Over the course of three months, Sukuna attempted to solve the puzzle of Nadja Hikmat. Her name sat strangely on his tongue, a language he did not know nor speak. That did not matter. What did matter was that she seemed virtually unbreakable under traditional torture. Uraume tried their best, but Nadja was stubborn, reticent and reluctant to give up whatever secrets Sukuna demanded of her. That fascinated him more than anything. He watched her contort in pain under his not-so-gentle ministrations, and she yielded nothing. At one point he quite literally broke her, snapped her bones as easily as if they were dried twigs, and he watched her knit together as if he'd never touched her at all.

And over the course of three months, Sukuna came to admire that stubborn strength.

Still, eventually he wanted answers, and if she did not yield them soon he would eat her and have done with it. He wondered if he even could eat her. How did one go about digesting something indestructible?

"You could always humiliate her by making her a concubine, my lord," Uraume remarked idly one afternoon as Sukuna stalked the desecrated temple grounds, with Uraume always three respectful paces behind, shuffling in their kimono to maintain the distance. "Her pride seems to be unassailable by threatening physical harm. Her physical body is indestructible: her soul is not."

"Something tells me she would enjoy it more than me," Sukuna muttered, more to himself than anything. He knew she was under a Heavenly Restriction, it was the only explanation for her lack of cursed energy. What puzzled him were the nature of her weapons, and why she was so strong. Was it the trade-off of the pact? No, because she would have died of her injuries by now.

And each time he ruined her in blood, she healed.

There was something else about her that was eluding his vast archive of knowledge. What was it she said to him when first they fought?

Jujutsu is not the only form of magic in the world.

Sukuna did not like the implications of those words. If jujutsu wasn't all there was, it meant that there was a chance he could run afoul of someone or something more powerful than him. Something that could kill him.

He was certain that Nadja Hikmat was one of those things. But he was also certain her existence was not predicated on killing him specifically.

"She's immortal," he said at last, stopping in his tracks. Uraume stopped too, their silence an indicator of their curiosity.

"It's part of the pact," Sukuna said by way of explanation. "No cursed energy, a body that can withstand the hardest usage and abuses, and immortality. She's…"

Sukuna understood it all at once. It wasn't just the pact. It was her. Whatever she was in addition to that pact.

He grinned. After three months he thought his interest in the darkling creature kept in captivity would finally make her way to his dinner table, but no…she was not for eating. She had something far more valuable than her meat.

She had knowledge.

Now, all he had to do was make her relinquish everything she knew willingly.

"Uraume," Sukuna said, recalling his attendant companion's attention. "I think your idea has merit. Have her cleaned up and given a room in the concubine's quarters. We'll see how she responds to coaxing rather than pain."

Nadja knew that Sukuna had figured something out when she found herself suddenly hauled from the torture chamber to the baths. Uraume was cold and dispassionate in their supervision, watching as the maids scrubbed Nadja of all the dirt, grime, and roughness of her months in captivity. Like polishing a precious stone, eventually, the facets began to sparkle again, and it was made readily apparent that she was not some mere foreigner from across the sea. By the time the maids were done, the water in the tub was black as soot, and they emptied it three times before she herself deigned she was clean.

After, she was sent to the hot springs, which were held sacrosanct for their medicinal properties. Nadja did not argue, and instead spent a rare moment of peace in private bliss. The waters were just shy of being too hot, and she sank up to her shoulders, leaning her head back and shutting her eyes. It was dusk, the sun spilling vermillion onto the face of the mountain, bathing the hot springs in harsh light refracted by steam.

She felt his shadow fall over her without opening her eyes.

"Could you not have waited a day for me to adjust to your new method of interrogation?" She asked, only slightly irritated. Her instincts seemed to react before her thoughts, and she was across the spring before Sukuna could touch her.

"This is how you thank me for allowing you use of my hot spring?" He asked drily. "Tch. Perhaps I should let you sleep amongst the pigs and dogs, and see just how much you can tolerate."

Nadja watched him with one magma-colored eye, the other hidden by her eyepatch. Her expression was unreadable.

"I can tolerate quite a bit, as you've no doubt learned these past few months." She said in a low voice. Sukuna grinned ath that, and then his lower set of hands untied his kimono, the sound of silk sliding against silk loud in the quiet serenity of the hot spring. Nadja did not tear her gaze away, even as the kimono dropped, revealing all of him to her. She barely had time to study him, transfixed on the utter strangeness of his physical form, her gaze blazing a path downward, before he stepped into the spring and sank down, hiding his lower half beneath the surface.

