for the baby girl.”

"We will," Sukuna said distractedly as he slid the robe off the younger one’s shoulders and he helped him put on the clean bedroom kimono. As he tightened the obi around his waist, his consort grabbed his wrists for the second time. "Is it too tight?"

Yuuji shook his head.

"What is it?"

"Can you hold me close?" 

Sukuna did not know what to do. There was so much intimacy in their relationship, but casual gestures of affection did not come naturally to him. Yuuji knew this and he had learnt quickly that if he wanted something from him, he had to take it himself. He did so again on this occasion, wrapping both arms around his husband's waist and leaning his cheek against his shoulder. All Sukuna had to do was rest his hand on the back of his mate's neck. 

Yuuji let go against him with a shuddering sigh. "We are a family now."

Sukuna did not feel it. Not yet.

It happened a few minutes later, when Satoru handed him the white bundle in which his son was wrapped. "Are you ready to meet your mini-me?"

The first time Sukuna held Shion his eyes were open. They looked at each other and, as Yuuji had said, the King of Curses saw himself in his boy. But he found something new reflected in those scarlet irises too, something that was him but that he had never thought of becoming. 

While Ayame still had no name but remained attached to life by nurturing herself in Yuuji's arms, Shion made Sukuna a father with a mere glance. 

And he had been a father from that day forward.

Shion was looking at him even at that moment, but in his big red eyes there was no curiosity from their first meeting, only fear. The boy was his portrait, they had told him often over the past five years, but when his son looked at him like that, he looked so much like Yuuji.

"Dad! Dad!" Ayame was no longer sitting on his lap. She was startled.

Sukuna realized he was still sitting, but he had bent over himself as his right hand clutched the edge of the table as if his very life depended on it.

Someone had attacked them. Sukuna pressed his palm to the wooden surface and straightened his back.

"Dad!" Ayame hugged him, hiding her face against his stomach. Shion was frozen.

Sukuna stared at him for a long minute of silence. He remembered the day his children had been born. He had memorized every detail of the first time he had held them, but the feeling of holding a newborn Shion in his arms was too real for it to be normal.

"Did you see anything?" Sukuna asked his son.

Shion shook his head. His confusion was as genuine as his concern for him.

The King of Curses concluded that he was the only one who had suffered the blow. Or maybe not.

"Is something wrong?"

Sukuna looked up and saw Arima watching him and the children from the doorway of the room. 

"Good morning little Prince and little Princess," the black-haired sorcerer said, approaching the large table. "Honored to be able to enjoy your company this morning."

"Good morning," Ayame said shyly, her small fingers clenched on the fabric of the yukata worn by her father. Shion stared at the newcomer, remaining silent.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," Arima added, turning to the King of Curses. "No one warned me that you and the children were here."

"Because everyone we met along the way took care to look down," Sukuna said. He had been caught off guard, and that irritated him, but he would retaliate later. There was no relish in rushing things. "If you were trying to get my attention, you succeeded."

Arima continued to smile politely. "I beg your pardon?"

"Cursed techniques using or affecting the mind are not that rare, but it is difficult to find sorcerers who can use them effectively." Sukuna gently pushed Ayame away from himself and stood up. "Shion, teach your sister to write the names of all the members of our family," he said, turning to his children. This was supposed to keep them busy for a while, long enough to get that fake reincarnated sorcerer to talk once and for all. "I will be here..." Not waiting for possible objections from the twins, he pointed to the balcony with a nod and went out first. When Arima also left, he closed the shoji so that the children would not be involved in their conversation. "With all due respect, I don't know what you are talking about-"

Sukuna lifted his hand in a diagonal motion, and the grey-clad sorcerer's chest opened into a gash. Arima's black eyes became huge as he fell to the ground.

Sukuna was quick to move on him, stifling the scream of pain that came from his throat with the palm of his hand.

A grin lit the King of Curses' face with a sinister light. "My children are behind these shoji and you'd better not do anything that will draw their attention in an unpleasant way," he said, as Arima squirmed beneath him. Heal..." He ordered.

The sorcerer beneath him looked up with his dark eyes widened, full of panic.

"Heal..." Sukuna repeated. "You are a reincarnated soul, aren't you? You should know how to do it. But get a move on, I don't have all day and we have a lot to talk about."

Arima breathed hard against the palm of his hand, but Sukuna did not move. He stayed watching him as he concentrated his strength. He was slow to heal, very slow.

