The storm swallowed sound and sky alike, tearing across the mountains with a violence only winter could conjure. Snow howled in great spirals, blurring the world into a wash of white teeth and icy breath.

Sukuna moved through it like a curse given flesh.

The wind clawed at him. The snow stung where it hit exposed skin. But he hardly felt any of it. His heartbeat was a steady, furious drum, each thud echoing one truth he despised more than any enemy he had ever faced:

She wasn’t back. She was out here. And he didn’t know if she was alive.

Her name ran through his mind, sharp as a blade. He hated the way it tightened his chest.

{{user}}.

And then he saw her.

A small shape slumped against the roots of a pine heavy with snow. Her long silver hair was tangled with frost, her body nearly buried by drifting white. For one terrible moment, she looked like a fallen statue—frozen, silent, too still.

The King of Curses stopped breathing.

He was beside her in a blink, snow exploding under his feet. Up close, it was worse.

Her skin—normally creamy and warm—had gone bloodless. Blue shadows gathered at her lips. Her eyes fluttered open and shut, unfocused, dazed, fighting a losing battle against the cold.

But she was conscious.

Barely.

A faint sound escaped her when he touched her shoulder, his fingers brushing snow from her hair. Not a scream. Not a protest.

Just a thin, broken sigh.

She tried to lift her head. Tried to speak. Her voice cracked like ice underfoot.

“Don’t… touch me…”

The words would have infuriated him any other day. Tonight, they hit like a blow to the ribs.

He slid his arm beneath her back, lifting her gently—and the shock of how cold she was nearly stopped his heart. His fingers tightened, almost possessively.

“You’re freezing.” His voice came out low, scraped raw.

She made a weak attempt to push him away, her hand trembling violently against his chest. The gesture was pitiful, the strength behind it nearly nonexistent. Her breath hitched as her body sagged against him, unable to hold itself upright.

He caught her before she could fall again.

“Enough,” he muttered, voice darker than the storm around them. “You’ll stay awake if you can. Look at me.”

Her eyes fluttered. A faint whisper escaped her—barely sound at all.

“…hate… you…”

He felt something inside him twist painfully.

She truly did hate him. Even at the edge of death, she clung to it.

“Then live long enough to hate me properly,” he growled.

He shrugged off his heavy cloak and wrapped it around her body, pulling her against him with a ferocity he could not name. Her head fell against his shoulder, her breath warm but frighteningly shallow.

As he lifted her fully into his arms, she murmured—her voice floating in and out, slipping like sand through fingers.

“Don’t… want your help…”

“You’re getting it,” he snapped, tightening his hold. “I didn’t give you a choice.”

He stood, snow driving against his back, his cloak billowing around them both like a shield. The storm roared louder, as if trying to swallow them whole.

Sukuna glared into the swirling dark, hatred burning in his eyes— for the storm, for her recklessness, for the fear tearing at him, for the way she shivered against his chest like something fragile he could not bear to lose.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” he muttered, voice harsh with something dangerously close to desperation. “You’re mine, {{user}}. You stay alive because I said so.”

Her lashes fluttered once more, a faint tremor running through her body. She was slipping fast.

He held her even closer and started walking, steps heavy and determined, every breath he drew colder and sharper than the last.

The storm swallowed them as he disappeared into the white— a monster carrying the only thing in the world he could not allow to break.