Satoru made a sweeping gesture with his hands and a condensed ball of cursed energy entered my Room, revealing it to be a torrent of gravitational pull. Stone, dirt, and wood from the buildings around us were ripped up and flung to the central point of the ball. It was a neat technique, I acknowledged, a grin on my face. Sukuna didn't even bother to uncross his arms, leaving the ball for me to deal with.
I suppose I had already revealed this card to him, so I played it again in full.
The gravity that attempted to pull us into the spiraling sphere that made a wide circle around us was brushed aside, the gravitational forces by the sphere countered by my own. I had discovered it back during my fight with Homelander, when I used circumferential force to generate pressure within the sun to forge my diamond blade. Gravity became another one of the tools in my tool belt, and like all the others it had been refined over the course of a year.
For that reason, the technique swept over us, obscuring our vision for just a moment, and even when the dust behind us was pulled up into the technique, we remained unbothered and standing on two platforms of untouched earth. I let out a low whistle at the sight, seeing a ten foot hole in the ground surrounding us. "I didn't really find what I was looking for in this world, but I gotta say, the inspiration I'm getting is more than making up for it."
Satoru looked down at me, his dark glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose to reveal some of the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He was a real pretty boy. "That wasn't cursed energy," he realized instantly. "And what did you do to your DNA?" He asked, sounding kinda grossed out.
I reacted by covering myself up and adopting an embarrassed expression, "Don't look at me like that. It's embarrassing," I said in a teasing voice while Sukuna scoffed dismissively.
"What's embarrassing is you calling yourself the strongest when this is the most you can do," Sukuna remarked, making Satoru narrow his eyes. His cocky smile became strained and I could tell the dismissal got under his skin.
All the same, he laughed, "I'm being underestimated. That's a first. Suguru? Get the lackey." He ordered easily, his grin becoming all teeth while I looked at Suguru. He narrowed his eyes, ready to throw down, but the tension came to a screeching halt when I raised my hand.
"Actually, could we fight instead? I can't see cursed spirits, so on my end, I'd be punching air. And I want to know what in the hell you're doing with that barrier of yours," I admitted freely and I got a dirty look from Sukuna. "What? Look, I get this is a big day for you since you're apparently some big shot, but it's not for me." Now Sukuna adopted a suffering expression so I just waved him off.
I looked back to Satoru, and I think I just now registered as a threat in his eyes. "So? Go on, do that Reveal Your Hand vow thing." I urged, pointing lowering my Room to get a better view of what he was doing. Because, the more I looked at it, the stranger it got. Satoru was well within my Room, yet as far as my power was concerned, he was well outside of it. It was the first time I had encountered something like this before.
Sukuna sighed, "Did you really have to throw off the mood?" He groused, and I just made a dismissive gesture.
The two teenagers exchanged a quick glance and there was a shift in the air. I could guess why - Sukuna was the big, bad, King of Curses. Which probably meant something given that this world had cursed spirits and people used cursed energy. And, here I was, a total unknown, speaking to him as an equal. It was for that reason Satoru decided to answer, "You mean my Infinity? Are you really telling me you don't know about it? Who I am?"
Wow. "I don't. Just consider me a tourist passing by. Oh, and word to the wise - no one ever looks good when they pull the 'do you know who I am' card." I remarked and I examined the technique anew. Infinity? That was fascinating and it explained what I was looking at. He was manipulating space. I'm not entirely sure how he was doing it, but the distance between Point A and Point B was seemingly endless.
Therefore, he wasn't inside my Room despite being inside of it.
Neat.
And that gave me an idea-
"As if I'd take advice from some shitty old man," Satoru sneered, throwing off my train of thought.
Old man?
"Old? I'm twenty," I stressed, unbelieving that I just got called old. Old, of all things. I didn't become a fossil just because I left my teens. My complaint got a middle finger as a response, so I blew out a sigh. "Alright. Fine. Time to learn some manners, you punk ass brat," I replied.
It was Sukuna who made the first move, blurring into action as he darted to Satoru. A fist raced towards his face, coated in an energy a bit like his Domain, and I sensed some resistance as his fist struck the Domain. Satoru's eyes widened while Sukuna cackled, mostly because he stole my opponent. The two of them continued past Suguru, who braced himself for a fight.
"That prick," I sighed, looking at Suguru as I felt more cursed spirits seem to manifest around him. I couldn't see them, but I felt their presence all the same. With them, at least, the cursed energy was less refined. They were concentrated entities of a single flavor.
