• notes •

Hi friends! I realized that I never properly explained how Rin "teleported" in the last chapter. I also tweaked some of her ability names. It can get confusing so I included a description of Rin's current abilities at the end of the chapter.

Rin entered Sukuna's Innate Domain with the expectation of her decapitation. After all, she did openly laugh at him and then abruptly left upon realizing what an idiot she was. There were so many reasons to not visit him, and the one reason why she activated her unfinished Domain Expansion was because Sukuna did not kill her yesterday when he had the opportunity.

"Look at you. I haven't even done anything yet and you look so terrified," Sukuna jeered from the top of the mountain of bones.

Rin laughed nervously and looked away, suddenly finding a random skull on the ground interesting. "I'm just, uh…" She frantically searched for an excuse but found none. "I thought you were going to kill me," she honestly answered.

Sukuna sniggered. "You're not even worth killing."

This was the truth—Sukuna found her more interesting alive than dead—but with the contempt in his voice, Rin interpreted it as, 'You're too weak to even entertain me before I kill you.' Pointing her shinai up towards Sukuna, she declared, "Come down here! I'll prove you wrong."

"Since when were you so confident?" Sukuna leapt down from the summit.

Rin readied her stance and smiled smugly. "I have a trump card now."

His eyes traveled to her shinai that she held confidently in front of her. "I hope it's not that you came prepared with a weapon."

Without a warning, Rin turned on Accelerando and ran towards Sukuna with remarkable—but not commendable—speed. With a fierce step, she lunged forward to strike him, but her sword passed through air. "Is that it?" he mocked from behind her.

"Of course not," Rin asserted before turning around to attack with a triumphant grin that did not go unnoticed by her opponent. Sukuna stepped backwards to avoid the attack, but she suddenly disappeared from his sight, triggering Rewind and returning to where she once stood behind him. Noticing her presence, he quickly rotated his body around and was about to raise his hand to block the blow when he sensed her Cursed Energy. He leapt back a few feet with a grin. Interesting, now she can stop time. "I've gotta say, that was a little close."

A shocked look replaced her victorious smirk when she realized that her trump card was ineffective. "How did you dodge that?" she exclaimed. She was confident her new Cursed Technique Fermata activated and stopped time.

He shook his head with faked disapproval. "I must have been severely underestimated if you thought you could land an attack on me with that. Well, simply put, you suck at controlling your Cursed Technique."

He wasn't wrong. But there were most definitely many other ways he could have phrased that. This guy really has no filter, Rin thought, slightly annoyed.

He elaborated, "I read the flow of your Cursed Energy, and your attack was plainly obvious. You should have released your Cursed Energy for your Cursed Technique at the latest possible moment, but you sure took your sweet time with it. Also, you turned off Accelerando to use Fermata, which created an even bigger lag. Ideally though, you should be able to use both at the same time."

Rin furrowed her brows, processing his explanation. Much like Satoru, he was a surprisingly good teacher. "Huh, that makes sense," she muttered. A sincere smile grew, followed by a "thanks."

Sukuna wore a blank face. What was he supposed to do when she did that? He then scowled when he heard Rin's giggle, her smile hidden by her hand. "What?" he demanded.

"You made that face again," she said, "The cute one."

A horrified look dawned on her face and Sukuna smirked. Rin dropped her shinai onto the ground with a splash to cover her agape mouth that let out a gasp.

"Hm," Sukuna hummed and approached her, closing the gap of a few feet. "So you think I'm hot?"

Rin turned her face away when she realized how close his face was, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. "Th-that's not what I meant!" she said, clearly panic-stricken, taking a hesitant step back. If she was not panicked enough already, she certainly was now after tripping on her shinai and stumbling backwards. Sukuna smoothly wrapped his arm behind her waist and prevented her fall.

"Tell me I'm not hot with a straight face," he said smugly, his face nearing Rin's.

She couldn't take it anymore and left the Innate Domain, leaving a heavy emptiness in Sukuna's arm. He felt her incomplete Domain crumble away and time unfreeze and looked outside at Rin who sat next to Yuji. The vessel was poorly situated so Sukuna could only see the side view of Rin's face, which was quickly covered by her hair when she looked down at her lap in embarrassment. He smiled when he saw a blushed ear peek out from her long, straight black hair.

• Explanation of Time Manipulation •

Time Manipulation is an Innate Technique (pretty self-explanatory) limited to Rin and objects or persons in the space around her. More specifically, there's a certain volume of space (around the volume of a person) in which she can control time, and this space has to be close enough for her Cursed Energy to occupy. For example, she was able to change the time of a clock that was one feet away from her via Rewind but not three yards away.

Accelerando is a Cursed Technique by which Rin speeds up in terms of movement speed, reflexes, thinking, basically any action she does. Higher intensities of Accelerando will drain her stamina fast since her body isn't used to moving at such superhuman speed. As of now, she is comfortable with two times her normal speed; technically, she can do four but even several seconds of Accelerando at this level will significantly tire her. With training, her body will adapt to higher intensities and durations without exhausting her. She hopes to achieve Gojo-sensei's movement speed with Accelerando. (I'm going to be generous and guesstimate eight times her normal speed.)

Ritardando slows the time in the space around Rin. She primarily uses this Cursed Technique to slow otherwise difficult attacks so she can dodge them or slow a nearby enemy so she can land her attack. She usually doesn't use this since Fermata is more effective.

Fermata stops the time in the space around Rin, which she uses to "pause" and avoid attacks or stop an enemy's movement and attack.

Restore is a Cursed Technique that restores the object or person to a more favorable version in the past. Rin uses this ability mainly for fixing or "healing," but it can be used just to bring back the original quality of the object. However, the further back in time she attempts Restore, the more Cursed Energy is required. Her limit is 24 hours (something I decided arbitrarily).

Rewind is similar to Restore by which they both involve going back in time. However, Rewind is based more on where the object/person existed at a certain point in time versus the "quality." For example, when Rin clumsily tripped on nothing, she avoided face-planting onto the floor by rewinding to the moment before she tripped, which appeared to Yuji as if she teleported. Her limit for Rewind is also 24 hours.