"Disappointing..." He commented, rising to his feet. "Yesterday you were so honored to die because of my technique. How do you feel now?"

He did not need an answer. Arima was swallowing air like a castaway, the wound had healed but there was nothing to be done about the blood stains on his uniform. Even the panic was still there in the back of his eyes.

Sukuna continued to talk as if nothing had happened. "I like to test cursed techniques that I don't know. I have hardly found any boring ones, but those who possess them are very boring people. You don't have this flaw - you hit me from behind, and that's my mistake. But you decided to do it in the presence of my children, and that is a big mistake on your part."

Arima stared at him as his chest rose and fell quickly. Fear prevented him from moving. Sukuna looked up. "You were so confident the night you disturbed me and my consort, and you were confident even as you spoke of alliance, of the way you killed the Grandmaster and his men to obtain it. They were just words, then..."

"They were not just words," Arima managed to say. "I want an alliance with you, Ryoumen Sukuna!"

Sukuna arched his right eyebrow. "Do you want it with me or with Tokyo?"

"Do you care about Tokyo?" Arima asked, standing up slowly, as if afraid that the planks under his feet could not support his weight. "You said that if it weren't for Yuuji, you would have already reduced this city to dust."

"I don't think I need to explain to you that Sendai is a bomb on the verge of exploding," Sukuna said. "A cursed womb of this size could become a major nuisance if it decided to give birth. If you see a hive in a place where you know it might do damage, you don't wait for the queen bee to create her court, you just set fire to it."

"But there is not just the queen bee here," Arima reminded him. "There are people who really have no idea what the world has become after the merger. They listen to what we tell them and believe it because they have no other choice. It is like a religious dogma for them, nothing more. They are not creating the hive, but they can't leave either."

"Both are incorrect."

"What?"

Sukuna sneered. "Cursed energy arises from the souls of human beings, curses are nothing more than the actualization of that energy when it is not contained in a technique. Consequently, yes, it is people, even the innocents you speak of, who create the hive. They don't have to be aware of it, but they do and they feed their queen bee just by living." A pause, followed by a shrug. "I grew up in the wilderness. The only rules I've ever respected as a child were those of nature, and then I wanted to go further, but that's a story you already know. I've already told you what my methods are. If a beehive threatens me, I set it on fire, I don't stop to think that inside it are larvae that haven't had a chance to fly yet."

"People are larvae in your eyes," Arima concluded. "That makes sense... But would you really limit yourself to choosing the quickest way: burning the whole hive, instead of destroying it one piece at a time, challenging each bee until you get to the biggest, strongest, queen bee?"

"I'm not here for fun," Sukuna replied, wasting no time in justifying that choice.

Arima did it for him. "Because your children are here and a battlefield the size of Sendai would not be safe for them or because Yuuji would prevent you from doing so?"

Sukuna thinned his eyes. "You're continuing to dig at a point I wouldn't even allow you to touch under normal circumstances, but figuring out your intentions is one of the reasons I'm sitting here bored. You piqued my interest with the memory technique from just before, don't lose the points you had earned. Stop with the metaphors about bees and beehives and tell me what game you are playing-"

There were several pairs of shoes lined up near the root of a centuries-old tree protruding from the ground. Many were sneakers, whose colors had faded from the time spent in that wild place; others were sandals. They were both men's and women's shoes.

Satoru’s hand touched his shoulder. "Let's not point them out to the children," he said. "Let's leave that explanation for when they are older. We are not here to give theoretical lessons, after all."

Sukuna nodded and continued walking. The four children were ahead of their fathers so that they would not lose sight of them. The impassable path did not bother their little legs; they walked, climbed and chatted as if they had been used to doing it all their lives. The forest that surrounded Jujutsu Tech had been a good teacher, although there was nothing welcoming about that forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

It had been impossible not to be captivated by the landscape outside the windows of the train that had brought them there, but seeing that place up close deprived it of any beauty. No, Sukuna thought to himself, the beauty was still there, but it had stopped being a hymn to nature to become a litany of death.

Under those trees there was a different air.

Any being with a soul, independent of the cursed energy it possessed, would have felt something sinister walking there. 

"They call it the suicide forest," Satoru had explained to him, before proposing that trip with the children. "Many people go there to die of their own will, and in most cases, the bodies are found days later. People think it is among the most haunted places in the world. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The nature of that place requires sorcerers to keep it under regular surveillance. No curse stays there too long to become powerful, and there is a continuous recirculation of cursed energy. It is a suitable place for exercising children with techniques already developed but yet to be discovered. There is no one within miles and miles and the curses are not dangerous... If there is an exception, there are us Super Dads ready to step in."

