CH 28 'Safe travels' or 'For you or for me?'

As she began to stir, Rinami found herself disoriented and it took her a moment to recall the events at the park. She woke to find herself strapped tightly to a chair, the wind blowing lightly over her face. Drowsily opening her eyes, she could see the sun just peeking over the horizon and the vast cityscape before her.

Her stomach dropping, she recognized the view and instantly knew where she was. This was the roof of the penthouse. Trying to shake the grogginess out of her head, she turned slightly, only to see Sukuna sitting directly next to her, his dark red eyes unmercifully assessing her as she adjusted to the light.

It looked to her like something had changed up here, like something that used to be here wasn't anymore… From the corner of her eye she could see what appeared to be black iron gates littering the ground. Were those maybe around the perimeter before? She couldn't remember. What she could tell though, was that her chair was pushed right up against the edge of the roof and there definitely did not appear to be a border of any kind, or anything else keeping her safely in place. It was literally her worst nightmare. Fear captured her, and the adrenaline was enough to shock a bit of clarity into her muddled brain.

Moving forward, Sukuna quickly picked up her chair and shifted it so that she was facing directly towards him and only about a foot away. Rinami took a shaky breath. She wasn't sure what was in store for her, but she'd rather this than the innate domain that she'd been in when she was last conscious. The atmosphere of that place could haunt her even now at just the slightest thought of it.

"So," Sukuna leaned forward, his face mere inches from hers. "Tell me what the hell that was about."

Rinami looked at him but said nothing, so he continued. "I mean obviously I know most of it- you tried to seal me away. You betrayed me." His eyes narrowed viciously. "Quite a lot of lies you were spewing there Rinami. Was that your idea or that punk-ass sorcerer's? I mean the dying along side me part was a good addition though. I enjoyed that" The smile that formed on his face was so cruel and devoid of any trace of humor or affection that an enormous, involuntary shiver rocked through her entire body simply from looking at him.

She wanted to speak and to try to explain it to him, but some life-preserving instinct inside of her said that quiet was best. It said that no matter what, anything she said right now would be taken wrong. There was no reasoning with the being who sat in front of her right now. He wasn't the man she loved and he most definitely wasn't anything or anyone who loved her. One wrong word and death was just a heartbeat away for her.

Lowering her eyes, she tucked her lips in and pressed them tightly together. She supposed he very well may kill her anyways. He hadn't sat her up her on the precipice of this ledge so that she could enjoy the scenery. He knew she was deathly afraid the open height. And what better way to both terrify her and send her off?

Sukuna leaned even closer, his lips almost brushing hers, his breath warm on her mouth. "Really, please. Tell me again Rinami. Tell me how you love me so much. How you can't live without me. How you'd die along with me?" He pressed forward, a hand ferociously gripping her shoulder as his mouth moved to her ear, whispering angrily "Really. You have no idea how badly I want to hear it all again."

She looked sideways, trying to see him from the corner of her eyes. She understood why he was angry and she didn't blame him. How could she possibly explain to him that she really had meant those words? Except that it was reserved only for the nuclear option. Only If she couldn't trap him and save his life in the prison realm. Only If she was forced to choose between death for either him or Gojo…

If it came to that- if all other options ran out and she had to be the one to either make the choice or watch one or both of them die. Then yes, it would have to be Sukuna, but she loved him enough that he wouldn't go alone. She would go with him as she should. For the part that she played in allowing it and for the part that she continued to play as the woman who loved him. He couldn't die by her hand, she didn't have it in her to make that happen, but to save Gojo, there was no question that she would sacrifice Sukuna if she had to. However, she would also exit with him as part of her atonement.

She closed her eyes and hung her head. He would never understand, and she could never utter those words. Not to him. She almost wanted to laugh to herself. Given the choice between letting him think she didn't love him, or letting him know that she loved someone else more, this is the route she would prefer to take. She would actually choose to allow him to think that she didn't care, and would willingly stab him in the back, because he meant nothing to her. How lame.

She could feel the red hot anger emanating from him now. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was seething. Obviously, her refusal to succumb to his baiting was making the situation worse. Suddenly Sukuna stood back up, spinning her chair out towards the open edge of the building again. Standing behind it, he bent down and whispered in her ear. "I gave you a chance, but my patience with you is at an end. Safe travels Rinami"

And with that, he pushed her chair over the edge of the building.

