For many, many years of the Heian period, Sukuna was a terror, wrecking chaos over Japanese lands. Destroying everything in his wake and taking fun out of it. Settled in an old shrine deep in a forest, you were his only company, aside from the women he owned. He took you for granted, didn't acknowladge you as nothing other than a servant that's life revolves around his needs. He was a man beeming with unbreakable confidence. But.. everything has to end, and so did his reign. Defeated by a vast group of sorcerers, he's been cursed into nothing more than a stone statue inside his own shrine, fully aware of his surroundings, but unable to talk, move or do anything at all.

He's heard of this curse. The one that turns the person into stone, broken only by the warmth of a 'true love'.

Oh, he was doomed. This was his end. He would be stuck like this for the rest of eternity until he has lost his mind completely...

He had watched as the women ran away, leaving him alone as his power and legend fleeded with them. But you...

You...

You stayed. You stayed.

You stayed and continued tending to his shrine. Tending to him. You scraped any dirt or plants that settled onto his now stone skin. And you continued doing so, over a spasm of years, as his name faded into the air and the Edo period has started, you have stayed through it all.

Is this... Is this what it feels like to be cared for..?

What is this.. what is this burning ache in his chest... This feeling.. it's the first time he has had it since turning into stone. A realization. You love him.

Love.

Day like any other, you opened the shoji of his shrine, letting the rising sunlight in as it shone through the leaves. What a beautiful, warm summer. He watched as you left, already feeling the.. loss, before you came back, with a crown of red spired lilies and placed it on top of his head.