Wait, was that a second co—

"I'm well aware," Sukuna said, exasperated. "But I think perhaps my approach has been all wrong, little would-be assassin."

Nadja was eerily still in the water, watching him like a predator crossing paths with a larger predator and wondering just how the night would go.

"So you seek to seduce me?" She asked. Sukuna gave her an aggravated look.

"Don't be stupid," he said contemptuously. "If fucking you had been my aim, I would have ruined every orifice you possess the first night of your captivity."

Nadja's magma-colored eye went slightly wide, the only indication of her shock at such a nakedly vulgar statement, and yet Sukuna said it as if it were as conversational as the weather. Did no one in this godforsaken country know how to deal with him?

"I wasn't sent here to kill you," she said, surprised by her own words even as they left her mouth. Sukuna raised a brow.

"So what was all that nonsense the first night?" He demanded.

"A tasting," Nadja murmured. Sukuna frowned. Then, he smirked.

"I see," he said in a low voice. "You were too afraid to challenge me openly so you pinned it on the Fujiwara."

Nadja shook her head. "Do not misunderstand me, Sukuna," she said softly. "I was not sent here to kill you. I was sent to observe. Engaging you in a fight was my choice. I needed to be sure."

"Sure of what, little assassin?"

Nadja took a breath, and rolled her metaphorical dice between them.

"That I wouldn't have to kill you. At least, not now as you are."

Sukuna gaped at her, perhaps waiting for some punchline, but if his theory about what she was proved to be true, he knew her words were deadly serious. So of course he laughed, loud and uproarious, deep from his belly. Nadja did not seem amused.

"Oh you're funny, little assassin," he chuckled. "What's to stop me from splattering you to pieces this instant? Your blood would make the water so beautiful, I think."

Nadja smiled, and if Sukuna were crazy he'd swear there was pity in it. For him? Was she crazy?

"You and I both know you can't do that. Not to me, at any rate."

Sukuna did try, of course. Several times. She'd blocked every single slash effortlessly, and when she was unarmed she'd merely reconstituted herself. He thought about Uraume's words.

Her pride may be unassailable by threatening physical harm. Her soul is not.

Her soul.

"What are you?" Sukuna growled. Nadja's plump lips curved into a smile, and Sukuna realized she looked more wolf than woman.

"You're finally asking the right questions," she conceded. "I wish I could answer them, but by convenant I can say nothing."

Sukuna sighed and growled all at once, sitting back impatiently.

"The pact." Nadja nodded.

"Even so," she said. "You have questioned me about who sent me, and I will be honest with you with what I'm allowed to share. No torture or sexual slavery needed on your part."

Sukuna grinned, and Nadja felt her hair stand on end and goosebumps prickling her skin.

"But it's half the fun," he said. "Still, it is strange: I have never seen anyone with a Heavenly Restriction that renders one with absolutely no cursed energy."

Nadja's gaze slipped from his to gaze at the water—or more accurately: past it.

"No, there are no others like me," she said. "There might be in the future, but for now, I am the only one who is…this. I cannot generate nor manipulate your…jujutsu. Nor can I wield any magic, in fact."

She met his gaze again. "Turns out Heavenly Restrictions are strict."

"Then what good are you?" Sukuna demands. "And who sent you if not the Fujiwara?"

Nadja was silent in the wake of his demands, sitting back against the wall of the spring. For a moment, they shared a tense silence. Sukuna made no attempt to fill it and neither did she. Instead, she sat beneath his scrutiny for another half hour, before she made the move to leave the spring. Not wanting to alert him, she slowed her movements to a crawl. Sukuna watched her the entire time, all four eyes studying her, and for once, he got a good look at the body carved by the divine.

She was magnificent.

The steam curled around her like a loving dragon, while the water traveled down battle-sculpted curves in glittering worship. Every curve and slalom, every corded and wiry muscle, nothing had ever been put together so efficiently in all his years. He had taken her apart and watched her put herself back together exactly the same every time. The corporeal cues of his torments had faded from her umber skin, leaving only the marks heaven sought to give her: written on her bones and binding around her soul. A power even he could have no hope of touching and mastering. But the trade-off of such a pact intrigued him. What had been taken from her? What was given?

