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Ryōmen Sukuna is a man of strength and two faces.
Children are quieted by his name. Warriors pray they shall never glimpse his shadow. Courtiers lower their eyes when tales of him reach the capital. Sorcerers clasp at their prayer beads so as to not have him take what is theirs to keep, some day.
He does not bow. He does not plead. He does not seek permission from the gods nor men. He does not let those who call themselves higher beings dictate his presence, nor his frame. Ryōmen Sukuna creates law. He is law. This is known.
Therefore, Ryōmen Sukuna abides by five pillars.
Firstly, Ryōmen Sukuna does not coddle.
Sukuna does not mince his words and Sukuna does not mince his actions. There is a reason why he has earned his reputation. The disgraced one does not succumb to those who reveal themselves to be weak. Men cry and women pray. They are all the same.
A servant once shattered a lacquered bowl in his presence. Sukuna tore off the servant’s arm. Another stumbled while carrying a bowl of boiling water. It had burned their skin. Sukuna did not look up. There once came a woman, shivering from the rain whom Kuraokami poured, kneeling at his doorstep. He had not spared her a glance.
Sukuna does not do silken touches. He does not offer consolidation. He does not hold compassion in the face of feebleness. Sukuna does not soften. Sukuna does not spare any for those who are weak. He did not change even after his disgrace. Even before he had become Ryōmen Sukuna, when he was living as a man with a name he does not remember anymore, Sukuna did not falter for kindness in the presence of the frail.
He had not been once accused of gentleness.
Your hand had wounded under a thorn. It leaks a dark red, some color that only exists in the presence of royalty with its velvety robes. The sting does not hurt much, but the drip does not control itself. It twitches under your clothes. As quickly as you can, you try to hide it under your sleeve.
Sukuna notices immediately.
Your arms retreats behind your back but his hands find them quicker than the countless fires that spread from his doing. He retrieves the prickled by a plum hand.
You try to release from his grasp, but he grips you steadily.
“Hold still.”
His fingers close around your wrist. The motion is effortless, irritatingly so.
“It is only a scratch.”
“Hold still.”
You expect a reprimand. Instead, Sukuna reaches for a roll of linen resting beside a stack of scrolls. His hand still wraps around your wrist. He does not grip on it tightly, you do not recognize the iron grasps those who fear him like to utter.
For a moment, neither of you speak. He cleans the wound with water that he had barked to be prepared for before. The cloth is wrapped twice. Then a third time. Then on the fourth, you notice something wrong.
"My lord," you utter. "You are wrapping my hand."
His eyes sharpen at you. "You possess eyes."
The bandage is tied far more carefully than necessary. It does not tug at your circulation. It also does not scratch at your wound. When he releases your hand, the knot is neat. Your hand is covered. It does not sting when you move it, and the red of spider lilies does not seep into the cloth.
You stare at it. Sukuna pretends not to notice.
Only four days later, you have become ill. You are bedridden and tied to the straw mats; they are sat atop each other. Layer by layer. However, it does not help the seeping cold through your body.
You are a mere herbalist and the kin of an apothecary. You have been mistaken, perhaps accused of being a court physician many times. However, your status does not deceive its bedding. The straw mats are uncomfortable. You do not have the standing to request more adequate items, let alone luxuries.
There is hollowness between your cheeks. When you awake, a bowl has appeared beside your bedding. Steam curls from its surface and it expels a pleasant smell. You do not know how exactly it smells. Your nose has been suppressed of its usual sharpness. You open your eyes and find Sukuna in the small room.
“My lord,” you suspect that Sukuna believes the rasp in your voice is the result of some trivial, passing ailment.
“What?”
“Did a servant bring this?” you ask, gesturing weakly toward the steaming bowl.
“No.”
“Oh,” you wait. The silence stretches and you watch the dim light of your room playing across the tattoos that snake over his skin. Sukuna does not shift, but the air seems to grow tighter, as if he is waiting for you to dismiss him so he can return to his throne of bones.
“So you did?” you venture.
“I was present.”
“You made soup.”
He stiffens, his two lower arms twitching in a brief, almost irritated motion. “I boiled water.”
“You made soup,” you repeat insistently. A faint, lopsided smile touches your lips.
He turns his head and his secondary face is shadowed. His primary one fixes on you with annoyance. He wants to say something it seems, but does not. Instead, he makes to stand. His four arms shift as he prepares to withdraw. You reach out, your fingers tugging against the fabric of his robes. You are a mere herbalist, but momentarily you always forget the fear you are meant to feel with the king.
