Sukuna stood upon the barren field with all four arms at the ready. The wind pressed across the ground, drawing thin ribbons of dust that curled around his ankles. He inhaled softly, letting the raw taste of the air fill his throat. His face was calm, eyes set upon the Emperor. No outward display of cursed energy traced the air around him; he kept every thread of power sealed inside, a trick that took years of diligence to master. One of his lower hands clutched Hama Yumi, a bow once gifted by Horus, now transformed by Sukuna's own arts into a cursed weapon of potency. The other lower hand steadied the arrow shaft. His upper pair of arms remained free, fingers poised for the forming of seals if the moment demanded it.
Across from him, the Emperor stood in simple black robes, no shield or armor about his form. A gleaming sword lay in his right hand, edge bright as a shard of the sun. Golden lights twisted at his feet, dancing and rising in restless coils that lifted dust and pebbles. He radiated a power that stirred the air and bent the light. Each shift of his stance suggested a violent grace, while the swirl of that roiling brilliance hinted at an unleashed storm. He did not hide his Cursed Energy the way Sukuna did. It rolled over the ground in warm waves, shimmering enough to lift the grit and cast it upward.
They faced one another in a lonely expanse. Far behind them lay the silent spires of a fortress, its distant battlements barely visible in the haze. No spectators gathered. The only witnesses were the scrub brush and broken stone, as if this contest were a private matter. The Emperor let the dust curl around his ankles. He swung the sword once, a languid motion. A ring of pressurized air expanded outward, leaving cracks in the dried soil.
Sukuna's brow twitched. His eyes flicked from the sword to the Emperor's stance. The swirl of golden brilliance made no illusions of the potency he faced. He let his other arms fall in a confident hush, then shifted his weight. He raised the arrow, nocking it to Hama Yumi's bowstring. He offered no outward sign of readiness, but the moment crackled with tension. He spoke in a voice no louder than a quiet aside. "You've chosen jujutsu this time. I see that swirling technique in you. Didn't think you'd limit yourself, though."
The Emperor's lips curled slightly in an echo of a smile. "I do enjoy variety, but it seemed fitting to meet you this way. I suspect your new toys need a worthy target."
Sukuna drew the arrow back. Hama Yumi made no noise as the cursed energies and symbols smoldered along the string. A Binding Vow took pain as payment whenever he pulled back the strick, in exchange for greater power. "You suspect right. Vulkan's absent for some reason. Not many left who can walk away from my new moves without dying."
His arms flexed, each muscle tensed with precisely measured force. The silence stretched, the dust dancing at their feet. A dryness clung to the air. The Emperor chuckled. "If you must know, Vulkan has devoted himself to the creation of a defense network for the Sol System, in the unlikely possibility that our enemies ever reach Terra."
"Do you still believe Horus will turn traitor?"
"I don't know anymore, honestly. The threads of fate are blurry. But, that also means the Great Enemy is just as blind as I am." The Emperor answered. Sukuna's eyes briefly narrowed upon the mention of the Great Enemy. There weren't a lot of them who knew about the Four Parasites that gnawed upon the Cursed Realm and masqueraded as Gods. Sukuna himself was one of the few–mostly because his friendship with Skarbrand apparently necessitated his knowledge of such things.
"That's good news, I suppose. Now, shall we begin?"
The Emperor nodded once. "Then do your worst, King of Curses, and be quick."
Sukuna let the arrow fly. The motion was smooth, almost without effort. The string released with a subtle whisper. The projectile tore the air in a crack, faster than sight or sense. A wave of displaced wind slammed outward, scouring rocks into sharp edges. The arrow streaked in a line of faint violet light, leaving afterimages in the gloom. Even Sukuna's own eyes barely tracked it, but he kept them on the Emperor's posture. He trusted the arrow's path would force a reaction.
The Emperor did not shift. The luminous swirl around him flickered, then parted. The arrow struck the golden aura with a sharp reverberation, as though it had hit a wall of tempered glass. Sparks flew, washing the Emperor in flickers of azure and gold. The projectile crumbled to fine ash, drifting through the air in a slow fall of dust motes. The ground around the Emperor's feet cracked and caved, carved by the leftover energy. Yet the Emperor stood untouched, sword at his side, robe barely ruffled. He exhaled and lifted his gaze to meet Sukuna's own.
Even after all this time, he still wasn't entirely certain how the Emperor's Innate Technique worked–or, at least, not fully. It was hard to figure it out when it seemingly had too many expressions. Thus far, the shield that disintegrated everything that came into contact with it was one of the few constants.
Sukuna flexed the top arms, forming a seal with two sets of fingers. A quiet hiss filled the space around him. The seal stirred the air, shaping an invisible pattern that shimmered faintly like ripples on water. He let the second arrow come to rest on the bowstring, though he did not draw yet. The corners of his mouth raised in the barest trace of amusement.
The Emperor lifted the sword higher, letting it catch the dust-laden breeze. Sparks of gold crackled along the blade, bright enough to sting the eyes. His voice carried in the hush. "You've improved that tool of yours. The arrow was sharper, heavier in presence. Still insufficient. But, hey, immortality gives you all the time you'll ever need for progress."
Sukuna inclined his head and pondered for a moment. "Then perhaps I should stack two or three new curses; the spiritual capacity of this weapon is tremendous."