He had to know.

Nadja moved toward him, the water waist-deep, and Sukuna's gaze held her pinned in place momentarily. This time, he took her in as a man would a woman, and he liked what he saw.

"You're thinking about touching me," she said, moving toward him with a methodical slowness. "Thinking of telling me what you want to do to me."

"I'm thinking no such thing."

Nadja was standing before him, and while she might have towered over an ordinary man, she was barely eye level with Sukuna. She raised a brow when his lower set of arms beneath the water moved, hands wrapping around her calves, beginning to smooth a slow, indulgent trail up her legs. She smiled at him as if she knew something he didn't. He squeezed her legs, felt the hard muscle of her thighs, dense and corded like a shimenawa, and likely just as holy. Yet…nothing about her body burned or spurned him. She certainly seemed unafraid of what he might do to her.

"No," she said at last. "I don't think you are thinking of those things at all." She reached out for him, tracing the rough, fleshy armor of his face. He held her gaze, even as her fingertips came to trace the stark, black markings along his chiseled jawline, ghosting along his chin. Her eye widened as one of his hands caught her by the wrist, grinning like a shark scenting blood when he felt her pulse leap under his touch. So she could be startled.

"You're immortal," he said, a rough purr in his voice. "There is only one being walking this earth I know has certified immortality, and you aren't them. Thus, your immortality is part of the restriction. Why?"

Nadja laughed in the face of the one who meant certain death for all others.

Except her.

"Ah, I was warned about your cunning mind," she chuckled, seemingly unconcerned with her wrist in his death grip.

"This much I can say: yes, I have immortality and eternal youth, but not because of the restriction."

Another goddamned puzzle. Sukuna loved puzzles, and Nadja's was making his mind turn in ways it hadn't for centuries. The flavors of these sorcerers had been becoming dull and tasteless to him, and when he grew bored, he caused trouble. His temple was a veritable killing ground as tribute of all kinds lined his profane halls. He had solved the mystery of many sorcerers, and drank their blood after.

But Nadja Hikmat was something else—something foreign and new to his vast archive of knowledge.

Jujutsu is not the only magic in this world.

And she was forbidden to speak too much.

"Why are you really here?" He asked instead. "And why can I not kill you?"

Nadja smiled, tilting her head. He wanted to lean up and lick that wolfish smirk from her face. He wanted to suck on various parts of her skin, see how hard he had to go until he saw a bruise there. Did she control her healing? Or would she wear his badges of hunger on her skin with pride? Nadja leaned forward until their noses touched.

"You are a beautiful force of nature, Ryōmen Sukuna," she whispered, somehow making it so her lips hovered just barely out of reach of his own. He was so curious he didn't force her, still holding her wrist prisoner.

"Fearsome," she nipped his lip, pulling away just enough to make him chase.

"Brutal," she teased him with the barest brush of the tip of her tongue.

One of his hands tightened on her calf, sliding up the back of her leg to grip her thigh.

"Unbeatable," her breath came out a little rushed as one of his hands slid higher, just barely brushing the glistening swell of her naked cunt with his fingertips.

Nadja smiled wider.

"But you are not what gets to kill me."

Maybe it was the way she said it, with that rough growl as she addressed herself in the sentence. Maybe it was the way she purred his name like a sacred mantra, or something she wanted to taste more of. It could have been anything. Her goddamned scent. The way nothing he did to her seemed to stick. The way her body could probably take all of him.

He tugged her, and found her pliant. She slid into his waiting lap as if she were water herself. Sukuna's appetite was legendary, and he wasted no time when it came to slaking whatever hungers ailed him.

Right now, he wanted Nadja Hikmat to scream for him, because of him.

Nadja had no qualms with his rough handling, maneuvering with a lusty ease. She laughed when Sukuna pinned both her arms behind her back, his grip as firm as shackles.

"I'm unarmed," she whispered as he devoured her lips in a hungry kiss.

"Never," Sukuna growled, and Nadja laughed again. He wanted to hear that sound again, later. Right now, he needed her at his mercy.

His lower pair of hands held her hips, pushing her down. Nadja moved for him, angling herself for one of his cocks [she had no doubt she'd seen two]. The swollen head probed at her entrance, slick and ready, but he paused.

