Archive of Our Own

The capital had not changed. 

Oh, it pretended well enough. It always did. Leyndell wore fresh skin like paint, gilding from earth to foundation, from foundation to roof, and up, to the roots. 

It looked different. The outskirts were bigger, licking at the mountains. The manors, too, had more height, reaching for the great walls of the palace like desperate worms, hopeful for divine grace. That was not new. Leyndell had always been rotten with sycophants. 

Sukuna didn’t care. His interest was in the meat, the bones. The coiling muscle, that divine noose— that was the same. The same core, build on one unflinching back.

He leaned forward, thoughtful, smelling the harsh stink of terrified horse. Not his own mount, of course— the beast carrying him was a beast worth the title— but from the side. Uraume had found another mount, out in the lowlands, after Sukuna had grown bored and eaten their last. This one was more docile, and twice as skittish. 

Annoying. He’d probably eat it faster.

They lingered, there, for a moment. The tide of the city parted around them, some kneeling, some curious, all fools. 

Sukuna ignored them. He waited. And then—

“Come, Uraume,” he said, guiding his beast forward. It had a name. He knew it. He didn’t care to use it. It was monstrous enough to understand that, and obey anyway.

“My Lord,” and then, quieter, with a puff of ice, “shall I inform the king of our return?”

“No need,” Sukuna dismissed, “he’s already watching.”

He looked up, then, to the shining palace. It sat in the roots of the great tree, cradled and gilded. 

It was not so long ago, Sukuna mused, that he had killed a god in that place. Drenched the golden palace in blood as veins drenched the heart, ripped the head from a pathetic body and left it all to rot. Gods were tricky things to kill, but Sukuna had no trouble with it. He’d taken a liking to killing them, in ages past, and dusting off the skills had not been a struggle. 

The old god was dead. A new one slept there, in golden halls, on a bed that sunk beneath Sukuna’s palms like clouds under the sun. 

Sukuna would not kill that god. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna was older than most mountains, when Satoru first sought him out. 

Not Satoru to him, then. Just a lean empyrean, made of pale skin and the hunting muscle of a wolf, with eyes that swallowed stars in their hunger. Pretty, but not a promising meal. Sukuna would stay ravenous. 

“So this is where the scourge sleeps,” the man said, looking around. “It’s not bad. Less gore than I expected.” 

Sukuna flicked his wrist. Satoru didn’t have the decency to die, and that, at least, was curious. Sukuna did it again. Nothing. 

Sukuna uncoiled from the ground, standing to get a better look at the fresh meat in his den. “Well, you aren’t completely boring.”

“A high compliment, from you.”

“Let’s see if it’s the only one you get,” Sukuna drawled, walking an interested circle around Satoru. Satoru had turned with him, Sukuna remembered. Those eyes had been searing. 

“Didn’t expect you to be in that form,” Satoru said, watching. 

“It amuses me,” Sukuna dismissed. “Don’t fret, little empyrean, it makes me no weaker. Now, tell me— why is an unborn god seeking me out?”

The man hadn’t said as much, but Sukuna was no fool. This was the uncaught kindling of a god. Not the only one, as far as Sukuna knew, but gods had a habit of dying, and he had a habit of killing them. He’d lost track of who sat on the throne these days. He’d even lost track of if there was still a throne. 

The tree still stood. Sukuna hadn’t cared to know more. Gods had gotten boring. Predictable. Sukuna was tired of—

“Because you’re going to marry me.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

A boy met them at the palace gate. 

“Oh, hey! I’m Yūji. I’ll guide you up to the king.”

Sukuna blinked, four eyes closing. What he saw didn’t change. The boy didn’t change. 

“You…”

Sukuna trailed off, watching bright eyes, alight with a starburst of grace. It wasn’t just the eyes. Not just the grace. That, Sukuna had seen before. 

The years were long. 

Sukuna had come back to the capital and found a child before, a boy that trailed behind Satoru with wide, worshipping eyes. A prince, where there had only ever been a king. A son. Satoru had made himself a son. 

Sukuna hadn’t been pleased, but he hadn’t cared that much. Yūta was Satoru’s alone. An heir, for a man who should never need one, and a waste of time and energy, but that was fine. Sukuna cared little for what Satoru did while he was away, so long as the god stayed his in every way that mattered. 

If Satoru wanted to raise a child, so be it. Sukuna wouldn’t be here enough to be annoyed, anyway. 

This was different. This boy had hair the color of diluted blood, and eyes that were a brown deep enough to be red in the shadows, and a jaw very much like the one Sukuna used to crush bone. 

The guts of a god were really something. 

Sukuna slid off his mount, reins tossed to Uraume without a thought. He stepped in.

The boy looked up, eyes wide. He looked nervous. “Uh, the king didn’t mention your name.”

Sukuna cut a line across his hand.

“What the fuck—“ 

The brat tried to leap back. Sukuna grabbed him by the wrist, pulling the wound up to examine it. 

“The shallowest cut I could possibly make, and you’re still complaining? Pathetic.”

“You cut me,” the boy wheezed, showing teeth. “Of course I’m going to complain. You can’t just go around cutting people, what is wrong with you?” 

Sukuna raised an eyebrow. 

What kind of backwater village had Satoru pulled this boy from? Or was he born from grace itself? Impossible to know without asking, but still… the brat seemed to expect kindness from strangers. How naive. 

Sukuna had flown the length and breadth of this world, wandering to feast, and feasting to wander. He’d seen all of it, and knew it’s filth. 

Their world was not a kind place. Sukuna ensured it. 

“I can and I will,” Sukuna said, flat. “Now shut up before I decide to cut out your tongue.” 

The kid flinched. Sukuna ignored it, four eyes watching blood well, and spill, and bloom. As it fell, it burst into flame. 

“Woah,” the brat breathed. “It didn’t used to do that.”

Uraume drew a sharp breath, to one side. Sukuna clenched his jaw, tasting a fire of his own. It clawed at the cage of his teeth, furious. It wanted out. It wanted to burn divine flesh. 

Sukuna let the boy go. 

“Yikes,” the boy said, pulling back a few steps. “You’re so rude. Why did you even do that?”

“To see you bleed, obviously,” Sukuna drawled, dry. “If I wanted you dead, you would be.”

“Pretty sure you can’t kill me.”

“So confident in that grace of yours. You shouldn’t be.”

They stood at the gate, not even a step into the palace. It still gleamed around them, a gold like no other. Satoru had taken the bones for his own, and grown fresh roots.

Sukuna looked up, into the branches of the great tree. Satoru was lucky he hadn’t burned it all to ash. Maybe it was time to change that. He’d decide when he had Satoru under him. 

“That’s so—” The brat cut himself off, and shook it out. How restrained. “You’re a guest in these halls, stranger. Don’t make me kick your ass out of them.”

“Guest,” Sukuna said, low and mocking. “A guest, am I?”

The brat blinked. “Yes? Of course you are, even if you’re being rude. The king said you were to be treated with utmost respect as an honored guest of the royal family.”

“He’s going to pay for that,” Sukuna decided, and started walking. Each footstep echoed on familiar stone. The path to his husband was unchanged, as always. 

“What—” 

The boy followed, keeping pace. He was quick. Sukuna knew why. 

“I’m sorry,” the brat said, stepping between Sukuna and the path forward, “but I can’t let you threaten the king. If you’re going to hurt him, I’m going to stop you.” 

And there, Sukuna mused, was the spine. It hadn’t shown when Sukuna was maiming the brat, but one threat to his precious father, and there were the teeth. 

“You dare—”

“Uraume.”

The words froze. “My apologies, Lord. I spoke out of turn. I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit.” 

“Uh. Lord?”

Sukuna ignored that. He ignored Uraume kneeling at his side too, and the guards he could see stepping out of the way, falling to knees and further, lowering their heads like that would earn his mercy.  

It was a bright day. The brat gleamed with grace unending. 

Sukuna had been away for a long time. 

“A question for you, boy.”

“I’m really not feeling like answering when you just threatened my— the king.”

Unused to the decorum of the court, it seemed. A new stray that Satoru had taken in, then. Taken in and adopted with divine blood, sunk deep roots into the core of a boy to make him a prince. But it wasn't just one flavor of blood. Not just Satoru's. 

Sukuna wondered if the brat knew. 

“Oh?” Sukuna smirked, cold. “Didn’t he tell you to treat me with the utmost respect? As an honored guest?”

The brat scowled. “Fine. Ask.” 

“Did Satoru send you to guide me to him? You, in particular?”

The brat’s eyes went wide and horrified at Satoru, but still, he answered. As he should.

“Uh, yeah. Yūta— I mean, the first prince— volunteered, but Master Gojō said I should do it. Why?”

Sukuna contemplated deicide, then. It wasn’t the first time Satoru had driven him to such thoughts. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna tried to kill the pretty empyrean. 

It didn’t work. Satoru just laughed, untouched, eyes shining under a fickle sun. “What’s the rush, scourge?”

“I’ll skin you, I think,” Sukuna mused, blood burning. It seemed he was going to have to get serious. It’d been a while. “Eat you while you’re alive so you can feel my teeth sinking in. Appreciate that, empyrean. It’s an honor.” 

“That’s a little intimate without any courting,” Satoru chirped, unfazed.

Despite himself, Sukuna laughed too. “How hypocritical. What do they say about marriage in that rotten capital of yours? Two become one, in blissful harmony.” He grinned, all teeth. “We’ll do it the bloody way.” 

