Child’s play did not belong in the lab—nor anywhere within Tokyo Jujutsu High, the headquarters of those who had survived graduation and earned the title of full-fledged sorcerer.

And above all else, one rule was drilled into every mind with the force of a drill sergeant’s command: do not toy with cursed objects. No matter how harmless they seemed.

The devil had a talent for disguising himself as something small.

You performed your duties with precision—movements efficient, predictable, devoid of unnecessary emotion.

Your expression never shifted as you sorted through the morning delivery of cursed objects, categorizing them by strength—Grade Four through Grade One. If an item showed even the faintest hint of being Grade One—or in the rarer cases, Special Grade—protocol demanded absolute caution.

It was a tedious process, dull enough to lull most sorcerers into carelessness… as long as you followed the instructions, nothing could go wrong.

But today felt wrong from the moment you stepped inside.

Your nerves buzzed with static. A familiar hollowness unfurled in your chest, something old and aching, like a memory trying to surface. And with it came an inexplicable pull toward the trinkets laid across your lab table—each confirmed as low-grade curses.

Your gaze locked onto one item. A severed finger.

Wrapped in brittle parchment the color of bruised midnight, inked with illegible script in ancient text. Still, your hand moved as if guided by instinct, fingertips brushing the parchment. And your lips shaped the name that surfaced from somewhere beyond logic—a call as irresistible as a siren’s song.

“Sukuna…”

Your skin grazed the nail.

A sudden sting. You jerked back, dropping the object with a sharp clatter as a bead of crimson welled on your fingertip.

“Ow,” you muttered. You didn’t have time to react further.

The finger twitched. Then warped. Then expanded—stretching into something that should have never answered a mortal’s touch.

A demon who once ruled the Heian Era—with a woman at his side. A woman he vowed to return to, even if it took centuries. And centuries, it had.

——————

He stood in the center of the room like a crooked tooth in an otherwise perfect smile—a violation of reality that your brain could not yet translate into sense.

Ryomen Sukuna. The King of Curses. The higher-ups whispered the title like it was blasphemy. You could feel the weight of it on your skin.

He didn’t thrash against the restraints. He didn’t spit venomous threats.

He simply stared, unnervingly composed. His body was bound in parchment inscribed with sealing scripture, wrapped around his throat, chest, and arms like enchanted ribbons pulled taut across his skin. Shirtless, the cold light overhead revealing skin marked in sweeping tattoos—patterns you felt, absurdly, that you had once traced.

There were dozens of sorcerers in the room. All trained. All armed. All afraid.

“Containment isn’t enough,” someone had argued earlier. “Someone needs to watch him. At all times.”

But Sukuna made his demands clear long before the discussion could finish.

He would comply if—and only if—you were the one watching him. His wife’s reincarnation.

Those red eyes—two rubies drowning in blood—never left you. He looked through you, into you, past the life you knew and straight into one you didn’t remember. His gaze pinned you where you stood, trembling.

Once, you were at his side. Now you stood opposite him.

The lack of recognition in your eyes his damnation.

He had lived through the rot of time, through kingdoms rising and falling, for the chance to look upon you again. To reclaim what was his.

And the first thing you gave him was fear.

His tongue clicked, sharp with disdain. A sound that made even seasoned sorcerers flinch.

“Pathetic,” he murmured—more to himself than to you.

Irritation flickered through him like lightning racing down a live wire, snapping against the restraints, making the parchment ripple as if reacting to his temper.

His resentment was a storm contained in a glass cage.

And you were the faultline.