Hearing the whole story, Sukuna had not blinked at all. It had been Yuuji who had been disturbed to hear his former mentor talk about the suicide forest as if it were an adventure park for little sorcerers. Megumi had not had a particular reaction either. "I practiced a lot with the Divine Dogs in that forest," he had said. Although evidently troubled by the thought, Yuuji had not openly objected to the idea.

"At least they will breathe the mountain air," he had said to himself, looking for a cheerful detail where there was none.

And there they were, with no curses in sight, as the children played among the tall trees happily and Sukuna and Satoru engaged in conversations they never imagined they would have - but becoming fathers had surprised them in more ways than one, and it continued to do so, one day at a time.

"Was the forest you grew up in similar to this one?" Satoru asked, to break a silence that was beginning to be too heavy even for him.

"In appearance I could say yes, but it was different in my time," Sukuna replied.

"Explain it to me," Satoru insisted, curious.

"Wild places like this lose some of their power if you have the knowledge that there is a train station you can walk to and that it makes the distance to the nearest metropolis a matter of a few hours."

"I see..."

"No, you can't. As a child, the greatest expression of civilization I had at hand was a temple and the small farming villages all around. I possessed the concepts of hierarchy, clans, nobles, servants and people doomed to survive one day at a time. With my eyes I could see only the latter. One too strong storm, then a flood or landslide could wipe out an entire community overnight and render all its efforts null and void. At that time, although I was educated in the knowledge of a much larger world, there was nothing more powerful to me than nature itself."

Satoru stared at him, then shook his head. "No, you're right, I can't understand. I grew up in an isolated place, but not too isolated that I didn't have a bus stop that could be reached by bike... Well, I used to pedal for miles and miles, and I think a normal child wouldn't do that, but nothing ever stopped my epic escapes from home. I was a very bored child."

"I pity the people who were forced to take care of you."

"Oh, they are fine, they are rich and healthy, and I was magnanimous enough to release them from my presence just after my fifteenth birthday!"

Sukuna chuckled.

Satoru looked at him. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing..."

"Don't be obnoxious! Speak up, I'm curious!"

"I was thinking about how your and your spouse's ancestors struggled against history itself to grant apparent immortality to their bloodline, and, in the end, the Three Great Clans were destroyed by their own children."

The main branch of the Kamo Clan survived only because Noritoshi was still alive, but he was no longer part of that world, and all those who could have taken the legacy of that ancient name had died at the hands of the family's last first lady. Zen'in Maki had slaughtered her blood relatives and their arm in revenge and, as a result, Megumi had inherited a title he had never wanted - the first Omega to become the head of a Clan in the history of sorcery.

Gojo Satoru had pretended to respect his role for thirty years, keeping his distance from the world in which he was born and raised, but when one of his children was born with Heavenly Restriction he had drawn a line. His children had his surname, and perhaps one day one of their descendants would possess the Six Eyes, but neither Ume nor Hasu would ever know what it was like to grow up within a Clan.

It was a paradox. 

At a time when sorcerers held the fate of the world on their shoulders, those ancient families were losing their original form. Those names would continue to write the history of sorcery, but in a completely new way.

Satoru shrugged his shoulders. "Who cares... My children don't need a clan, they have a family. They will grow up free and they won't be lonely."

Loneliness was a topic they had often talked about.

"Is loneliness the thing that worries you the most?" Sukuna asked. 

"And what are you worried about when you think about Ayame and Shion's future?"

Sukuna did not have to think about the answer. It came naturally from his lips. "Revenge..." He said. "Have you ever felt a desire for revenge?"

It was rare to see Gojo Satoru serious - he had not been serious even as he looked death in the face. "Yes..."

"And you think loneliness is worse?"

"I didn't follow the path of revenge, that's all," Satoru replied. "I just chose a different path and loneliness was my curse. But, yes, Sukuna, I know what revenge is. I felt it for people I hated and, for a brief, terrible moment, I felt it for someone I loved. They all died by my hand, except one."

That one exception was Kenjaku, defeated in Shinjuku by Okkotsu Yuuta, but never really dead. 

"I know what loneliness is, but I never let it have power over me," Sukuna said. "Revenge, on the other hand, moved me, forged me. But it is a voracious predator. It needs to be fed again, again, again... Until the boundaries lose their meaning and the whole world becomes worthy of burning."

