It is decided that Maki will go alone to the Zenin Estate. Not like anyone argues with her, the look on her face is enough to brook no room for argument. Even Yuji, normally so eager to help, understands that this is something she must see through alone.
No one questions the chill of what that implies.
"There will be resistance," Nadja tells Maki, the morning she leaves.
"I know, Hikmat-sensei," Maki says cooly. "I'm counting on it."
Nadja smirks, one killer to another. It is all the approval Maki needs to bolster the last of her resolve. She is steel and her mind is honed to a razor's focus and edge. There is nothing left to teach her. She will either come back victorious or not at all.
Maki strides off into the morning mist, and Nadja thinks of the spiderweb cracks in the pattern closing in on her life. How did Toji's actions get them here? Did they know? They, with their farsight, who crafted her for one terrible, heartbreaking purpose?
A chill goes down her spine.
Without thinking, Nadja whirls, a blade hissing from its sheath.
Sukuna catches her wrist, staring at her through Yuji's youthful face. Somehow, his presence sharpens the boy's features—ages them. Nadja stares at him, wide-eyed, her arm quivering from the effort. The thin, needle-like blade hovers a hair's breadth from his throat, restrained only by his grip. He grins at her, malicious and hateful and eager.
"So you haven't lost your edge," Sukuna says, pleased. He doesn't release her wrist, squeezing hard enough that Nadja grits her teeth, her bones grinding under the strength of his grip. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd grown soft in your dotage."
Nadja chuckles. "As you have grown senile in yours, my love," she says with dripping venom.
"It won't be long before I have you again, Nadja," Sukuna says. "And I will repay your betrayal for every year I waited for you. For every year you kept our daughter from me."
Nadja jerks her arm, but he jerks back, pulling her closer. He breathes deep, takes in her scent, still the same, lifetimes later. He almost wants to have her now but he has to wait. He doesn't want the brat between them when he takes his vengeance.
"You make it sound like you wanted to be a father," Nadja retorts. "Would you have consumed her? As you did the others?"
That takes Sukuna off-guard, and she uses that opportunity to wrench herself free of his grasp, resheathing her blade at the nape of her neck, and adjusting her stance, as if his touch burns her. Sukuna stares at her, disbelieving.
"You thought I'd have you feed me our brat? The one I asked you for?"
Nadja frowns. "Yes. It is one of the reasons why I left, Ryōmen. I told you in the beginning I would not be one of your concubines. I decided to save my daughter's life."
"And sealed her anyway."
Nadja looks away. "It was for her safety and the safety of others."
"You collared her like an animal!" Sukuna sounds outraged and he doesn't know why. He doesn't understand why he cares, but here in this era, where he has existed in solitude for centuries, knowing that the one woman who—
"You didn't see what she was capable of, Ryōmen," Nadja hisses. "You didn't see what she did in the name of grief."
No, he hadn't seen, but he can guess. When he accepted Nadja's absence as permanent, grief had turned him into a monster. He is strangely content with that for it has served him well over the course of the centuries. He exists now only to serve his own whims.
He thinks about his skirmish with Sundari in Shibuya. Her speed, strength, and her power. She's able to drain cursed energy, he knows, but what does she do with it all? Where does it go? That's what he needs to find out.
"And that warranted punishing her for centuries?" He asks. For once, his hatred is forgotten. He sees only her, remembers only the joy they brought each other. But each of them are changed by their experiences, and him worst of all. He cannot allow himself to forgive her. He has to see this through.
"It wasn't punishment," Nadja says softly. Sukuna's expression softens somewhat. "It was to protect her from those who would hunt her, and I didn't want her to spend her entire life hiding from humanity."
Sukuna scoffs. "She wouldn't have to; humans are maggots to be crushed beneath her feet."
Nadja rolls her eyes. "And yet your daughter stands with them. Gods, Ryōmen, what—"
"Why did you flee before we could be wed?" Sukuna asks. It's Nadja's turn to be caught off-guard. She stares at him, and he watches the expressions pass through her one eye, and he can name every single one. He has not forgotten how to read her, nor she him, it seems. This will be harder if he lets her get too close again.
Nadja opens her mouth to reply, and Sukuna makes a choked sound through his gritted teeth. The marks on his face flicker before Yuji takes over.
"Huh? Hikmat-sensei!" His brown eyes are wide with shock, and he looks around. "How'd I get—oh no. Did Sukuna get out again?"