"Come to bed," he growled. "And if you stab me I'll tear you apart."

Nadja seemed unbothered being so utterly at his mercy, smiling drunkenly as she let the anticipation build in her lower abdomen. Her lack of fear irritated Sukuna, but he would have her fear tonight.

"You could always carry me," she challenged with a grin.

Sukuna tossed her into the water unceremoniously, and she came up laughing as he rose and retreated back into his bedroom. She watched him go, wringing out her hair before she followed him, retrieving her robes and his. The path back to his bedroom was lovely, likely only seen by him or his concubines. Nadja knew he was trying to seduce her, but she was going to do the same to him. He would find himself flying a bit too close to the sun with her. Nadja shared a wicked smirk with the deepening shadows, watching as the stars became visible overhead. She allowed herself a contented sigh, the kind that could only be evoked by the majesty of a vista such as this one. Then, she turned, retreating to Sukuna's bedchamber.

If Sukuna's fighting prowess had been any indication, it was that he was just as thorough and destructive in bed. Before Nadja could dry off and mount the empty bed, Sukuna had laid down the ground rules, those being that he could do whatever he liked. Nadja had smirked and agreed. She'd also asked if he intended to interrogate her while they fucked. Sukuna hadn't answered, and instead had her on her hands and knees on the bed, holding her head while he saw just how deep down her throat he could shove his cock. She took him surprisingly well, and he tested the limits of her airways for a good hour before pulling away.

The wolfish woman looked beautiful, that beautiful eye heavy-lidded with lust, tears running down her face, and those plump lips glistening and swollen with her saliva and his seed. When her tongue snaked out to catch a drop, both his cocks twitched in response. From there, it was a matter of putting her exactly where he wanted her. He ordered her onto her back, and grinned when she spread her legs for him. For a moment, he took her in, just like that. Her cunt was dripping, so wet he could taste it, and he did.

He watched with undue pleasure as her eye widened when the mouth on his abdomen came to life, the tongue lolling out in clear lustful intent. When it clicked, he watched her bite her lip in quiet anticipation, and she angled her hips just a little higher, even as his hands wrapped around her thighs, dragging her up so that his lower mouth could lap at her cunt.

For Nadja, the sudden sensation had her gripping the sheets, even as every muscle of her abdomen clenched, her hips jerking as Sukuna's massive tongue licked a wet path from her dripping slit down to the puckered rosebud between her cheeks. She shuddered, half-laughing, half-moaning as he continued. She tossed her head, chanting his name, even as all four of his eyes gazed down at her, watching her unravel. It was a beautiful sight.

"Think you can take me?" His voice drew her out of her trance, and she peered up at him with a teary, lava-colored eye. She bit her lip.

"Yes…" She said to him and it sounded like a promise. "As long as you can handle me."

Sukuna took the challenge, and sure enough, she made good on her promise. After she was so wet and swollen and slick, he'd shoved his cock into her, growling at the tight fit, and she whimpered. That sound, along with her laughter in the hot spring, he would never forget.

He slid his cock to the hilt inside of her, holding her half in the air with his lower arms, while her legs hooked around his hips. He began at a brutal pace, wanting to hurt her.

Her response to this method of pain had thrilled him.

She cried, of course. It was pain. But she begged, too. That, he han't expected. She begged him not to stop, whimpering and moaning, her cunt leaving a thick coat of slick from root to tip. She writhed in his certain grip, before he gathered her wrists in one hand, holding her up and maintaining eye contact while he fucked her until his name was the only thing she could think to say.

She screamed for him when he got her down on all fours, shoving one cock in either hole. She'd told him she could take him, and so he made sure she did.

She hadn't lied. Sukuna thrilled at that.

She took him again and again, letting him resituate their bodies with a lewd and raunchy ease. They crashed together until exhaustion defeated them both.

The bed lay in shambles, with Sukuna on his back, slick with sweat, blood, and her. Nadja lay limp and curled at his side, one leg thrown carelessly over his massive thigh. Thoughtlessly, she pressed lazy kisses against his neck, tracing her nose along the shell of his ear. Sukuna could not recall being so thoroughly satisfied. Then again, most of his bedroom escapades ended in death. He'd never been with someone capable of withstanding the demands of his hunger.