“Yeah, sorry, I’m not into being eaten. A little biting, sure, but you don’t look like a man that does little.”

That came with a suggestive look down, dragging across Sukuna’s skin. 

“You’ve got guts.” Sukuna stepped closer, and smirked with all his hungry teeth. “Come at me, then. We’ll settle this with a fight. If you win, I’ll marry you. If I win—“

“Deal,” Satoru cut in. “I don’t care what you get.”

“Damn punk,” Sukuna growled. He was angry. It’s been a while since he felt it this hot. It seemed to settle in his gut, coiling with the rot, two serpents begging to devour him, as he had once devoured them. Sukuna wouldn’t indulge their desperation. He only indulged himself, after all. 

He rolled out his shoulders, reached for his spear, and said, “I’m going to enjoy slicing you to pieces.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna ended up carrying the brat by the scruff, all the way from the golden gate up, and up, and up, to the throne of a god. The guards didn’t stop him. No one did. They took one look, saw their Lord, and knelt, pale under the golden sun. 

Sukuna ignored them. The fear in their fealty was uninteresting, and so were they. The hint of strength, lingering in the shadows along the rooftops, that was interesting. But Yūta didn’t show his face, and Sukuna didn’t flush him out. 

He’d taste how much the first prince had grown later. There was bigger game to devour today. 

“Put me down,” the brat yelped, struggling. It was pathetic how weak he was. Offensive, even, given what Sukuna could feel burning in the air. 

“Be quiet, brat.”

“No! How do you even know where you’re going? And why isn’t anyone stopping you? Who are—”

Sukuna kicked the doors to the throne room open. 

“Well,” Satoru said, “if it isn’t my wandering husband.”

The brat squeaked. Sukuna ignored him, eyes on the throne. 

Satoru had not changed. 

Oh, the veneer had changed. Sukuna had never seen Satoru wear that particular shade of red before, and that collar was certainly new— black and unadorned, catching light like it was a meal. 

Sukuna looked at it. Two of his eyes refused to look away. 

The hair had grown, too, long past the shoulders. It fell like snow around Satoru now, scattered across the throne, falling on his arms.

So, yes, Satoru was changed. But the core was the same. The little smile, licked smug. The eyes, covered in cloth and kept closed. The crown, a pooling mix of flame and the hungry maw of space, continually melting, continually climbing. An unending void, Satoru had once said of it, spinning it around a finger. A hungry void that Satoru would make good use of.

Sukuna didn’t know if he had, yet. He didn’t care. 

“Satoru,” Sukuna greeted. He dropped the brat, and kept walking, past where the nobles knelt, past treason and into taboo. He stepped up to the throne, and stood, for a moment, above Satoru. Looking down, as his god looked up. 

Sukuna cut the blindfold off with a flick of a finger. It fluttered and fell, brushing across that collar. 

The blue of Satoru’s eyes had not faded. It was as cataclysmic now as it had been on the day they first met.

“My dear consort eternal,” Satoru purred, “it has been a long time.”

“Test my patience again, and it will be longer.” 

“I doubt it,” Satoru drawled. “You’d have to keep track of time to make good on that threat, and I’m not convinced you can.”

“Oh, I can. I just don’t need to,” Sukuna said, looking down. “Not when you watch the years for both of us. And so desperately, too.” 

Satoru laughed. It had too many echoes.

“We both know what desperate looks like, Sukuna, and it isn’t this.”

Satoru tilted his head back, beckoning, throat on display. Collar on display, really. 

“You think you’re clever, don’t you,” Sukuna murmured, quiet. He brought a hand up, to the collar. Brushed his fingers across it, just as the blindfold had. 

Satoru shivered. 

“I know I am.” 

It came out breathless, wild. Smug, as Satoru usually was. The collar was warm. 

Divine lips parted. It was a demand, Sukuna knew. For a kiss. For touch. Sukuna ignored it. 

Satoru’s eyes narrowed by a single hair. “It’s rude to keep me waiting, you know.”

“I don’t care,” Sukuna drawled. He kept looking, patient.

“Wait,” the brat said, “you’re the Elden Lord?” 

It was a strangled, wrung out question, like it’d gotten caught in disbelief as it wriggled in the throat. Sukuna snorted. 

“I carried one of the princes across the entire palace and no one tried to stop me,” Sukuna said, dry. “Obviously, I am the Lord. Is your new son addled, Satoru?”  

“Just single-minded.” Satoru smiled, cast in Sukuna’s shadow. “He’s very much like his father, isn’t he?”

Sukuna knew what he meant. He didn’t care for it.

“Your game is growing tiresome.”

“Not for me,” Satoru answered, teeth gleaming. 

“You think I care?” Sukuna hooked two fingers under the collar, testing its give. It had none. Made to fit a god, and tightly. Whoever forged this had tested the fit. Sukuna would hunt them down later. 

“Think? No,” Satoru drawled, moving for Sukuna’s fingers. “I know you do. You wouldn’t come back, otherwise.” 

Sukuna stared down.

“You haven’t earned that certainty,” he decided, and sunk one hand into Satoru’s hair. It was soft. Silky smooth, as befitting a god, but fine enough to be delicate. Satoru had always looked deceptively fragile at the edges. Pretty eyes, pretty face, pretty legs. It took a lot to see the beast underneath. The muscle, coiled across every bone.

Sukuna pulled, harsh. Satoru laughed, and grabbed him by the wrist, forcing the grip to gentle.

“Don’t hurt—”

The words died with Satoru’s laugh, bright and wild.

“It’s alright, Yūji. We’re just flirting.” 

“Uh,” the brat said, choked. “That really doesn’t look like flirting.”

“Astonishing,” Sukuna mused, glancing back, “that you manage to grow more pathetic with every passing second, brat.”

“Hey—”

“You may want to leave, Yūji,” Satoru cut in, smooth. “Kids shouldn’t see their parents have sex.” 

Sukuna laughed. The brat was a few steps back, looking caught between concern and uncertainty. Not close enough to be taboo, but close enough to be annoying. 

“You had him bring me here, Satoru. Maybe I should gut him in front of you.”

“You’re not going to kill him,” Satoru said, confident, smiling, “and even if you tried, he’s going to be tough to kill. Yūji heals fast.”

It was true. Satoru had made it so. 

Sukuna tugged on the collar, brushing a thumb across it. It had looked unmarked, at first, but he could see a crest, now, burned into the leather. 

What a clever little god. It wasn’t going to make Sukuna forget this. 

“I could devour him,” he murmured, low, feeling Satoru’s skin against the back of his fingers. “Unhinge my jaw and swallow him whole. All that healing would mean nothing, then.”

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“I wonder,” Sukuna drawled, rubbing his knuckles across Satoru’s pulse. “Is this brat worth the cost of stopping me, Satoru?”

Satoru tilted his head, unblinking. “Want to find out?”

“After I’ve had you,” Sukuna decided. “Fucking you in ashes sounds unpleasant.” 

“Uh. This really feels like something I shouldn’t be watching,” the brat said, shifting from foot to foot. Sukuna had almost forgotten the boy was there. 

“Then leave, brat,” Sukuna ordered. The boy didn’t move. 

“Still worried about me, Yūji? You don’t need to be.”

“I know, but…”

“It’s alright,” Satoru said, glancing at the boy. Sukuna didn’t care for that.

He sighed. 

“You are so annoying,” he growled, to the brat. The boy bristled. It was a familiar look. 

How insulting. 

“And you’re rude! That’s so much worse.” 

Not another minute, Sukuna decided. He had dealt with enough. He flicked a finger, tossing a lick of flame at the brat’s stomach. It hit the boy with a gutting hiss, punching him straight through the wall. Satoru made no move to stop him, but that was no surprise. He hadn’t hit hard enough to kill. 

Not yet, at least. 

“It’s cute when you destroy my throne room.” 

“You sound so pleased with yourself,” Sukuna mocked, tugging Satoru’s head back. The collar gleamed in the sunlight. “Shall I switch forms and burn your precious throne, Satoru? The tree? I’ve left it standing for too long, I think.”

“All that before you fuck me? I’m going to feel neglected.” Satoru bared pretty teeth. “You don’t want that.”

“Don’t I?” Sukuna pulled at the collar. “And what’s this, little god? A distraction, so I won’t slaughter your new son for your sins?”

“I don’t need a distraction to deal with you,” Satoru said, simply. “This,” a finger, tapping the collar, “is all for me.”

“You wore a collar with my sigil,” Sukuna said, slowly, “for yourself.”

Satoru smirked. 

“I wanted to see your face when you saw it.” 

Slowly, Sukuna ran his thumb across the collar.

“And?”

“I like what I see, my lord husband.”

Fire had never burned so hot, Sukuna mused, without Satoru to tend it. 

“The brat can scrape himself off the floor on his own time,” he decided, “I won’t have you here.”

In a smooth move, he reached down, four hands finding divine skin to bruise, and hauled Satoru up, across his shoulder. 

Satoru laughed again. It was a little breathless, now, a little punched out. Sukuna’s shoulder must be pushing at his lungs, forcing divine air out, to grace the world. A sound that belonged to no one else. 

Sukuna turned, and took his husband to bed. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna stood, panting, blood dripping down his arms. It burned as it hit the ground, catching flame and sparking. The ground did not survive it. Holes sunk as his blood did, ravaging the earth and roots and bones of the world. 

