She
Do
was
She wasn't.
It had been several hours since the cataclysmic lunch, during which Gojo Satoru, eminent and exasperating S-class exorcist, had decided to impose himself on her journey to the north of the archipelago... She hadn't seen it coming, but she could feel it already... The bearer of the Sixth Eye had been sending her messages, voice mails and photos of himself all afternoon, straining her already frayed nerves...
What a demon that man was! And he was supposed to be a benevolent shaman?
How had he managed to get his number anyway? Had Yuji given it to him?
What a nuisance!
The tall, snowy-haired perch supposedly wanted to accompany her so she wouldn't have to kill humans... But the only human she would dream of killing right now was him and him alone!
At the height of her exasperation, Kali had been wandering around her apartment for hours, pacing back and forth between rooms, unable to keep still. She finally returned to her room and jumped unceremoniously onto her bed, grabbing one of her pillows and throwing countless furious punches at it, imagining it was the head of the man with the infinity eyes.
"Guardrail, I'm going to put some guardrails on you!" she grumbled moodily, coming to bite the soft fabric of the pillow she was holding with her fangs, having previously freed herself from her seals. He was undoubtedly going to ruin everything, the bugger! It made her so angry!
"KYU!"
The little albino scourge flew towards her from the living room before coming to rest a little farther away on her bed, scrutinizing her with his bloodshot eyes, a little worried at her outburst of anger.
"I've been had, Kyu! Like a fool!"
She addressed her flying friend, turning her amethyst-rimmed golden gaze on him as she dug her nails into the pillow she still held against her.
"And all this... It's just because of me too!"
With a jerk she brandished the pillow above her head before coming to slam it furiously against her mattress, punctuating her sentence.
"I ... Am ... DEBILE!"
She continued to manhandle her poor innocent pillow for a few minutes, when familiar music was heard nearby, suddenly cutting her off from her destructive momentum. It was... Her phone...
"Fuck!" spat the hybrid as she tossed her cloth victim mercilessly against the bed, leaping to her feet and striding furiously towards the living room where she'd abandoned her cell earlier "If that's Gojo, I swear on my life I'm going to find him and hang him from his own guts... Even if it kills him!"
She quickly came face to face with the squawking mobile, grabbing it with a slightly brusque gesture. Kali turned her enraged, feline gaze on the luminous screen, reading, with surprise, the name displayed on it.
It was not, as she had assumed, the bearer of the sixth eye... No, it was another shaman, much nicer to her than the other albino. Without further ado, she picked up the phone, putting it on speaker mode for comfort.
"Yuji..." she began with a deep sigh, dropping heavily onto her sofa, suddenly exhausted. "If you only knew how much it relieves me that it's you... If it had still been Gojo-le-lourdingue calling me, I think I'd have simply imploded... What a pain in the ass that guy is, I swear!"
"I can only agree with you that he's horrifying, shrimp..." replied Sukuna in his deep, caressing voice, catching Kali off guard who immediately straightened up, as if electrified. "But no it's not the kid..."
"Sukuna-san... Is that you? Is Yuji asleep yet?" she asked, as if extricating herself from the haze that had been her anger for the past few hours. She reached for her mobile again, making it light up to reveal how late it was, leaving her bewildered. Was it that late already?
"Is it discontent that's blinding you, shrimp? You got caught in a trap, didn't you?"
For his part, the King of Plagues had once again taken possession of his host's body while he slept, savoring his relative freedom. He took the opportunity to contact the hybrid as she had indicated during their previous discussion, stretching himself out against the teenager's mattress, an amused smile on his lips. The ramen restaurant episode had intrigued him on so many levels, he was keen to discuss it with her...
"Please don't make fun of me, Sukuna-san... I played SO badly that one... I'm already paying for it dearly enough..." sighed Kali as she reclined on her sofa, coming to hug a huge Hello Kitty-shaped stuffed toy lying at arm's length, snuggling it against her chest, sniffling weakly.
"I'm going to have to stick with it for the whole expedition... ENTIRE days! Can you imagine? I'm feeling this auction less and less!"
She rolled onto her back, burying her face against the fake cat's synthetic fur, deeply jaded.