Dragon. Rainbows? Rainbow Dragon.
Am I pretty?
Centipedes.
There were a host of others, but those felt the strongest. Swallowing a sigh, I drew my sword and Suguru took that as the sign to start fighting. The dragon raced forth, closing the distance between us nearly instantly and despite not being able to see the cursed spirit, I found that I could still interact with them.
Swapping places with a Centipede cursed spirit, Suguru's eyes widened as I was suddenly next to him. A thrust of my sword was blocked by a curse, and despite skewering it, it remained undamaged.
This was an annoying match up, I decided. Haki allowed me to strike the cursed spirits, but I couldn't injure them. "So, what's your deal?" I asked him, the dragon circling around and he jumped back, landing on its head. It was pretty funny looking because, to me, he was just standing on empty air.
"There's no point in telling you," Suguru replied, and I rolled my eyes at that. He made a gesture and the cursed spirits around me lunged. I swapped placed with Suguru and found myself standing on the dragon's head before plunging the blade down. Off to the side where Satoru and Sukuna were fighting, a building was ripped up as another blue sphere was thrown Sukuna's way.
The stab didn't really do much to the Dragon beyond piss it off, but that was the point. Swapping with another curse, I felt the dragon racing down towards me. It wasn't particularly smart, because it slammed into the ground in an attempt to crush me. Instead, it crushed a handful of its fellow cursed spirits.
I harnessed the energy their death released. Condensing it into a ball that I plunged my diamond katana into, letting it envelop the blade as I pulled it out. "The impression I'm getting is that only cursed energy can interact with cursed energy, right?" Now Suguru looked tense, sweat breaking out on his brow and his lips were thin. "Before we start for real, can you do that reversed cursed technique stuff? I don't want to kill you on accident like I did that blonde guy. I thought it was more common."
Suguru's eyes narrowed into slits, considering the question before speaking slowly but clearly. "No," he admitted, "I can't use RCT." That binding vow was fascinating to watch in action, because I could feel Suguru get stronger. "What I do have is this…"
At the proclamation, I felt something weird happen to me. If I had to describe it, it was like I was enveloped by a Room while information was shoved into my head.
Answer honestly.
Am I pretty?
Suguru launched an attack and I found that I couldn't move my body. I couldn't use my technique either. It was a Room that was specialized - I couldn't do anything until I answered the question honestly. And, I imagine that there would be consequences if the cursed spirit asking the question didn't like my answer.
"I mean… if you have to ask…" I replied, and with the question answered, the binding part of the Room faltered. On instinct, I switched places with Suguru and I saw him get cut up by whatever cursed spirit he had sicced on me. He cried out in shock and pain while I pivoted, sending a slash at the dragon that cut its head off. With it dead, I fed the cursed energy to the blade and looked at Suguru, who was now a bleeding heap on his knees.
It looked like he'd gotten cut up by a bunch of scissors. His uniform was in shreds, his hair was a hacked up mess, and he was sporting some deep slashes. My gut instinct told me he had managed to call off the attack before it killed him rather than that being the limit of damage that I would have taken.
I walked by him, "You did your best! No shame in losing," I said, patting him on the shoulder as I left him behind. Suguru himself was a bit weak, but his cursed spirits were interesting. An idea was cooking in the back of my mind, and I took some time mulling it over. It wasn't the magic that I wanted, but I was really finding it hard to regret coming here. The powers here were so unique.
It was a bit of a shame that I couldn't fully utilize cursed energy, but what I could see and use was great.
My phone buzzed and I looked down to see it was Robin. A text message.
I read it over as Satoru and Sukuna fought in the background, demolishing the school twice over. A slow rumbling chuckle escaped me as I looked over at the fight, seeing Sukuna grab Satoru by the face and drag him through a wall before throwing him with a dozen Dismantles chasing after him. Satoru was bloodied, his white hair dyed red, and he wasn't looking so hot. He caught the Dismantles with his Infinity before he held out a hand.
"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red," he intoned, but I couldn't really tell what that meant. What I did know was that it was a failure based on Sukuna's uproarious laughter as he closed in.
"No RCT. No Domain! And you dare call yourself the strongest?!" Sukuna exclaimed mockingly, like he'd heard the funniest joke. "You can barely challenge me even in this reduced state!" He added, closing the distance and it was obvious that Satoru didn't have much hand to hand experience because he tried to block a feint before Sukuna punched him in the side, a hand ripping into his side before he yanked it out to the side.
