Chapter Text
Sukuna darling, what did you think was going to happen? Trying to wipe out a sixth of all humanity—that’s a huge chunk of followers the other gods are going to miss, you know? You really shouldn’t have been surprised when a bunch of them decided to jump you and drag you down. Heck, I’m a mess when I’m bored too, but even I know better than to go down the path of no return. The world’s no fun if everyone’s wealthy and rich—so how would a world full of calamity be any better?
Hey, don’t get mad at me for sitting this one out, okay? I have a bit of soft spot for you, but I’m not about to stick my neck out over something as small as this. Old wrinkle-bag already has it out for me—stepping in to help you would’ve given him all the fodder he could ever want to make my next few decades a living hell.
Huh? What’s that? A few decades wouldn’t hurt me that much? Yeah, probably not, but maybe instead of moping you should just be happier that Yuuta didn’t get involved. Luckily, he was too busy cleaning up my mess to go after you.
Look, they’re letting you off easy. All you have to do is get yourself a beautiful, busty wife, and you’ll be back with us in no time flat.
You think you can do that, Oh Great God of Calamity?
¤ ¤ ¤
Had he been unrestrained, Sukuna would have strangled the God of Fortune until he was a deathly shade of gray. In the millennium or so that he had known the blue-eyed fool, every prediction that he’d predicted had gone in the opposite direction of what he anticipated. Be it deeply-seated arrogance or a sincere misunderstanding of the world’s inner workings (Sukuna believed it was likely a mix of both), the God of Fortune was forever on the side of Luck herself. The fates fawned over him, destiny bent over backwards for him, and the entire universe adored him as he played his childish tricks and laughed at all the chaos he could cause.
Perhaps the only silver lining to Sukuna’s predicament was that life wasn’t unfairly cruel towards him in turn. Still, he’d caused an insurmountable amount of suffering over the past sixteen centuries; he supposed it was only fair that he came to experience some of the desolation he could cause.
Okkotsu would have been satisfied. After all, who better to ream tragedy than the God of Calamity himself?
Nineteen of his fingers, severed and scattered like drifting leaves. With them went the bulk of Sukuna’s godhood, stripping him of his powers until he was more ghost than god—a wandering spirit whose tortured screams could be mistaken for the passing howl of the wind. The council of elders had been ‘kind’ enough to leave him his last finger to help him find the unfortunate soul who would facilitate his return to godhood, but that had only been after they’d already cut it off.
Just think of it as a fun little scavenger hunt, the God of Fortune had told him as he was escorted to where their heavens dropped into the earth. A ‘change of scenery’—maybe even a chance for ‘personal growth’.
His blue eyes had glinted then, icy and dismissive. You know what personal growth is don’t you, Sukuna darling?
If Sukuna still had his twenty fingers, he would’ve felled him where he stood.
But there was no reason for Sukuna remain so fixated on the damnable God of Fortune—not when today was the day that he would find his wife.
It had come as bit of a shock—like a bolt out of the blue, as he’d heard humans say before—to suddenly feel a physical form manifest itself around his soul. He’d been without a body for nearly six hundred years; to finally regain one had felt like taking a deep breath of air after a century of drowning.
By the feel of it, only one finger had been swallowed at this point, but for Sukuna, that was more than enough.
Found you, he thought, landing noiselessly on the thick branch of a large cedar tree. The power rushing through his veins had led him here, to a small clearing crowded in on all sides by dense undergrowth and towering trees. There was a small gathering of humans in the center—well, perhaps it was inaccurate to call it a gathering, Sukuna decided as he settled more comfortably upon his perch.
Six humans engaged in some sort of…struggle. Two of them were rendered entirely immobile, though only one of them was being bruised with closed fists and sweeping kicks. Perhaps this was why the councils of elders had been unbothered by the temporary evacuation of his post, Sukuna mused as he listened to the wet sound of bone connecting with flesh. Humans were capable of violence even without Sukuna whispering into their ears, quick to turn on one another and kill for even less than a coin. This was why he never bothered with the petty crimes—instigating wide-scale chaos like the burning of a trading hub or the ravaging of a countryside by a careless army were far more befitting for a God of Calamity than the personal squabbles between men.
Humans often prayed to him for victory in battle, humorously enough. They were wasting their prayers on the wrong god, but Sukuna had found it flattering nonetheless.
Now tell me, Sukuna thought as he took stock of the scene unfolding before him. Which one of you mortals was foolish enough to swallow me?