Sukuna didn’t care. He never had, but now— now, he cared even less. 

All four eyes were on Satoru.

Satoru was small. All lean strength where Sukuna was built in bulk and inked muscle. Bare, of course. Cloth hadn’t survived the onslaught of Sukuna’s slicing, even if Satoru had. On anyone else, that would have looked like temptation. And oh, Sukuna could admit he was tempted. After a fight like that, how could he not be?

But he saw more than the skin. He saw the beast, strong enough to match him. 

“You are magnificent,” Sukuna murmured, raw. Satoru’s breath caught. Sukuna watched it, watched the gleam of it under the fickle sun, the rise and fall of Satoru’s chest, the ache of his lungs. 

“You’re a smooth talker. Didn’t expect that,” Satoru said, and then, “gotta admit, I didn’t expect a draw either.”

“We haven’t finished yet,” Sukuna corrected, but even he would admit there was no weight to it. He was breathless, exhausted. They’d gone to the very edge, and pushed further, until neither of them had strength to spare. Moving would take more than they had. 

Sukuna had never been challenged like this. He wanted to sink his teeth into it.

“You can barely walk.”

“And you can barely stand.”

“We match,” Satoru purred, “that’s charming. I like it. It’s a shame I didn’t get a clean victory, but you’re going to marry me anyway, right?”

Sukuna blinked, slow and lazy. He didn’t feel the rage in his gut. Only a fascinated satisfaction. It was a strange feeling. 

“Why would I? You didn’t win.”

Satoru smirked. In this, too, they matched. Strange. 

“So? You want to, don’t you?”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Their bed was waiting, not far from the throne, all soft clouds and coiled roots, stone and cloth and a view of the capital. 

Sukuna threw Satoru down. 

“Have I told you that I love it when you manhandle me? Because I really love it,” Satoru said, breathless, looking up. Letting this happen, Sukuna knew. 

“That’s always been obvious,” Sukuna mocked, and sliced those pretty silks to shreds. Burned them too, for good measure, forcing the ash away from divine skin. Satoru just shivered, smiling. Bare, he looked more like the beast he was.  

Except for the collar. 

“Going to ravish me, Sukuna? Take my precious innocence?”

“Like you have innocence to ruin.”

“You saw to that, didn’t you?”

Sukuna looked down, and Satoru looked up. His god was beautiful, spread across the sheets. But unbruised, unbitten. A masterpiece, without the touch of a master. 

“Cut the simpering. It won’t work,” he drawled, tasting a cold hunger. It mixed with the rage, blooming in his blood. Flame always wanted to burn. 

Satoru whistled. “That mad, huh?”

“Don’t act surprised. You knew what you were doing. Are you so desperate for my attention, Satoru, that you have to make a substitute?”

Satoru rolled his eyes. “Please, we both know that’s not what this is about. Jealous is a bad look on you, my Lord.”

Sukuna grabbed Satoru by the jaw, fingers bruising. Satoru let him. Sukuna knew he did.

“There’s only one way you could have gotten at my blood, and I won’t let it happen again.”

“So, what?” Satoru asked, teeth bared, eyes flashing. “No kisses for the rest of time?”

“I’m considering sewing your jaw shut too,” Sukuna mused. “Your gut would make fine thread.” 

Satoru laughed, wild. “Try it, and see what I’ll do.” 

It was a threat. A promise to a fight. 

“Tell me,” Sukuna ordered, running a hand down, over Satoru’s skin, petting the hollow of his throat, the dip between the muscle of his chest. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Well,” Satoru began, “I’d rip off those spare arms of yours, first. You only grow the extra two for me, anyway, so that’s not even really a response.”

Sukuna smirked, bruising Satoru with four hands. Satoru wasn’t wrong— Sukuna grew four arms in this form, all the better to handle Satoru.

It wasn’t the only thing he doubled. 

“And how would you survive without four of my hands to ruin you?”

“You leave me for years at a time, husband. I’ll be fine.”

“Touché.” Sukuna pet lower, across the dip of Satoru’s hip, where the meat of the leg met the sinew of the hip. “I suppose you’ve grown used to loneliness.”

“Don’t project, Sukuna. It’s sad.”

Sukuna ignored that. “And then?” 

“Think I’d— ah— rip my way into your chest,” low and panting, as Sukuna rubbed a mean thumb across the head of Satoru’s cock, “I want to hold your heart in my fingers. Really feel it pumping for me.”

For anyone else, that would be impossible. For Satoru, it was within reach in more ways than one. 

“A good idea,” Sukuna decided, “I like the sound of it.” 

He took his time, opening Satoru’s hole up. Not so it wouldn’t hurt— they both enjoyed that— but because Satoru hated waiting. 

His god hated it more, when Sukuna actually did refuse to kiss him. 

“You’re really mad,” Satoru gasped, writhing on three fingers. “Can’t believe the scourge let himself get so worked up by having a kid— ah, fuck, that was mean.” 

Sukuna kept pressing up, fingers merciless, again and again and again. Satoru’s back arched. Sukuna pinned him down, and won a laugh. 

“That’s how we’re playing this today, huh?”

It was a breathless, panting thing. Hitched, every time Sukuna crooked his fingers.

“It’s how I’ll play you,” Sukuna corrected, and used Satoru like an instrument, hooking a divine body up and into pleasure. Satoru came, just like that, untouched, singing on Sukuna’s fingers. 

“Very good.”

Satoru laughed. “I should be the one saying that. Congratulations, husband— that might have been the fastest you’ve ever gotten me off.” 

Sukuna leaned down, then, and licked the seed off gilded skin. Satoru’s cock twitched, beneath his tongue, as if begging. 

“Fuck,” panted above him, “your tongue always feels like I’m being put to the fire. I love it.” 

Sukuna laughed, and bit at Satoru’s belly. Hard enough to draw blood, but not hard enough to rend. For now. 

Satoru flinched, groaned, and tightened up around Sukuna’s fingers.

“How predictable,” Sukuna drawled, “you haven’t changed.”

“Like you have. Still hooked on the taste of me, Sukuna?”

Sukuna crooked his fingers, and that divine body jolted, twitched up. It couldn’t writhe. Not held down as Satoru was. 

“Before you,” Sukuna mused, watching Satoru, “I killed every woman I fucked. Every man, too, and all the beings in-between.”

Satoru snickered, breathless. “Scared to knock them up, or afraid of commitment?”

“Neither,” Sukuna answered. “I just enjoy a little peace in the mornings.”

“I knew I was special,” Satoru purred, as if that was any revelation, as if Sukuna hadn’t married him long ago, as if there was anyone else Sukuna left alive, let alone returned to. 

A home, Sukuna mused, was a strange thing. Satoru made it difficult to appreciate. 

“Don’t get confident, little god. There’s still time.” 

“I’m more fun alive,” Satoru dismissed, squirming, a flush bright across his cheeks. Sukuna wanted to turn all his skin the same color. “You should have thought twice about fucking a god if you didn’t want kids. The Lord should be the father of my children, after all.” 

“I thought more than twice,” Sukuna said, and that was dry as ash. “Had I any choice, Satoru, I’d have snapped your neck after I first fucked you. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to pick my equal.”

Satoru laughed, wild, body shaking. From pain or pleasure, it was hard to say, and hardly mattered. “Just my neck? You’ve gone soft on me, consort mine.”

Sukuna shifted, at that, spreading Satoru’s legs and pulling his fingers free. 

“Have I,” he drawled, pulled his cocks out, the both of them. They were both hard, longer than a mortal man could take, and merciless. Satoru’s eyes turned to them, greedy, needy, nearly drooling for it. 

“Right, maybe not that soft.” 

Sukuna chuckled. “Eager?”

“You have no idea,” Satoru groaned, pulling his thighs to his chest, wriggling out of Sukuna’s grip. Offering himself up, for Sukuna’s pleasure. “I haven’t been fucked in so long. My toys aren’t enough.”

Sukuna scoffed, pinning those thighs in place with two hands. “Of course not. You could grow cocks out of your sacred tree and fuck yourself on them until your thighs gave out, and they still wouldn’t be able to make you moan like I can.”

“Big talk when I barely remember what you feel like.”

“Like you could forget,” Sukuna smirked, looking down. 

There was beauty, in the way Satoru’s body flexed and coiled. A line started at the base of his spine and traced up and around, ending in the curls of hair under his cock. Still soft, for now. His ass was lifted off the bed, his thighs bruised under Sukuna’s hands, his hole gleamed from attention.

Satoru was shivering. 

Sukuna pet across all that skin with two hands. The others were still pinning Satoru’s legs to his chest. Satoru’s knees bent down, folding over Sukuna’s knuckles. As if, perhaps, to warm them. To keep them.

“Sukuna,” Satoru began. Sukuna didn’t care to let him finish. 

He lined up and sunk in to the hilt, sharp. With both cocks at once, of course— his god could take it, and take it Satoru did, body curving up as much as it could, with Sukuna pinning it down. 

Satoru made these desperate little panting gasps when he was full of cock. Like the breath was punched out of him, thrust by thrust. Sukuna had remembered them. He doubted he’d forget them for as long as he lived. 

“Fuck,” Satoru gasped, eyes wild, “that’s so—“

Sukuna fucked him out of words, and into eager, jagged moans. It’d taken a long time to learn that particular skill. It, too, was something he’d never forget. 

