Sundari, at her core, has always been a creature of sharp and unerring instinct. From the moment she was born, she was made painfully aware of how different she was from quite literally everyone around her. Not just in terms of appearance and power, but in how she chose to view the world. To her, there was never a question of whether to act, she simply saw a problem worthy of her attention and attempted to solve it.
It was a happy coincidence that many of those problems could only be resolved with spectacular displays of violence and artistic amounts of bloodshed.
She's always had a keen gut instinct for trouble, and Sundari knows when a situation has gone tits-up.
It's why she's entering one of the colonies for the Culling Games, now.
The first thing that assaults her senses is the strange little creature that appears before her. It calls itself Kogane, and it asks her if she wishes to become a player.
"Yeah," she says tersely. "Yeah, whatever, I'm a player; let me in."
She can't be credited with too much patience, but she's pressed for time. Something is wrong, her gut is churning, and this little irksome shikigami creature is announcing to presumably everyone that she's entered the game. That's fine, she can handle whatever comes her way.
"Sundari Hikmat's life is worth 5,000 points!"
Sundari is halfway to Shinjuku when she hears this announcement, and the echoes of it from other Kogane creatures nearby. The sentence bounces around in her skull like an endless refrain, and she allows herself an exhausted and defeated smirk before she turns her face to the sky.
"Fuck you," she whispers, wishing that curse user monk could hear her. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you."
Not for the first time, but she regrets not unleashing all of herself in Shibuya that night. It seemed to work perfectly fine for her father. She makes a mental note to put skullfucking back on the menu when she crosses paths with the monk again.
The first sorcerer to come for her head attacks her in a Cinnabon when she's scavenging for snacks. They were clever in their approach, she'd give them that much credit, but their cursed energy barely warrants the effort, and she emerges from the abandoned shop, gnawing on a stale cinnamon bun she attempted to reheat in a microwave. It's not much, but breakfast is breakfast at this point.
The man hunting her this morning is a sorcerer by the name Genji Ishida, and Sundari regards him with a bored expression, her four-eyed perspective taking him in while keeping watch on her surroundings. She tastes his cursed energy, like corrupted ozone. She's always likened it to 'tainted' magic. Other forms of magic have their own flavor, but jujutsu has always tasted wrong to her. Genji doesn't have enough cursed energy to face her.
"Look," she says, "I don't know what you think you heard, but this isn't a fight you want right now." It's a warning, and she hopes Genji has the good sense the gods gave a rabbit enough to fuck off and find some other sorcerer to play with. Sundari isn't sure if she will be penalized for not killing sorcerers, but she knows she can. In fact, the game encourages it, and that's what she's afraid of: not of losing, but of winning so handily that the blood will soak Tokyo for weeks. She knows what she's capable of and she knows she's trying very hard not to be like her father.
She also suspects that's why that dickhead monk has placed a veritable bounty on her head. He wants her to act up! Well, she will eventually, but she's gonna offer as many ways to avoid it as possible.
Genji is not a smart man. In fact, as she gets a good look at him, she can see that the lights are not all on upstairs. There's a vacant look in his eyes, and she can see the dried blood crusted around his nose. She wonders if he's overused his technique recently.
"I need those points," he says, and his lip curls into a sneer before he lunges for her. He's faster than Sundari expected, and she rotates her body in a smooth pivot, taking his telegraphed strike and using his momentum to fling him effortlessly into the Cinnabon's glass storefront. It shatters beautifully, as does the counter as Genji plows through it from Sundari's powerful throw. Sundari waits to see if he gets back up.
He does, stumbling out of the shattered Cinnabon into the street where Sundari has given up on her breakfast and dusts the crumbs off on her pants before cracking her neck and her knuckles.
"You're worth a whole five stacks," Genji says, assuming a fighting stance, but Sundari sees him swaying unsteadily, like an uncertain serpent. He's concussed. "No way I'm letting a steal like that pass me by."
Sundari snorts. "Well, come collect your bounty if you can, buddy." She makes a come-hither gesture with two fingers. Genji lunges at her again and this time she's certain his cursed technique is burned out. She rotates out of his way again, playfully rolls out one of her extra arms to shove him in the back as he stumbles past her. She can tell the man's brain has been cooked, likely because he doesn't have good control over his cursed energy or technique. Her other arm rolls back into her body before he can get up and turn around.
"What the hell?" He mumbles. "Why can't I make the fucking sparks come out?"