For his part, the master of poisons scanned the shadowy ceiling with his double ruby gaze, casually placing a muscular arm behind his head, trying to imagine how many minutes it would take for the S-grade exorcist to make him lose his temper if they were to come face to face... Minutes were probably optimistic...
"I'd tell you to kill him during your escapade, shrimp..." resumed the millennial demon, himself dreaming of slicing the wearer of the sixth eye into a thousand pieces. "But given your level, you don't stand a chance. He'd destroy you in a snap of his fingers."
"NYAAAAA!" moaned her interlocutor in the hollow of her ear, drawing an amused smile from her. "I KNOW! It's got me all riled up, but it's got me all riled up, Sukuna-san! Even if, at the end of the day, the relic really is mine, he'd be able to confiscate it just in case I became a wicked wicked scourge! It's complete anguish!"
Her slightly childish tirade drew a lively burst of laughter from the tattooed man, lost at this unearthly hour of the night. She was so young in her way of being, so honest and unfiltered, so... oblivious in her almost total lack of fear towards her person... it was terribly refreshing...
"You're kidding!" she resumed, outraged, a pouty pout on her lips that he could perfectly imagine.
"Absolutely." he dropped, snide, leaving his interlocutor speechless. "You make me laugh, shrimp."
"At least one of us is having a good time..." she murmured through her lips, grudgingly.
"You're not sulking over so little anyway, shrimp?" he whispered, making her straighten up to come and sit against the sofa seat, hugging the plush cat tightly against her chest.
"You can't imagine what it's like..." She came to grab her phone, returning to the brand-new digital conversation she was having with the S-grade exorcist, full of several dozen missives. Apart from a few 'shut the fuck up' or 'go to hell' from him, everything else came from the infinity-eyed man, drawing a deep sigh from her. "Gojo's been pestering me all afternoon with messages or pictures of his head... He's driving me crazy! He even sent me links for stupid coordinating t-shirts to wear on the trip..."
"Coordinated... t-shirts?" repeated Sukuna, puzzled. "What on earth is that thing again?"
"Something silly ... Mine would say 'so lost, returned to Gojo-sama' and hers would say 'I am Gojo-sama'... Ah, and in the small print on the one for me, he added 'Caution, may bite'..."
Sukuna listened, raising his eyebrows, before letting out a chuckle in spite of himself as he imagined the scene. It hurt him to admit it, but on this occasion, the snow-haired shaman was full of humor.
"It's not funny, Sukuna-san! Why not a leash while he's at it... He even wanted us to get rooms with connecting doors! I'd rather die ... "Kali grumbled, fidgeting on her sofa in deep exasperation.
"Connecting rooms? Really?" raised the King of Plagues, ticking slightly. Did the bearer of the sixth eye have the wrong idea about the young hybrid? Admittedly, she was appetizing, with her tantalizing curves and impertinent golden gaze that just begged to be checked out... And the other was first and foremost a male, despite the grand airs he gave himself. And, like everyone else, he had primal needs just waiting to be satisfied... Fuck, how he wished he could give free rein to his desires too! If only he had more control over the kid's body...
"Maybe he wants to possess you and this trip is the perfect excuse, shrimp." he blurted out, letting his own perverse ideas rub off on the exorcist's actions. The hybrid remained mute, clearly taken aback by this completely preposterous idea.
"Me..." she began, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. "Possess? Possess who? Gojo?"
Kali thought back to how little she knew about the shaman, the discussions they'd had since their recent meeting, his behavior in relation to her, his condescending, infantilizing attitude... No, it couldn't be. Satoru certainly saw her as a rambunctious child he had to keep an eye on, nothing more. She'd bet her life on it.
"No... No, really, Sukuna-san. I don't believe it for a second." She continued, thinking quickly. "In practical terms, I don't even think he sees me as a woman per se... more as a potential problem to be solved."
"Hmm... Still, you are one, that leaves no doubt..." he whispered in a caressing voice, passing a hand over his lips. He remembered the more than generous cleavage of the hybrid he had admired a few days ago, the electrifying sensation of her feline body against Yuji's when the latter had held her against him in the abandoned clinic... All this aroused in him a terrible hunger left unsatisfied for far too long.
