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The once-thriving little village now lay silent in the wake of Sukuna's pillaging cavalry, its wooden buildings reduced to rubble. The air was thick with smoke, but the acrid scent of charred wood and reeds could not quite cover up the stench of burnt flesh. The only sounds cutting through the ruins were the thunder of hooves and the clanging of armour and plundered goods.
Staying behind his troops, Sukuna looked back one last time to survey the remains from atop his horse, taking in the extent of the mayhem he was responsible for with all his senses. People could call him a crude barbarian all they wanted, he thought, but this right here was his temple, his very own form of art. The crackling of bones under his kōgake-tabi, the soft layer of dust that enveloped the world and absorbed the incessant noises, the comforting sight and smell of fire, its ash sparkling against the backdrop of death—this is just how he liked his world.
“My lord,” a clear voice interrupted his moment of bliss. It was Uraume, Sukuna’s right hand and chief attendant who rode alongside him. “I believe there is a water well further down this way.”
They cleared their throat when they received no immediate reply. As Sukuna turned his head to answer, he caught a glimpse of something bright out of the corner of his eye. At first, he dismissed it as a piece of cloth caught in the updraught of the fire, but it was too solid and moved too slowly to be just a piece of fabric. It was unmistakably human.
Clad in a dirtied cream-white kosode, a boy with blossom-pink hair stepped out of the rubble. He twisted and stretched his left shoulder with a grimace, casting off the plum-coloured jacket whose front was shredded. His bright figure and soft colours created a stark contrast to the desolation around him.
A better man would have seen a herald of hope in this slender figure, proof of humanity’s unyielding strength and unexpected resilience in the face of adversity. To Sukuna, the boy was yet another fleeting flash of colour, watered-down and ephemeral like a spark of light against the night sky. Fireworks are the brightest just before they dissipate into nothingness, and Sukuna was the darkness that swallowed all brilliance.
Sukuna had half a mind to leave the forlorn youth behind, his hunger for death momentarily sated. And wouldn’t the boy starve to death sooner rather than later, anyway? He was acutely aware of the grime that had settled into his pores and the ash that lingered at the back of his tongue. Uraume, who was always attuned to their master’s needs, knew what he needed at that moment - a scaldingly hot bath.
The boy refused to back down, however, stepping forward to close the distance between Sukuna and his attendant instead.
"How dare you!?” he confronted them, still clutching his injured upper arm tightly.
Sukuna’s eyes shifted towards him, surprised by his loud voice and bold demeanour. Uraume quickly shot him a disapproving glance as if to say, Do they not teach farmer boys any manners? The future of this land is truly doomed.
The youth reminded Sukuna of a wounded, trapped animal that would lash out at anyone who approached it, thrashing around and driving the sharp metal edges deeper into its flesh. Sukuna supposed it was rather fitting for him to want to go down by his hand, and his hand only. It would certainly be quite the sight, he mused, a dessert in its own way.
He took in this puny display of defiance with a mix of amusement and curiosity. When Uraume made a move to intervene, they were promptly commanded to stand back with a raise of hand. They eyed the boy suspiciously from as Sukuna leisurely approached the boy on his steed.
Leaning back in his saddle, he towered over the child, casting long shadows when he looked down on him. A rose blossom drenched in tar.
“And who might you be?”
“I’m Itadori Yuuji. But most importantly, who do you think YOU are?” He raised his voice, fuelled by a burst of righteous anger. “You destroyed my garden!"
Sukuna let out a sound that vaguely resembled a laugh. His gaze swept over the ruins thoughtfully, as if studying the aftermath of their rampage.
“I believe this was the point,” he remarked calmly.
Undeterred, Yuuji took a sideways step to better face Sukuna. The tension lay heavy in the air as he looked up at that mountain of a man, a beast in blood-soaked armour, his blood-crazed aura still palpable.
“Do you have any idea how much effort I put into this garden?” For the first time, there was a waver in his voice. “How hard my grandfather worked to build… this?” He turned around to gesture at the house and shed that had collapsed behind them; Patches of what must have been a luscious garden growing vegetables and flowers mere hours ago.
Sukuna's lips curled into a mocking smile. “How droll. You care more about a garden than your dead family?”
“My family was already dead, you devil. The garden was the only living thing I had left.”
Sukuna grinned. “I hear ash makes for a good fertiliser.”
“Y-You!!!”
Yuuji clenched his fists, veins bulging around his scuffed knuckles and burns. Despite the trembling hands and aching shoulder, he assumed a fighting stance and glared up at Sukuna with an intensity that betrayed his vulnerability. Call it childish naivety, call it foolish boldness - he was dead, either way. If he wanted to fight like a grown-up, Sukuna thought, then he would have to die like one, too: alone and agonisingly slowly.
Sukuna dismounted his horse, ground quaking underneath his mass. The anger in Yuuji’s eyes blazed more fiercely now, perhaps not as intensely as his village had, but bright enough to put the embers around them to shame. He didn’t flinch once.
Standing this close to him, there was something strange about that boy, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it - yet. He had fought a host of enemies with varying degrees of foolhardiness and valour, sorcerers, non-sorcerers and curses alike. They were as diverse as they were ill-fated.
His senses instantly - or rather, instinctively - recognized the boy’s cursed energy that was gathering in his core. It was raw and twisted, ink-black waves that coiled and writhed inside him, ready to burst forth. Sukuna could almost taste the indignant rage, the hate directed at him. This heady mix was more palatable than the finest sake. One that he intended to get drunk on once he could recline in his cushions back at their camp.