Blood gushed from his side but Sukuna grabbed his head and mercilessly threw him to the ground. He plummeted down like a rocket, and I felt the barrier of Infinity flickering around him.
So, I decided to Shamble him with a rock that was at my feet. Blood seeped out of his side, touching my sandals as I crouched down next to him. His left side was pretty much gone, a chunk missing entirely. But he was still conscious, looking up at me and I could tell it was the first time he had ever felt real fear. "This RCT stuff. Negative to positive energy. Watch closely, okay?" I said, siphoning off some energy from my sword and holding the ball above one hand.
"It's like two wrongs making a right," I told him, taking the cursed energy and converting it into positive energy. Satoru's blue eyes were transfixed by the sight, watching the process even as he rapidly bled out. It was the best way to describe it, in my opinion. Someone did you wrong, then you did them wrong right back, and all of a sudden, you felt better.
He understood it. It was a bit slow. A bit sluggish, but I watched him converting negative energy into positive energy. The bleeding slowed and his flesh started to mend. Blood trickled out of his mouth as he looked up at me, "Why…?"
"That's a good question. Why?" Sukuna asked, approaching and I could tell he was annoyed. "He's second rate trash and barely amusing as it is. The strongest only because I was sealed away." He raised a finger before making a slicing motion in the air. A Dismantle raced towards Satoru's neck, but by the time it arrived, Satoru was already gone, off near Suguru.
Sukuna narrowed his eyes at me, his annoyance growing as he watched me stand up. His gaze demanded an explanation and I readily gave him one, "You were holding out on me," I accused, holding up my phone with Robin's text as condemning evidence. "Robin spoke to Kenjaku. What's this about a Culling Game?"
Sukuna offered a thin smile that was every bit as sharp as his attacks, "It won't be relevant to you. You'll be dying soon enough," he defended himself, confident in his victory.
"Really? You didn't think a battle royale with some of the strongest sorcerers of this world wasn't worth a mention? You could have given me something to fight for, you know?" I replied, vaguely offended that he tried to keep such a secret from me. Robin had made contact with her power, slipping Kenjaku a phone because I was interested in all the things Sukuna wasn't telling me. When I sent her to secure our exit, that gave Robin a chance to call and Kenjaku spilled all the juicy details. A real gossip, that one was.
"Is that what this is, then? You're protecting those brats?" He challenged and the tension swelled between us once more.
"Can't have a battle of the strongest if you're missing the modern strongest, now can you?" I pointed out with a disappointed shake of my head. "This is unreal. How could you be so short sighted, Sukuna? Don't you know you have to let the minnows go so they can come back to you as fully grown fish?"
We were a lot alike, I could freely admit. But there was one key difference between us.
Sukuna craved satisfaction. I craved gratification.
They were so very close in nature, but there was a divide there. Satisfaction was instant. Easy. There was a constant stream of it depending how low your standards got. Gratification was harder. It took time to build towards, yet it was every bit as fleeting as satisfaction was. The difference was that a moment of gratification would never be forgotten while a moment of satisfaction would be lost in a sea of similar moments.
It was the difference between good and great. Easy and earned. Gorging yourself and savoring the experience.
He didn't even deny it, "If the minnow didn't wish to be eaten, then it shouldn't have been caught." He replied, leveling a stare at me. Suguru and Satoru were recovering, the latter more so than the former. But they weren't going to interfere in this spat. Not when it worked out in their favor.
"That's your issue, Sukuna. You gotta learn how to savor something," I said, tilting my head. "So. We're doing this here?"
"It's as fine a place as any," Sukuna replied, settling into a stance. Though, he looked faintly surprised when I Shambled the fingers that were beneath our feet into his hands. Five in total, bringing him up to ten fingers-...
"Wait, hold up - how are there ten when your nephew ate one?" I questioned while Sukuna chowed down.
He responded with action. An extra set of arms grew from his sides, tearing off the top of the yukata that he wore, revealing a mouth on his stomach. Sukuna cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders, and he wore a satisfied smile on his face. "That answer your question?"
Pretty much, yeah. "And you were saving this little trick of your sleeve for what, exactly?"
"I didn't have enough of my soul to incarnate fully, but now that I'm back up to half of my full soul…" he trailed off, settling in a stance once more. "I suppose I should thank you. Not many would have been foolish enough to aid me in their deaths."
