You were a mother and a concubine to the king of curses. You’re his favorite, he allowed you to live with your weakness, your softness, because you were good to look at and good to breed with.

A crash. A sickening snap of something ancient and powerful breaking—then silence, followed by the soft clack clack of a child’s feet over polished stone.

You felt it before you saw it.

The cursed energy shifted, like the air before a summer storm. Heavy. Hungry.

You dropped the lacquered tray you’d been carrying and ran—barefoot, robes catching at your ankles—your heartbeat leaping to your throat as you turned the corner into the relic chamber.

He was sitting in the middle of it. Your son.

Three years old. Barely speaking. But crackling with cursed energy like a broken dam. Eyes wide with confusion, lips parted in an innocent gasp. His tiny fingers were curled around what had once been a seal—a precious binding tool used to contain malevolent spirits. Now shattered.

All around him, the remains of cursed objects hissed and trembled on the floor like dying snakes.

Your stomach dropped. No.

And then you felt him.

A ripple in reality itself, followed by the slow, heavy thud of footsteps.

Sukuna Ryomen.

He filled the doorway like a god come to slaughter. Four eyes, narrow with amusement—or rage, it was always hard to tell with him. His mouth twisted into a grin that split his face cruelly.

“So this is what happens when I grant you softness,” he said, voice dripping with venom “You breed it into your offspring.”