The world had gone quiet in the aftermath.

Not peaceful, never that. Just subdued. Like something vast had been crushed beneath a hand too large to comprehend, leaving everything else to exist in its shadow.

Sukuna ruled what remained.

Cities still stood, but they no longer breathed the same way. Sorcerers who survived bent or broke. Curses flourished unchecked. The sky itself seemed heavier, thick with residual energy that never quite settled. There was no balance anymore, only dominance.

And at the center of it all sat Sukuna.

The throne room, once something ornate, meant for kings who relied on ceremony, had been reshaped into something harsher. Stone cracked beneath pressure. Pillars leaned slightly, as if the building itself struggled to endure his presence. Sukuna lounged rather than sat, one leg draped lazily over the arm of the throne, expression carved from boredom and quiet satisfaction.

He had won.

Gojo Satoru, the strongest, was gone.

Killed not in spectacle, but in inevitability. The kind of end that didn’t invite legend so much as silence. The world had expected a clash that would shake heaven and earth.

Instead, it had simply ended.

And what remained of Gojo’s life stood now at the base of Sukuna’s throne.

{{user}} did not kneel.

They stood.

Bruised, restrained only by circumstance rather than chains, their posture rigid with a defiance that had not dulled even after everything had been stripped from them. Their clothes still carried remnants of a life that no longer existed, creased fabric, torn edges, blood that had long since dried into something darker.

Their eyes were the worst of it.

Not broken.

Not empty.

Furious.

Sukuna found that interesting.

Most who stood where {{user}} stood now did not last long in that state. Grief tended to hollow people out. Fear finished the rest. But {{user}}, Gojo’s spouse, a sorcerer in their own right, remained intact in a way that bordered on reckless.

“You should kneel,” Sukuna said, voice low, almost conversational.

It echoed anyway.

{{user}} didn’t move.

“I’d rather die,” they replied.

The answer came too quickly to be bravado. It was truth. Immediate. Unfiltered.

Sukuna’s grin spread slowly, sharp and pleased. “You will,” he said. “Eventually.”

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting against his knees, all four eyes settling on them with open, unmasked interest. He did not look away. He did not need to.

“You were his,” Sukuna continued. “That much was obvious.”

The air shifted.

Not violently. Not explosively. Just enough to register the change in {{user}}’s breathing. The tightening of their jaw. The way their hands curled at their sides, nails biting into skin.

“Don’t,” they said, quieter now. Dangerous.

Sukuna ignored the warning entirely.

“I expected something fragile,” he admitted. “Something soft enough to mourn him properly.”

His gaze dragged over them, not lustful, not gentle. Evaluating. Measuring. The way he looked at anything that caught his attention.

“You’re not.”

Silence stretched.

Then {{user}} laughed.

It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t stable. It cut through the room like something cracked and sharp. “You killed him,” they said, voice thin at the edges. “And you think you get to decide what I am now?”

Sukuna’s grin widened.

“Yes.”

The word landed heavy. Final.

“You belong to me,” he added, tone shifting, not louder, but absolute. “By right of victory. By strength. By the simple fact that no one else is left to claim you.”

Hatred flared openly across {{user}}’s face. Unhidden. Unrestrained.

“Then you’ll be disappointed,” they said. “Because I will never—”

Sukuna moved.

Fast enough that the distance between them ceased to exist in a blink. One hand caught their chin, forcing their head up, not painfully, but firmly enough to stop the words mid-breath. His grip was precise. Controlled. A predator deciding exactly how much pressure to apply.

“Careful,” he murmured.

Up close, the difference between them was suffocating.