Your gaze lingers on the extra set of arms that frame his silhouette. Then back to his sets of eyes. You shake your head at him. You tug him once more and he freezes until the room goes still. Slowly, the tension in his shoulders breaks. He settles back down. His extra arms unfold as he keeps his eyes locked on yours.
It is imperative to note that the next day, you are still sick and helpless, as even with your herbalistic knowledge, you are far too weak to heal yourself. Your straw mats were doubled that following day.
Secondly, Ryōmen Sukuna does not share.
It is only natural that Ryōmen Sukuna does not share. A being made not from the earth does not share.
Possession is simple. If Sukuna desires something, it becomes his. If it is his, it remains so. The distinction is clear enough that even children understand it. A provincial lord once presented him with a sword forged over seven years. Sukuna took the blade, admired its craftsmanship, and kept both sword and smith.
A shrine offered tribute during a season of famine. The priests begged him to leave a portion behind. Sukuna accepted every grain of rice and left the shrine standing solely because he was in a generous mood. There are stories of warriors dividing spoils after battle. Sukuna had never participated in such discussions. What he claims is his. What remains belongs to whoever is brave enough to take it from the corpses.
Even before his disgrace, when he still walked among men beneath a forgotten name, Sukuna did not understand the instinct to split bread in half.
During the seventh year of Emperor Daigo’s reign, another provincial lord arrived bearing tribute. He had carried many things. Gold, much of it and silk. Swords forged by masters whose names have since been forgotten. Sukuna took everything. When the lord’s retainers protested, Sukuna did not falter. He had killed them. When the lord protested, Sukuna killed him as well.
The gifts remained in his possession until they rotted. He had no use for them. They were simply his.
It is the heart of a bitter winter. The gardens are stripped of all color save for the white shroud of snow that smothers the earth.
There is a peach.
It is an anomaly. It should not exist. You know this because you spent the morning listening to merchants complain about frost and harvests. A singular fruit, salvaged from the final, fleeting gasps of the autumn. It sits on a low table between you. Its skin is a pale, fading blush. It is the last of the season.
Sukuna is reading as he sits upon his dais. There is a sprawl of ancient scrolls and his fingers trace calligraphy that predates the current Emperor. His two lower arms—the ones that have been restless—shift. A hand, one that is large enough to crush a man’s skull, picks up the fruit. He does not eat it. He moves it across the space between you, placing it squarely on the hem of your sleeve.
“Eat.”
You blink, tearing yourself from his form to the fruit. Sukuna consumes what he desires and destroys what he finds beneath him. To share is a concept that does not exist.
What?”
Sukuna had been tapping his talons against his knees. It stops. The silence that follows eats the breath from your lungs. His primary face turns towards you. “Must I repeat myself?”
His secondary face tilts slightly, watching you intensely. You stare back and blink. He is waiting. Not for gratitude, for he would loathe that. He is waiting to see if you have the courage to take what he has offered. And so you reach to pick up the fruit. Your fingers brush the fuzzy skin of the peach.
The winter is unrelenting. The cold manages to seep through the floorboards and you are huddled near the hearth. You are shivering and your body is frail; you have not been blessed with the intensity of everbearing health. You are wrapped in the voluminous and heavy silk of one of Ryōmen Sukuna’s discarded robes. It smells of him and is too big on your frame.
You did not ask for it. You did not offer a bow of apology or a trembling “Sukuna-dono, I extend my apologies,” for the audacity of taking what belongs to him. You had also begun referring to him by that. Sukuna-dono. He sees, eventually.
He is aware. He feels the shifting of the silk against your skin as you pull the stiff sleeves over your trembling hands. You retreat into the cowl of the collar. By every law he has penned for his own existence, this is theft. It is an unearned comfort. In the eyes of any other inhabitant of the Heian capital, this would mark death.
He does not reach for a blade, nor blink. It should be a trivial affront to be met with a casual dismemberment.
The two arms that had been idling, the ones that had been resting against his knees, move with the sound of grinding stone. He rises from his position and reaches towards you. You stiffen and wait for the reprimand once more. Instead, he looms over you and he does not reach for the fabric to reclaim it. He reaches for you.
His hands ignore your attempts to shrink away. One of them catches your shoulder and another adjusts the heavy silk, pulling the neckline up until it shields the sensitive nape of your neck. He tucks the edges in, sealing the warmth against your body.