Sundari sighs. Yeah, he's cooked. Suddenly, the fight has lost its petty amusement, and she keeps walking, ignoring the muzzy curses of the sorcerer behind her. He'll be dead before nightfall if he doesn't recover his cursed energy in time to fight off the actual curses plaguing the city at night. But that's his problem.
Right now, Sundari has bigger fish to fry mainly, her father, whom she has just detected elsewhere in the colony. A massive burst of cursed energy that mirrors her own. Sundari's focus tunnels down to that, and she takes off at a dead run, unhindered as she realizes her gut instinct is in fact correct again. However, being right isn't always a good thing and Sundari finds utter devastation when she arrives.
Yuji is down, injured from a recent blow, and Sundari is at his side before she realizes something is terribly wrong. Yuji looks up at her, tears in his eyes, but Sundari's eyes are wide because the soft, red slits where Sukuna's lower eyes reside are no longer on his face. His face, which is twisted into such anguish as he tries to get the words out through the thick, wet flood of his own grief.
"He took them both," Yuji says and Sundari realizes that not only is Megumi missing, but her mother as well. "I can't believe I didn't see it coming. He just…he took Megumi."
Sundari already knows the answer, but she asks anyway: "Who?"
"Sukuna," Yuji whispers, and there is anguish and contempt in his voice. "Somehow he managed to escape my body and took Fushiguro…and then he took Hikmat-sensei, and they escaped with a shikigami."
The fact that her mother is seemingly unable to kill her bastard of a father when it counts is beginning to irk Sundari. She is beginning to believe that her mother might still love the fucking bastard and that's why she won't strike when it's time. Sundari clenches her fists and uses the menacing presence of her immense cursed energy to ward off any challengers who think to come for the prize on her head.
"Can you stand?" She asks and Yuji nods as she helps him to his feet. Maki soon joins them, but she looks more irritated than disappointed.
"There's a price on your head, Hikmat-san," Maki says. "Why'd you leave Tengen's realm?"
Sundari chuckles. "I had a gut feeling that everything was going to shit so I came to help. Looks like I was right, for all the fucking good it did anyone."
Maki shoulders her sword and heaves a sigh. "Yeah, well, that's noble of you but now your cursed energy is going to be a flashing neon sign to any sorcerer stupid enough to try and claim the bounty."
Sundari grins. "I hope so. I need them so I can open the Prison Realm."
"What?!" Maki and Yuji exclaim in unison. Sundari waves her hand dismissively.
"Not here," she says looking around. Most of the city is quiet, and there's destruction where the fighting has been heaviest in the first few days of the Games. Their current location is indefensible, and Sundari can't think of where they can go to enact her admittedly half-baked plan. She knows she requires more cursed energy to do what she tried before, but without Sukuna here to intervene she risks truly killing herself in the process. Gods take his withered soul for his perfidy. Sundari feels a rage inside her like brutal magma, and she wants so badly to kill her father, to end his curse upon this world once and for all.
Unless…
Sundari shuts her main eyes, keeping her lower eyes open to regard Yuji and Maki, as well as keep an eye on their surroundings. Looking at Maki is a bit unsettling because Sundari can detect no cursed energy from her. She's like a void in the flow of the world: invisible to sorcerers, and deadly to them. She begins to breathe slower, letting herself feel her own body as she inhales and then exhales.
October 3, 2018, Gojo Satoru's Residence 21:35
Satoru manages to come home early one night. With the summer ended, and most troublesome curses exorcised, his schedule manages to free up only slightly, but it is enough that he no longer keeps exceedingly late hours. And so, he claims a rare moment of respite, eager to come home to the woman he has come to love so dearly. He can already taste her cursed energy, exactly like her father's, and yet he would know her anywhere. Not just because of her energy, but because he sees her everywhere. He sees the shape of her lithe and svelte curves in the hills and mountains Tokyo is nestled within. He sees the dark glimmer of her garnet eyes if he focuses his vision just enough.
He can almost hear her rich laughter in the wind, a sound from her belly, where her secondary mouth grins.
It's not until he crosses the threshold into his home, shuts and locks the door behind him, and pulls down his blindfold that he breathes her name like a secret he's been keeping all day.
"Sundari…" His voice is rich with eagerness. He wants her, wants to wrap his arms around her and kiss the sharp black ink of her tattoos on her neck, down to the tender spot between her shoulder blades.
He follows his senses and finds her seated on a grassy rise overlooking the vast forest that extends endlessly. It is a hidden place, and Satoru likes to believe that it has become their place. Few know this location, and even fewer have set foot here. Satoru has taken great pains to keep Sundari hidden until he can smooth things over with the higher-ups, whom he knows will call for her immediate execution.