Nadja regains her composure. "Yes," she says. "But he didn't harm anyone. I had it under control." A lie. He'd cornered her and she nearly confessed to him. This mission will be harder if she gets too close, but she must for it to work.
"Oh," Yuji says, unsure. "Well, I should get back. Are you sure everything's alright?"
Nadja nods. "It's fine, Yuji. Go with the others. I came to see Maki off not too long ago."
Yuji nods, and she wonders if he understands what Maki means to do. She decides not to tell him. He carries enough grief on his shoulders. When he turns to walk away, Nadja watches him go, and breathes a sigh of relief when the chill in her spine disappears.
Sundari stares at the Prison Realm's backdoor, and she thinks she's finally figured out how to open it.
The only problem is once she does their enemies will know where they are. Satoru will be free, wherever he is, and will make his way to them, hopefully before their enemies can close in on them. Sundari needs to use just enough of her technique to undo the seam and nullify the barrier, then discharge the resulting positive energy somehow.
Her memories still have holes in them, but she knows she was once able to do it.
Can you heal others?
Sundari gets up with a frustrated growl and kicks the backdoor. It tumbles across the floor, coming to a halt at Tengen's feet, who looks down at it, then at Sundari, who knifes her fingers through her curls, four eyes sharp with frustration, a sour bend on her lips. She looks like Sukuna here, and Tengen thinks the resemblance is uncanny. It doesn't help that she is marked with the same tattoos. Cursed with the same insatiable hunger.
"Why can't you open the Prison Realm?" Sundari demands of Tengen, who does not seem to look sympathetic to her cause, yet she senses a compassion from them that rankles her nerves. Why does it bother her when she is shown pity?
"It was designed to contain anything, even the Six Eyes," Tengen explains. "To break such a powerful seal requires a touch of the divine. Your mother was built for Extermination, but you…you are something new."
Sundari blinks, confusion crossing her features.
"Extermination…?"
A memory forms in her mind, pulled from a place deep within her soul.
A skirmish, fought over something as paltry as imaginary lines carved into maps. Sundari, casting a shield of protection over the Dewed Lotus. The bodies of several of her aunts, broken and bloodied. Nadja, silver sword flashing, piercing the heart of a dragon's cursed apparition. Sparks of light raining down, and the quiet of a blood soaked battlefield. The cawing of crows, and the weeping of a mother in distress. Vanhi's eyes, cold and glassy in death.
"Oh," Sundari whispers, realizing. "Oh…"
"Does that mean…?" She glances down at the flesh-box, glares at the seam. Suddenly, she understands. A touch of the divine.
"Tengen-sama," Sundari says. "Can you create a barrier strong enough to contain me while I do this thing? Something that'll hide the massive amount of energy I plan to use?"
Tengen thinks for a moment, then nods…at least Sundari thinks it is a nod.
"It will take some time to construct but I will tell you when it is ready. I take it you've figured out how to open the backdoor?"
Sundari nods. "Yeah…I have an idea, and it's crazy, but I think Satoru is powerful enough that it'll work."
Tengen doesn't argue, doesn't speak doubt into whatever batshit idea is cooking in her brain, and Sundari appreciates it because if anyone says anything she'll lose her fucking nerve, and Satoru will have to wait for her to find her courage again. Or kill that fucking sorcerer with the stitches.
It takes Tengen a few hours to construct the barrier around her, using the empty barriers within their domain. Sundari can feel the change, and she ignores the feeling of alarm as she's sealed inside a barrier specifically designed to keep and the backdoor inside. She takes a deep breath, then another, until her breathing cycles through every chakra in her mind's eye, her cursed energy flowing like waterfalls feeding into one another, infinite and limitless.
She smiles. She'll have to ask Satoru about this later. Is that how he's able to do it?
She exhales, feels her second set of arms roll out from her body smoothly, forming the mudra for serenity. Her top hands form the mudra for purification. She cycles through her breathing, cursed energy building.
Cursed Technique Maximum Output: Purification.
Dewed Lotus, India 446 AD"Slow is smooth and smooth is fast," Vanhi says from her pose, left leg crossed over her right knee, hands in a mudra for serenity. She has been as still and immovable as stone for the last thirty minutes and Sundari is losing her patience in this pose. When her mother said she would be learning how to hone her skills she had expected to be embroiled in combat, learning how to defend and attack.
Instead, she's learning how to pose and breathe and dance. These feel more like a courtesan's skillset than a warrior's. She doesn't understand what breathing has to do with charring cursed spirits. Of course, Vanhi doesn't care because she understands what Sundari does not. And so Sundari endures, turning her grumbling inward as she focuses on stillness and serenity.