A first look-over made him click his tongue. None of the humans were particularly attention-grabbing—well, minus the beaten one, but that was because he was dyed in a very appealing shade of blood—and a second sweep made Sukuna’s dreams of a lovely, busty wife disappear into a fine cloud of dust.
But beggars could not be choosers, and the waifish remanent of a god was no different. He would have to make do with whomever fate had chosen to be his partner—as merciful or cruel it was to let him live after swallowing a piece of immortal flesh.
Sukuna let his eyes drift lazily over the humans before him. There was no cursed energy flowing from the pallid black-haired one or the man who held him in place. The malice rolling off the remaining four was thick and heady; Sukuna felt drawn to them, though he couldn’t quite parse out which human had caught his attention.
He would have to scatter them, it seemed. It felt like a waste to use his freshly-regained powers on something as minor as this, but he wasn’t keen on revealing himself now.
After all, not everyone deserved to hold an audience with a god.
He settled for summoning a weak apparition to break up their crowd—it was harmless, even by human standards. The most the shadow beast could do was run and howl; it’d scare the more fearful ones out of their wits, but hopefully, Sukuna’s bride would not be one of them.
If he was, Sukuna might very well have to consider killing him off. After all, the God of Calamity had no use for a timorous wife.
Sukuna spared the apparition a fleeting glance before he set it loose. “Go,” he ordered, and the shadow beast took off with a haunting bellow, digging deep gouges into the earth as it tore into the tiny clearing.
The humans scattered like ants. They tripped over themselves, each other, in their rush to get away from Sukuna’s apparition. Within a matter of seconds, only two were left in the circle of trees, and Sukuna bit back a sigh when he realized who had stayed.
The punching bag and the sickly one. Sukuna resisted the urge to roll his eyes when the latter rushed towards his bloodied companion (the sentimentality of it all, he bemoaned) and dismissed his apparition with a flick of his wrist. It’d done its duty, Sukuna thought as he rose to his feet, and now it was time for him to meet his bride.
He stepped off his cedar perch and into the empty air. Walking on nothing was such an effortless thing—he honestly could float if he truly wished to—but something about feeling the way his bones and muscles shifted with each movement was satisfying to him.
He supposed it was only something he could only appreciate after lacking a physical form for six hundred years.
“Yuuji,” he heard the sickly one gasp. The pallor of his face was somehow even whiter than it was a minute ago, and Sukuna likened him to the color of bleached bone. “Yuuji, are you okay?”
Yuuji—Sukuna’s wife—swayed when his companion rushed to him. “I—maybe? My head feels like it’s spinning.” He turned towards his friend dazedly. “Are—are you okay, Junpei?”
Junpei’s shoulders dropped with disbelief. “Why the hell are you worrying about me? I wasn’t the one who swallowed a dried-out finger!” His head bobbed as he hurriedly checked Yuuji over for injuries, looking every bit like a startled bird. “What the heck were you thinking, swallowing it like that? You could’ve—I dunno—” he gestured wildly with his hands, “—kicked it off into the forest or something! They wouldn’t have been able to find it if you just threw it away!”
“I—I panicked!” Yuuji stammered, apparently flustered by his friend’s outrage. His movements were just as jerky and uncoordinated as Junpei’s as he tried to explain himself. “And who knows what they would’ve done if I—”
A jolt of electricity shot through Sukuna’s body when Yuuji’s eyes landed on him. Yuuji’s face went slack with surprise, honeyed eyes going round as he gaped at the God of Calamity himself.
He was little more than a brat, Sukuna thought as he stared back. A smooth jawline, rosy cheeks round with youth; he must have just come of age in the past year or so. No longer a boy but just barely a man—as green and naïve as the first tender leaves of spring.
Interesting. Sukuna had seen many like him before, but they had never lasted long under the weight of despair. How would this one hold up in the face of calamity itself?
Sukuna shed his glamours with every step that he took, releasing the spells that made him invisible to the human eye. Shadows shed off of him like water, dripping onto the forest floor with the viscosity of ink. It was only when he was fully unadorned that he raised his head to look down at the two mortals before him.
“Be honored, little humans,” he rumbled from his elevated spot, “for the God of Calamity stands before you now.”
Yuuji stared back at him, awestruck, reverent, and humbled. Sukuna felt the air around them thicken and pulse with each beat of heartbeat, the cursed energy between them melding and mixing with every second that passed.
Behold, Sukuna thought, satisfaction bubbling in his chest like a low purr. You are in the presence of a god.
But then he saw Yuuji’s brow furrow and his bride tilted his head with a frown.
“But you’re just a cat?” he asked. “A talking, floating cat.”