An abomination, they'd call her.
A goddess. He'd counter.
Sundari's back is to him, and he notices that she is nearly naked, clad only in what looks to be a—
Oh. She's nude and wearing nothing but a gold waist chain. Satoru bites his lip and shuts his eyes momentarily, letting out a small laugh.
She's sitting cross-legged, her main eyes are shut, the smaller set focused on the moonrise. All four of her arms are present, each of her four hands in a different mudra. Satoru's asked her about them, and she's explained their meanings to him, so different from the ones he was taught. Still, they are effective, and she seems to be engaged in some sort of meditation. The mouth on her belly is chanting, but the mouth on her face is neutral, full lips slightly parted.
She's doing intense breath work, and Satoru studies her.
Stark black tattoos—Sukuna's exactly—stand vividly against her almond-brown skin. Every part of her seems deliberately sculpted, a testament to her lifetime spent being raised as a warrior, as he was. He tries to imagine how Nadja, who has no cursed energy, had managed to raise someone as powerful as Sundari. He has so many questions, and yet all of that is doused out of him when he sees her main eyes open, and she turns to look at him over her shoulder.
"Satoru," there is a burgeoning smile in her voice, and her voice has a slight ring of power. His Six Eyes read the overwhelming flow of her cursed energy. It heaves and sighs like the ocean but moves slow like the earth. Each breath she takes draws it in, and every exhale pushes it out. He watches her rein it in tighter with each breath and push it out slower with each exhale.
Her heart is beating strongly and steadily, and he can see the heat building in her belly, her cursed energy pulsing like a neutron star: blinding and overwhelming.
But not to the strongest sorcerer of the modern age. No, he can bare the beautiful brightness of her. He revels and basks in it as if she is the sun, and he wants nothing more than to see her revel and bask as well. Creatures like them will never take to being slapped with a bridle and led by the nose. No, she—like him—deserves to run free.
One of her hands beckons him closer, an elegant roll of her wrist, delicate but deadly fingers crooked and alluring; and he comes to sit beside her. They have established equal footing in more ways than one. He is not afraid to yield to her demands from time to time.
"You're home early," she murmurs, even as her lower mouth chants empowered sutras in a soft and sweet melody that seems to blend so nicely with the deepening night. Satoru marvels at her when she does this. The secondary mouth does not strain her heart or lungs yet is as powerful as her main mouth.
"Curses are incubating," Satoru says, "and there's nothing that requires my level of intervention. I can fuck off if I want."
Sundari snorts. "And this is you fucking off, is it?"
Satoru leans back on his hands, stretching his long legs in front of him as he awards her with one of his feline grins.
"Hey, I'm allowed to fuck off in any way I please," he tells her. "And don't act like you don't like me fucking off with you."
It's ridiculous, this exchange, but that's sort of the nature of their friendship…and a core foundation of their continued attraction to one another. They burst into mutual laughter. Sundari breaks her concentration, and her cursed energy stills like a placid lake, blanketing the area, overlapping with his. Satoru sees it like moonlight dancing off the surface of her lake. It's beautiful, how their energy blends so well together.
"What were you doing?" Satoru asks. "Just now. I don't recognize those sutras."
Sundari gives him a tender smile; a benevolent goddess answering a willing acolyte.
"A breathing technique my teacher showed me. It helps cycle my cursed energy through my body more efficiently." At Satoru's expression she frowns. "Look, just because my dad was—is—a prodigy, doesn't mean I was. I was just born with a lot of power and a unique physique. But I definitely wasn't always good at it."
"Still," Satoru says, "you've got an instinct for it. And your martial arts are impeccable. I'm more afraid of your hand-to-hand combat than your techniques."
Sundari smiles. It's strange to her that he says this, because most of jujutsu society prides itself on whatever unique and powerful techniques manifest. But Sundari was raised amongst women whose value could be weighed in coin on the best nights. They were courtesans and warriors. Vanhi had been strict in having Sundari learn to be a cunning and powerful fighter before she trained her to wed those skills to sorcery. In retrospect, Sundari can understand why. She's made a god bleed, and she's faced off with the most powerful sorcerers and held her own.
"I see," she says, grinning. She adjusts her body, folding her legs under her and retracting her lower arms. They roll into her body in an incomprehensible display and then they are gone. A second black band manifests on her arms and wrists, and she looks at him in full. Satoru studies her beautiful face, the wide garnet eyes and the smaller ones beneath, which flare to the color of crystalized blood when she's excited or angry. The stark black trishula symbol on her brow marks her as Sukuna's own. As does everything about her.