Satoru came on his cocks, untouched, gasping. Sukuna kept fucking him. 

“You’ll come on my tongue next,” Sukuna decided, with an exacting cruelty. “Then my cocks again. I’ll hold you by this,” a tug at that collar, brutal, “and fuck you from behind. I want at least ten from you tonight, Satoru. Maybe more.” 

Satoru wheezed, grinning. 

“I’m not going to— ah, fuck you are so mean, it’s a delight,” and then a dozen little panting gasps, and, “what was I saying? Fuck, doesn’t matter. Have at it.”

And so Sukuna did. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

It took five fights for Sukuna to decide he didn’t care to live without them. 

“Very well,” he said, blocking three sharp strikes from Satoru. “I will be your Lord.” 

Satoru paused, blinking. 

Sukuna took that opportunity to land a blow to the gut. It wasn’t lethal— no matter how distracted, Satoru was his equal. Sukuna couldn’t kill him on a whim. Couldn’t even kill him with sharp intent, and that was a strange truth, with a strange flavor.

“Getting distracted because I said yes is unbecoming of my equal. Pay attention,” he said, rolling his eyes, “or I’ll change my mind.”

“You won’t,” Satoru chirped, already healing. The smirk that bloomed then was cold and calculating. “It’s not like you care about unbecoming, anyway, scourge. Or should I call you husband? My lord? Dear consort eternal? Sweetness? Beloved tyrant of dragons, flame, and the divine bedchamber? That last one you’d have to earn, mind.” 

“It’s almost impressive,” Sukuna mused, “just how quickly you can test my patience.” 

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” Satoru waved away, calling the void across his fingers, “but that’s not an answer.”

Sukuna dodged the first hit, and caught half of the second on his hand. It bloodied him, but that was no surprise. Satoru had bloodied him on the very first fight. 

Other sorcerers used the stars, or the moon. Celestial bodies, certainly, but Sukuna had always found them lacking. It was easy to unhinge his jaw and devour a star. 

But Satoru… Satoru used the void between stars, between people, between time and place and possibility. Sukuna had never seen a maw so much like his own. 

He looked at Satoru with four eyes, and smirked. 

“No titles until you prove you’re worth my time to fuck.” 

“That’s all? Easy, then. You’re already convinced.” Satoru tilted his head, eyes gleaming, and said, “pick your favorite title, Sukuna, and make it fast. I have a world to change.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Into the quiet of dawn, Satoru said, “we should celebrate. It’s not every day my Lord returns, you know. Some people don’t even know what you look like.”

It was a sharp, pointed thing. Fitting, Sukuna mused, from his god. 

They were on their bed, sunk deep into the clouds, the comfort. Satoru was sprawled across his chest, bruised and bitten and looking entirely satisfied. Sukuna could feel his own seed, dripping out of Satoru’s body, and collecting, flame by flame, on his thigh. 

It was cooler, for having been in Satoru. 

“Maybe I should gag you,” Sukuna murmured. “Keep those teeth of yours out of my skin. It would keep you quiet too.”

“You like it when I moan.”

“I like it when you shut up too,” Sukuna countered, and then softer, vicious, “and I hate it when you use my blood without my permission.”

He grabbed Satoru by the jaw, grip bruising. Purple was a good look, on divine skin. Sukuna would see that it spread. 

“You’ve always been impudent, little god. I indulged it, because you’re mine,” Sukuna said, brushing another hand down, over the collar and below, across Satoru’s pulse. It jumped, as he spoke. Hitched. “Mine to fuck, mine to ruin.”

“To worship, too.”

Sukuna pet that pulse, lazy. He didn’t reply. 

Instead, he said, “I won’t indulge this.”

“Cute, but I don’t need your indulgence. I won’t let you kill Yūji.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Neither am I.”

“Satoru,” Sukuna growled. 

Satoru rose up, above him, gilded skin catching the dawn. A god, in bruised flesh. Their legs were still tangled together, their hips warm against each other, their cocks soft together. 

Sukuna caught Satoru by the hips. To bruise him more, to catch him between his palms. 

“You don’t get it, do you? I’m serious, husband,” Satoru said. “You will not devour him. I won’t let you.” 

Sukuna looked up, eyes narrowed. 

“He’s important to you.”

“Yes.”

“So quickly? How long have you had this brat?”

“A few months. I taught him for a while before I did the whole adoption— only finished that a fortnight ago, actually, your timing is hilarious,” and then, after a pause, “he’s a good kid. Has the right mindset. He’ll be as strong as us, someday.”

Sukuna raised his eyebrows for the clouds. 

“You can’t be serious,” Sukuna murmured, almost amused. “The brat jumped at his own shadow. I carried him by the damn scruff.”

“You did. It was cute,” Satoru said, and then, smirking, “want to put a bet on it?”

“Oh?”

“Give him a few decades. If he hasn’t grown strong enough to land a blow on you by then, you can kill him.”

“You actually believe he’ll do it,” Sukuna realized, wondering. 

“Mhm. Well?”

Sukuna thought. It was a strange bet, in many ways. But not unappealing. 

“Very well,” he agreed. “I look forward to devouring him when he fails to rise to your expectations. A meal is better savored, after all. Until then,” Sukuna squeezed, bruising. “You won’t use my blood again. Swear it.”

“I swear.”

“And…” Sukuna slowed. Smirked. “You’ll devour him with me, when he fails. Bite for bite.”

“Sure,” Satoru agreed, “if he fails at all. And if I win, then you have to leave him alive. Oh, and you have to let him call you father.” 

“Little punk,” Sukuna growled, and then, “but very well. If he succeeds, I’ll be his absent father.”

“You could be a present one, you know.”

Sukuna pet across the collar, and met cataclysmic eyes. 

“I know.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“You look like you have something to say,” Sukuna murmured, glancing back. His horse was fit with a traveling saddle, and the bags were packed. Uraume’s work, of course. They were reliable. 

“Not really,” Satoru answered. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your getaway plan. Still… sneaking out of our bed at dawn? That’s a little trite.” 

The god was standing in the gate, divine feet brushing unworthy stone. It was unusual to see him here so early, but then, it was unusual for Sukuna to be standing in front of a fully prepared horse at the breach of dawn. 

He’d have flown, without Uraume. No matter. There was something pleasant about riding a horse across the land. Sukuna enjoyed it.

“I’ve no need to sneak,” Sukuna countered, fingers checking the straps. “I knew you would see me.”

“Fear is a bad look on you, husband.”

“Fear? No, Satoru. It’s not that.”

“What is it, then,” Satoru demanded, and ah, there was rage in his voice. Sukuna hadn’t heard it often. 

He stepped closer, for a moment. Brushed his knuckles across Satoru’s cheek, below the blindfold. Let his fingers linger on divine skin. 

“Yearning suits you,” he murmured, into the dawn. He didn’t look away. Not from Satoru. There was fire in his blood, and it burned, oh it burned. Satoru didn’t burn. Satoru gleamed cold. 

There was a pause. Long. Quiet. 

Eventually, Satoru asked, “are you coming back?”

“What would you do if I didn’t?”

“Kill you, probably. That would be a pain, you know? I’d have to find another husband in a hurry.” 

Sukuna felt his stare go cold, dangerous. Strange, when his blood felt so hot. 

“Careful,” he warned, quiet, “you’ll have no husband but me.” 

“There’s only one way to ensue that.”

Sukuna’s jaw clenched. He ran a finger over Satoru’s cheek, just below the eye, tracing the skin he wanted to bite, line after line. 

Satoru was right. Anyone else, he could have forced into submission, but not Satoru. Not his equal. 

“Yes,” he swore, and it felt like weakness, “I’ll come back.”

Satoru sighed, and pressed his cheek into Sukuna’s palm. “I suppose there’s no use asking when, huh?” 

“No,” Sukuna agreed, and it was true. “Not if you want an answer worth having, let alone one I’m willing to grant you.”

Sukuna himself didn’t know when he’d return. It was a whim, that had him leaving. An itch. Sukuna followed his whims. It’s how he lived. 

But he still remembered how strange it had felt, then. Under the bright sun, he burned and burned, but as he left, he felt flickering. 

“Take too long, Sukuna, and I’ll change the world without you. I’m not waiting.”

“Good,” Sukuna said, and then, “very good. Keep that edge, Satoru. I won’t have you losing your strength.”

“Like I could.” 

Sukuna caught Satoru’s jaw with two hands, and pulled the god in. Satoru tasted like wine, like blood, like delicate sweets devoured in the midnight hour and shared, between teeth. 

It was a good kiss, but it still ended, as all things must.

Sukuna mounted his horse and left, Uraume following in his shadow. It was no clean cut, this. The edges were tattered. 

Sukuna looked back, letting his eyes linger. 

Satoru— divine, beautiful Satoru— watched him go. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“You didn’t tell him on purpose.”

It was a sharp, accusing thing. Fitting, Sukuna mused, between bites of meat. Satoru’s ward was a sharp little brat.

“Of course,” Satoru agreed, grinning. The blindfold was back. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You are an idiot,” Megumi snapped.

“As much as I hate to agree with the Old Shadow’s boy,” Sukuna drawled, “he’s right.”

“I’m hurt,” Satoru purred, “I really am.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Megumi hissed, at nearly the same time. 

“You’re not,” Sukuna said, to Satoru. Then he turned to the brat. “I’ll call you what I like, boy.”