The Emperor took one measured step forward, leaving a shallow crater in the ground. Dust billowed around his ankles. "Proceed."
A breath passed, slow as an age. Sukuna anchored himself, two arms gripping the bow, the other two weaving signs with purposeful exactness. He allowed a sliver of cursed energy to leak out, black lines dancing around his fingers, feeding into the arrow. The hum in the air grew, a tension that crackled in the ears. Rocks nearby vibrated, some shattering to rubble. Hama Yumi's shape quivered under the strain, lines of cursed script flaring across its length. Sukuna drew the arrow once more, the muscles in his arms bunching tight.
He let it loose. This time, the arrow left a trail of deep indigo, lines of runic malice swirling in its wake. It shrieked through the air, casting a gale that tore a rift in the ground. The arrow parted the dust storm, forging a corridor of still air behind it. The bowstring glowed hot for a heartbeat, then dimmed.
The Emperor answered with a quick raise of his sword, its golden aura slamming forth in a wedge of raw brilliance. Both energies collided in midair. The shockwave rattled the field, peeling the topsoil away in wide sheets. An ear-splitting crack echoed for miles around. Sukuna planted his feet, arms straining against the backblast. He felt the push of hot wind and grit. His eyes narrowed, steps stable.
Every other attack. Sukuna reminded himself. His shield offers him absolute and utter protection from anything once after every attack.
The problem therein lay in the manner of interpretation of what constituted an attack and where it came from, both of which were left entirely to the Emperor. And that fun little attribute made it almost impossible to track which attack would go through and which would not.
As the dust settled, he glimpsed the Emperor, robes fluttering from the force, sword shimmering with residual sparks. The arrow's remains drifted like dim motes, dissolving to nothing. The two combatants locked gazes across the battered stretch of earth. The silence returned, broken only by a faint ringing in the air.
Sukuna exhaled through tight lips, letting the hush extend. He recognized the height of challenge in the god-like being before him. No lesser foe. No trifling test. The Emperor's stance and unshaken composure signaled that this was only the beginning. Sukuna lowered the bow slightly, eyes flicking over the sword's golden arc. He spat once, clearing dust from his mouth, then resumed his stance.
"Not bad," the Emperor said. "I see the curses woven in those arrows. I trust you have more."
Sukuna formed a fresh seal, flexing the top arms again.
"Indeed, I do," he said, voice calm. "We can continue until you tire or I do. Let's see who falters first."
The Emperor inclined his head in agreement, lifting the sword in a deliberate motion that set tiny embers dancing around its edge. Sparks crackled in the scorched air, and the lingering smell of burnt stone clung to every broken fragment of ground. Sukuna stood across from him, shoulders tight and breathing measured, an arrow nocked against the shimmering bowstring. Curses whirled around the projectile's tip, thin coils of dark power that shimmered in and out of view. His fingers bled from the unrelenting pull, droplets falling onto the blackened earth. The battered ground shuddered beneath them, and stones tumbled where they could no longer hold their shape. No one spoke. No one yielded.
Sukuna exhaled and loosed the arrow without a sound. In that same heartbeat, he pressed a hand to a faint mark on his arm, sending Hama Yumi into a storage seal etched beneath his skin. He had tested the bow's limits often, found them more than sufficient for most foes. Beyond the Emperor, only a handful of entities scattered throughout the galaxy survived even a single shot. A gust of wind tore across the field as the arrow streaked forward, its path a sudden blur that churned clouds of dust in its wake.
The Emperor's gaze narrowed. His golden aura-shield pulsed around his body, bright as a dying sun, then flickered in the space of a breath. Sparks danced near his sword, and for an instant, he seemed ready to deflect the arrow the way a smith hammers iron. Instead, he shifted left in one swift motion, the blazing edge slicing the air but never touching the arrow's path. The arrow surged onward, the cursed energy clinging to it like hungry spirits.
It streaked across the distance and met a distant mountain with a thunderous roar. A fierce burst of light stabbed the horizon, swallowing the peak in an eruption of dust and molten rock. When the glow receded, the mountain was gone, vaporized to nothing, the wind carrying away scattered ashes that drifted like smoldering petals in the air.
The Emperor sighed. "That arrow would've pierced through the whole planet if I hadn't slowed it down. That was ridiculous."
Sukuna blinked. "So, that's why the whole mountain was vaporized, you dispersed the arrow's power–somehow."
"I had to," The Emperor shook his head. "That arrow would've destabilized the planet's tectonics."
Sukuna shrugged. "I figured."
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine!" His domain expanded rapidly outwards, immediately using up a fourth of his total Cursed Energy reserves to blanket more than half the world in a moment of time that lasted less than an eyeblink.
Every few decades or so, Ryomen Sukuna, Primarch of the Devourers Legion of Astartes and the King of Curses and Jujutsu, would challenge the God Emperor of Mankind to a duel that would determine his servitude: if the Emperor won, then Sukuna continued being his subject, but if Sukuna won, then he would finally be free. That had been their deal. And the Emperor obliged him again and again, the both of them growing in power each time.
But, truth be told, Sukuna no longer really cared all that much about winning anymore.
AN: Chapter 58 is out on (Pat)reon!