"You going to kiss me or what?" He asks. "Don't make me beg."
Sundari chuckles, a rich and husky sound that makes him shiver.
"But you're so good at it, Satoru," her tongue caresses his name tenderly and he swears he can feel it on his cock. He wants her to suck him off, right here under the stars. He wants to see those perfect, pouty lips wrapped around his shaft.
Fuck. He might just beg tonight, but he doesn't want to beg. He wants her to come to him when he calls her.
Sundari stares at him, amusement giving an impish look to her grin. She's going to play this game right alongside him, and he grinds his teeth a little. He doesn't know it yet, but Sundari is more like her father than either of them realize. The same sinister smirk, the wicked glint of mischief in her four eyes, and the dimples in her cheeks giving her sharp and dangerous appearance a softness that Satoru has come to adore. A woman—no, his goddess—whose power rivals his own, and right now she looks as if a butterfly would be safe in her fight-ready hands.
God, he loves her.
"Come here," he says to her, but he's reaching for her, fingertips brushing the apple of her cheek. Sundari shuts her main eyes, leaning into his touch. He watches her breathing even out from his mere touch. Such a spitfire and yet she seems wholly trusting and ready to yield to him. She finally relents, and instead of leaning in, she crawls onto him to straddle him. Satoru's arms come up automatically to wrap around her naked body, his palms smoothing up the sinuous length of her back. Her skin is so satiny and tender to the touch. He'll never tire of touching her.
Sundari's ankles lock behind his back. The lotus position is her favorite, he's learned. It's his too: he loves being able to see her and feel her come undone as he holds her close. His cock strains in his pants, and he swears he can feel the heat of her naked cunt against the fabric. Her body always feels like she has magma running in her veins in lieu of blood.
No. Ichor. Her mother isn't human. Sundari is an immortal.
"Satoru…" her voice has a warning note in it but is softened by concern. He's in his head again.
"Sorry," he murmurs. "It's just that you're so goddamn beautiful, baby. Took my breath away."
Sundari rolls all four of her eyes, but her smile is fond, and he can see the heat blooming in her cheeks like a soft candle glow.
"You're not so bad yourself, handsome," she says back, and she rewards him by kissing him. Satoru's lips part even as he's grinning, basking in her affections shamelessly. After all, they're for him and him alone. He presses her closer to him, and she moans softly when her breasts rub against the fabric of his jacket. Her nipples harden at the contact, making her hiss.
Satoru's mouth leaves hers reluctantly, but his leans in to trace the sleek line of her jaw with his lips. He presses kisses so soft against her skin, Sundari nearly whimpers from the tenderness of it, shivering in his arms and linking her arms around his neck, her hands threading through his silvered white hair. Satoru purrs from the sensation of her nails rubbing and massaging his scalp.
For a while there is only kissing, and caressing, and basking in the closeness of one another. They can do this for only so long before one or the other insists on taking things further. Satoru can be impatient, but Sundari is insatiable in her hunger for him. It's only a matter of time before—
Sundari rocks her hips and now he can feel the slick heat of her through the fabric of his pants. His mouth goes dry, and he swallows.
"Fuck…" he whispers reverently, resisting the urge to pump his hips up just for the sheer sensation. He knows she's wet, knows it as surely as anything, but he refuses to break first.
"Satoru…" Sundari purrs his name in his ear, nipping his earlobe and making him shiver. He spends so much of his time being untouchable that these soft, intimate moments are a delicious indulgence for him that rivals his actual sweet tooth. He loves to be touched. Loves the sensation of skin against his own, of being so thoroughly entangled that their limbs seemed to blend. He needs to be inside her. He needs his skin on hers. Fuck, he's going to break if she doesn't stop.
"Don't you want me?" She whispers.
"Of course I want you," Satoru says. "I just…I'm learning to savor what's in front of me. And you're worth savoring."
Sundari smiles, leans in so that they can kiss again. "Sweet talker…"
Satoru lets himself be smug. "I eat enough sugar for it. I'm the sweetest talker, baby…"
"Shut up," Sundari murmurs, but the grin in her voice is all too telling of how his words affect her. She clings to him as they kiss, Satoru's hands running a circuit over every inch of her within his reach.
Satoru grips her waist, pulls her down so that she bounces on the bulge of his cock prettily. He relishes in her surprised groan of pleasure, and there's a wet spot on his pants where her cunt has grown slick as she rocks her hips to grind against him. He grins at her, and holds up one hand, his index and middle fingers crossed. Her eyes widen as she realizes what he's about to do. They're closer than ever, now, and Satoru wants to show her something he's never gotten the chance to show anyone else in this way.