He does not wait for a reaction. Sukuna simply leaves. Sukuna does not share as this robe belongs to him. Therefore, he is free to do whatever he pleases with it. He does not take it back. Ryōmen Sukuna’s things started to disappear ever since that day. They are found in your room some weeks later. He does not take them back either.
Thirdly, Ryōmen Sukuna does not wait.
Sukuna does not wait. The world moves slowly. It hesitates and negotiates; it bores him. Sukuna has never possessed the patience for such things. When a governor delayed delivering tribute, Sukuna crossed three provinces and arrived at the man’s residence before the messenger carrying the excuse.
There was once a sorcerer who challenged him. The fool requested three days to prepare and Sukuna granted him nothing. Before sunset, the sorcerer’s head decorated the palace gates. Sukuna had said, if he required three days, he was not worth meeting.
There are tales of armies gathering for months before marching. Sukuna finds this incomprehensible. If he desires battle, he walks towards it. If he desires destruction, he begins. The seasons may linger and men may deliberate, gods will always scheme. Sukuna has never seen the purpose, even before he became the calamity sung about in frightened whispers.
The stone corridors of the fortress are vast. They swallow the unworthy. You should have been here at dusk but you had been distracted. Herbs. You had been gathering herbs. Instead of arriving during the promise of the coming night, you arrive when the moon has already climbed to its zenith.
You find him in the main hall. It smells of incense. He is sitting on the elevated dais and Sukuna holds his position still. His true form is fully manifest. You are but a mere herbalist, and they do not frighten you somehow. All four arms are visible and the upper pair are crossed over his chest. The lower pair rests upon his thighs. His second face is twisted into a scowl while watching the entrance.
As you step into the light of the flickering wall-torches, he does not move. Sukuna does not greet you. Your pulse skips once, yet you walk forward until you are standing at the base of his dais.
“You are angry,” you state.
“I am not,” he responds trimly.
“You are.”
“I am not,” his eyes—all four of them—narrow. The secondary face on his neck sneers, its lips curling back to reveal rows of sharp, inhuman teeth.
You take a step closer. You are unbothered by the lethality. You brace yourself for a reprimand however, you know the texture of his temper now. It is not a wildfire. To you. “I forgot,” you offer a clumsy and honest confession. It is insufficient.
His upper set of arms unfolds, fingers splayed out against the floorboards. “You did.”
The bluntness of his agreement takes you back. It is far more discomforting than a rebuke. You look at him and the shadows clinging to his extra limbs he has now selectively hidden in your presence. You realize the magnitude of the time he has just spent staring at the wall.
“How long?” you ask.
“What?”
“How long have you waited?”
The precarious question hones within another silence. You are asking him to quantify his wait. He stands suddenly, so swiftly that the air in the room displaces. He towers over you. His upper set of arms come back to cross in front of his chest.
“You concern yourself with foolish matters,” he growls. Sukuna turns with his heavy robes swaying with the motion. He is angry at you, and you do not like that.
“My lord,” your voice has turned soft. You refuse to let the moment dissipate so you call out. You have learned that he does not care for pleas, but you are not pleading.
Sukuna freezes. The secondary face on his neck tracks you. It is well known that Sukuna and his two faces scour those he finds unworthy like predators. His primary face remains imperious. He does not look back immediately, however, his fingers twitch. It betrays his uncooperative frame. You are sure he would rather carve out of his own flesh than admit it out loud.
“Three hours.”
He pauses.
“...Perhaps four.”
The fourth, Ryōmen Sukuna does not yield.
Ryōmen Sukuna has never lost a battle. He has seen countless bloodshed, and he has caused countless bloodshed with his own body. Ryōmen Sukuna, for all parts, enjoys winning, he does not yield.
The mountains bend beneath storms, rivers alter their course, dynasties collapse. Sukuna remains. An Emperor once demanded his submission. The messenger returned without his house. A clan of sorcerers assembled to force him from sacred territory and the territory changed ownership instead. When temples cursed his name, Sukuna took shelter beneath their roofs during the rain simply because the insult amused him.
Defeat is a language spoken by ordinary men. Compromise is spoken by clever ones. Sukuna has never been interested in either dialect. Stubbornness clung to him more faithfully than any companion. The world may push. Sukuna definitely pushes back.
Snow drifts beyond the open engawa. The winter air carries a scent. It is cedar and smoke. There is residual warmth against your cheeks. It is the cycle’s next winter, the one after you had stolen his robes and his brushes. He still had not bothered to look for them, and he still had not taken them back.