"Happy to help," I replied with a smile in my voice, feeling a hum of anticipation. "Don't disappoint me now, Sukuna. If I beat you too easily after this, I'm going to cry."
Sukuna merely chuckled before he made a slicing motion with his hand. The Cleave came fast. Much faster than the previous ones, even after he revealed all of his tricks. It was denser, heavier, and was followed up by a dozen more that all raced towards me as I dodged out of the way with Shambles.
I suppose it was time to start trying.
The moisture in the air vanished, condensed into a ball of water over my shoulder, and it was joined by the moisture found in the grass, the trees, and even the blood on the ground. The ball compressed tightly, going from the size of a couple cars to barely larger than a baseball. The cursed energy I had stolen from Suguru was used to create fire and lightning, both further enhanced by my power feeding them.
Then Sukuna moved.
He was fast. Faster than A-Train, and that caught me by surprise. More than that, the difference between him and A-Train was that Sukuna knew how to use his speed and he didn't arrive at the fight utterly spent. My Haki was just barely enough to warn me when he suddenly flanked wide, closing the distance between us almost instantaneously. He was all smiles as he closed in, a punch going for my face as a Cleave was aimed at my stomach.
The latter I blocked with my katana, leaning my head out of the way of the former before I fired a compressed jet of water that shattered the sound barrier. It cut through everything in its path effortlessly, and that included Sukuna. The stream of water cut off an offending arm, but almost as soon as it was gone, it was regrowing. He still continued the same action, sending a powerful Cleave at me that I had the shamble to dodge.
"That's better, atta boy!" I commended, my heart racing and my veins filling with that sweet adrenaline. I felt it again. That feeling that I had so desperately missed since I killed Homelander.
The feeling of walking that tightrope between life and death where one move, right or wrong, could determine the outcome.
Sukuna just smiled, matching my own before he made a swiping gesture at me. Almost as soon as the Cleave was launched at me, he was on the move, practically appearing behind me. I reversed my grip on the katana, plunging the blade backwards, but Sukuna managed to catch it in one hand. There was a smell of ozone before a crack of thunder as the lightning lashed out at him, but even as he dodged, he attacked.
I would be dead without my Haki, I knew. A thousand times over. And despite criticizing Satoru about his hand-to-hand skills before, I wasn't that much better. Both of us had the same issue, I realized, as Sukuna relentlessly pressed the attack. We weren't used to getting hands on when it came to fighting, and Sukuna wasn't the type to give us a choice.
My Observation Haki deepened as the near misses and close blocks got narrower and narrower. His speed was something else, I decided. If A-Train fought me like this at the very start, I would have died at Lamplighter's memorial. But, it was because my Haki deepened that I chose to stay close to Sukuna.
I always did my best work under pressure.
To that end, I had to increase it. Limit his attacking angles. Manipulating the oxygen in the air was how I turned the fire and lightning into sure hits - as he was, he was moving around too much.
I grinned as a Dismantle cut my cheek just as I took aim with the water and fire ball. In machine gun bursts, they started to spit forward, tearing through the buildings and trees around us like they were made of nothing. Trees broke apart, chunks ripped out of them by water drop sized bullets of water, but there was enough of them that everything was reduced to splinters and rubble. All of it to hem Sukuna in. He chose to oblige me, closing the distance between us.
The ball of water resolidified itself for just a moment before a steam of water erupted from it, plunging down into the dirt. Sukuna narrowed his eyes ever so slightly before I raised a finger up to the sky. In response, the ground shifted as a pillar of earth began to rise up. The water pressure cut it cleanly, and manipulating gravity made it lighter.
As a result, a second later, we were a couple hundred feet in the sky, standing on a pillar of stone.
"I got a question about that," Sukuna said, looking at the narrow ring I made for us.
"Shoot," I replied, wiping away the blood that dripped down my cheek.
"Why haven't you crushed me underneath a gravitational force, yet?" He asked, tilting his head at me.
I chuckled, "That'd be boring." I replied in all honesty. Sure, I could probably smother him with ten times the Earth's gravity. I could also fill the air around him with carbon monoxide. I could probably suck out the moisture in his body and blood. I could probably replace his soul with that of an earthworm. I had options if I felt really desperate. "But that's what I mean, Sukuna. You can't go full tilt the entire time. You gotta stop and smell the roses, so to speak."