"Ryōiki Tenkai…"
Zenin Estate, November 18, 2018 14:35
Nadja is not sure how long she lingers in the living, writhing shadows Megumi's technique have dropped her in. She cannot see, but her senses strain for any sign that will give her a clue as to where she is. She does not have to wonder long, as the shadows surge beneath her, and suddenly she's rushing up and up and up, until she breaks the surface, spilling onto the flagstones of a walkway. She recognizes the Zenin Estate instantly, and she can smell the death Maki left behind.
She comes onto her hands and knees, her arms shaky as she vomits onto the stones, shaking off the last vestiges of disorientation from the living shadow that brought her here.
"Still alive," Sukuna's voice spills down her senses like warm honey and she climbs to her feet, swaying slightly as she regains her bearings. She turns to look at the new face he wears, keeps her expression neutral as she realizes he has now possessed the body of Megumi Fushiguro. It is strange, but he looks nothing like Megumi. The vessels always get warped to reflect his true face in some way. His smirk is the same, though, and he tilts his head.
"My fugitive of heaven fears not even the shadows, hm?" He closes the distance between them, impossibly fast, and Nadja is still too shaky to react in time as his fist collides with her ribs. All the air in her lungs is driven out in a rush, followed by a choking sound as she crumples to her knees before him. Sukuna stares down at her, fury banked in his wild, crimson eyes.
"That," he says, his rich voice limned in malice, "I owed you."
Nadja can't help herself, even at his mercy: she laughs.
"And when you have finished beating me to hell and back, what then?" She grits out, holding her injured side, already healing. She cannot rise from her knees, the pain in her ribs is too great. Sukuna doesn't care, he reaches down to grab a fistful of her hair and shake her head roughly.
"I will do it for as long as it takes." He snaps. "Remember: I promised to repay you for every year you hid her from me and made me wait for you."
Nadja looks up at him, and for a moment there are no words, only a silent tension building between them, thick and cloying and choking out all other air in the world. Sukuna's eyes are dark, drifting downward where he can see her pulse hammering like a trapped thing. He briefly remembers a time when the sight of her pulse hammering was because of excitement to be with him. Not this.
He shoves her away with a disgusted sound, whether with her or himself is anyone's guess.
"Sukuna-sama," the cool and even voice of Uraume slithers through the tension like a cold river cutting through stone. Both Sukuna and Nadja turn their gazes to them. Uraume does not even spare Nadja a glance, keeping their gaze respectfully downcast as they reported to Sukuna that his bath was ready. Sukuna's stony expression melts into one of malicious pleasure. He glances back at Nadja, disdain flitting across his gaze before returning to neutrality.
"Get up, we aren't finished." He snaps. Nadja cannot believe that after a thousand years the commanding growl in his voice still sends shivers down her spine…not all of them unpleasant. Not to be humiliated, Nadja climbs to her feet, steadier than before, her expression one of fierce determination. She steadies her mind and steels her heart. Whatever he sees makes Sukuna's eyes widen slightly—briefly—before he turns on his heel and begins to stride off, Uraume following three steps behind. Nadja trails after them, and notes that she is still armed. Whatever reason for it, Nadja is certain Sukuna knows himself at an advantage here. She won't kill him if he is using Fushiguro as a vessel, and he can't kill her so he will find other ways to hurt her instead.
But he knows every time he does hurt her, it is very real. Sukuna is cunning, and it's what makes his cruelties particularly sharp and cutting. Nadja knows he will try to kill her in other ways. That fills her with apprehension. She will stay her hand, for now.
They walk further into the Zenin compound, and Nadja can smell the sourness of Maki's vengeance everywhere, but even more so, she can smell the utter rot coming from the large outbuilding that she knows to be the Zenin's disciplinary pit. They'd made a habit of collecting and corralling curses, usually grade two or below, and tormenting prisoners and disciplining subordinates.
And, Nadja remembers bitterly, torturing Toji. She remembers him telling her one night, and she wonders why thoughts of him make her heart constrict. She misses him.
But her worst mistake now stands at the lip of the steps to that same pit, which no longer contains any curses. Sukuna's presence is enough to frighten other curses out of the area, if he doesn't exorcise them himself. Nadja comes to stand just behind his shoulder and looks into the pit.
Viscous, living darkness bubbles and roils, smelling of death and poison. She clamps her teeth to keep from gagging from the stench.
