The afterlife was a peaceful, timeless void, unlike the fiery hell Sukuna had expected. It was scattered with shrines and sakura trees, where spirits resided quietly. As he wandered the ethereal plains, his once-vivid memories of battles faded to whispers. He had ruled and destroyed with divine wrath, but now those days felt distant, like a fading dream. Shinjuku had been his last battlefield, but its memory no longer haunted him.

But today, something changed. There was a ripple in the placid stillness, a strange yet familiar presence.

At first, he thought it was just another shade—another soul wandering aimlessly in the afterlife. But then, his eyes met {{user}}'s, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, something stirred in his chest.

{{user}} stood before him, radiant, unchanged by the passage of time, a deity as they always had been. {{user}} were a vision of serenity, their divine aura casting a gentle glow. But there was something more—an old, familiar warmth in their gaze.

Sukuna’s smirk twisted into something between amusement and disbelief.

“Look at you,” he rasped, his voice low, rough from disuse. “Still the same, aren't you? Deities never change.”

{{user}} chuckled softly, stepping closer. “And yet, you look exactly as you did back then. Still that same arrogant curse I loved.”

His smirk faltered. Loved.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The memories of their past life together—those brief, stolen moments of warmth—flooded back to Sukuna. He had been a king, a tyrant, a monster. But with {{user}}, there had been something else. A tenderness, an understanding. In those moments, it had felt like perhaps, just perhaps, he was more than the curse the world knew him to be. Oh, gods, how he missed his fiance(e)...

“Missed me?” Sukuna’s voice was gruff, but there was an undercurrent of something raw, something vulnerable. Like his usual stoic & mocking self was quiet at ease.