Chapter Text
“Sukuna-sama, I have failed.” With head bowed and body bent at the waist, Uraume was the picture of contrition. They didn’t try to defend themself and nary an excuse escaped their mouth. Sukuna had chosen well when he had decided to keep a servant by his side.
“No one could have calculated such a thing. By right, I alone could have conducted the search successfully.” Sukuna finally peeled his eyes from the vast darkness of the night sky and regarded Uraume, “Continue with the other preparations, then - I won’t tolerate any further delay.”
“And the search?”
“I’ll go myself.” Sukuna shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and looked at the sky once more. “‘I’ll recognise him as soon as I see him.”
For all of Sukuna’s confidence, he didn’t truly have any idea about where he should even begin to look for him. He was nothing more substantial than a familiar taste on Sukuna’s tongue, a certain texture that his soul recognised, and whenever they were close enough to feel the stirring of each other’s breath, Sukuna would know. His name didn’t matter, but in Sukuna’s memories, his blessed nature had always been enshrined, just as his cursed destiny had been all but evident once the threads of their fates entwined. And Sukuna would settle for no less. Of all the things he was certain of in his profane existence, his place with Sukuna had never been questioned.
Guided by nothing more than a hunger for a half-remembered taste, Sukuna decided to return to the place where he had last seen him, in the mountains surrounding the city that was now known as Nagano. Surely some remnant of his residuals still persisted, young amongst the wise, old cedar trees there, even though they were all centuries old. An awful possibility occurred to Sukuna then: what if that hadn’t been the last time? What if he had already returned to the cycle of existence, drifting like a ghost through blissfully dull lifetimes, while Sukuna wandered unfulfilled?
That was always the point where logic broke down and sense took a backseat. Sukuna knew he was out there, and he remembered that they had shared many lives, yet all the details were fuzzy around the edges, the colour bleeding together and muddy, until all he could count on was the certainty that he wasn’t chasing after a fever dream.
Besides, Sukuna had done this before. He simply had to find him and all there was to know about their story would return, imbuing Sukuna with knowledge, instilling clarity in him. Then, and only then, could Sukuna shed the secrecy he wore as a disguise and create a world that could be his, theirs.
But there was nothing. There were no residuals, no trace of wrongfully spilled blood, and if he had been afforded any sort of funeral, Sukuna found no evidence of it. More likely than not, his ruined body had become food for wild animals, torn apart and scattered in all directions. Sukuna had visited his old home for no reason, when he could have been reclaiming the cursed tools that had been stolen from his grave from an earlier life.
Stopping at the Buddhist temple in the heart of Nagano was frivolous and pointless as well, for though the inner chamber and the lightless underground passage excited some part of Sukuna’s faraway memories, nothing definite revealed itself. He brushed his hand over the ‘key to paradise’ in the darkness of the underground passage and mused that perhaps he was Sukuna’s key—or was it the other way around, when he commanded the shadows themselves?
Those same thoughts clung to Sukuna even after he had set aside the task of finding him again. In sleep, in meditation, in all moments where he wasn’t focused on the myriad preparations that would usher in a new Golden Age of Jujutsu, Sukuna found himself grasping after a taste that refused to stop haunting him. It made his mouth water and his stomach cramp, and it inspired a monstrous wave of hunger that nothing could satisfy.
Sukuna remained in a fog of near-starvation the fateful day he visited a certain high school in Sendai.
Why the cursed naginata had been buried in the field next to the school in the first place was a mystery that would be unlikely to be solved and the same went for why a duo of stupid students had decided to dig it up. It didn’t matter. Sukuna overpowered them with no effort and he retrieved the cursed tool despite their protests. He would have killed them too, ripping their fool heads from their bodies one by one, but they were all mere humans and there was no sport in that. A large cursed spirit joined the fray at some point, attracted to the cursed energy the naginata exuded, but that didn’t matter either, because he showed up.
He showed up and Sukuna was aware of him immediately.
From the way he came to a sudden stop, some part of him knew Sukuna too.
“Megumi.” Yes, that was his name, or some form of it. It always was. “Take a good, long look at me.”
As if compelled, Megumi stared up at him, his head tipping back and back as Sukuna walked right up to him, ignoring the other human that had arrived with him, and the two others cowering on the edge of the field.
“Don’t look away.”
Megumi’s eyes were a deep, true green even in the anaemic light of the crescent moon, his pupils dark and glossy. Sukuna remembered those eyes, and even as he thought that, a memory dislodged itself from the murky haze of before: Megumi’s green eyes flashing in battleborn bloodlust, even as he bled out of the cavernous ruin of what had once been his chest.
Sukuna gripped Megumi’s chin and Megumi didn’t stop him. His mouth parted exactly the way Sukuna recalled: soft when he was caught off guard, thin and unyielding when he gritted his teeth and steeled himself for pain.
“Do you remember?”
Megumi didn’t. His eyes were still opaque, his brow creased in confusion, but he would. Sukuna would make sure that he would.
Without releasing Megumi’s chin, without breaking eye contact, Sukuna took Megumi’s left wrist in his free hand and brought it to his mouth. His lips grazed against the dry skin there, an unintentional caress, before he opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the meat of Megumi’s palm.
Megumi hissed and started to struggle, but Sukuna didn’t let him go. If anything, he bit down harder as if he meant to grind his teeth through Megumi’s hand. Thick, hot blood welled up and painted Sukuna’s lips red, dripping down his chin, streaking Megumi’s forearm.
There it was. That taste, that smell, that divine energy that thrummed with Megumi’s life. It was dark and luxurious, wild and pungent, like something Sukuna had hunted and killed with his bare hands.
Megumi’s eyes changed then, his pupils dilating so much that the green of his eyes were but a sliver around them. They were wide and bright with panic, and they only grew wider as Megumi’s breath came in harsh, rapid pants.
Oh, he knew. He knew.
The moment when they met for the first time in every new life was always exquisite and this time was no different. There was no more delicious feeling than seeing and being seen in return. Unfortunately, their reunion would have to be cut short. More sorcerers were coming their way and Sukuna had no desire to confront those pests just yet.
As suddenly as he had grabbed Megumi, he let him go, but not before dragging him into an all-consuming kiss that was ripe with the taste of blood. “It’s time to wake up, Megumi. There is so much more to life than you know and this world will soon be ours. You need to become stronger and take back what’s yours.”
No longer held against his will, Megumi crashed to the ground, dazed, and it was in that state that Sukuna left him. The next time they met again, Sukuna would right all the mistakes they had committed in an endless string of stunted lives—he would never let him go again.