"Oh! You're about to start without me?" Comes a cheerful and playful voice. Nadja notes the look of brief irritation flitting across Uraume's face before she turns to see Geto—or rather, Noritoshi Kamo—coming to join them. Her gaze hardens. It is too much to hope that Sundari killed him in Shibuya. Still, she has unfinished business with him: starting with why he bound Sundari's seal to her father's incarnation.
Geto wrinkles his nose, waving one of his sleeves as he covers his mouth and nose with the other.
"Ick," he spits in disgust. "What manner of bath is this? Is it safe? Does it even feel good?"
Sukuna begins to disrobe, heedless of the bickering growing at his back as Uraume explains the purpose of the ritual bath. Nadja is horrified with every word she hears, watching as Sukuna wades into the roiling mass of tar-like liquid, until he vanishes beneath the surface, fully submerged.
Silence follows, and for a while, he does not come back up. Nadja begins to wonder if perhaps the foul poison has managed to kill the King of Curses and then she remembers he is immune to poison and disease. He surfaces, and there is a look of resolute neutrality on his face, his eyes seem to look less human: red ringed with black. He ascends the steps as Uraume presents his clothing to him with a reverent bow. He pulls on his clothing, throwing his black haori over his shoulders before they move from the pit, leaving the poisonous bath behind. Nadja breathes a small sigh of relief as they put distance between themselves and that cursed place. It makes her soul shudder.
Kenjaku speaks frankly of what has transpired since the Culling Games began. Nadja listens, keeping her face schooled to disinterested neutrality.
Yuki is dead.
Nadja tries not to let that show on her face but there is a brief tension between her shoulder blades as she absorbs the news like a blow, willing herself to compartmentalize the pain of such a loss. That leaves only Yuta, Satoru, and Sundari as the only ones truly strong enough to contend with this trio should she fail to complete her mission. But she cannot do this without at least trying to save Fushiguro. She thinks of Sundari's abilities, and Yuji's. How long did Sukuna soak in the boy's soul? And the hard usage he put his body through…at least some of his techniques should be engraved on him by now. Nadja takes another breath.
Choso escaped. Good. And judging by the fact that the world has not been swarmed with curses, Tengen is alive. Even this creature wearing Geto's face is not fool enough to tamper with that. Not unless…
"I brought you something," Geto says, and Uraume makes a terse sound with their teeth. "A gift."
Sukuna's brows raise in a silent question as they enter the estate proper. Sukuna has claimed it as his territory since the Zenins are no more, and he strides about like the lord of the entire place. Nadja cannot believe his arrogance once charmed her. It feels so petty, now. Still, there was somewhat about him that had staid her hand a millennia ago. And something that makes her hesitate even now.
They find Geto's gift waiting in the receiving room. Nadja's eyes go wide, Uraume sucks in an affronted breath, and Sukuna laughs.
Seated on the dais, clad in the funerary robes befitting his status as a powerful shaman, is Sukuna's mummified body.
For some reason, seeing it makes Nadja's mind go white, and freezes her body. It is unnerving and unsettling. Here, standing before her, Sukuna fully incarnated in Fushiguro's body. There, seated like some grotesque shrine statue, his original body, too powerful to be consigned to any sort of destruction, and so mummification and placement deep within Tengen's layered barriers was the only way to contain the sheer power of Ryōmen Sukuna.
Beneath the sleeves of his robes, all twenty fingers on the hands of the mummy are missing.
"Is this your idea of a joke?" Sukuna asks, mildly amused. Geto turns out his hands in a helpless shrug.
"Well," he says, "it occurred to me that—oh. Nadja! What are you doing here, naughty girl? Sukuna, did you want us to leave you two alone?" Geto's tone turns playfully suggestive and Nadja's eyes narrow at him, unamused. Sukuna waves his hand.
"She and I have unfinished business, yes, but that can wait."
Geto shrugs, but there's something shrewd in his gaze that tells Nadja he does not share Sukuna's nonchalance about her presence.
"In any case," he continues, his tone turning bright and conversational again. "It occurred to me that you haven't collected all of your missing Fingers. Only one to go, correct?"
Sukuna snorts. "It's of little consequence," he says. "One Finger won't tip the scales in their favor. Let them come if they think they're ready."
Nadja is certain none of them are ready for Sukuna who is nearly at full strength, and her right eye burns in the presence of his cursed energy. Fushiguro's entire soul is a wickless flame, guttering and sputtering in the darkness in which Sukuna has subsumed him. Her heart aches for the boy, but there is nothing she can do for him right now. Her sword does one thing well, and neither Sukuna nor his vessel can survive it.