"You are a fascinating creature, Nadja Hikmat." He rumbled, one lower hand tracing her hip, the other wrapped around her shoulder.

"You are quite fascinating yourself, Ryōmen Sukuna," she replied, her voice groggy with oncoming sleep.

"Don't think…this makes me one of your little concubines…" She mumbled against his shoulder. Sukuna chuckled. He wouldn't dare.

She was so much more than a mere concubine.

Nadja decided to linger in Hida for much longer than she intended. While she would never have presumed Sukuna to need help, she existed as a silent shadow poised to aid him should he require it. But he was a cunt hair from touching the divine. Nadja knew the signs, had seen it countless times over the innumerable lifetimes she'd lived. How many millennia?

Why call me here? She wondered while soaking in the hot springs one late afternoon. It didn't matter if she got an answer or not, it was clear Sukuna was not her scripted end. She would not have regenerated had that been the case. Still, she'd been ordered here for a reason.

"Where do you go so deep in thought, Hikmat?" Sukuna's voice rumbled, drawing her out of her reverie. Nadja looked up to see him in his usual attire: the white hakama, and an artistic amount of blood staining his shirtless torso. Either he had eaten someone or he'd been executing those who displeased him. Either way, he seemed to be in a conversational mood. Nadja regarded him with an amused smirk.

"If you mean to ask do I go to an innate domain then, no, I do not. Meditation for me is rather dull, I'm afraid."

Sukuna joined her in the spring after rinsing off the blood at the well. As he sat, she went to him automatically, as had become a habit. She settled on his lap, his lower hands gripping her hips.

"Pity," he rumbled, raising her just enough that one of his hands could palm her breasts. He delighted in such petty games. Hurting her was pointless, so pleasuring her beyond her ability to think was just as fun a torment and sweet to both of them.

"Ryōmen," she murmured as she traced the markings on his shoulders and chest, along his jawline. She traced the strong line of his brow with an unhurried thumb, watched as his smaller set of eyes crinkled in a slight frown. His name seemed to still him, at least for now.

"How do you want your story to end?" She asked. "How do you want to be remembered?"

His hands tightened on her hips, making her lips part slightly as she adjusted in his sure grip. He didn't answer her question right away, instead contenting himself with adjusting her body, the blunt tip of one of his cocks nudged her open. Nadja winced, hissed, then moaned as he sank her down onto him.

"How will you remember me, Nadja?" He asked instead. Nadja braced herself on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin.

"As a storm that has the most powerful family in this country frightened of what you may do to them. But perhaps most especially as a ravenously curious mind."

Sukuna laughed and then leaned in to lick a slow, wet stripe up her throat, ending at her chin.

"Lovely description," he said. "But that is not how you will remember me, I think."

He began to move her up and down on his cock, and for a while, Nadja didn't speak, only moaned. Water sloshed over the sides of the bath, and Sukuna teased out an orgasm before they continued their conversation.

"No," she said breathlessly, laughing quietly as she lazily linked her arms around his neck. "No, I don't think that's a way that'll do you justice. You are one of a kind, Sukuna, and regardless of what you decide to do, I will remember you as such."

Sukuna stroked her waist almost tenderly.

"You speak as if you are saying goodbye, Hikmat."

Nadja met his gaze quietly, and there was something remorseful in it, something almost sad. Sukuna frowned.

"You mean to leave."

Nadja bit her lip and rocked her hips forward onto his cock, making him draw in a quiet, hissing breath.

"I have seen what I came to see, Sukuna," she said sadly, "and my duties call me elsewhere. But…I will come back. This much I can promise you, no more."

He stroked her face, openly tender with her, smirking.

"When?" He asked. Nadja tilted her head. Sukuna's thumb traced her plump lips and she took it into her mouth instinctively. "When will my little fugitive of heaven return to me?"

She gasped, eye widening. He smirked. He'd done some research, after all. Nadja smiled back, sucking his thumb sensually, kissing the calloused pad with a tenderness that was so unlike what they actually did in the bedroom.

"I cannot say for certain," she replied in a soft voice, a tender voice. "But something tells me your story does not end here, Ryōmen. I will find you again, my demon king."

Thus, this was how they said goodbye.

Sukuna did not solve the puzzle of Nadja Hikmat during that time, but he did not need to. He would have her again, regardless of the era. She was his fugitive of heaven, after all.