Sukuna scoffed, amused and affronted in equal measures. "You're still going on about that?"
"It's the difference between satisfaction and gratification," I replied before I grabbed hold of gravity once more. Satoru had given me an idea for a technique and I just had to try it.
The pillar shifted as I formed two balls of gravity. They started the size of marbles, spinning rapidly and gaining mass, which further helped the gravitational pulI in opposite directions. The pillar began to break up and Sukuna saw my plan. Before I could fully realize it, he rushed forward, and this time I met him head on. I lunged with my diamond blade, attacking and defending as I put all my faith in my Observation Haki.
There were cracks of lightning, belches of fire, and sprays of water as we fought upon the crumbling pillar of stone that broke up and started drifting to the gravity balls I had created. Sukuna was far more affected by them than I was, his body getting pulled in two different directions. Add that to the more limited terrain, and I was able to keep up with him. He must have sensed that I was getting used to his speed and aggressiveness, so he decided to switch it up.
The ground that we stood on became diced as he sent a wave of Dismantles at them and we both started getting pulled to the gravity wells. I grabbed hold of them, forcing them to move closer and closer, increasing the intensity on us both as we fought in the air. Sukuna was relentless, determined to get me with a deranged smile on his face.
It was then that I realized my mistake.
I thought I understood what cursed energy was capable of.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine," Sukuna intoned, looking at me with a triumphant smile. The effect was immediate - a barrier instantaneously went up, enveloping the two of us. And, unlike before, the barrier seemed… solid? Tangible, almost.
I found myself standing in a pool of blood and before that same shrine that I saw the first time. Only it was upon a mountain of bones - animal and human alike. Looking up, I saw the spine and ribcage of some great beast, but the space between the ribs was filled with an inky blackness.
"For you, and you alone, have I diminished myself to closing the barrier to my Domain," Sukuna said, standing before the shrine. My Room was cut off - I couldn't feel the gravity or stone. Even when he used that Fuga attack, which closed the barrier he set up, I had still been able to feel what was outside of Sukuna's Domain. Only now, I couldn't. My range was reduced to the limits of the barrier. "As part of my Domain, I forgo the guaranteed hit aspect of utilizing one's domain expansion in exchange for a greater area of effect."
Oh, he was explaining his technique again for a power up. This… might be bad, I concluded, matching Sukuna's smile.
"This is farewell. You were fun, Law," he said and I knew what was coming. Those same relentless attacks that destroyed everything within range of his Domain.
There wasn't a lot I could do about that. So, I did what I could.
"Room," I intoned, a slash across my face, leg, and arm greeting me first. The first of countless more. "Amp," I continued, smiling away as my entire world became pain.
Armament Haki was the only reason I didn't die instantly, but it only reduced the damage I took. My Haki flowed throughout my body, strengthening it, protecting it, and letting me stride forward despite every single inch of my body being relentlessly attacked by a million cuts every second. Blood flowed freely from me as I strode forward, and even with my Armament Haki, I couldn't survive.
The cursed energy that each cut delivered was absorbed and repurposed on instinct. Negative energy becoming positive energy. I got a much better look at the process with Satoru, but I couldn't say I really understood it.
The positive energy entered my body, and it was as if my body went, 'Oh wow, this is my jam' and started to dance, which somehow translated to my body rapidly healing itself even as it was destroyed.
Sukuna's eyes widened as I doggedly approached, "Not enough!" I shouted at him, breaking into a sprint up towards him. He used his lower arms to guard, the other two remaining in that hand sign. I didn't even bother dodging the slash that he made with a hand that took off one of my legs at the knee, simply jumping up into the air to close the last remaining distance between us.
My fist slammed into the side of his face and the effect was immediate - his jaw shattered, teeth flew out in a spray of blood, and what was left of his jaw hung off by scrapes of skin. His eyes widened at the devastating effect of the attack while I just laughed uproariously.
My Rooms were powerful. I could manipulate the primordial forces of reality. I could touch the intangible. I could remove the irrevocable. There was an endless amount of possibilities so long as they happened within my Room, and the only true limitations I faced were my own imagination, ability, and time.
An Amp-Room was me giving all of that away. The endless sea of possibilities of what I could do… in exchange for enhancing very specific things.
In this case? The impact of my strikes and my ability to heal myself.
