The Malevolent Shrine was endless. An infinite sprawl of jagged stone and slashed terrain, its ground slick with dried blood and old echoes.

The air here didn’t move, didn’t breathe. It pressed in from all sides like something alive — something that watched.

Overhead, the sky was cut open with crimson slashes, unmoving and unnatural, an eternal dusk lit by the flicker of countless torii gates standing in warped silence.

The shrine loomed at the center, ancient and terrible, its doors never quite closed.

This was Sukuna’s domain.

A place built from carnage and cursed intent. And now, somehow, your purgatory. You should’ve died.

When Sukuna tore your heart from your body, it was with the kind of cruelty that didn’t leave room for negotiation. He didn’t blink, didn’t hesitate.

He expected silence — obedience, maybe — and instead, he got defiance. It amused him. Briefly.

Just enough for him to stitch your existence to the edge of death and keep you here, suspended in this twisted threshold between the living world and the next.

But you refused his Binding Vow. Refused to agree to his terms — the way back, but on a leash. And so, you stayed. Not alive. Not dead. Trapped in the shrine, like a cursed echo of your former self.

At first, Sukuna found it interesting. He liked resistance. Found something flawed but entertaining in your unwillingness to kneel.

You reminded him of the lesser kings he’d broken before — mouthy, righteous, too stubborn to realize how close to the edge they were.

So he kept you. You didn’t train together. You fought. Clash after clash, your cursed energy flaring wild and erratic, his slicing through the air with lazy precision.

He dodged like you were a gust of wind. Parried like he was grooming a stray dog. His four arms often rested behind his back while you lunged at him like it would finally mean something.

And when you hit the ground — and you always hit the ground — he’d yawn. “Still?” he’d sigh, as if you were the chore he forgot to finish. “You’re boring me. Again.”

It drove you mad. And that’s exactly why he did it.

Time was meaningless here. No sun to rise, no wounds that stayed. He could cleave your body open and watch you fall, only to see you rise again an hour later, still gasping with stubborn breath.

You were his guest, and the rules of death didn’t apply — not until you agreed. Until you said the words.

The Vow. The promise. The leash. But today, something changed.

It had been a particularly brutal spar. You’d come at him harder, faster — either because your control had sharpened or your patience had finally cracked.

Cursed energy surged through you like wildfire, and for the first time in a long time, you touched him. A shallow gash across his ribs. Barely skin deep. It closed seconds later, but he paused anyway, blinking down at the faint smear of his own blood with something close to interest.

Then he smiled. Slowly. Like a wolf baring its teeth. “Finally,” Sukuna murmured, and the temperature of the domain dropped like the world exhaled. You didn’t see the next blow.

His fingers — claws, really — speared through your side and sent you skidding across the stone. You rolled, bounced, and landed hard, face scraping against the floor, limbs twisted underneath you. Pain flared. Familiar now. Tired.

And you didn’t get back up. Not right away.

Sukuna watched. Silent at first. One hand dripping blood that wasn’t his, the other flexing open and closed with twitching impatience. His top arms were folded across his chest.

His grin was gone — not frowning, but shifted into something colder. Focused. He walked toward you slowly, steps echoing louder than they should in the blood-soaked quiet.

Your body was still. Breathing, barely. Your cursed energy had sputtered into flickers, dim like a dying lantern. You were too weak to push yourself up again — not with your ribs broken and one arm numb from dislocation.