Kali, for her part, felt the fire rising to her cheeks as she heard the King of Curses' latest intervention. She could almost feel his carnacious gaze on her, making her tighten her grip on her plush, as if it were some kind of shield. He could so easily throw her off balance...
"Not in her eyes, I'm sure. That's all we need now ..." she murmured, unable to imagine her future chaperone attempting anything intimate with her. It was so... unlikely.
Not that he didn't have a few things going for him, she had to concede. His tall stature, his natural charisma, his subdued yet already terribly powerful aura, his arrogance and casual assurance, all of this hardly went unnoticed... Despite herself, the half-blight had noticed the elegance of his sinewy, muscular body concealed beneath his dark uniform, the delicacy of his pianist's hands, the sensual curve of his exasperating lips where a slightly mocking smile was constantly drawn. Kali swallowed unconsciously. And her eyes... His famous infinity eyes... Until now, she'd never seen them, the shaman having always worn a blindfold when they met. She only knew the intensity of them on her skin when Satoru turned them on her. They must be... incredible, the European was convinced, burning with curiosity. Perhaps she'd have the opportunity to discover them on their trip, and that was the only positive point she could find in the exorcist's impromptu presence on her excursion to the north of the archipelago...
"Enough about him, shrimp..." Sukuna finally resumed in his deep voice, more than eager to bring his interlocutor's complete attention back to his person. "I've learned a new trick since our last conversation, if you must know..."
Hearing this, Kali jerked upright, intrigued, all her interest again directed at the demon on the other end of the line.
"A new trick you say? What do you mean by that, Sukuna-san?"
The hybrid's foreign-accented voice betrayed a lively curiosity, making the King of Scourges smile as he got what he wanted. Gojo had already been consigned to oblivion.
"Maybe I should show you, it'll be easier..." He said as he sat down in the middle of the sheets of Yuji's bed, a mad desire to play embracing him whole.
"Me... Show? The trick you've learned?" questioned the young woman who could feel a certain feverishness creeping over her, wondering quite what the master of poisons was up to. "You intrigue me terribly! What is it?"
"Such impatience, shrimp..." he sneered. "Be good for a few minutes and you'll find out. I'll be back."
Without waiting for Kali's reply, the scourge cut the conversation short, abandoning his interlocutor to her all-consuming curiosity. She stared doubtfully at her phone's silent screen, a little vexed that he'd hung up so abruptly. The thousand-year-old cad...
Suddenly, a fever ran through her body, making her want to move. With a smooth movement, the young woman tossed the stuffed animal aside and stood up, starting to pace around her apartment, cell phone still in hand.
Kyu fluttered towards her before resting gently on her shoulder, pressing his small wet nose against her neck. In a mechanical gesture, she scratched the top of his head, tortured by the silence of his mobile.
"He'll call again, won't he, Kuy?"
The little albino scourge turned his ruby eyes on her, tilting his muzzle to the side a little, unconvinced. He had to call back... The day had been so unbearable, it couldn't end like this, on a digital rabbit from the king of scourges! It would finish him off...
TING!
Lost in thought, Kali gasped when she heard her phone ring, realizing just how much those few minutes of waiting had taxed her nerves. She really had to try harder to keep her cool with the demon...
Rich with this decision, the young woman initially closed her eyes before taking a deep breath, exhaling for several seconds to gather her wits. Calm. Serenity. She could do it.
She then reactivated her phone to discover a new message about her conversation with 'Yuji', intriguing her terribly. After a few clicks, she displayed the digital exchange, discovering its new content...
Which left her completely shocked, sending a blaze of fire through her cheeks and veins.
From her eyes, the color of liquid gold rimmed with amethyst, she could admire a photo of Yuj... No, of Sukuna, terribly scantily clad, his predatory gaze staring straight into the lens, as if piercing her through and through.
Calm, serenity, farewell!
Kali swallowed, dropping heavily onto her sofa, unable to take her eyes off the shot. It was... unexpected... and devilishly sexy! The demon king had taken an arm's length selfie of himself, nonchalantly seated amid crumpled sheets, already mastering the art of staging. He offered the hybrid an unobstructed view of his magnificently muscled naked torso, covered with dark lines that seemed to emphasize it brilliantly, guiding the eye to his incredibly drawn Apollo belt. Kali couldn't help but feel her blood boil as she discovered the dark, tight boxer shorts encircling his hips, the only garment he wore, obviously struggling to contain what he hid inside...