It is common for some of Vanhi's resident courtesans—all of whom Sundari refers to as 'auntie' something or other—to come and watch as their 'little devi' learns to master her divine gifts. They whisper behind their henna-stained, bejeweled hands, marveling at the girl's mighty physique, just like the gods themselves. Four arms, markings that are clearly preternatural in origin, and four eyes. She looks like a goddess carving come to life, even if she is a minor one.
Sundari breathes, trying to get a handle on the energy building within her. Vanhi watches patiently. There's a small look of pride on her face when Sundari's cursed energy locks into an even-tempered flow.
"Sorcerers think it's all about might and strength, and since most prominent sorcerers are men, it's easy to see why," Vanhi explains. Sundari suppresses the urge to chuckle, but some of the assembled women do it for her.
"To that end…" Vanhi smoothly shifts from one pose to another, one mudra to another. "It is no surprise so many of them are short-lived or resort to ridiculously complicated binding vows and profane rituals to increase their power. That is not to say binding vows are inherently weak—in fact, they are easy to increase your strength—the problem is they are temporary. Are you strong because of the binding vows you've tangled yourself in or are you strong because you simply have the might to make your position unassailable?"
Vanhi points her finger, and a boulder in the garden warps, and then is turned inside out, shattering from the force of Vanhi's cursed energy. Sundari is startled out of her breathing cycles as she sees it. She's never seen Vanhi use her technique on a person before but if it's anything to go by, it's gruesome.
"Being able to master your breathing will allow you precise control over your energy and your technique," Vanhi explains, not even looking winded, the tip of her pointer finger still glowing with shakti—what the Japanese jujutsu sorcerers call cursed energy. "Your allies will thank you, and your enemies will fear your unwavering resolve. Never let your emotions take the reins from you."
Sundari is still staring at the boulder, and she nods, sobered by the thought.
Present Day, November 10, 2018Sundari's eyes—all four of them—are glowing white. The power within her builds and builds, and she is deaf and blind to everything but the light within her, and the dark two. Two rivers of power within her body, from the crown to the root of her, all her cursed energy doubling over on itself, withering and converting. She almost has it, she can see the shape of the technique within her, the power she's grasped only once in her life, once and never again.
The backdoor of the Prison Realm shudders and dances across the ground, the seam beginning to strain against the pull of Sundari's divine magic. Sundari feels the strain in her center of gravity, and she focuses her breathing. Sweat runs in rivulets down her temples, and her will tunnels down to the singular goal of tearing open this fucking box.
But it's too much. The Prison Realm is stubborn, its seal absolute, and Sundari gasps and releases her technique, sagging over in her seated position as the vicious little box remains unscathed, but sizzling from her battle with its strong, ancient magic. If divine might is needed, then surely, she should be able to pull this thing apart? Half of her she knows has divine ichor in her veins. She could not do half of what she does otherwise. The other half…the other half is whatever her father has made of himself. Curse. Demon. Demigod. Whatever it is feels like a tar pit inside of her. A sticky darkness with a wide maw and sharp teeth.
Drip.
A splash of crimson on the floor in front of her. Then another. A steady drip of crimson as blood pours from her nose.
Could that be why she failed?
"Sundari?" The voice is familiar, and she looks up, her vision blurred. She thinks for a moment perhaps she has not failed, and that Satoru is there by her side. But something's wrong.
"Satoru?" She whispers. Why isn't his hair white? Why are his eyes not blue?
Her vision whirls, sparkling darkness eating away the light before she collapses.
She wakes up in her father's domain. She feels disoriented, groggy, as if she has been drugged. She climbs wearily to her feet in the ankle-deep waters.
"That was foolish of you," Sukuna's resonant voice spills over her senses like steel sheathed in velvet. She glares up at him, no ready retort on her lips for once. Sukuna raises a bored brow, expecting her sharp tongue at any moment. When no snappish words come, he narrows his eyes at her. He sees the weariness in her, and in a blink, he is before her.
"You nearly burned out your cursed technique," he seems to be scolding her, and she looks at him, confused. "Have you not figured out how to replenish yourself mid-battle?"
"No," Sundari mutters. "My memory still has fucking holes in it. Things I know I should know are…difficult because I cannot remember them."