Sukuna was already healing his jaw and I slammed my weight down on my new leg, standing before him. With a feral smile, we clashed before his shrine. My body moved on instinct, slashing at Sukuna and managing to effortlessly take off two of his arms on one side before taking a hit that left me blind in one eye, but only for a moment. I couldn't stop laughing, even as the intensity of the strikes around me increased, leaving me only with scraps of clothing to protect my modesty.
Sukuna was without a doubt the better fighter between us. He was faster, stronger, and he was just plain better when it came to throwing hands. But I felt the gap between us shrinking as we clashed - a block of an overhand strike with my forearm leading to a low kick at his legs, before I reversed my grip to my katana and lunged to plant the grip into his chest. The effect was immediate with his sternum shattering like glass, blood erupting from his mouth as his lungs were pulverized, but he healed them near effortlessly and continued to fight.
He was laughing with me as we fought, trading a series of blows that neither of us really kept a track of. It was pure instinct. There was barely a cautious thought in my head as we butchered each other. There was no real plan. Just fighting it out until I forced him to drop his Domain.
The gap between us shrunk enough that he couldn't fend me off with just two arms. He dropped the handsign and, immediately, I noticed the constant slashes reducing in intensity. They were still enough to kill me a billion times over, but the weakened assault emboldened me. My Armament Haki was able to protect me from the worst of the slashes, and Sukuna noticed it.
"What the hell is your body?" He said with a laugh, blocking an overhead slash with my katana, catching the nicked blade between two hands.
"I don't want to hear that coming from you!" I shouted back, delivering three rapid fire kicks to Sukuna - one to his knee, another at his thigh, and the third at his ribs. His leg gave out from underneath him, his arm managing to catch the third kick, but it crumpled his firearm like tissue paper. With Sukuna's good leg, he threw himself back while he threw me to the base of the Shrine. I landed on me feet, blood splashing-
An image flashed in my mind. Sukuna's hands clasped together, his forehead arms moving as one as he delivered a single slash at me. I dodge and then my world became fire.
I had no idea what that was, but I broke into a dead sprint, running towards Sukuna as he landed on top of his Shrine. Exactly as I saw, he clasped his four arms together, almost like he was praying. Then, with a single deliberate gesture, he sent a Dismantle at me that utterly dwarfed every other one that I had seen so far. It was visible to the naked air in the split second that I had to see it, crossing the distance in an instant.
I could have dodged, but that would delay me.
My grip tightened on my katana as I swung at the Dismantle, the clear diamond blade turning a pitch black as my haki flowed through it. The two clashed in the middle, but the result was obvious from the start. But, I didn't need to win. I just needed to not lose.
The Dismantle carved through my black blade but it offered enough resistance that I could divert the attack. I felt a pinch in my arm as it became severed at the shoulder, my diamond sword split in two. Yet, all the same, as I leapt up to Sukuna, who made to clasp his hands to summon that fire, I grabbed hold of the blade of my sword with my remaining arm. The edge bit into my fingers and I saw Sukuna's eyes widening as I sailed closer.
"Too slow!" I shouted, swinging the half blade at Sukuna, putting all of my haki behind it. It slammed into the shrine first, the wood splitting, followed by Sukuna, and it continued all the way until it hit the edge of the Domain.
It cracked like glass, along with the shrine that crumbled to pieces and a second later, both of us were falling through the air. Dismissing the Amp-Room, I created a normal Room, and immediately used a push of gravity to slingshot myself towards Sukuna. With a lunge, I plunged the broken blade into his heart, both of us hitting the ground with enough force that we dug a trench with Sukuna acting as the plow.
He was just a head, his chest, with two stumps of arms on one side. Still alive, though. I leaned in, meeting his gaze, and I stated the results in no uncertain terms.
"This is my win."
"Seems that way," Sukuna agreed. No resentment to be found in his voice. He was someone who lived by the sword and embraced the thought of dying by it. "Enjoy the Culling Game. Just be sure to kill that other half of my soul. I can't stand the thought of the last part of myself being some pathetic loser that managed to be suppressed by a toddler."
I pulled my blade free of his chest. Pushing back my blood soaked hair, "Sukuna," I said, catching his attention, "You're not dying here."
That got a mild look and a cocked eyebrow and I waved off his concerns, "It's winner take all, yeah? But, hate to break it to you Sukuna, by my estimations you don't have shit. No way that bet was even. So, instead, I want this…" I continued, my smile growing. "I want you to be my friend."
"...You have got to be kidding me," Sukuna replied, seeming honestly surprised by my demand.