“Lord Sukuna,” Yūta said, smooth and polite and far too obvious, “would you—“

“Don’t play peacekeeper,” Sukuna cut in. “You’re too strong to act pathetic. Now this new whelp, that’s a different question.”

“You—“

“He’s baiting you, Yūji,” Satoru chirped. “You’ll need to learn not to rise to it. Or how to kick his ass, either option works. But you better learn— my Lord can be ruthless.” 

The brat— Yūji, Satoru was collecting enough brats that Sukuna had to specify, and wasn’t that infuriating— sunk down slowly, out of action and into idiocy, glaring across the table. He was bruised, still, and wincing on sharp movements. Pathetic, given how much Sukuna had pulled that blow. 

He sighed into his wine.

“What a deep sigh, my Lord Sukuna.”

“As deep as the stupidity of your children.”

Satoru whistled, grinning. Brat one was silent, brat two let out a scoff, and brat three made a low sound. 

“You’re such a dick,” Yūji snapped, and then, “I’m sorry Master Gojō, but he really is.”

Satoru made an amused little sound, leaning in, hand behind one ear, asking, “Master Gojō? Who’s that?”

The brat went red, looked down for a heartbeat, and then grinned. Sukuna kept eating, and let his second set of eyes idly look across the others. Disgusting. It was all so disgusting. 

“Father,” Yūji corrected, and ah, how Satoru smiled at that.

Sukuna felt rot boil and boil, in his gut. 

“How sickening,” he sneered. “You’re going to put me off my meal.”

“See? He’s a dick!” 

“He is,” Megumi chimed in, flat. Yūta smiled, and said nothing. And Satoru— Satoru just laughed, bright and beautiful. 

“Don’t worry, Yūji, I know. It’s part of his charm.” Satoru stretched out, then, all long limbs and easy hunger. “Ah, it’s nice to have a family meal, all together.”

The silence that followed was telling.

They were seated at a table of living wood and roots, with a feast fit for an army and enough wine to drown in. The table was a pretty enough thing. Grown from the great tree itself, and holiest surface in all the land, barring Satoru’s body. 

Sukuna thought it was boring. 

He sighed again, leaning back, and let two hands reach for Satoru, settling on a pretty hip, the meat of Satoru’s thigh. The god was at his side, as he was meant to be. That, at least, made this bearable. 

Sukuna ran his knuckles across Satoru’s cheek, and won a shiver. The brats started talking among themselves, low murmurs further down the table. 

Sukuna ignored them. 

Meals hadn’t always been so loud. In times gone by, Sukuna had returned to Satoru, and Satoru alone. They’d eaten in bed, and off each other, often at this very table. Satoru had told him how the world would change. How Satoru would force it to change. 

Sukuna had listened. 

This, at least, was the indulgence he would give his equal. Ideals were useless, and the fire to change the world was as naive as it was stupid. But it was what Satoru wanted, and so Sukuna listened. 

He still left. 

Each time he returned, the table was louder. Different. Filled with more and more people that Satoru had decided to cultivate, to love. Sukuna didn’t understand, and didn’t care to. He left them alive for Satoru. 

That didn’t mean he enjoyed the noise. 

Annoyed, Sukuna traced a hand through the air. The sound cut out, trapped in a bubble around the brats.

Satoru laughed. 

“Resorting to an incantation? You’re so sensitive.” 

“It was that, or I start gutting your brats. Be happy I picked this.” Sukuna countered, drinking his wine. Only Yūta had noticed the incantation trapping them. Pathetic. 

“I forgot how thin your skin is.”

It was bait, plain and simple.

“Don’t pretend, Satoru. It doesn’t suit you,” Sukuna said, and it was true. No matter the years, they would never forget each other. Satoru just enjoyed digging divine fingers in the wound, and really, Sukuna understood the appeal. 

Satoru’s blood was his to spill too. 

“I can make anything suit me,” and then, “besides, it’s a better look than yearning, don’t you think?”

“Mm. No.” 

Yearning had looked unspeakable on Satoru. Sukuna wouldn’t forget that look for as long as he lived. 

“Since your memory is so poor,” he continued, mocking, “let me remind you of a truth you still have not learned— there’s no point tolerating anything that displeases me. It should be the same for you.” 

“Hard to learn without a teacher. Well, for other people,” Satoru corrected, and eyes sharp. “I just don’t care about learning your life lessons without the rest of you,” and then, bright, “Shōko should be around tomorrow, if you want more company at dinner. Send that Zamor brat of yours to invite her.” 

It was said with an easy grace, gold and gleaming. Satoru had always been good at that. The heel turn from fury to cheer. Like the old priests of compassion, but with none of the mercy. 

“Very well,” Sukuna decided, sighing, and so it would be done. Uraume was likely listening. “It’s worth it, I suppose.” 

“It’s cute how you pretend you aren’t attached to people,” Satoru chirped.

Sukuna sneered. “Attached? Try entertained. Your healer is one of the few tolerable people in this palace, if only because she can match me in drink.”

“And what if I want you sober?”

Sukuna waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll have me how I please or you won’t have me at all, little god.” 

“I suppose I could always bleed you dry,” Satoru mused. “Replacing your blood wouldn’t be too hard, and it would sober you up.”

“Oh? What would you put in its place?” 

Satoru hummed. 

“Silver, maybe.”

“Are you of the Nox? Silver is boring,” Sukuna dismissed, “you can do better.”

Satoru grinned, leaning in, to the hands holding him and to Sukuna. 

“I could do gold, of course. Our order, the gold made from flame and the great white void of space. But that seems a little predictable, a little dull.” 

“Nothing we create together is dull,” Sukuna corrected. “But the gold is a little too holy for my tastes. It wouldn’t suit me.”

A hum, and Satoru pulled down his blindfold. His eyes, as Sukuna saw them, were monstrous.

“Holy isn’t your color,” Satoru agreed, and then, “oh, I know. I’ll put my own blood in your veins. Maybe take some of that fire of yours for my own, too.”

“That’s an interesting idea,” Sukuna purred, grinning wide enough to ache, “if you put enough work into it, I might even let you try.” 

A knock, at the shell of his incantation. 

Sukuna glanced over, eyes sharp. Satoru waved a hand, and let Yūta pass. Through Sukuna’s incantation, no less. 

Sukuna sighed. 

“Make this worth our time, godling.”

“Apologies for the interruption, Lord Sukuna, father.” A nod to each of them, and then divine business. 

Sukuna drank his wine, and tuned it out.  

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna wandered the land. It bored him.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“I don’t get it,” the brat said, and didn’t flinch, for all Sukuna’s fire, “why does the king put up with you?”

Sukuna turned, then, to the boy. They were up on the roots of the great tree, walking bark forbidden to most. But the Lord wasn’t most, and neither was the second prince. 

Yūji had followed him up. Sukuna had decided to let the boy approach. 

Curiosity, perhaps. 

“You demand answers, when you should beg for them,” he said. “I’ll teach you the difference soon enough.”

“I’m not begging from a—”

Sukuna kicked him off the root. The brat survived— Sukuna had made a bet, after all. It was still a shame Yūji made it back up the bark with all his limbs. 

“Oh, I’m going to kick your ass,” Yūji swore, and charged at Sukuna again. 

Sukuna dodged, sighed, and kicked him off again. The brat climbed right back up.

This went on for a while. Sukuna grew bored of it. 

“They say that walking the same path and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity,” Sukuna mused, dodging another hit. “You should be proud, brat, because you’re living proof that’s wrong. You aren’t mad— just stupid.”

A growl, and another punch. It was a little faster, this time, with a hint of flame in its echo. 

Sukuna raised an eyebrow. 

“How did you even dodge that?” Yūji growled, panting, smoke trailing from his nose. The idiot probably didn’t even notice. “I was sure I was going to get you.”

Sukuna rolled his eyes. “Dodging you is nothing to brag about. I’ve fought ants with more power.”

“You—”

“You’re stubborn,” Sukuna mused, four eyes open, watching the hint of smoke, “I’ll give you that. So I’ll answer the question you asked at the beginning. Satoru gives himself to me because I am his equal.”

“His equal?” The boy paused, seeming to turn it over. Then he frowned. “So what? You’re a dick! Why does he need an equal?” 

“What a stupid question. I’m amazed Satoru keeps you around.”

He kicked the boy down again, and again, the boy climbed back up. There was more smoke, more hints of flame. 

Curious. 

“Stubborn isn’t enough to keep me entertained, boy, even if it’s the one interesting trait you’ve shown so far.” He pinned the boy down, belly up, to the tree. With his foot, of course. He wasn’t about to get on the brat’s level. “Come on, then. Show me another,” and then low, mocking, “prove you’re worthy of being Satoru’s son.”

And the brat— 

Stopped struggling and slowed, breathing out a line of smoke that spoke of promising fire. He looked up, at Sukuna. 

“Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

Sukuna kicked Yūji down again. The brat climbed right back up, body balancing easy across the gilded bark, eyes sharp with focus.

Sukuna had to admit, he was a little impressed by the tenacity. He’d be more impressed if the brat learned to fly. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna kept wandering. The world grew no more interesting, no matter how many enemies he fought, no matter the power he challenged. None of it could match him. His equal was sleeping on a bed of clouds, in a capital further than any eyes could see. 

Sukuna had left. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

They fought on the third day. 

“It took that long to clear my schedule,” Satoru complained, perched on one of Sukuna’s horns. “Didn’t think divinity would come with so much paperwork.”