"Shall I have the evening meal prepared, Sukuna-sama?" Uraume asks. Sukuna grins.
"As always, you know my mind, Uraume," he says. "I do not need to eat any longer, but I do miss the taste of good food. See what the Zenins have in storage and make do."
Uraume bows deeply. "As you wish, Sukuna-sama."
They are cat quiet as they leave the room. Geto watches them go, a look of vulpine fascination on his face. He meets Nadja's gaze, and his grin seems too wide, even for the face he wears.
"If there's nothing else…" Sukuna says, a warning note in his tone. Geto takes it as his cue to leave. It seems whatever plans these two have laid will not be spoken of in front of her. Nadja watches Geto leave, and he gives her a simpering smirk. She cannot wait to kill him.
The doors slide shut.
Nadja and Sukuna are alone—truly alone—for the first time in centuries.
They gaze at one another, a room apart. That strange tension is winding up again, like a spring condensing to its absolute limit. The neutrality of his face cracks just a little, and she sees glimpses—phantoms, really—of the man she once knew. Sukuna is patient, but seeing her standing there, looking exactly the same as the last time he saw her in such a setting, has his senses and emotions battling themselves to a pained and steamy gridlock. This is the woman whose presence had ablated a heart of iron to rust beneath the steadiness of her affections. This is the woman who had promised to remain by his side, no matter how far her damnable mandate took her.
He thinks of Sundari's face, her insolence, the way he saw so much of himself in her.
He studies Nadja, takes in the svelte lines of her curves, not a glimmer of threatening steel visible on her, but he remembers how well-hidden and cunningly placed her blades are. And that sword, the one he knows is drawn only to kill, along the length of her spine. That tiny poisonous blade at the nape of her neck.
The razor hidden in her mouth, somewhere against her tongue.
The tension draws taut. Sukuna feels the power in him surge, the veins in his hands growing slightly more prominent.
There is a split second where both wonder who will move first, and then there is a sound like whistling as both of them move simultaneously. Sukuna hears the hiss of steel derailing from its sheath, Nadja's right eye begins translating Sukuna's cursed energy to her nervous system in real time, and her body reacts accordingly.
Together, they tear the receiving room apart. Sukuna hates that Fushiguro's body is not as durable and acrobatic as the brat's, but he makes do. Nadja moves like poetry, indescribably fluid and inhuman, as if she and the earth breathe as one, surging on the crest of her own immeasurable strength.
And Sukuna finds it hard to detect her. When her blades are sheathed, they are sealed, and their cursed energy is hidden from his senses. And Nadja, possessing no cursed energy, can hide from him. He has fought many beings like her since last they met, and so finding her becomes second-nature.
He simply looks for the space where cursed energy seems to stutter. He looks for a void.
And he finds her.
Nadja is mid-draw of her sword when Sukuna catches her by the elbow and swings her over, slamming her bodily into the floor. The floorboards crack and shatter beneath the force of the blow. Nadja is momentarily shocked, emitting a choked sound as her body bounces off the floor. Sukuna still has a grip on her arm, and he thinks to himself before the grip tightens, and Nadja cries out as her bones begin to give under the pressure of his strength.
"You thought you could sneak back to Japan a thousand years later and I wouldn't find you?" Sukuna growls, dragging her stumbling toward him. "You thought I'd forget what you did? What you took from me?"
Nadja's mind is hazed with crimson, pain the only note singing in her already high-strung nerves. Sukuna is patient, but for this, he will make an exception.
He finishes his transformation, and Nadja finds herself hauled by four individual hands, grasping each of her limbs.
"I should tear you apart, right now," Sukuna says, his voice deeper, rumbling in her bones like an ancient god. How ironic to see him here and see his corpse just behind him.
Sukuna drops her, and she lands in a pained heap on the floor at his feet.
The transformation doesn't last long. It reverts and Sukuna lets out a swear. Without his complete power, he cannot hold his true form for long. Nadja cradles her injured arm, climbing to her feet. Sukuna turns from her, walking toward his corpse.
"Hm…" He muses, staring at his mummified face. Nadja watches him, and then is horrified when his hand snaps out, and tears his own head from his corpse's shoulders. Even worse is that he brings it to his mouth and devours it. Nadja's stomach roils at the sound of flesh and bone tearing and crunching. He devours his own head, and then turns to Nadja, smirking.