His mother's love had not protected him from that curse. On the contrary, it had been her, with her love and her death that had started it all. Sukuna had sought a solution to that pain by killing those who had caused it. It had not helped, but he had not been able to turn back so he had moved on. 

There was no peace on the path of revenge.

But when that thought had touched him, there had been no humanity within him to hear it. The King of Curses had been born from the ashes of a worthless love, from the fire of a hatred he had known all his life.

He had never needed grand ideals, justifications.

Nature did not act according to moral laws. 

Why should he have?

He was a natural disaster, he was something the human mind could not conceive - monster, blasphemy - so he had gone beyond every law, every rule.

"And when everything loses value, only a hedonistic existence remains, but personal pleasure is brief, ephemeral..."

"But the fire keeps burning," Satoru said, confirming that he understood very well what he was talking about.

Sukuna nodded. "But the fire keeps burning," he repeated.

"Until the day you burn yourself," the younger sorcerer concluded. 

"That's the end of creatures like us, I guess," Sukuna said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

Satoru twisted his mouth into a grimace. "Nah! We were only defeated, but we're still alive!" He exclaimed. "You know, the story of the phoenix rising from its ashes? We're like that, only less epic and a little pathetic because on our own we couldn't raise anything from our ashes, but that's why miracles exist, I guess."

"We are really pathetic if we start talking about miracles, Satoru."

"All right, so let's look at it from an existential point of view: don't you find it beautiful that what saved you is a part of your soul?" He asked. "That part that wronged you and defeated you by wielding that humanity and love that you had considered worthless?"

Sukuna stopped walking. There was no particular expression on his face as he lifted his gaze to look for the other man's eyes.

Satoru passed him by a couple of steps, then he turned and smiled at him. He knew very well that he had hit the mark. "It pisses you off, doesn't it?" He looked resigned, but in a cheerful way. "Fate, I mean. You think its cyclical nature makes things easier, but that is just an illusion. Fate always screws you over, but it's not always bad, you know what I mean? Four hundred years ago a sorcerer of the Ten Shadows proved to the whole world that a possessor of the Six Eyes is not invincible. Four years ago, Megumi used that same power to bring me back from the dead. A thousand years ago, you gave up your humanity to become what history will remember forever but, in the end, that lost humanity of yours was embodied in a boy with the power to touch souls and became your salvation. And today there is a child with my eyes and one with yours in the world, and - now I'm going to piss you off even more - what we've done is very little. In the end, being the strongest was just a nuisance."

Sukuna knew that he did not really believe that. Both had enjoyed being the strongest, both had found fulfillment in clashing with each other, and both had left with satisfaction, following their own rules. Yuuji and Megumi had imposed on them a future that they had never wanted, that they had never been able to imagine for themselves.

The difference was that Satoru thanked his spouse for this openly, Sukuna would never be able to.

"I don't think of myself as poetic or romantic, but let me tell you one thing I believe, Sukuna: it all started with love," Satoru continued. "My loneliness. Your revenge. Our personal curses arose from a single one we had in common. But to say that love is the most twisted of curses is really reductive..." He lifted his blue eyes in front of him.

Sukuna did not need to follow the line of his gaze to know that he was watching the four children in front of them. Ume held Ayame by the hand as they watched Hasu trying to climb a tree. Shion silently judged him, his resigned expression was telling him that he had tried to stop the white-haired child by using common sense and was now just waiting for him to fall.

"They are the miracles that have broken our curses and, as a result, they will never be cursed as we are," Sukuna concluded. "Is that what you are trying to tell me?"

Satoru shook his head. "Giving our children such a responsibility is too selfish even for us," he replied. "I tell you how I see it: our curses died with us. My loneliness died with the strongest sorcerer of the modern era, your revenge died with the strongest sorcerer in history. Returning was not our choice, but if we are alive today it is because we wanted to be. In short, the children were born because we were able to break our curses, not the other way around."

Sukuna reflected on each word. "If you put it that way, Yuuji and Megumi broke our curses for us."

"More or less..." Satoru replied. "Let's say they made us do it when they forced us into a story where we no longer have our roles, but we are just ourselves."

"Dad!" Hasu cried out in despair, clinging to the trunk of the tree as if his very life depended on it. He had gotten halfway up and then something had gone wrong. "I can't get down or up!"

Sukuna saw Shion sigh boredly as his lips murmured a barely audible "I told you so..."