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Rinami couldn't even scream. Her heart jumped in her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut. Only a second after her world shifted vertically, she felt something grab across her forehead. The next thing she knew she hit the ground.

Except instead of splattering – and dying- she found herself face down in a bog of murky red-brown liquid. After pulling her head out of it and spitting and coughing the murk out of her mouth, she crawled to all fours and used a hand to wipe her face. She was confronted with bones and skulls littered all around her. No. Not again! Please not here. She rolled over on her backside and was faced once again with the mountain of skulls and bones, topped with Sukuna on his grand throne. She had returned once again to his innate domain.

This time however, he didn't bother coming down to greet her. Looking down on her from his high perch, he spoke coldly. "Since you have no words to explain your treachery, I think some time left here might be an adequate start to pay for your crime. Enjoy your time." And he disappeared, leaving her alone in the dark and terrifying inner recesses of his own mind.

She trudged slowly through the red liquid. She had no idea how long she'd been stuck in this hell. It felt like weeks, but it might have been longer. At this point she couldn't be certain. She was acutely aware that she'd had no food or water and had been unable to sleep since she'd arrived. She could only move aimlessly around the recesses of Sukuna's dark and forlorn domain trying to escape from visions and illusions that haunted her and felt as though they were chasing her around.

At first she had been certain that they were just projections sent by Sukuna to stress and terrorize her, but after what seemed like days of it, she began to think they were hallucinations. Yet now she wondered if maybe they weren't actually real? Designed to wear her down until she finally fell and couldn't fight back any longer before they descended upon her and devoured her?

She'd been bombarded mostly with visions of her colleagues- telling her how disappointed in her they were. How she'd let them down when they'd trusted her, how she'd betrayed everything she'd ever stood for. The disgust they felt when they looked at her and the shame that she brought not only on the Jujutsu society but on her family and their name and legacy. It was relentless. Every where she turned, there stood someone new, lamenting her and tearing into her about how awful she was. She couldn't run, because they would still be there. There was no getting away from it and it continued day in and day out. The worst of those had been a visit from a frowning and angry Haibara. Telling her how let down he was that his death had meant so little to her. His dying to save a society that she had then surrendered to their enemy. She'd spit on his grave and his sacrifice by aligning herself with the very epitome of what they fought against.

If she were allowed a reprieve from that then the time was filled with visions of events and moments from her life- the worst possible ones. It was like she could see them replayed for her on the walls of the domain. The time in grade school when her technique was just ramping up and the boy she liked had tried to play with her and she had her first 'reaction', sending her to the hospital in convulsions as they tried to figure out what was wrong with her, the loneliness she'd felt moving forward in the following years as she'd gradually learned to distance herself from physical contact, and lost friends and relationships in the process. Skipping forward to high school. The fear and terror after the Geto and Gojo's attack on school grounds. The pain and devastation of Haibara's death. The awful horribleness and of Geto's departure and the emptiness that followed it. Then- Gojo. Watching a replay of him exiting his office with that girl in tow. That one seemed to run on repeat for some reason. The gut-wrenching sensation of seeing that over and over and reliving the heartbreaking sensation that came along with the sight, over and over. .

How long had it been now? How many days? Weeks of this? Where exactly was she and how had she ended up here? Why, and for what purpose? Dragging her head up she could see as a buff man with a sharp haircut and sunglasses appeared and began telling her something about letting down his school, and a bright student becoming an academy's failure and shame, but she wasn't quite sure she followed. Staring at him blankly. She leaned back into the bloody water and laid there.

The water covered most of her body and rose almost to her mouth but she barely noticed. She stared at the sky of the place that she was in. Odd that it wasn't blue or black, but red and outlined in bones or something? It looked like the rib cage of a skeleton. Perhaps she had been eaten? Oh, well. That would be fine too, I suppose. Eaten by the big red beast. She gave a little giggle as she lay there but it caused some of the liquid to splash into her mouth. She coughed it up and then resumed her position, laying melancholy amidst the bones in the red-tinted fluids, gazing into the far-off distance above her with an empty look in her eyes.

There was brightness behind her lids. Had she even closed them? She didn't remember that. Huh, maybe sleep had finally come for her.

"Wakey wakey"

Hmm. She knew that voice. At least she thought she did. Once upon a time at least. Slowly she forced her eyes open. She was sitting up and staring down into her own lap. Her head felt heavy, but she supposed she should try to at least see who was talking to her. With tremendous effort, she craned her neck up, rolling her eyes up to see who was before her.