It was the first time she'd seen the scourge in control of the teenager's body, and she had to concede... She was not disappointed. Although she recognized Itadori's gentle facial features and physiognomy, the resemblance ended there. Between the dark tattoos running across his tanned skin, as if placed precisely to emphasize his impressive musculature or the elegant bone structure of his face, his blood-tinged double stare that stared implacably at her through the screen and, above all, his outrageously arrogant and predatory charisma, the gulf between the two beings sharing the same body was abysmal. It was a little... disconcerting... frightfully exciting...
TING!
A new message startled Kali, jolting her out of her fascinating observation. She was going to end up with a heart condition at this rate...
Your turn" was all the millennial demon had to say, bringing a new flush to the young woman's cheeks.
It wasn't a request. It was an order, she felt...
Kali pressed the phone to her chest, taken aback. He wanted her to send him a photo in the same style? She swept her gaze around the room, her attention falling on the adorable, innocent stuffed cat lying nearby. She could do as she had done with the water-bottle trick last time and send him a completely irrelevant photo... That had saved the day when the discussion had started to get completely out of hand a few days earlier. But, she suspected deep down, the man with the bloodshot eyes would certainly not accept another identical reversal on her part.
She needed to stay in his good graces, in case her expedition to Kumamoto ended in failure... And then...
Besides, she enjoyed this game between them, it was stronger than her...
She knew it was dangerous. He was a predator and she was fair game. Yet the slippery exchanges between them exhilarated her to no end, making her want more and more.
At this point, she might as well keep going...
So she turned on her camera, switching it to selfie mode, scrutinizing with her golden gaze her own image appearing on it. And now? Now what? What pose should she take? How much to show? What attitude to adopt? She was far from having the brutal magnetism of her interlocutor, and the lines that ran across her own body had none of the aestheticism of his tattoos...
The lines... His inking circle! The idea had just popped into her mind, causing her to leap to her feet. Kyu, who had been dozing on her shoulder ever since, fell from his perch with a disgruntled shriek, taking refuge on the sofa in vexation. But Kali paid no attention, too focused on her idea. She ran to the entrance of her apartment to retrieve her bag, rummaging through it eagerly.
"Here it is!" she said victoriously after a few seconds, pulling out a selfie pole which she immediately unfurled, placing her phone on it.
With a smile on her face, she stomped off to her bedroom, unceremoniously throwing off the large T-shirt she'd been wearing until now, to find herself in a colorful, patterned thong. She grabbed a clip lying around, pulling her autumn hair back into a quick bun, completely freeing her neck and shoulders. Without wasting time, she switched on a bedside lamp, dimming the light, before climbing into the middle of the bed, kneeling there. The half-flail then positioned the selfie pole slightly behind her back, arching her back ostentatiously to further accentuate her already vertiginous loins, hiding her bare breasts a little with her free hand. PERFECT. From this angle, her inking circle was still quite visible, as was the line of her shoulders, the partially concealed curve of her breasts... All she needed was the right look and she was in the bag! Seductive, playful and above all, she was showing the poison master her pentacle, which she was sure would arouse (among other things) his curiosity.
As she pressed the shutter release on her cell phone, the young woman looked mischievous and slightly Machiavellian, satisfied with her plan. She was going to kill two birds with one stone, she was sure of it!
After a few takes, Kali picked up her phone, quickly choosing one of the photos with a satisfied smile on her lips. She had to hurry... If she kept Sukuna waiting any longer, she'd lose her effect, she suspected... He probably wasn't the patient type!
She slipped the image into the conversation, tapping the send button with gusto as she watched the photograph slide upwards, irrefutable proof of its transfer. Almost immediately, a small green cross appeared on the message she'd just sent, proof of its reception by the King of Scourges, sending a shiver down the hybrid's spine.
Oh. My. God. She'd done it! She'd just sent a nude photo to the thousand-year-old King of Scourges! She felt as if... exhilarated, fire coursing through her veins. She felt as if she'd just crossed a threshold and there was no turning back now...
"Raaaaaaaah! You're nuts, poor thing!"