"Don't worry, buddy, daddy is coming to save you!" Satoru exclaimed, stupidly happy to be a dad.

Sukuna calmly joined them. A story in which I no longer have my role, but I am just myself, he thought to himself, as his mind took him back to his childhood days, to when his mother gave him smiles resplendent with love - he had never had any doubt that it was - and he wondered what it was like to see himself through her eyes.

He did it again, centuries later, but with a different detail.

Who knows what he would have seen if he could have looked at himself through Yuuji's eyes?

Sukuna found himself clinging to the wooden railing, his eyes wide and his breath short. Something warm dripped onto his lips, then onto his chin. He was bleeding from his nose.

"Unbelievable..."

Arima looked down at him, his face animated by an expression of pure surprise and fascination.

Sukuna gritted his teeth. I'll chop off your legs and then we'll see if you have the arrogance to hold your head so high in my presence!

The other man could not have heard him, but he leaned one knee on the ground and looked into his face. "Your souls are really two pieces of a whole."

It was then that Sukuna understood. He had not felt any threat the first time or at that moment because he was not the one undergoing those attacks, but Yuuji.

Brat!

He searched for him, but his mate's soul did not respond.

What are you… Tiger! Tiger!

Yuuji was not defending himself. The little idiot, too kind for his own good, was surely trying to create an escape route for himself with words instead of beheading with one blow whoever was challenging him.

"Does this happen every time?" Arima asked, with the curiosity of someone witnessing an unprecedented phenomenon. "It's not very practical if there are two of you taking the attacks."

No, it didn't happen all the time.

But that was a blow that had sunk deep, where only a few cursing techniques could reach. Yuuji's was one of them.

Fight, Yuuji!

Arima kept looking at him and speculating like a knowledge freak who has no idea what he is looking at but wants to know more and more and more.

Damn it, Yuuji! Fight back!

Reality broke for the third time.

Yuuji had given him back a body.

Those words could be interpreted with more than one meaning. Through that boy's flesh and bones, Sukuna had been incarnated after a sleep of a thousand years. Through a feverish desire to protect what was still alive and to save what had not been destroyed, that young sorcerer had brought him back to life in a skin that was a perfect copy of the one that had been mummified and stored away from sunlight.

Yuuji had given him back a body.

Those words had such carnal meaning - so human - now.

"Was I really the first?"

Sukuna could feel Yuuji's smile against his skin, could feel how he was gratified by that victory that had nothing to do with a battlefield and spilling blood.

"I already told you..."

He was so small against his chest, just enough perceptible weight to make him a pleasant presence. But Yuuji's warmth burned him without hurting him.

Sukuna had never believed it could be possible.

Those golden eyes met his.

"I want to hear you say that again."

Someone had lain with Ryoumen Sukuna, no one had given themselves to the King of Curses. But Yuuji had.

Yuuji had wanted him in all his forms and had never been afraid, not even when fear - and hatred - was all he had given him.

"You were the first, little boy."

The memory was torn to pieces by hundreds of invisible blades.

Ryoumen Sukuna knew anger.

His legend had begun with it, which, mixed with pain, had given rise to his desire for revenge that had burned the world.

Ironically. The anger he had felt for his mother, for the way she had made her love a curse, was comparable only to the anger that had turned his blood into liquid fire the moment he had realized Yuuji’s pity for him.

That was a different kind of anger.

There were no shades of red to give it meaning; it was blind, primal. It was the anger one felt at knowing that something precious, meant for a few people - only he and Yuuji - had been desecrated by unworthy, worthless beings.

It was an almost religious anger, generated by a sacrilege that did not consider forgiveness.

Sukuna had always liked to think that Shion and Ayame had been conceived that night, under a rosy rain of sakura blossoms, ended by a sunrise overshadowed by the golden light of Yuuji's eyes.

But his consort had always been sure it had happened during one of the nights before his sixteenth birthday, with only spring to witness their union. It had been a timeless season, and although there were two flowers in the world to prove otherwise, Sukuna himself sometimes thought it had been no more real than a dream.

Their wedding day had not been as sacred as that spring - he had been the one to deprive Yuuji of that, making the ceremony that had united them in the eyes of the world a declaration of war.

Sukuna was still clinging to the wooden parapet, it was still intact, but Arima ended up on the ground after being slashed in several places. His blood ran over him and disgust mixed with anger, forcing the King of Curses to stand up.

