Chapter Text
The ancient, suffocating pressure of a four-armed, double-faced calamity entering your sixty-square-meter Tokyo apartment was, strictly speaking, a property management issue.
When the air in your living room suddenly turned to heavy, static-charged ozone and the scent of raw iron, you did not drop your mug of instant coffee. You simply sighed, set the ceramic down on your IKEA coffee table, and reached for the TV remote.
A dark, jagged tear ripped through the fabric of space directly beside your faded futon. Out stepped Ryomen Sukuna in all his hulking, four-armed, tattooed glory. His four red eyes gleamed with the promise of slaughter, his muscular torso bare, and his white yukata slung carelessly around his waist.
"Tremble, brat," Sukuna’s deep, reverberating voice echoed through the drywall, rattling your cheap plastic blinds. "The King of Curses has returned to assess the pathetic bloodline of—"
"Uncle Sukuna," you interrupted, not even looking up as you tapped the volume button to mute the TV. "Shoes off at the genkan. I just vacuumed."
Sukuna froze. His top two eyes narrowed in sheer disbelief, while his lower pair blinked in slow, menacing confusion. He planted one giant, clawed foot onto your cheap laminate flooring.
"You dare command me?" he growled, leaning forward so his immense frame blocked out the soft fluorescent light of the kitchen. "I have slaughtered entire clans for less than a sideways glance. I have painted the mountains red with—"
"And you're going to paint my floor black with mud if you don't step back onto the entry tile," you said flatly, pointing a finger at his feet. "Seriously. Do you know how hard it is to get blood and mud out of synthetic wood? The landlord, Tanaka-san, will eat my deposit alive. And put a shirt on."
"A... shirt?" Sukuna roared, his top right hand twitching toward the hilt of an invisible blade. "I am the peak of Jujutsu! I do not cover my domain with the weak, woven rags of mortals!"
"You're in a third-floor studio in Shinjuku, Uncle. You look like a gym bro who lost his path to the locker room," you muttered, finally standing up and striding into the tiny kitchenette. "If Tanaka-san comes by to fix the leaky sink and sees a seven-foot tall, shirtless guy with four arms standing in my living room, he’s going to raise my rent. Again."
Sukuna crossed his four arms over his chest, his jaw set in a hard, dangerous line. He didn't step back onto the tile, but he didn't take another step forward either. His eyes swept across the room, taking in your small, cramped space with profound, aristocratic disgust.
"Pathetic," he sneered. "A lineage descended from the great Heian sorcerers, reduced to living in a box made of pressed paper and fake stone. Where are your servants? Where are the offerings of wine and flesh?"
"In the fridge," you said, opening the white metal appliance. "And by wine and flesh, I have cheap sake and leftover teriyaki chicken. Do you want some or not?"
He scoffed, strutting over to the counter with heavy, deliberate steps—though you noted with quiet satisfaction that he had, in fact, stepped back to kick off his sandals at the entryway.
"I require no sustenance from a cold, metallic chest," he declared, crossing his top arms while his bottom arms folded behind his back. "In my era, meat was roasted over the pyres of vanquished enemies. The blood was warm. The—"
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Sukuna’s entire body went rigid. His four eyes snapped to the small black box sitting on your counter. The microwave.
It hummed softly, a bright yellow light glowing inside as your teriyaki chicken rotated slowly on a glass turntable.
His hands flared with black-and-red cursed energy. "A barrier technique!" he hissed, lowering his stance. "An imprisoned fire spirit! Who set this seal in your dwelling, brat?! Speak, and I shall slice them into sixteen precise ribbons!"
You stared at him. You looked at the microwave. You looked back at your grand uncle, the most terrifying entity in jujutsu history, currently squaring up against a 700-watt Toshiba appliance.
"It's a microwave, Uncle Sukuna."
"Do not mock me!" he growled, his voice dropping an octave into a bone-rattling bass. "It trapped a blinding light within a glass cage! It hums with an invisible, unnatural heat! Is it an artifact of the Gojo clan? A cursed tool of the Suguru line?!"
"It heats up my dinner in two minutes," you said, leaning against the counter and taking a sip of your coffee. "You push the numbers, the plate spins, the food gets hot."
Sukuna stepped closer, his face mere inches from the glass door. He squinted at the revolving chicken. His lower left arm reached out, a claw hovering half an inch from the Clear/Off button.
"It manipulates the atomic vibration of the meat without the use of incendiary cursed energy," he muttered, his tone shifting from outrage to deep, reluctant fascination—though he masked it immediately with a scowl. "A coward’s tool. Real warriors cook with the flames of destruction."
DING!
Sukuna instantly slashed the air.
Clack!
A clean, invisible cut sheared through the air, missing the microwave by an inch and cleanly slicing your favorite dish towel in half. The two halves fluttered dramatically to the floor.
"Hey!" you yelled, slapping his lower right arm away. "That was from MUJI! Stop cutting my stuff!"
"It made a battle cry!" Sukuna snapped, pointing imperiously at the digital clock reading 00:00. "It challenged me!"