She let herself fall onto the mattress, wrapping herself in her sheet, rolling from one side of the bed to the other. She finally came to a halt, a little out of breath, scanning the ceiling. He was going to love the picture, wasn't he? It couldn't be otherwise... At least, she sincerely hoped so.
For his part, the recipient of the photo was devouring him with his double bloodshot gaze, more than appreciative, a predatory smile on his lips. What he saw on the teenager's phone screen was... terribly tantalizing, making his pupils dilate with excitement. That golden gaze staring back at him, those sensual curves, that milky skin... Fuck, he'd have given a lot to be physically next to the hybrid and be able to possess her, right there, right now! She had a kidney drop to die for, voluptuous hips that just begged to be grabbed and manhandled, enticing breasts that she dared to partially hide from him... There was no denying it, the shrimp had some strong arguments...
And that famous inking circle, which she mischievously showed him, not deceiving him for a second, earning him an amused smile... The stratagem was as big as a house, but hey... Given the fire in his veins from the photo she'd taken, he was willing to forgive her just this once... He knew how to be accommodating when he wanted to be!
The demon brought the phone closer to his face, scrutinizing the crude features disfiguring the hybrid's back, intriguing him to no end.
It was... a horror.
Sukuna raised an eyebrow, dubious at the catastrophic quality of the pentacle he was observing, coming to grip his chin with one hand. How could she be alive with such a thing binding her human soul to the orb of shadow flames? It was as if someone had performed the inking ceremony in haste and without any real knowledge. Which was completely at odds with the fact that inking was a cutting-edge technique mastered by a handful of individuals in its day... What was all this about?
It was really strange...
Without further ado, he called the young woman back, cradling his phone against her tattooed shoulder.
"Sukuna-san, what took you so long! That's not nice!" chirped Kali, a little sulkily, making him smile.
"Oh?" he whispered from the tip of his lips, teasingly. "But what impertinence, shrimp... Do you realize that one day you'll have to pay for all this disrespect? And I wanted to talk to you about your inking circle... Maybe you don't deserve it after all..."
"WHAT?!" Choked the young woman, outraged. "You're tough!"
"That, you don't think so ..." ironized the King of Plagues, who could feel the excitement coursing through his entire body, stretching his sex still trapped in his boxer shorts. "And it's all your fault ..."
"You started it, didn't you?" she murmured in a caressing, falsely innocent voice coming to delight him a little more. "Where on earth did you learn to make pictures like that?..."
"I'm a quick learner, you just have to be a bit observant and have a bit of gumption, shrimp."
Sukuna acted as if it had been easy, but in reality it had taken him a brave while to figure out how to take a proper shot. He'd battled with the phone moodily, hurling countless ancestral insults at its recalcitrance to obey him... But there was no way he was going to let his impressionable young interlocutor know that!
"You'll probably have to delete the pictures from the gallery on your phone, as well as the ones from the conversation, if you still want to hide your actions from Yuji..." resumed Kali from her side, looking again at the terribly sensual photo the demon had sent her, appreciative. It was amazing how different he was from the tender-eyed teenager...
The King of Plagues let out a deep, slightly jaded sigh. Having to cover his tracks like this, how tiring it was! He was so looking forward to regaining his complete freedom... To be able to act in broad daylight, to do whatever he pleased... While mentally enumerating all the things he'd like to be able to do first once he'd regained control of his envelope, Ryomen tapped on his host's phone, erasing the multitude of failed snapshots he'd taken a little earlier before managing to get the one he'd sent to the hybrid. He finally returned to their shared digital conversation, hesitating for a brief moment to delete it, his double gaze staring at the more than tantalizing image the European had shared with him.
"Perhaps you should only delete our most recent messages, Sukuna-san," the half-demon clarified. "Last time, Yuji was quite surprised to see that our discussion had completely disappeared..."
"Oh... Can we delete only the messages we want?" he repeated, a nothing Machiavellian smile on his lips.
So he tried, discovering with pleasure that indeed he could choose the elements he wished to conceal from the kid's eyes. Perfect, so he was going to have a little fun at his expense...
"You'll end up becoming an expert!"
Kali's light voice caressed his ear, making a slight smile float across his lips.