They were headed out, into the sea, to fight in their normal arena, where Sukuna had poured lava into the sea, and Satoru had dragged the earth up to meet it. No one else stepped there. No one else could. 

It was for them, alone. 

“Give more work to that aide of yours,” Sukuna said. “The competent one.” 

Satoru snickered. “Ijichi would pass out from fright if he knew you called him competent.” 

“How pathetic.”

“He really is,” Satoru agreed, “no one I trust more, though. Especially not with the nobles.” 

Sukuna hummed. “When will you rid yourself of those useless parasites, Satoru?”

“Soon,” Satoru said, smiling. “The kids are doing well. But forget that, Sukuna. It’s time for our fight.”

They stepped onto land, and Sukuna melted horns into skin. 

“So it is,” Sukuna agreed, and rolled out his shoulders. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

And he had, truly. Years spent wandering the world had never held a candle to Satoru. Sukuna wondered, sometimes, when his whims would keep him here, beside Satoru. He wondered why they didn’t already. 

No matter. 

“So have I,” Satoru said, eyes bare under a wild sun. He looked beautiful and beastly. 

“Come, then,” Sukuna drawled, spinning his old spear between two hands. “It’s time for my favorite meal.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna looked out, over the desolate wasteland. It was freshly smoldering, hot with fire and char. His work, and entertaining enough, but only that. Not thrilling. Not beautiful. The fight hadn’t moved him. 

The skies were clouded. 

“Uraume.”

“My Lord?”

“Pack up,” Sukuna said, looking back, into the distance. At the far edge of the horizon, just beyond daybreak, he could see the great tree. “We’re returning to the capital.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Lord Sukuna,” Yūta greeted, bowing, “how are you, this morning?”

Sukuna snorted, and kept walking, body aching. He didn’t ache often, but a fight with Satoru demanded his exhaustion, as well as his pleasure. A fuck after made the taste even sweeter.

They had fought through the day and fucked through the night. Sukuna was tired. It felt good. 

“Niceties don’t suit you, prince. You have too much of Satoru’s madness for that.”

“Ah, maybe,” Yūta said, smiling with a wry twist. It looked sheepish. Pathetic. “But I don’t know how to show respect in any other way.”

“A fist is a good start,” Sukuna drawled, stepping into the private dining room, with that sacred table and all its roots. He was less inclined to scorch it, this morning. “A blade is another, especially with that tame little outer god of yours.”

Sukuna could feel it from here, writhing. Love, made into a beast that demanded a host. How painfully trite. 

Yūta blinked, smiling, uncanny, one step behind. “Not kneeling?”

“You’re Satoru’s boy. You’re above kneeling.” Sukuna rolled out his shoulders, feeling the ache build, sink, and bloom. The sun trailed through the open door, brushing across him. It felt good on his skin. Nearly divine, and it was divinity he’d allow. “Now spit it out, Yūta. What do you want?”

“A spar, Lord Sukuna. If you have the time.” 

Sukuna considered it. The morning was young, bright, and interesting. Satoru was still asleep, adrift in the clouds of their bed. Uraume was likely in the kitchens or the royal pantry, looking for new ingredients. 

Yes, Sukuna decided. He had time for a tasting. 

“Why not,” he said, and smirked. “Let’s see how much you’ve grown, boy.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“So, you’re back at last. What a relief! I thought you’d gotten lost. The elderly can have serious trouble with directions, from what I’ve heard.”  

The words were light, but they lingered, carried on a threat of grace. Satoru looked light too, perched on the great wall of the capital. The god gleamed in the sun, nearly too far to spot. 

“Serious trouble is what I’ll give you, if you keep mouthing off. You know I keep my oaths when they suit me,” Sukuna said, and a lick of fire carried those words up, to his god. 

Sukuna craned his neck up, and up, to see Satoru. And he could see, even at this distance. His eyes had always been sharp. 

Smirking, he murmured, “I see you’ve missed me, Satoru.”

Satoru leapt down, then. The ground, where he stepped, bloomed gold. 

“Missed you? Nah. Your cocks do good work,” Satoru stepped closer, “but the rest of you? I’m not so sure.” 

“You came to greet me before I’d even made it in the city, little god,” Sukuna drawled. “That’s not for cocks.”

“Oh? What is it for then?””

“An equal.”

“An equal, huh? I’d forgotten I had one of those.” 

Sukuna felt fire catch, in his throat, in his gut. He laughed, sliding off his horse with a lazy ease. Uraume took their mounts and left, with a bow. Smart. The entire plain would be collateral damage, soon enough. Satoru’s shining capital, too, if the god didn’t stop him. 

“Very good, Satoru. You’ve made me angry, just like you wanted.” He stretched out a hand, and called his spear into his fingers. It appeared with a flash, with blood, with flame. It was hungry. “Come at me, then. I’ll remind you why you married me.”

“You better,” Satoru said, smiling, eyes cold, “or I’ll kill you, and find a new husband.”  

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The brat followed him up the roots again. Sukuna kicked him off. Again. The kid still didn’t fly. 

Fucking fledglings.

Sukuna stared down, into the shadows of the capital, where the boy was climbing up. Yūji made for an odd shadow, across the roots. Bright with grace, but not just that. Not only gold. 

The ancient fools in Farum Azula would die of shock at the sight. That, at least, was amusing. Sukuna wondered if Satoru knew what he’d done. Probably. The god was clever. 

A burst of frost, polite. Sukuna glanced to the side with two eyes. 

“What is it?”

“Your King Husband has requested rowa cakes from the kitchens. The palace chefs remain incompetent, so I would do it myself, Lord Sukuna, if you have no need of me this afternoon.”

Sukuna snorted. The chefs were fine, of course. Satoru wouldn’t tolerate anything less. 

“Very well,” he said, smirking. “See that Satoru gets his sweets.”

“Of course,” Uraume murmured, bowing, and then, “may I ask a question?”

Sukuna waved them ahead. 

“Why do you not kill the new prince?”

“Satoru thinks the boy has potential,” Sukuna answered, “and was willing to bet on it. I was willing to indulge him.”

“Ah, yes, my Lord. Of course.” A pause, like curiosity. “I’m surprised he can bear your blood.”

“So am I.” Sukuna watched, then, as Yūji leapt over one of the roots. The brat was making his way up, if slowly. Sukuna had flung him further than usual. “Perhaps the boy has some monster in his line. Or perhaps Satoru’s blood keeps his body from burning alive.” He shrugged. “Whatever it is, it makes the brat sturdy.” 

“I see.”

They watched in silence as Yūji climbed. There was a trail of smoke, leaking off the boy’s skin, visible even up here. After a moment, Uraume left, bowing. 

Sukuna stayed, and watched. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“The repairs to the wall are going well,” Satoru said, smiling. “Though Yaga won’t let me hear the end of it. A waste of expense, he says. He’s always trying to rein me in. He’s right, but does he think I care?” 

“People will always try to collar you, Satoru. You should be used to denying them by now,” and then, “a shame about the wall. I liked looking at the reminder of our fight.”

Satoru laughed. 

“People, huh? What about you?”

“I am not people,” Sukuna said, smirking. There was an ease, between them. It tasted of gold, and of blood. Oh, there was tension, too. How could there not be? Satoru wouldn’t forgive him anytime soon. 

Sukuna didn’t care. Satoru knew he didn’t care, and in most ways, Satoru didn’t care either. They were equals, the two of them. That mattered more. 

“I was surprised when you went full dragon on me back there,” Satoru said, falling into Sukuna’s lap. Sukuna caught him, steady. “You don’t use your true form much.”

Sukuna shrugged. 

“There are advantages to fitting in doors,” he drawled, smirking, “and in people, too.”

“Hah! That sounds like a challenge.”

“It isn’t,” Sukuna said. “My cocks are larger than your entire body.”

Satoru whistled. “Hot. Literally, I assume, since you have that whole flame lightning thing going on. Is your seed hot in that form?”

Sukuna sighed. “Satoru.”

“Mm?”

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” Satoru said, and so he did, with harsh, demanding kisses. Satoru was warm, in his arms. With power, with blood, with life. Sukuna had flame in his veins. He didn’t feel heat easily, but he felt Satoru. 

Strange.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The pattern continued for a few weeks. Yūji followed him into the roots of the tree, across rooftops. Sukuna wondered if the brat would ever realize why, exactly, he was driven to follow. Why they wandered the places that clawed at the sky. Probably not. The brat didn’t seem very bright. 

But still. Sukuna was impressed by the boy’s mettle.

“It’s strange,” he mused, dodging a few hits just as the sun set into the gilded horizon, “you really have no promise. No innate skill to speak of beyond your physical strength. You’re boring. And yet… you still grow.”

“Isn’t that how everyone is?” The brat adjusted his footing and sprung at Sukuna again. “People have to start from somewhere, right?”

“Who knows?” 

“You don’t?”

“I’ve been alive for longer than the precious Erdtree’s had roots, brat. I don’t even remember growing up.”

A pause, and then, “do you remember not being hungry?”

Sukuna went still. 

“Hungry?”

“Yeah,” Yūji murmured. “I’m always hungry, these days. Maybe I was before, too, I— I don’t know. Is everyone born hungry? Or is it just me? It scares me.”

“Ask your father about hunger,” Sukuna cut in, fire boiling up and up. “He’s the one who wants to nurture you.”

