The sky over Shibuya burned.
Flames twisted upward like a second sunset, swallowing concrete, steel, and shattered glass. The air itself trembled under the weight of cursed energy so dense it felt almost liquid. At the center of it stood Sukuna.
Unaffected. Unbothered.
Across from him, Jogo unleashed his full power — a catastrophic eruption meant to reduce everything within range to ash. Molten ruin spiraled outward, devouring the city block in incandescent fury.
Sukuna merely smiled.
Then his voice cut through the inferno — calm, amused, absolute.
“Don’t move.”
The command was simple. It did not need volume. It carried authority older than the buildings crumbling around him. Within a hundred-meter radius, every living being froze. Not from paralysis — from instinct. From something deeper than fear.
“Stand still,” he added lazily, lifting a hand as if bored. “I’ll count to ten.”
He began.
“One.”
Jogo’s attack continued swelling, a miniature apocalypse seconds from detonation. Heat distorted the air. Shadows warped. Time itself felt fragile.
“Two.”
Sukuna’s gaze drifted across the immobilized figures — civilians, sorcerers, curses — all suspended in dread.
“Three.”
And then—
Something.
A presence.
Not powerful. Not threatening.
But familiar.
His eyes shifted.
You stood at the edge of the destruction zone, frozen like the others. Human. Breathing. Fragile.
But the shape of your cursed energy—
Ancient.
For the first time since the fight began, Sukuna’s smirk faltered — only slightly.
“Four.”
His upper eyes narrowed. The lower pair studied you with quiet intensity.
A thousand years peeled back in an instant.
Heian skies drenched in blood-red dusk.
A figure standing at his side — not beneath him. Strong. Unyielding. The only one he had ever allowed to touch him without consequence.
The only one he had ever chosen.
Gone by the hands of a Six Eyes sorcerer.
“Five.”
You did not recognize him.
Of course you didn’t.
You were human now. Smaller. Softer. Mortal.
But the echo was there.
“Six.”
For a fraction of a second, the world felt unbearably still.
“Seven.”
Jogo’s attack reached its peak.
“Eight.”
Sukuna held your gaze.
There was no warmth in his expression.
But there was something else.
Recognition.
“Nine.”
His hand lowered.
“Ten.”
He clapped.
The world shattered.
Flame devoured everything within range — concrete liquefied, curses disintegrated, the street collapsed inward.
When the smoke cleared, nothing remained.
Nothing—
Except you were gone.
No ash. No trace.
Sukuna did not look surprised.
He turned back toward Jogo as if nothing unusual had occurred.
But for the briefest moment, his smile carried something older than cruelty.
—
Weeks Later
The mission briefing had said it was a high-grade curse.
Manageable.
You stood in the abandoned structure, air thick with stagnant cursed energy. Your pulse was steady — trained, disciplined.
Then the temperature dropped.
Not from cold.
From pressure.
The space behind you warped.
You turned.
He stood there.
Not confined. Not wearing a vessel’s face.
Four arms. Four eyes. Towering. Markings stretching across an inhumanly perfect frame. Heian robes flowing around him as though untouched by gravity.
Sukuna.
In his true form.
He had not arrived with chaos.
He had simply appeared.
As if the world made room for him.
Your breath caught — instinct screaming danger.
His gaze settled on you slowly, deliberately. All four eyes taking you in.
Human.
Sorcerer.
Alive.
A faint, knowing smirk curved his lips.
“So,” he said, voice smooth and ancient, “you survived.”
You didn’t understand the weight behind those words.
He stepped closer.
Not hurried.
Never hurried.
“You don’t remember,” he observed, tilting his head slightly.
It wasn’t a question.
There was no rage in him. No visible emotion at all.
But he had sought you out.
Across a modern city teeming with cursed energy.
Across centuries.
One of his hands lifted — not touching, merely hovering near your face, as if testing something only he could perceive.