ꜱᴜʙᴊᴜɢᴀᴛᴇᴅ | [ᴛᴏᴊɪ ᴢᴇɴ'ɪɴ 𝙭 ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ 𝙭 ᴠᴀʀɪᴏᴜꜱ]

Drive

A/N : warning to sensitive content ahead - implied suicide - please do take into consideration that my content is heavy

"Fuck you... Just fuck you...!"-she choked, collapsing in full blown sobs.

"I gotta admit, I'd like to get a good fuck, but it ain't you who I'll be fucking sweetheart."-he laughed, pulling on a shirt.

Heartless bastard Toji, you're a heartless bastard and you always make the pretty girls cry...

"You're sick!"

Y/N's voice crept past her lips, only barely perceptible over the incessant chirr of locusts. Her eyes were swollen, the sclera injected with violent hues of red clashing with the brilliant tonality of her e/c irises.

In his rakehell mind, he felt she looked even more beautiful like this, almost broken but not quite.

"Tch, yeah, tell me something I don't know."

Snatching up the fresh pair of pants, Toji quickly redressed - last but not least, he slid over his broad shoulders a traditional Haori that bore patterns the likes Y/N had never seen before - the golden embroidery woven into the dark and opaque hand spun cotton was reminiscent of some ancient period.

For some inexplicable reason, the Heian Era was evoked into her mind - the thought felt as if it were external to her, as if someone, some obscure individual, had implanted it within her visceral self.

Toji's keen gaze scoured the surrounding landscapes, nothing but endless fields met the eye. His eyelids slid closed and his remaining four senses sharpened in countenance - he felt his serrated wit working incessantly for a hint of an enemy as his nostrils flared, probing the morning's hot and humid air.

Nothing.

Only the raw scents of soil and water met him. And that of humans. Thousands of them, still deep in slumber, nestled within the safety of their own homes, oblivious to the wretched world of curses and the occult.

Good, no one had followed them so far. For now, that is.

Toji turned to the girl. He tilted his head, his forest green eyes were hooded and indecipherable, they seemed to reflect the roiling chaos he held within.

"We're moving out."-he said gruffly, wiping his mouth with the back of his massive hand as he re-entered the van and snapped the door shut, causing the metal carcass of the vehicle to shudder and oscillate as if in pleading.

She was still crying, her distressed visage contorted and bloated, her lips still tumid at the corners from the pressure dug into her from the gag. His gaze streaked over the pulsating pink of her excoriated skin where the bindings had leached off her of her, drawing pinpricks of blood.

Toji knew he had been unnecessarily cruel towards her, that he was the root cause of her suffering.

Perhaps, after all, he was hardly any better than that sick haughty prick Naoya. And even though he knew the full extent of the horrific things he was capable of, Toji still consented to do his bidding - if his cousin was judge and jury, then Toji was executioner. He was complicit in this, he held just as much blame and his soul was just as filthy.

Megumi...

How many sacrificial victims were equal to his son's life? The thought of it made him feel dissolute.

As many as necessary...

Toji exhaled ponderously and reached out to her - Y/N retracted sharply from him and twisted against the cords biting into her supple flesh, panic suddenly surfacing in her wide eyes as realization hit her - she was almost certain the bindings were somehow extracting her vital energy through some mephitic thaumaturgical mechanism.