“But you’re the one who’s always hungry,” Yūji countered, and there was something there, in his stare. Something Sukuna would sooner devour than let grow. 

He laughed. 

“Do you think Satoru doesn’t want to devour the world? You’re wrong. He’s the only one who’s ever matched my hunger. My equal.”

“But he doesn’t—“

“Ah. You think he’s not like me,” Sukuna drawled. “Pathetic. You see his pretty skin, and his smile, and his benevolence, and you think he isn’t a monster.” Sukuna snorted. “He is, boy. He’s—“

“You got it all wrong,” Yūji cut in. Sukuna decided to let him live through that mistake. He still flicked flame at the brat’s ear.

“Ow! What the fuck, Sukuna?”

“Don’t interrupt me, I hate it. Now, go on.” 

The boy grumbled, rubbing at his ear. The flame hadn’t done more than scald. Oh, it would have, a few weeks ago. But Yūji had started using the blood he’d been given, at long last. Not knowingly, of course, but still— fire that cool wouldn’t burn the brat now.

Sukuna smirked. He’d go hotter, next time. 

“Spit it out. I’m not patient.”

“Yeah, I know,” and then, “I know you two are alike. I can see it. Father is different around you than he ever is around the rest of us. It’s like he can let loose. He loves it.”

Sukuna blinked. “He does.”

“That’s why an equal matters, doesn’t it?”

A moment passed, then. 

“Look at that,” Sukuna mused, “you actually learned to think. I’m surprised you didn’t break something.”

“Oh, shut up,” Yūji grumbled.

Sukuna kicked him off the root. 

There was a moment of quiet, of chill air, and frost. Uraume knelt at his side. 

“I brought lunch, my Lord.”

“Good,” Sukuna said, taking the plate Uraume held to him. He ate with two hands, idly staring down at the boy. “Delicious as always.”

“Thank you, my Lord.” 

Sukuna glanced, then, to the side. With just two eyes. 

He sighed. 

“Not you too, Uraume.”

“If it displeases you, I apologize. I’ll accept whatever punishment you deem fit.”

It did not displease him. Sukuna was a little annoyed by that. He waved a hand, and took the other plate. It had no foods he loved, nothing that fit his palate. 

Uraume had done research.

“It’s fine. Perhaps food will motivate the boy better than pain,” Sukuna mused. 

It did, actually. Sukuna was annoyed by that too.

“This is amazing,” Yūji smiled, wide, at Uraume. The boy had climbed up fast, and ate faster. “Thanks for making it! I’ve never had such good food in my entire life, I swear.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Uraume said, cold. “The Lord is impatient with your progress.”

Yūji blinked. Then he smiled wider. 

“You’re really thoughtful.”

Sukuna could nearly feel the bloom of exasperated frost. 

“Ignore him, Uraume. He has a talent for that.”

“I see, my Lord.”

“A talent for what?”

“Nothing useful,” Sukuna dismissed. 

“You—“

Sukuna kicked him off again. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

It was late in the night, when Sukuna said, “I wouldn’t collar you.”

“No?”

“No,” Sukuna said. “I will offer you no chains to break. You’ve eaten enough of your own.” 

There was a moment, then, of shattering quiet. 

Satoru shifted closer, in the darkness. Sukuna could see every inch of him. “But what if I want you to?”

“Then that’s too bad,” Sukuna smirked, “and it seems even gods can be disappointed.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

They were up, in the roots again, when a pulse of energy washed across Sukuna’s skin, across the very air and all its kneeling pieces. Beat, by beat, by beat. Like the pounding of drums. 

“Woah,” the brat turned, bright and curious. “That was father, right? Wonder why he did that.”

“Speak of the divine, and he will make himself known.”

“Uh—”

“Be here by dawn,” Sukuna cut in, glancing out, into the distance, “or I’ll rip your entrails out through your throat.”

“Gross,” was the first response, the brat’s face twisting up. And then, a blink, and, “dawn?”

“Dawn,” Sukuna agreed, and left, moving faster than the brat could follow. He wouldn’t waste more time, not when Satoru’s energy was flaring, the sun beating for a divine heart. Satoru was fighting. 

Sukuna wanted to watch. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“You’re after more than divinity.”

It was true, Sukuna knew. How was a different question. 

Satoru leaned back, smirking. He was looking up, at Sukuna, tilting a divine head back into Sukuna’s shadows. 

They were sitting on one of the great roots of the divine tree. Tangled together, again, legs laced, the world sent away. A pleasure Sukuna felt the urge for often. 

“Am I?”

“Coy only suits you in bed, little god.”

Satoru barked out a laugh. “It always suits me.”

Sukuna rolled his eyes. “The more you fish for compliments, the more I want to deny you. Spit it out.”

There was a moment, then, of quiet. The wind brushed Sukuna’s skin. He allowed it. 

And then Satoru said, “did you know that my best friend took up the god of rot? Willingly. I killed him, in the end.”

Sukuna narrowed his eyes. Long years of marriage, and Satoru had never mentioned this. 

“When?”

“Before I found you,” Satoru dismissed, waving a hand. “Long before, actually. I was still weak back then.”

A sentence that seemed malformed, in the air. Satoru had been weak, once. Sukuna supposed he had too, back before he’d grown into his spite. He didn’t remember it. 

“Go on.” 

“Not going to ask about it?”

“Later,” Sukuna said. “I want to know your plans first.” 

“Of course you do,” came with a warm ease. “Killing him, it got me thinking. There are a lot of outer gods out there. A lot of things forcing us down neat and tidy little paths. Even the Greater Will, well, it’s not really a guide is it? It’s useless, and it’s a chain.” Satoru smirked up, cast in shadows. His teeth looked hungry. “So, I’m going to destroy them.”  

Sukuna sighed. “Killing gods grows boring, Satoru. They always come back, and they’re rarely a challenge.”

“It’s not the hosts I’m out for,” Satoru corrected. “It’s the outer gods themselves.” 

Sukuna blinked. 

“Interesting. I’d say impossible, but you’ve proven me wrong before,” Sukuna looked down. His god looked up, eyes brilliant. “I’ll be watching, Satoru. Let’s see if you can devour them.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Satoru had ripped the outer god to pieces by the time Sukuna reached him. The body was scattered to one side, shredded. The head was beneath Satoru’s foot. Still alive, by the lick of flame, but barely. 

Sukuna stepped over a scrap of an arm, the ripped pieces of its heart and marrow. The mountaintop was barren, even under the blood. Not Satoru’s work— this mountain had always been jagged.

The new chasm was Satoru’s work, though. 

“What a mess,” Sukuna drawled, walking to his husband. Satoru was pristine. Untouched by the blood and gore around them. 

“You’re just sad you didn’t get a turn.”

“You entertain me far better than another god could,” Sukuna dismissed, glancing down at the head. It blinked up at him, one eye, stunned, unseeing. The work of Satoru’s pet void. “How many does this make, Satoru?”

Satoru waved a hand. “No idea! Haven’t been counting,” and then, “I’m surprised you even came to see at all. You used to be bored by this. Or, well. Pretend to be bored.”

Sukuna ignored that. 

“This was more interesting than your brat.”

“Liar,” Satoru purred, rolling the head under his foot, “you’ve grown fond of him.” 

“Hardly. I am curious how long it will take him to wake my blood.” Sukuna nodded to the god. “Stop playing with your food.”

Satoru barked a laugh. “Like you have any right to talk.”

It was interesting, watching Satoru rip the outer god out of its host. The Fell God writhed and burned, but it couldn’t touch Satoru. No one but Sukuna could. 

Satoru fed the flame to his void. Sukuna watched him, and wondered when it had gotten so interesting. When the whims had changed. 

No matter. 

Later that night, as they lay, tangled together on their bed of clouds, Satoru said, “I saw you and Yūji doing some father-son bonding earlier.”

“Watching me, were you?”

“I usually am,” Satoru admitted, with a steady ease. “It gets harder when you’re further away.”

“Good,” Sukuna murmured, running his knuckles across Satoru’s cheek. “I hate it when you look away from me.”

“Funny, coming from the one who leaves.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna left many times, over the years. On a whim, on a hunger, on the wings of irritation. Small reasons, all. He knew that. So did Satoru. 

“I live as befits my nature,” he’d told Satoru, once, “and nothing more.” 

Satoru had laughed. “I didn’t take my husband for a coward.”

“Careful, Satoru. Even you can try my patience.”

“I’m the only one who can,” Satoru corrected. “Well, and live through it.” A pause, and then, with bright eyes, “that’s the funny thing about living, Sukuna. It can change you. Nature, body, all of it.”

“Obviously,” Sukuna drawled, cold, “but a beast is still a beast, and I am still hungry.”

“And I’m the best meal you’ve ever had, but you’re still running away.”

“I don’t run,” Sukuna growled. It had a strange taste, lingering and lingering. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna stayed for a while, this time. On a whim, mostly. He spent the nights tangled up with Satoru, cocks sunk deep in that divine body. The days, he spent eating, sleeping, or fighting. 

Or kicking the brat off the tree. That took a surprising amount of his time. The braț was a fast learner in all ways but one. 

Sukuna was quickly running out of patience. 

“Stop falling,” Sukuna hissed, annoyed, flame catching across his tongue. A sign of just how annoyed he was, truly. Sukuna wanted to kill something. 

The brat was lucky Satoru had bet on his life.

