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“I am a curse.”
“I am an unwanted child.”
Unwanted?
~
Sukuna watched from a distance as you tended to your garden, something you had cultivated during your time in his temple. Uraume stood dutifully behind him as he continued to observe from the shadows.
“Perhaps you’d like to join her, my lord?”
“Are you attempting to give me orders Uraume?”
The white haired vassal bowed their head, the faintest smirk on their face hidden from view. “My apologies, my lord. I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of your meeting with Lady Tengen. She’s awaiting your presence in the throne room.”
“Tell her I’ll be there in a moment…and wipe that damn look off your face.”
They bowed again and promptly dismissed themself.
Sukuna turned his attention back to the garden to find you hovering over a small shrub. He ventured towards you with a budding curiosity.
It really was magnificent what you were able to accomplish in the year that you had started this project.
The once desolate space of dead branches and unkempt dirt had been transformed into a collection of flowers, herbs, and vegetables all surrounding a small pond. It was vibrant and inviting, rejuvenated by the care you gave it.
Sukuna closed the gap between you and you turned around with a start. With a hand on your chest you exhaled in relief.
“You gave me a fright,” you sighed. “I thought you were supposed to be meeting with your former teacher today.”
Sukuna crossed both sets of his arms. “She’ll wait.”
This was unfamiliar to the proclaimed King of Curses. Having interests in what lowly non sorcerers like you did. And yet here he was drawn to you, your warm presence and kind smile.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “ You don’t usually come out here this time of day.”
You smiled at him, causing a feeling to pool through his chest.
“I didn’t realize you kept such a close eye on me, Lord Sukuna.”
Before he could scold you for your cheekiness you gestured back to your shrub.
“It seems we have a visitor.”
A small slug had latched itself onto a singular leaf. Sukuna wrinkled his nose. “Have Uraume get some salt. That should kill it.”
You shook your head.
Instead, you plucked the leaf off the shrub and walked towards a bush in the corner of the garden, the master of the temple trailing after you. The leaves had withered into a dull brown. You gently transferred the slug onto one of the dying leaves. The creature slithered around its new home.
“Why not just kill it?” he asked.
You turned your attention back to Sukuna. “Because it has a place here.”
“To do what? Destroy what you’ve cultivated? Why would you allow such a pathetic little thing to do that?”
You chuckled. “I appreciate your concern, my lord. But without this slug the dead leaves would remain and the other creatures would be without a meal when they visited.”
Sukuna ran his hand through his hair. “A lot of care for something as weak as a fly head.”
You paused for a moment.
“Then, why allow me here Lord Sukuna?” you asked.
Sukuna remained silent so you continued your line of questioning. “Surely in your eyes I am no different from a garden slug, weak and superfluous. So why allow me to remain?”
Sukuna glared at you with a stern expression that began to make you worry. You had grown more comfortable with him during your stay at the temple. But had you crossed a line?
“Would you compare a rose to a weed?”
The feeling that had coursed through Sukuna began to make its way through your chest as you realized what he thought of you.
Before you could say anything a voice rang out through the courtyard.
“Ryomen, I don’t have all day.”
Sukuna turned to face Tengen, his former teacher unchanged from their first meeting in his youth.
“Come,” she gestured. “We have pressing matters to discuss.”
He looked back to find you gone.
~
Damn you Yuji Itadori.
He knew his stay in this strange new world would be short, mirroring his swift departure from his time. It was inevitable. He had always been reckless, forever indulgent to his desires for adrenaline and bloodlust. And yet, despite that, he felt anger. His new state as a small lumpish creature was almost as humiliating as how he was defeated.
That girl, the one his former host had called Nobara. He had been bested by those brats.
The King of Curses had fallen.
His rage only increased as the young boy picked him up and held him in his palm.
That brat and his damn pity. He loathed how he cradled him delicately with care. The understanding expression on his face was enough to make him see white as he began to burn away.
I am a curse.
The image of a rose in a garden remained as Yuji’s voice became distant.
He had been banished to the afterlife by the world of the living.
I am an unwanted child.
A hand reached out from the darkness from behind Sukuna and pulled him back. Then another one. And another. Soon a cluster of rotting limbs began to drag him further and further away from the rose. A light began to break through the darkness above him, blinding the dethroned king.
When his vision cleared he saw you, standing before him in heavenly white robes with a sorrowful look on your face.
You reached out and held his face in your hands.
He was in awe.
Yes.
Yes.
He remembered how you held him. Your compassion. No matter how hard he tried to abandon his human heart you had found a way to remind him of how painfully mortal he was and would always be.
He loathed you, because he loved you.
You were wanted.
The hands were persistent and he began to fall, the light engulfing you as you were whisked away to a place where demons like him were forbidden.
The dethroned king welcomed the flames of hell that embraced him.
He let out a final sigh as he became nothing.
The curse that never was and a human no more.
~
The End.