He stifled the other sorcerer's screams of pain by pressing a foot against his throat. Only chilling guttural moans came out of his gaping mouth.

The children were only a few steps away from them.

His children did not have to hear.

"If it were up to me..." Sukuna was so furious that he could barely speak. "If it were up to me, you and this city would fall apart as I laugh at the ease with which I can eradicate your lives," he hissed.

He wasn't supposed to make too much noise.

The children were not supposed to hear.

Arima clung to his leg and tried to speak.

Sukuna shifted the entire weight of his body to crush his throat. "Like cockroaches… Let me see if you can move even without a head!" 

Something caught his attention before he could do so.

Arima Hiroki's eyes turned black, his canines lengthened into animalistic jaws. He stopped being human.

The King of Curses was not frightened, but he became curious.

He moved his foot away from the sorcerer's throat - assuming he was one - and watched as the wounds he had caused him healed one after another. 

Arima coughed and, hovering on his elbows, vomited up something that could not have been the stomach contents of a man - not one fearful of the rules of sorcery. 

In the mush that poured onto the ground, Sukuna recognized a human eye. It was confirmation that he had underestimated the situation from the beginning.

"What are you?" He asked in a cold, imperious tone. He would not accept silence as an answer.

Arima continued to cough.

"You'd better not attract the attention of my children," Sukuna warned him. "My curiosity saved you once, but it will be a short-lived privilege if you prove to be boring. What are you? Answer me."

Yes, he was certainly an ancient being but, no, he was not a reincarnated sorcerer. He had probably never been human.

"Tell me..." Arima spoke as he rubbed her throat with one hand. "Tell me what do you desire most in the world?"

Sukuna arched his right eyebrow, then chuckled. "You are so stupid..." He was about to raise his right hand and decapitate him once and for all - Yuuji would find another way to concretize his peace plans, one more or less head made no difference in the grand scheme of things.

"I can free you from the humanity that enchains you!" Arima tried to exclaim, but all that came out of his throat was a shrill statement.  

"There is no humanity in me, you fool!"

"But Itadori Yuuji is half your soul, isn't he? It was his humanity that defeated you and brought you back from the dead."

"I have already told you that his name is-"

"Ryoumen Yuuji does not exist," Arima interrupted him. "He has made you his sword, his mate, the father of his children, but he can never be the consort of the King of Curses because that would be a paradox: if Itadori Yuuji is part of this world, the curse called Ryoumen Sukuna does not exist."

Sukuna felt his head throbbing. The bleeding in his nose was getting worse, but he didn't care. That certainly wasn't going to kill him, but he needed to shape the animalistic rage that was making his heart explode.

"The thought of that silence is so unbearable to you..." 

"Every time you say it, it sounds like you don't understand."

"It's not that I don't understand. I feel the difference too, believe me."

"But you don't suffer it. It's different."

"We suffered the constant proximity of each other for six months, and when you left to steal Megumi's body, you didn't suffer a thing."

"It was different..."

"In what way?"

What was stopping him from doing so was knowing that none of Arima Hiroki's words came close to a lie.

"You can't stand that I make you a prisoner of my silence, but you have no qualms about giving me yours."

"Silence is not the only thing I give you."

"Where did the man who placed himself above human pleasures go?"

"It wasn't a man, it was something else... And, if I remember correctly, you killed it."

If Yuuji had only been a sorcerer stronger than him, if he had only defeated him, there would have been nothing complicated. But that boy was half of his soul, was a reflection of what he could have been and would never become. 

Yuuji was the humanity he had rejected.

Yuuji was that part of himself to which his mother had given love - and Sukuna saw her in him.

Yuuji was the death sentence of the King of Curses.

Yuuji was Ryoumen Sukuna's salvation.

And he could not choose to be either, because he was and always would be both.

"Was the greater good a sufficient justification for cursing yourself?"

"Stop..."

"Is it your turn to give me your silence?"

"Silence? I thought we hadn't talked about anything else for seven years."

"Seven years and I still haven't heard an answer."

Sukuna knew he would never have it.

He took a step back. "What do you have to offer?"

Arima got up on his knees. "Kenjaku's legacy is much greater than you think. I can free you from the chains of Itadori Yuuji."

"You know that if anything happens to him, I am doomed, I guess."

"You know that I am not human," Arima said with a sinister smile. "That is why you are granting me permission to speak."

Sukuna looked down at him. His soul searched for Yuuji's, but got no answer. He was alone.

"Tell me more..."