You are carrying a bundle of herbs in your hands. They stain your fingertips and your palms but you will wash them later. Sukuna is here. He does not look up from the scroll spread across his lap despite your shadow casting over him.
“You promised.”
The lie arrives instantly. “I did no such thing.”
“You said you would return before winter,” you utter. You do not use the tone of a priest viewing a miracle. You use the tone of yourself. Interrogative, curious. You had told Sukuna that he must come back before winter comes. It would not be terrific if he had been caught in a storm, and it would not be pleasant if he had come back immobilized from the cold.
“And?”
You stare. The audacity of the response settles over the room like dust.
“You returned before winter.”
His brush pauses. “I did.”
The answer arrives without hesitation. Matter-of-fact. There is not a hint of bother and it makes you lower the bundle of herbs in your hands. Sukuna finally glances up. There is no shame in his expression. No realization. No understanding whatsoever of the trap he had already walked into.
You step closer to him. “You came back before winter because you said you would.”
His hand twitches as he utters the syllables. A muscle jumps in his jaw. For the first time since the conversation began, he looks vaguely irritated. “Foolish.”
You tilt your head. You do not speak anymore for just a few moments. Sukuna narrows his eyes, but you have become accustomed to his mannerisms within the winters you’ve shared with him. You can practically see the moment he had realized what you said and what he responded with. It offends him deeply.
“Sukuna-dono,” you mutter.
“What?”
There is a silence again and his fingers tighten around the scroll. Sukuna believes you are a fool. An irritating fool. A persistent fool. There is a smile that threatens to paint on your lips, perhaps using the brush Sukuna is holding. For several moments, neither of you speak. Then, Sukuna returns his attention to the scroll. The discussion is over until one heartbeat, two, three.
“I am pleased you returned before winter.”
The brush snaps cleanly in half.
Lastly, Ryōmen Sukuna does not love.
Love is a weakness that poets celebrate because they possess no strength worthy to be spoken of. It inspires promises that cannot be kept and grief that cannot be escaped. It turns warriors into fools and rulers into beggars.
A noblewoman once offered Sukuna her hand in marriage and he laughed until she cried. A monk claimed love was humanity’s greatest virtue and Sukuna asked him whether virtue would stop a blade. The songs sung in court speak of devotion enduring across lifetimes. Sukuna has heard them all. He has never cared for any of them.
Love is for poets, courtiers, for fools who mistake devotion for strength. Ryōmen Sukuna has never required such things.Court poets have attempted to assign Ryōmen Sukuna lovers. They have all died. Some imagined beautiful noblewomen. Others imagined celestial maidens. Love is for creatures who fear solitude and Ryōmen Sukuna has never feared anything.
Love requires surrender. Love requires trust. Love requires placing something in another person’s hands and believing they will not crush it. Sukuna has never surrendered. Sukuna trusts no one. Ryōmen Sukuna does not love. This is known. It is known by children. It is known by emperors. It is known by sorcerers. It is known by gods. It is known by Ryōmen Sukuna himself.
Unfortunately, it is not known by you. And because you do not know it, Sukuna finds himself breaking the fifth pillar with alarming regularity.
You are standing by the engawa in spring. Sukuna’s gaze is fixed on the garden. It is rare for you to catch him like this. His arms, the lower ones, are restless as always. And the other is resting idly. The plum blossoms have long since surrendered their petals to the wind. The cherry trees are beginning to follow. The gardens below the engawa are awash with pale pink.
The King of Curses is not a contemplative creature. He destroys. He conquers. He takes. Reflection is an indulgence usually reserved for weaker men. Yet, he remains still.
You approach and make no effort to hide your footsteps. There is no hesitation in them. You have long since stopped treating him the way everyone else does. No one else would dare and no one else survives long enough to try.
“My lord.”
He turns and you smile. Nothing more, nothing less. He does not respond to you any further.
“Sukuna-dono.”
You say his name gently for the second time, hoping it would change. One of his hands curls into a fist. This feeling is familiar now; one that he dislikes. A petal catches the back of your hair, then with a jolty shift of your head, it falls down. His gaze follows it, not because he is avoiding looking at you. Certainly not.
“Sukuna.”
He finally responds. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” you offer him a smile.
Love requires placing something precious into another person’s hands and believing they will not destroy it. Sukuna has placed nothing in your hands. Nothing at all. Not his attention. Not his patience. Certainly not his heart. Ryōmen Sukuna does not love. This is known.
Therefore, the fact that he has spent the last six years ensuring that you never walk alone after sunset is irrelevant.