"Much better," he says with a satisfied sigh, and the transformation comes back. He grows, and his cursed energy wraps around him like a cocoon. When it disperses, he is as she first knew him, and she knows this time it's for good. "This is a cause for celebration. And Nadja, what a happy coincidence that you're here…"
November 19, 2018, Tokyo No. 1 Colony
Sundari can feel them converging on her location, and she smirks as she sits down. She expands her awareness, and she can feel the distinct cursed energy of Yuji and the others, moving further away as she's ordered them to do. Yuji was reluctant to leave her alone, but she needs them out of range for what she plans to do.
She also doesn't want them to see what she plans to do. It's a gamble, but she trusts that it'll work as it's meant to; otherwise, she's given them orders to retreat to safety if she fails.
Sundari doesn't think she will fail in this.
It doesn't take long, and Sundari slips into an almost meditative state, cycling through different levels of breathing, her cursed energy flooding the area like the gentle and powerful heave of an ocean. And at the center of it, her in utter stillness. She is like living statuary, and like any warrior during moments of peace, she prepares. Her eyes are open and unblinking, and that is when she feels them.
Her challengers.
They're a cluster in one place, and she sees them, crawling out of the surrounding alleys like vermin.
Like maggots.
Sundari surprises herself with the snarling voice in her head as she regards the approaching sorcerers with disdain. She can already tell that they are not strong enough to last against her. She has tested her mettle against both Satoru and her father and has gained the respect and acknowledgment of both.
She does not fear those who have not tasted true divinity.
They hesitate. Her cursed energy rivals her father's, and she realizes that some of these sorcerers must be incarnated from his era. They recognize his cursed energy and she can see their puzzlement. The cat's out of the bag, as the Americans say: they know Sukuna has a direct descendant. The price on her head pales in comparison to the glory they will win for slaying the Princess of Curses. For some, it is just that: for glory. For others—the new-blooded sorcerers awakened by Noritoshi's mad scheme—the points on her head are a temptation that can free them from this waking nightmare.
Sundari knows this, and even so, she is determined to kill all of them.
She waits until they're within range, and then she rolls out her lower arms, the maw on her belly opening as she forms a mudra and begins to chant.
"Ryōiki Tenkai: Tripura Purification."
It's too late when they hear her resonant voice tolling like a bell, and there is no barrier for them to discern how far they need to run to escape. Out of consideration for Yuji and the others, Sundari makes a binding vow to restrict her domain's normal radius, having learned from watching her father's decimation of Shibuya. She is the epicenter of instant destruction, and her lower mouth continues to sustain the domain, while the mouth on her face stretches into a manic grin.
Everything with cursed energy within the domain immediately withers away. The screams of agony die stillborn as Sundari absorbs all of the cursed energy in the domain. With her upper arms, she reaches into the pack slung across her shoulders and withdraws the backdoor of the Prison Realm, setting it in front of her.
She makes another mudra, the memory of her once and only once touch of the divine. She has enough, she thinks. She can do it.
"Hanten: Divine Mandate."
The world shudders.
Sundari knows what she's doing. She is half-divinity, after all. She is daring, reaching, up and up and up, until she places her metaphysical fingers on the divine pulse of the very universe. The eyes of the divine turn in incomprehensible slowness. Sundari is making a request the gods must answer, and in exchange, something must be sacrificed.
She offers up the cursed energy gathered in the desolation of her domain, and the world seems to grind to a halt.
The gods are considering her request.
Sundari's eyes glow white, divinity surging through her as the cursed energy doubles back on itself, becoming positive energy. The Prison Realm shudders. The binding vow of that damnable Genshin tugs at her own will, but then there's a collective breath.
The gods have decided.
Sundari feels the scales of the universe tip in her favor, ignores the blinding pain behind her right set of eyes as her brain burns and reforms, burns and reforms, her technique burning and engraving itself over and over as the gods give their answer, and take the sacrifice on the altar.
The Prison Realm bursts open in a spray of divine energy that burns Sundari's tattoos as her father's curse shudders against the force of such a powerful vow.
A vow, finally broken and released.
Somewhere, far away, the ocean boils, and something that witnesses would swear was a shooting star streaks into the sky, flying toward the smudge that is Japan in the distance.
The world exhales as Six Eyes open.
Sundari dismisses her domain, blood pouring from her nose as she slumps over, her vision fading to darkness. She's distantly aware of Yuji crying her name, can see him running toward her as she shuts her eyes.
Somewhere, deep within the Zenin estate, Sukuna grins at Nadja as if he has finally found an answer to a question that he has pondered for over a millennium.
"Asura." He says and watches as fear—true fear—crosses Nadja's beautiful face for the first time.