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* manga spoilers; sukuna's sealing (kenjaku)
his time alone bothered him. he never once had felt this lonely his entire time alive. surrounded by so many noises, so many people, yet so alone at the same time. he wondered, truly, if you would ever reincarnate. or maybe this was 'god's way of punishing him for the mass genocide he did a while back. by taking away the one thing that provided him comfort. stability. happiness.
he never realized how happy being around you truly made him. he never cared enough to. after all, he's just as selfish as you were — if not more. probably more, if he were to be honest. he longed for the feeling of your hands on his sore muscles one more time. he longed to hear you talk about how much you hated gathering herbs and how you never had a strong suit for gardening. the home cooked meals, the warmth of the run down cabin — he longed for it.
but most importantly, he longs for you. he never thought he'd find himself in this situation. he's always despised people, it's why he killed them. slaughtered them like live stock, eating away at their flesh. perhaps that's why he felt the need to do this, to light the entire small town aflame.
the fire seemed so beautiful. so ... peaceful, despite all the screams of terror from the residents of the village. they deserved it, though. the same fire that had been used to kill you was now being used to kill all of those that were involved in your death. honestly, some of these people weren't even directly involved — or even at your burning — but they could've stopped it, yet they didn't.
so now they all were sentenced to death.
he carries himself through the burning streets with practiced ease, not bothering about the heat of the flames. it's nothing compared to your warmth or the warmth he experienced alongside you.
the pleas of the innocent were nothing new to him. all of the 'lord help us', 'i have a wife and kids', 'please sir' are nothing new. if anything, they're just repeated phrases. carbon copies from his time over the years.
a sigh escapes him as his mouth turns into a twisted grin, tugging at the corners of his mouth. this is a rare type of grin, one that reached his eyes. he finally found the bliss he had been craving ever since your sentencing.
death.
deaths of others, naturally, makes for your death. oh, how he loves the way they scream and cry — even some throwing themselves at him and begging. oh, how he loves it.
the smoke from the flames fills the sky, causing it to appear a more darkened black color rather than that of the sunsetting tone it once had. honestly, the sky looked rather beautiful. darkened by the flames, lighter by the pre-existing mood, it created a lovely orange hue. and sukuna couldn't help but grin, again.
they wanted the devil gone, but got rid of the one person preventing the devil from lashing out.
"please, sir, creature, don't—" begged a woman, but she never got to finish her pleading as sukuna had caved her skull in between two of his hands.
"oh, save it, would you," he groaned out before dropping her lifelessly body onto the ground. he didn't care for the screaming of the woman's child. maybe they should've, i don't know, protected his little witch and the kid wouldn't have had to see his mother fall lifeless with so little restraint.
not like she could do anything to protect herself anyways. she's mortal. what's a mortal going to do? burn him at the stake?
however, amidst all the trouble, he was also looking for something rather important. a necklace you always wore. it's more than just a little trinket, or a piece of jewelry. no, it's important to bring you back, to resurrecting you.
it had been a topic of conversation once between the two, when they first made the deal. though, sukuna didn't pry you for information at the time because he didn't care then. he could assume what it does, however.
a cursed object, he assumed. something that when consumed could be used to house you like a vessel. or maybe it didn't need to be consumed, maybe he could make something out of it — burn it, release the fumes, something. he'd just have to figure that part out.
maybe that's why it angered him so terribly to see a group of sorcerers holding onto the necklace of his witch. he could recognize a few of them — kenjaku, those from the gojo clan, but sukuna could care less about the clan.
"you're holding something of mine, give it here," sukuna says rather harshly. he has no time to waste, he needs to find someone that can handle you as a vessel. .. or a way to even bring you back, but you owned countless books about the subject. he could figure it out.
"this little old thing?" kenjaku muses out, dangling the necklace from his fingers.
sukuna couldn't, exactly, tell what was going on with him beyond the fact that the bastard had taken over a human's body. pathetic is what it was to sukuna.
"clearly, must i take it from you?"
"better yet, fetch."
kenjaku says with a grin plastered on his face, as he tossed the necklace towards the burning flames surrounding the town. sukuna didn't hesitate, immediately darting for the trinket — he couldn't bring himself to care for the humiliation of "fetching". he just needed to retrieve this trinket before it burned.
the flames hit sukuna's bare torso, quite harshly too. he couldn't help but hiss at the sensation. the burns left marks on his body, but he couldn't care. the chance of bringing back his witch is for more important to him than some small burns that'll heal themselves.
what he wasn't expecting, though, was the punch to his jaw that came following. it only caught him off guard for a split second but he quickly recovered. while still in the flames, he latched onto the person that had punched him. using two of his arms, he placed pressure on the center of their ribs — until he heard those satisfying crack sounds.
he tossed the man aside, in the flames, so he could burn to death as he deserved for getting sukuna's way. he emerged from the flames, small blisters lingering on his body that stung but he never made any physical acknowledgements. he'd rather die than expose any weakness.
that's when the pain hit him. he couldn't help but groan, glancing down at the source of the pain — his, now, missing hand. blood splurted from the wound rather quickly, and it became more apparent to sukuna that these weren't entirely just worthless humans. sorcerers, he assums.
"oh, you fucking—" sukuna started before kenjaku moved closer to him, taking a step in front of him.
"let's make a deal, hm? i have different aspirations than that lousy clan," kenjaku stated, placing a hand on sukuna's shoulder, ripping the necklace out from his grasp with another.
"they wish to kill you along with the church, i wish to preserve you," he continues, "i'll confine you into twenty cursed objects, similar to your little bitch here, and i'll bring you both back when time is right."
sukuna moved to speak, mostly to outright refuse as he would rather be mutilated and with you now than have to wait to be with his witch.
"no need to speak, it's not your choice," kenjaku whispers into his ear, before forcing everything to fail into black for sukuna.
and just like that, kenjaku had confined the king of curses into twenty fingers. not like it proved too difficult, especially with how rash sukuna was acting due to being emotional.