"You're a funny guy, Sukuna. And I can empathize with you, you know?" I told him, Shambling out some rubble for some clothes since mine were bloody rags at this point. My phone was gone too. Sukuna stilled at the thought of someone empathizing with him, telling me he thought it was impossible. "Even at half strength, you wiped the floor with the strongest of this generation. So, I don't think your story is one of defeat that ended with you split up into those fingers."
Sukuna was watching me carefully, more guarded than I had ever seen him. All the same, I knew my next words hit the mark. "You got bored. You accepted all challengers and you slaughtered them endlessly. Any time you found someone that would be of interest, you found them and you killed them. I can only guess how long you did it for, but I'm guessing it was awhile. Long enough for it to become a cycle. Until the faces and abilities might change, but nothing else did."
I got dressed and continued, "You got bored. So damn bored that even the things that you do enjoy couldn't alleviate it. Then, for some reason or another, you get a bright idea - instead of hunting down people strong enough to amuse you, you force them to come to you. A Culling Game. A battle royale of the strongest. Everyone that managed to be born and flourish in your absence gathered up in one place for the sole purpose of entertainment."
Sukuna's lips thinned and that told me I saw right through him.
"I understand," I told him earnestly. "Probably better than anyone else could. You see, back in my home world, there was a hero named Homelander. The world's greatest superhero. And every night as a kid, I used to close my eyes and dream that one day I could be the world's greatest supervillain. It's all I ever wanted to be and do and against all odds, I got my chance. I got super powers and I could be the man I always wanted to be."
I sighed, almost wistful, "Oh, you should have seen us. He wasn't the man or the hero I thought he was, in the end, but that didn't make him any less incredible. I terrorized the world just to get his attention, brought nations to their knees, and it was all worth it in the end. Our final fight… in the ruins of a broken city, the whole damn world being destroyed all around us, billions of lives snuffed out in hellfire as a backdrop to our battle…" I trailed off, looking down at Sukuna to see he was regenerating. And listening.
"I didn't realize it then, but that was my perfect death," I admitted. "The world was ending, I was fighting my childhood hero as his equal, and… If I died right then and there, I would have died as happy as I had ever been." The world's greatest hero and the world's most terrible villain killing each other at the very end of it all. Perfection. "But I didn't die. I missed my chance. Now, I'm forced to discover who I am without Homelander. You see, I wanted to be the villain to his hero. Now?"
I gestured around us, "I'm just a villain. I don't stand for anything. I don't embody anything. I'm just a powerful asshole that has access to the multiverse… and I thought that would be fine. And it was good enough for a while, but it's just so empty, tormenting regular people when they can't fight back. What's the point of taking something from someone that never had anything?"
More than anything else, that's what my time in Fallout taught me. I had the power to roll over gangs of raiders, to take over the world… but it was all so unfulfilling. So empty. There was no challenge there. No risk. It was so… impersonal, destroying someone from my ivory tower.
I was forced to confront how directionless I was without Homelander acting as my North Star. Questions that I had never bothered to ponder before his death at my hands.
What was a villain?
"So, what? Me and you frolick across this multiverse? Until what?" Sukuna asked, sitting up now that he was fully healed. He didn't sound… unamendable to the idea.
"I dunno. I… I want to become a calamity," I admitted to Sukuna, honestly and from the heart. "I want to embody the idea of Evil. I don't want to be a supervillain. I want to be the supervillain," I continued, pursing my lips. "But I have no idea what that means. Or how to go about it. So, I'm going to take my time with it. I'm going to explore what it means to be a villain to me. Until, one day, I can stand before genuine heroes with my head held high and ideals that equal their own."
I stepped forward to Sukuna, offering a hand down to him. "And I think the ride would be more fun with you there. Maybe I can convince you to savor your entertainment more. Maybe you'll betray me and we can set the multiverse on fire in our conflict. Either way, it'll be fun! So, what do you say?"
Sukuna looked at the offered hand for a long moment, seemingly genuinely perplexed. "Law?"
"Hm?"
He brushed my hand away to stand on his own two feet, "You're without a doubt the craziest bastard I've ever met," he said with honest praise and I knew I had him. "So I'll only say this once and you'll never hear the words from me again in your life… so, savor them."
Sukuna offered a small bow of his head to me, "You have my sincerest apologies. I mistook you for a human."
"Don't worry about it. It's an easy mistake to make."
I made a new friend.
...
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