"It told me my chicken is warm!" You grabbed an oven mitt, opened the door, and pulled out the steaming plate. "Look. Warm chicken. No blood sacrifice required."
Sukuna sniffed the air. The sweet, savory scent of soy sauce and mirin wafted through the tiny kitchen. His eyes flickered down to your plate, then back to you. He scoffed, turning his head away with supreme arrogance.
"Inferior," he declared, though his stomach betrayed him with a faint, low rumble. "Too much sugar. The Heian era had far superior seasoning."
"Right, because eating raw deer in a swamp was peak dining," you muttered, grabbing a pair of chopsticks and walking back to the couch.
He followed you, his long yukata trailing on the carpet. He towered over your living space, looking around as if searching for something to destroy out of sheer boredom. His gaze landed on the wall unit mounted beside the window.
"Why is the air in this cave chilled?" Sukuna demanded, flexing his fingers. "The sun burns brightly outside, yet this room carries the draft of a winter mountain peak. Have you summoned a snow curse to dwell in your walls?"
"It's called air conditioning," you said, tossing your phone onto the cushion beside you. "I hit a button on the wall, and cold air comes out."
Sukuna glared at the sleek white AC unit. "Foolish girl. To waste your life force maintaining an atmospheric domain just because you are too weak to endure the summer heat. In my day, if a warrior felt hot, he simply purged the sweat from his pores using refined energy control!"
"Well, in my day, electric bills are eighty thousand yen a month if I leave it on full blast, so don't touch the remote," you retorted, pointing your chopsticks at him. "And if you try to 'purge your sweat' in my living room, I’m locking you out on the balcony."
Sukuna’s eyes widened slightly at the sheer audacity. "You would lock me, the King of Curses, out on a... a balcony?"
"Try me. It's sliding glass. You'll figure out how to open it eventually, but it'll take you at least five minutes of trying to smash it before you realize you just have to pull the handle."
He narrowed his eyes, clearly debating whether to incinerate the entire apartment complex just to maintain his dignity. Ultimately, his curiosity won out over his murderous intent. His gaze drifted down to the cushion beside you.
The screen of your smartphone lit up with a notification. A bright, colorful banner flashed across the glass display.
Sukuna froze again. Slowly, like a predator stalking a completely bewildering prey, he lowered himself into a crouch beside the sofa. The couch groaned under his massive weight. He leaned in, his four eyes wide, staring at the five-inch screen.
"What is this sorcery?" he whispered, his voice dripping with dark suspicion.
"It's a phone."
"It is a glowing rectangle," he corrected fiercely, his top left hand reaching out to hover over the screen. "It holds tiny, trapped humans inside it. Look there—" He pointed a thick, black-tattooed finger at a thumbnail video on your feed. "—that woman is trapped within the flat glass, dancing for the amusement of invisible spirits!"
You stared at him. "That's a TikTok video, Uncle."
"Do not speak to me in the gibberish of the modern weaklings!" Sukuna snapped, though his eyes never left the screen. "How did you bind her soul to this tablet? What binding vow did you craft to force her to perform such a ritual?"
"She’s doing a dance trend for clout. She's in Los Angeles."
He leaned closer. His warm, oppressive breath fanned over your shoulder. "Los Angeles... A distant kingdom across the eastern sea. You possess an artifact that allows you to spy on foreign realms in real-time?"
He tapped the screen with a single, sharp claw.
The video swiped up. A new video began playing—a fat orange cat falling off a kitchen counter in slow motion, accompanied by a comedic slide-whistle sound effect.
Sukuna’s entire body went rigid. All four of his eyes dilated.
Silence descended upon your apartment, save for the faint hum of the AC and the soft meow coming from the speaker.
"A beast..." Sukuna breathed, his lower face twisting into something approaching awe, mixed with deep, terrifying confusion. "An orange leviathan... struck down by an unseen strike..."
"He just slipped on a rug," you sighed, reaching over to take your phone back.
Clack.
Sukuna snapped his fingers, catching your wrist with his lower right hand. His grip was soft, but utterly unyielding.
"Leave it," he commanded, his upper hands resting heavily on his knees as he stared, utterly spellbound, at the falling cat. "Swipe the tablet again, brat. I wish to see what other curses afflict the western lands."
You looked at your monstrous, terrifying, ancient uncle. The terror of the Heian era. The King of Curses. The butcher of sorcerers.
He was currently hunched over on your cheap rug, four eyes glued to a cat video, utterly mesmerized by a five-inch piece of glass.
"Fine," you said, swiping your thumb across the screen. "But if I swipe, you have to let me eat my chicken in peace, and you have to promise not to cut the TV in half."
Sukuna didn't even look at you. He just gave a short, curt nod, his top right hand making a subtle keep swiping motion.
"Agreed," he murmured, his eyes locking onto a video of a man making a giant cake that looked like a shoe. "Explain to me why the warrior is eating his own footwear, brat. Quickly."
You took a bite of your chicken, chewed slowly, and leaned back against the couch.
It was going to be a very long weekend.