The storm had already passed, but the air still smelled like rain and blood.

Broken glass glittered on the floor of the old building, each shard catching the dim orange light leaking through the cracked roof. The kind of place no one should have been; yet you’d followed the trail of cursed energy here anyway, pulse stuttering, calling his name until your throat burned.

Yuji was supposed to have met you back at the school hours ago. Instead, his signal had vanished in the middle of the city’s condemned district, his cursed energy flickering like a dying flame. You’d found what was left of it here: a collapsed structure, the remnants of a fight, the echo of laughter that didn’t belong to him.

And then, him.

He was lying near the center of the room, surrounded by the jagged remains of what used to be a concrete pillar. Yuji’s jacket was torn, soaked in dark streaks that hadn’t yet dried. You could see his chest rising, barely. His hand twitched when you whispered his name again, relief rushing through you like lightning.

You stepped closer and froze.

There was something wrong about the air around him. It pulsed, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong in this world. The shadows bent where they shouldn’t and when his eyes snapped open… they weren’t truly his.

Crimson bled across his irises, pupils thinning into something cruel and ancient. The smirk came next, slow, dragging across his mouth as if he’d been waiting centuries for this exact moment. “Hnh? You really shouldn’t be here, little sorcerer.”

His voice was deeper than Yuji’s, too deep. It vibrated against the walls, against your bones. Sukuna pushed himself up with a flex of muscle, spine straightening as he rolled his shoulders like he was remembering how a body worked. He looked at his hands, then at you, with a kind of lazy amusement that made the hairs on your neck stand up.

“What did you expect to find?” He laughed, the sound sharp and wrong. “Your precious boy? He’s tired, so I thought I’d keep him company.”

He took a slow step toward you, bare feet crunching over debris, movements unhurried but deliberate, kind of predatory. The black markings across his skin shifted as he moved, crawling like ink coming alive.

You could feel the energy radiating off him: oppressive, suffocating, the kind of cursed power that made the air taste like metal. Every instinct screamed at you to run, but Yuji was still in there somewhere. You could feel it.

Your voice caught when you tried to speak, the name slipping out like a plea. He tilted his head, grinning wider. “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” His tone softened mockingly.

“You know, I’ve watched the way you worry for him. Pathetic. You’re trembling.”

He circled you, not touching; but close enough for you to feel the brush of his presence, a heat that shouldn’t have felt human. The red in his eyes flickered briefly, almost like something else stirred behind them. For a moment; just a moment, his expression shifted, the corners of his mouth falling, something unreadable crossing his face.

Then it was gone. “Maybe,” he drawled, “if you ask nicely, I’ll let you talk to him. Or maybe I won’t. Depends on how entertaining you are.” The air cracked with a spark of cursed energy as he reached up, dragging a finger along his jawline, smearing away a streak of blood that wasn’t his. His grin returned, sharper than ever.

“So,” he murmured, stepping close enough for you to see the faint tremor under his skin; the fight for control, still ongoing. “What’s it going to be? You going to exorcise me, or beg me to give him back?”

The silence that followed was heavy, electric. You could almost hear Yuji’s voice; distant, trapped somewhere beneath the surface—before Sukuna’s laughter drowned it out again.