An aquamarine glow surrounded Yuuji’s hands, crackling and looping around them darkly. The cursed energy rolled off him in waves, and he was ready to strike as much as he was ready to die. Sukuna was almost tempted to let him thrash and bleed out his rage and all the unshed tears over his loss before cleaving him down without mercy. This peasant wasn’t worth his time nor patience, but he was also not worth the sense of satisfaction he must have felt in riling up, provoking , Sukuna.
Under any other circumstance, Sukuna would have decimated him, nipping such insolence in the bud before anyone could take a step in his direction, let alone raise their voice at him. Sukuna’s large hands always did itch to unleash the arsenal of cursed techniques or weapons at their disposal - a reflex that came as sure as night follows day, but not one he yielded to heedlessly.
Sukuna was many things, but not all of them were inherently violent. He was bold with the ambitions and the lands he chased, but he could also be tolerant and lenient with his allies and troops when needed and if they obeyed. And obey, they did. More than anything else, Sukuna was a hedonist, and carnage did not only provide him great pleasure, it actively aided in the pursuit of all his other goals.
An old acquaintance of his had previously described him as a half-lion, half-demon. Back then, Sukuna wondered whether this meant there was no human fibre left in him at all.
Now, this question came to mind again as he eyed the boy who stood so proudly before him, even bordering on arrogance. Despite their size difference - his unruly, pink-coloured hair only reached Sukuna’s breastplate - he didn’t inch backwards, nor did his heartbeat stutter. Something unsettling and stirring about Yuuji made Sukuna hesitate, and it was not because of the cursed energy that he channelled effortlessly.
A most interesting specimen, Sukuna thought to himself.
“You're a monster inside and out,” Yuuji snarled, rousing Sukuna from his thoughts.
With slow, deliberate precision, Sukuna unclasped the straps of his helmet and let it fall to the burnt ground with a thud. As if to prove him right, he then bent down to lean into Yuuji's face, forcing him to take in every single one of his menacing features. The four crimson-red eyes, the dishevelled, peach-coloured mane that was weighed down by sweat and blood, the many raised scars and fresh cuts. Sukuna looked out of this world - a dark legend brought to life, a force of nature within grasp.
“You are correct,” the warlord replied, willing his cursed energy to seep out in sinister streams. He fully intended to instil the fear of God - of him - into Yuuji. “So, shall I reward you?”
Just when Uraume jumped off their horse to intercept and stop Yuuji from defending himself, the boy charged towards them at a dizzying speed. Driving a barrage of reinforced fists into Uraume’s armoured torso, Yuuji hurled them backwards like a catapult. The sheer speed and force of his attack betrayed his tiny human form. To take a skilled fighter like Uraume by surprise was no easy feat, even if it was a most foolish one. Sukuna’s eyes narrowed at the boy’s audacity.
“I think you are forgetting yourself, boy.”
“Fight me, then.” Yuuji challenged him when he stepped closer again. He was visibly in pain, the hunched-up shoulders and heavy breathing contrasting with his outward confidence.
“You could easily kill me just like you demolished our village - my entire world. Why are you toying with me?”
Yuuji’s question hung in the air between them. In the distance, he heard how Uraume was pulling themselves up from the rubble they were thrown into, no doubt scrambling to get back to them.
“Why, indeed?” Sukuna decided to humour him. “Think of it this way: you could easily step on a flower and crush it. But isn’t it more satisfying to rip out petal after petal?”
“You are sick.”
“Yet you’re challenging me, thinking you could stand a chance. What does this make you?”
“I am nothing like you.”
Sukuna was inclined to agree, and yet an unknown force drew the much larger man closer to him, pulling him into Yuuji’s orbit - a taunt?
He could sense it more clearly now after Yuuji exerted himself fighting off Uraume. The spike in blood pressure and cursed energy unleashed something that not even Sukuna had anticipated. Something that his inner alpha detected before his nose or rational mind could. It made Sukuna’s hackles rise in anticipation.
Standing this close to Yuuji, he could take in lungfuls of his aroma in measured, controlled breaths, mapping out its exact composition. A primal scent, potent even in the smallest of doses. It took him some self-control to not drink the boy’s scent in desperate gulps when each inhale was accompanied by a wave of warmth down his spine.
Omega.
The depth and richness of Yuuji’s essence was almost overwhelming, disarming even. It reminded Sukuna of wild honey on rain-kissed skin, of juniper berries and orange blossoms crushed between warm fingers. A hint of musk dissolved into peach juice, and amber offerings on a bed of vetiver. It was smooth and earthy, a white sweetness unlike any other. A sweetness that Sukuna had to sink his fangs into.
Stumbling upon a sorcerer in such a remote village was a rare and unexpected occurrence even for someone as well-travelled as him. But an omega sorcerer, and a male one without a mate, at that? The fact that Yuuji was the sole survivor of his carnage felt like a blessing from the gods Sukuna never cared to pray to.
The earlier thrill of his hunt and destruction gave way to a strong desire to know more about this peculiar boy. He wanted more of everything: his scent, his innocence, his tender skin. He wanted to corrupt, worship, and - claim.
Yuuji was only alive because of him, for him, and Sukuna fully intended to reap the boy’s gratitude. He would make him.
Sukuna extended his hand and slowly traced the elegant line of Yuuji's jaw with the back of his hand. The metal plates of his gauntlet felt cool to the touch, a welcome relief from the heat that bubbled inside the boy’s body. Intuitively, his scent gland produced soothing pheromones to placate the boy, lulling his hostility and voice of reason.
“I will show you all the ways in which we are alike, brat.”
Yuuji gazed up at him with half-lidded eyes, wondering whether this was a threat or a promise. He leaned into Sukuna’s touch despite himself.