"I'm already one in many areas, shrimp..." The master of poisons stretched a little on his bed, rolling his powerful muscles against the mattress. Now that his digital footprints had been erased, he was desperate to play... "And if not, tell me... Are you still as indecently scantily clad as before? ..."
There was a short silence at first, disturbed only by the soft rustle of rumpled sheets, before his interlocutor spoke again in the hollow of his ear.
"And what about you?" she merely returned, mutinously, irrevocably amusing the thousand-year-old king. But what impudence, really...
Just as he opened his mouth to reply, a violent alarm blared from the phone he held to his ear, shattering his eardrum.
Instantly, Yuji's consciousness awakened in their shared body, regaining control in an instant, which had the effect of pushing Ryomen back into his living space. Ryomen reopened his eyes amidst the macabre skulls forming his throne, scanning the immense space bathed in the bloody glow he knew so well. His personal prison...
Damn, the kid had had it! He hadn't thought of disabling those damn alarm clocks... What a bummer! Anger suddenly filled his veins, heating up his whole body. He grabbed the first skull within reach, throwing it with all his might across the empty space in front of him. The object came crashing down on one of the gigantic ribs forming the vault of his space, but this did nothing to relieve his bad mood...
Sukuna slumped back in his unlikely seat, running both hands through his short hair, sighing deeply. Just when he was about to start having the time of his life! But what detestable timing...
He scanned the ceiling of bones above him with his double bloodshot gaze, thinking back briefly to the amusing discussion he'd had with the hybrid, calming his exasperation a little. He could perfectly well recall the snapshot she'd sent him, every detail of her body revealed as well as her discounted inking circle, wringing a calculating smile from him.
He certainly didn't know who might have been behind Kali's initial transformation, but the mediocre quality of her work was going to be most profitable to him, offering him a perfect means of manipulating the young hybrid with the golden eyes...
There was certainly something here to distract him a little from his boredom... and appease some of his devouring hungers...
"See you soon, shrimp..." he let out in a deep whisper, a terrible glint shining in his carnacier eyes.
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A word from the author :
M: And hello everyone! How are you all doing? I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Sukuna, still in boxer shorts: I showed myself almost naked, obviously they liked it, what a question!
Yuji, in a bad mood: Yeah, well, that's all right now, go and put your clothes back on, you exhibitionist! That's my body you're showing everyone!
Sukuna, mocking: Speak for yourself, you're no better dressed than I am, kid ... Remember, my body, your body...
Yuji, turning crimson as he realizes this detail: I... uh... FUCK!
Megumi, who throws a sheet to her comrade so he can roll around in it like sushi: Seriously, Itadori, didn't you realize you were almost naked?
Yuji, wrapping himself even tighter in his sheet: nah...
Sukuna, who doesn't give a damn and stays in his boxer shorts, playing with Yuji's phone: Of course not, he was too busy yelling at me for a change... That's... what do you call it again... harassment, isn't it? And the perpetrator, isn't that punishable by law?
M: Don't push it, Tigrouna... The one who harasses the other the most is certainly not Yuji...
Yuji : And toc! But wait... What are you doing with my phone again?
Sukuna, pulling on the elastic of his boxer shorts to take a photo of the contents: I'm sending something to the shrimp...
CLAC!*
Immediately Gojo, dressed as a cliché policeman, sends a violent slap to the back of Sukuna's skull as Yuji and M go to grab the phone, pulling it sharply away.
Gojo, handcuffing him: Hand down your shorts, miscreant! In the name of the anti-dick pics police, I arrest you!
Sukuna: What? Are you kidding me?
M, a judge's wig on his head, banging his gavel from his judge's seat: Tigrouna, you are found guilty of the infamous crime of having wanted to send a dick pic to a young woman who hadn't expressed the wish to receive one! As punishment, I sentence you to watch the INTEGRALITY of Little House on the Prairie and Princess Sarah, three times in a row! Executioner, let you carry out the sentence!
Sukuna, dragged by Gojo into the torture chamber (yes, there's that here too...) : You imbeciles, I'll be back!
M : Repented, I hope!
Sukuna, from behind the door, NEVEEEEEER!
M: We'll see after the sentence! OK, everyone, thanks again for following us ! Don't hesitate to leave us a comment, the zouzous or myself will be delighted to reply. Have a nice day and see you soon!