She knows she was close. She could feel it. Had she kept on—
"You would have destroyed your brain and died," Sukuna says as if reading her thoughts. Are her thoughts so naked upon her face? Would that her mother had taught her to be a spy instead. Sukuna glares at her, but she notices there's none of that maddened disdain within it. There's only the cold disapproval of…of a father.
Holy shit?
"You're saying there's a way to keep reverse cursed technique running while I'm putting out so much energy?" She demands. Sukuna doesn't answer and she thinks about it. How could she hope to cycle so much cursed energy to repair her brain while she was putting out a maximum amount of power? It seems risky. It is risky. It's a gamble that can kill her.
"You weren't trained in Japanese sorcery," Sukuna observes. Sundari doesn't answer right away, watching as he studies her. "India? Is that where your mother hid you? Of course, where else would a four-armed child with strange markings be welcomed as blessing?"
Sundari swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable with his interest in where she was raised. But Sukuna is looking for something. There is a question on his mind and his observations are his attempt at answering it. She refuses to confirm any of his suspicions lest she give into whatever plans he may be making. He's been suspiciously silent since Shibuya, and that worries her.
"Did your mother take another?" Sukuna asks. Sundari looks away, then swears in her head. Sukuna's four eyes are sharp as he regards her, all of him in stillness, like a predator that has seized upon an opportunity to pounce very soon.
"She did, didn't she? Let me guess…another sorcerer. She needed someone to teach you since she is not a sorcerer herself. And that's why you carry yourself like divinity incarnate."
Sukuna smiles, slow and predatory. He loves a puzzle, and Nadja's puzzle has been the most interesting by far.
"A daughter of Heaven, and me…" He reaches out and Sundari freezes, knowing she's at his mercy while in his domain. He traces the markings on her face with his fingertips.
"It seems even Heaven wants you to carry my curse," Sukuna says and there is something that Sundari can almost mistake for somberness as he says this. "You wear it well, whelp. But you'll need more than raw power if you hope to contend with me."
Sundari finds her courage again, less disoriented than before.
"Is that a challenge, dad?" She asks, her lip curled to reveal her sharp canines. Sukuna smirks at her, tilting his head.
"It is pure, inescapable fact, daughter. Either you will get stronger, or I will kill you, after I've killed everyone else in your little band, including the Itadori brat."
Sundari blinks, visibly nonplussed. What?
"What is your fucking problem?" She hisses and he glances at her sharply. Her disrespect is tolerated only because there is some shred of his soul that still burns endlessly for her mother, and a part of himself he has buried over the centuries that mourns never knowing this strong, willful daughter who dares to look him in the eye without fear. With insolence.
She's so much like him it makes him laugh. He does laugh, full throated and amused.
"Get your rest, whelp," he says when he's done. "It won't be long before we meet again. Remember my promise."
Sundari rolls her eyes, even as the domain around her fades, casting her back into her body…which hurts all over.
"Fuck…" She mumbles as her eyes crack open, the smaller ones tender and sensitive to the sunlight filtering through the room. She closes them and then tries to sit up. Her head is pounding. The amount of power she used to try and open the Prison Realm had nearly destroyed her. Had Sukuna been the one to pull her out in time? She can't remember, only that she failed.
Dripdripdrip.
A splash of salty liquid darkens the sheet balled in her fists in her lap. Tears stream down her face, and she is not sure if she is angry or sad or some painful dichotomous cocktail of both. All she knows is that her heart hurts, her head hurts, and she cannot do the one thing Tengen said only she can do. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, making a small sound as she tries to get her emotions under control.
She sees a row of beds, one hidden by curtains. She can make out the steady cursed energy of Nanami in that bed, still in a coma after sustaining severe injuries in Shibuya. His cursed energy is strong, but the flicker of it is small, as if he is struggling to replenish it. Sundari can't understand where everything went so fucking wrong.
"Sundari," there's a warm voice next to her, and Sundari sees her mother seated by her bedside. "Try not to do too much, your cursed energy is still replenishing."
Sundari has never heard her mother sound so shaken. What happened?
"What happened?" She asks aloud. Nadja hesitates.
"You tried to open the Prison Realm, but you burned your technique out in the process. Tengen says it was…an anomaly of sorts. An explosion of positive energy instead of cursed energy."
"Like last time…" Sundari mutters and Nadja winces, looking away.
"That was different," Nadja says. "You didn't know what would happen if you used your techni—"
"I knew exactly what would happen, mom," Sundari says sullenly. "I was angry, and I willingly killed those people. It's fine. I've made my peace with the fact that I did what I did, and you sealed me away rather than strike me down. That about right?"