“You keep pushing me!” The boy said, clinging to the root beneath Sukuna. He’d learned to catch himself, a few weeks ago. It made the kicking less satisfying. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Fly,” Sukuna snapped. “You’re supposed to fly, boy.” 

Yūji paused. There was smoke, threading out of the boy’s mouth, thick and hot. 

“Fly?”

“Fly,” Sukuna ordered, and stamped his heel into the bark, hard, mean, shaking the tree itself. 

It was enough to shake the brat off. 

Yūji fell. 

And fell. 

And fell.

And—

Sukuna smiled, wide and vicious. 

“Finally,” he growled, watching Yūji flap weakly into the air, “you took an age and a half.”

“I’m flying?” That came hissing, brushed with flame. The boy wasn’t used to speaking with that tongue. “What the fuck—”

“Enjoy it,” Sukuna ordered. “This is a privilege, Yūji.”

The brat circled, twisting to look at his own tail. He was a deep and familiar red, dark as spilled blood. But the wings had a snowy white on the underbelly, and where red met white, there was gold. 

Sukuna knew why. 

“But how? Father isn’t a dragon…”

“He’s not, no. He’s a delicate little god, with the pretty skin to match.”

“Ugh, gross,” Yūji’s snout wrinkled up, and he dropped a bit, flailing. “Don’t call him pretty.”

“I’ll call him what I please,” Sukuna dismissed. “Well, brat? Aren’t you wondering where those wings came from?”

There was a beat, then, of quiet. Yūji flapped too much, didn’t watch the winds, could hardly seem to keep his wings open. Sukuna cataloged each failure, and sighed. 

“I— yeah, but I think I know.”

Steady, Sukuna asked, “do you, now?”

Yūji twisted, landing on the root. “I don’t exactly want it to be true. But it is, isn’t it? I’m like you. How did…”

“Satoru can never leave well enough alone,” Sukuna said, and then, “watch your talons, boy.”

“Sorry! This form is weird. And so big, it’s hard to move.”

Sukuna laughed. 

“You think that’s big?”

“I’m taller than you!”

And that was enough. 

Shifting forms was like breaking bones— natural, pleasant, but messy. Sukuna shed his human skin and donned his old form, the one he’d worn into wars he’d fought alone. 

It cast a shadow across the capital. 

He looked down, shaking out his wings. The wind knelt for him, rustling the leaves of the divine tree. 

Yūji looked up, small. 

“You’re fucking huge.”

Sukuna laughed, jaw unhinging for a lick of flame like lightning. “Scared, brat?”

“Mostly excited,” the boy said, and it sounded honest. How strange. “You’re going to teach me to fly, right?”

“No,” Sukuna rumbled, amused, “I’m going to hunt you until you learn.”

He snapped his jaws across Yūji’s tail, scoring a cut at the fluttering end. A warning, and nothing more, and yet the brat yelped like he’d been slapped. Yūji flapped his wings, jolting back. 

“You bit me!”

“One nip of your tail, and you’re complaining? How pathetic.”

“This is exactly like the cut all over again. You’re such a dick.”

Sukuna laughed, as only a dragon could.

“Run,” he said, and so Yūji did. 

They flew over the whole of the capital and out, into the plains, Yūji chasing the wind and Sukuna commanding it. The boy took to flying quickly, now that he’d figured out the wings. And the boy’s wings were made of flesh and bone and mortality, just like Sukuna’s. There were no stone scales, lining them. 

It was strange, Sukuna mused. 

Eventually, they landed at the gates to the capital. Sukuna looked over the wall, amused, even as the brat fell on his belly in exhaustion. The walls hadn’t grown tall enough to keep him out. Little could. 

“That,” Yūji panted, “was so hard, and so fun.”

A bright laugh, divine. 

“Glad you had fun, Yūji,” Satoru said, smirking. The god was perched on the wall, high above the plains. His eyes were level with Sukuna. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in that form, my dear consort eternal.” 

Sukuna rumbled. It came out in sparks of tame lightning, dancing across his horns. 

“He bit me,” Yūji grumbled, flying up to curl up behind Satoru. The brat was small enough to hide behind the god. How pathetic.  

“He’s your sire, Yūji,” Satoru said, smiling like death. “That’s how the ancient dragons raise their young. A light nip is just affection.”

“Oh,” Yūji chirped, “it is? Wait, I don’t want it to be affection.”

“It’s not,” Sukuna cut in, shifting smoothly back, into two legs and four arms, wrapping his arms around Satoru. “Don’t give the brat ideas, Satoru. He’s too stupid to unlearn them.”

“What a cute family hug.”

“Silence.” 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

No matter how many times Sukuna left, he always came back. No matter the whims, the years, or the reasons. 

No matter. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

They went back to the palace. Yūji fell asleep within moments, snoring 

Sukuna kicked him. He didn’t wake. 

“Don’t—”

“It’s fine, Megumi,” Satoru said. “He’s only checking on him.”

“With his foot,” Megumi said, cold. 

Sukuna snorted. “Take the boy to bed, Megumi. He’ll sleep for a week, and then he’ll be hungry enough to eat a few horses.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Do you want to return, my Lord?”

Sukuna looked, then, towards the capital. 

“Yes,” he said, “it’s about time.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“I’m sorry.”

Sukuna glanced at Yūji, teeth sunk into meat rare enough to writhe. “I don’t care.”

“I didn’t even tell you for what!”

“Did I ask?”

“You’re so—” Yūji cut himself off, growling. A hint of flame burst free. 

Sukuna growled right back, hotter. 

Yūji yelped, wincing. A hint of wings seemed to ruffle behind him, cracking, before they vanished. It was, Sukuna would admit, very funny. 

“What is it?”

“Father should have asked you, before he used your blood. I’m sorry,” and then, with steady eyes, the boy said, “but I’m glad it was your blood. It suits me. I think… I think I’m more like you than Father,” came rasping, harsh, and then, “so thank you, for teaching me.” 

How very strange. The boy had learned to thank the hand that beat him. Their world was cruel, but this was just pathetic. No, Sukuna thought. Not pathetic. Something else. 

No matter. 

“You’re an idiot,” he settled on, and ignored the offended hiss, “but congratulations, boy. You’ve proven you can learn. You better keep it up.” Sukuna smirked. “After all, your life is on the line.”

“My what—”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Sukuna left. He came back. He left. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Months passed like flame, brushing across paper. 

Sukuna tapped a finger against the collar. “Who made this?”

“I did,” Satoru said, easy. 

Sukuna blinked. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

He came back. He left. 

He was growing tired of it. 

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“My Lord Sukuna,” Uraume began, kneeling at his side. There was a beat, then, of hesitation. 

Strange.

“What is it?”

“Will we be leaving soon?”

“No,” Sukuna decided, then. “No time soon.”

The question lingered with him, through the morning, through the day. It ate at him, hungry. Sukuna thought of flame, and of void, until it was late in the palace, and he was beside Satoru. 

“Well, Satoru? When will you devour it?” Sukuna asked, into the warmth of Satoru’s skin. They were tangled, as they often were, in their bed. On clouds, warm against each other. 

Sukuna had no whims to follow. 

“Soon,” Satoru said, quiet, “the pieces are almost in place.”

“The whelps, you mean.”

Satoru just smiled.

“You are raising them to fight alongside you,” Sukuna said, and felt flame burn, in his gut. “Fool. They can’t match you.”

“Not now, but they will, given time. And I will give them time,” and then, with a grin, “it’s not like I need them for the fighting, anyway. They’re going to shape the world. It’s my job to give them a world free of parasites.” 

Sukuna pulled back. Just far enough to meet Satoru’s eyes. “Satoru.”

“Mm?”

“Am I not your Lord?”

Satoru blinked. “You are.”

“Then ask me.”

Satoru paused. 

“You were very adamant about staying out of this, Sukuna. A boring war of attrition for idealistic fools, I think you called it.” 

“I changed my mind,” Sukuna said, and it was true. “Ask me.” 

“Why should I?” Satoru smirked. “I don’t need help to devour my enemies, and it’s not like you’d be good at cultivating the next generation.”

“You’ve waited,” Sukuna countered, baring his teeth. “You aren’t certain you’ll win.” 

Satoru laughed, vicious. “Oh, I’ll win. I’m just not sure what’s going to be left of the world when I’m done. It’s hard to recreate the people. The world. That’s what I need the kids for. It’ll be their world, then.”

Sukuna felt fire, curling in his gut, his veins. 

“And what place will you have?”

“Who cares?”

Sukuna clenched his jaw. He reached for Satoru’s neck, branding it with his hands, his touch. 

As a collar had, not so long ago. 

“You will ask,” he decided, cold, “or that whimpering beast will be the least of your worries.” 

“Oh?” Satoru reached up, elegant fingers tracing delicate paths over Sukuna. “Is that a threat, or a plea?”

“I don’t beg, little god.”

“So a threat, then. Shame. I don’t do well with threats.” 

“You enjoy mine.”

“Only sometimes,” and then, “you actually want me to ask you, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t tell you to, otherwise.” 

“Huh. Sure, okay then. My dear consort eternal,” Satoru began, quiet, “will you stand at my side? Unhinge your jaw to devour the greatest enemy I have?”

“It first, and then you. I will sink my teeth into you until you bore me.”

Satoru smiled. 

“Eternity, then. I’ll hold you to that, husband.” 

“Good,” Sukuna said, and kissed his god.