She was met with red eyes, peering curiously into hers. She was unable to comprehend it but the look in Sukuna's eyes was one of smug satisfaction, coupled with amusement and interest. All of that in front of, and attempting to hide the uncertainty that lay behind them.

He raised a hand and smoothed her hair back. Taking a handful from the back and pulling it so that her head raised up towards him.

"Welcome back. How're you doing?" He grinned maliciously. "Bet it felt like days huh? Even weeks maybe?" He let out a wicked laugh. "Well I hate to break it to you, but time moves differently there."

He lifted his head and let his eyes wander around the area. "In reality, it's barely been an hour." He turned his eyes back to her to see how she would react to the news, but Rinami was struggling to process anything that he was saying. The images and the heavy pressure of the domain still felt like they were with her. Clouding her mind and fogging up the world.

She turned towards him, confusion in her eyes. She saw his eyes change as he looked at her, but her brain couldn't put a name or description to what that change meant. Something told her she should know it. A feeling or something of some sort. But if there was a name for it she no longer seemed to know it. This guy. She was supposed to know him too. She was pretty sure about that. Know him well too. Otherwise her body wouldn't be having this strange reaction as she looked at him. Still though… She frowned. Something seemed really wrong.

"I think your time in my domain is up. There's not much more for me to do with you like this, so I've decided instead that I'm going to leave you with Uraume. I'm sure she's got lots of ideas on how to play with you."

With that Sukuna stood and started walking towards the door back to the apartment. As he went one direction, Uraume came from out of the shadows passing him and walking towards Rinami. Sukuna paused and gave Rinami one last look, his expression again unreadable for her muddy brain; and although she couldn't understand what she was seeing on his face, she did feel a painful ache in her heart as she looked at it. Then he quickly turned his head away and left the area. His only words to Uraume: "Make sure you don't kill her." And then he was gone.

Rinami saw the white-haired person coming towards her and she was certain she knew her too, but her brain just couldn't immediately recall it. She didn't need to. Even through the haze, the smile on the person's face told her that the relationship wasn't good and neither was what was coming next.

Uraume came closer to the chair that Rinami was still strapped to. The chair had now been moved to the center of the rooftop. She was saying words, but Rinami was having a hard time understanding them. Her head dropped and bobbed as she tried unsuccessfully to hold it up. Her eyes felt heavy too. Where exactly am I again? And why is this sky blue? Isn't is supposed to be red? I thought the skies were red? They are where I'm from….

Her mind was swimming so deeply in its own thoughts that she almost didn't register it when her feet and lower half started to freeze; covered with ice as Uraume used her cursed technique and unleashed an ice formation on her. Unaware until the ice had creeped up to her neck, Rinami was still too out of it to realize the true depth of the danger she was in or to feel fear appropriate for her situation.

Uraume stepped closer, a crazed look on her face and claws of ice on her fingertips. "Sukuna said not to kill you, but do you have any idea how far I can go before death actually comes for you?" She let loose a venomous laugh. "I owe you so much for everything in the past few months. This will be so much fun"

"For you or for me?"

Another voice. Rinami knew this one as well. So familiar and it made her happy to hear it. She knew because her heart gave a little jump at the sound. Who did it belong to again? She tried to lift her head to see, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Frowning, she closed her eyes and hoped she'd hear it again. Her body was incredibly cold. In fact, it hurt really badly. But that voice was warming. Say something again. Warm me up. She heard a loud shriek, and forcing her eyes open, she saw the white haired person go skidding across the floor past her view. Hmmm. Buh-bye to you, I guess. She snickered half-heartedly. Maybe she'd slid off into that vast, weird, blue sky.

The next thing Rinami knew, whatever coldness was holding her steady started to fall away and she was being held in the arms of someone. As her head lolled idly to the side, she looked over and saw the red eyes from earlier. They weren't looking down at her but instead outwards at something or someone across from him. Straining herself, she rolled her eyes to the other direction to see if she could see too. Was it the place where the warm voice had come from?

As her eyes blinked steadily open and closed she could make out an angry faced man standing not too far off. He had silvery gray hair sticking up from his head and something strange wrapped around his face. Was that the voice? Looking at him did something strange inside of her. It must be the same person. She allowed her eyes to fall closed and nodded slowly to herself with an intelligible "mmhmm". That was fine. It was all fine.

NEXT: CH 29 'I bet that stings' OR 'Was this what you'd been planning?'

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