Nadja says nothing, but there's a gravitas in her gaze that confirms everything.
"And you never intended for me to be unsealed," Sundari says.
Again, Nadja is silent, but a tear crawls down her cheek. Sundari snorts, suddenly unable to look at her mother.
"Satoru is in the same boat," she says, looking out the window as the sun paints the campus in harsh gold. "Sealed away because he's too powerful to kill, too dangerous to be left to his own devices. Too overwhelming to be controlled. And they've made it a crime to unseal him. All because they blamed him for Shibuya, but I know it was more than that."
Sundari looks at her mother.
"It wasn't just that I killed those people," she says. "You couldn't control me, or the narrative surrounding my existence, so you made me mortal. You made me ordinary. I walked this world deaf, dumb, and blind to all that I was, and now in a time where power like mine is needed, I have failed."
She is angry, but she is so tired.
"Had I never been sealed I could have finished this before it began. I could have overtaken Sukuna in Shibuya, saved countless lives, prevented Satoru from falling into that trap!" She can feel herself losing control again and her mother looks at her gravely, and suddenly Sundari is sobbing because she doesn't know where to direct the flow of her emotions. Her failure is more than a blow to her pride, it reignites her fury at having ever been sealed to begin with.
"Sundari," Nadja whispers. "I am sorry, truly. I could think of no other way to protect you, not only from others, but from the very real possibility that I might be ordered to put you down one day."
Sundari stares at her. "And would you? Put me down, I mean. If they ordered you to do it, would you?"
Nadja doesn't answer. She can't answer. Sundari sucks her teeth contemptuously.
"Get out," she mutters. Nadja hesitates but Sundari's garnet eyes flare dangerously bright, like fire.
"Get out!" She screams. Nadja tries not to let the fact that Sundari's ire has wounded her, but Sundari knows she has, and she regrets it almost immediately. Nadja leaves silently as Shoko enters. For a moment, her gaze follows the other woman, her expression unreadable. She comes to Sundari's bedside.
"You're looking good for someone who almost destroyed a quarter of their brain," she says. Sundari doesn't answer, giving her a stony look. She's not in the mood for humor. Shoko heaves a brief sigh.
"Look, I managed to repair most of the damage, and your RCT will handle the rest once your energy replenishes but my advice is to never try what you did again in the near future…not unless you're in some kind of weird murder-suicide pact with Gojo in which case, please do not go through with it."
She sighs again. "I had a look at your labs, and you've got the strangest blood I've ever seen."
"Ichor," Sundari says. "My mother is not human."
"Not…" Shoko looks back briefly to where Nadja exited the infirmary. "Huh. I never would have guessed. I thought she was just a heavenly restricted human like Maki."
Sundari snorts. "She is, but she's not—look, it's complicated and the strange thing with her pact forbids me from talking about it. But if my labs look strange it's because well…look at my fucking parents, I guess."
Shoko looks somewhat sympathetic. Despite everything, she does have a heart, and she can't imagine being burdened with parentage like Sukuna as one's literal sire and some immortal divine warrior for a dam. Sundari's existence is an anomaly, and Shoko notes that since Gojo came into his own there's been a lot of that going around lately.
"I have to free him," Sundari says. She brooks no room for argument. "I have to free him or die trying otherwise what the fuck is this all for?"
Shoko says nothing, wishing she could light a cigarette to relax her nerves right now.
"I know," she says softly. "And I hope you succeed, just not at the cost of your own life. I'm still a doctor, you know."
Sundari doesn't smile but her expression softens. She cannot take out her frustration on everyone, just the ones who deserve it, like her parents. Her father, for passing on his curse and being quite possibly the most terrible person she's ever encountered…and her mother, for being a liar about all of it.
"For what it's worth," Shoko says, "I'm grateful you're here. I think the kids are too."
Sundari tries to smile, finds it exhausting so she stares instead, lip quivering.
"Your labs, barring the strange blood, are normal," Shoko continues. "Let's get a few basic questions answered and then I'll give you my diagnosis and recommendation for recovery."
For the remainder of the session, Sundari answers questions, just enough to have Shoko give her discharge paperwork, and soon she is outside in the crisp November air, feeling stripped and vulnerable, like an exposed nerve. Since Tengen has adjusted the barriers, it's safe for their group to move around within the Star Corridor, and she finds her way back easily, where Yuji greets her enthusiastically. He doesn't even look mad or disappointed that she failed, only relieved that she is alive and well.
Maybe she should take a page from his book one day.