Chapter Text
There was a smell in the air.
Earth. Grass. Blood that had dried long ago in another life.
Sukuna blinked once.
Then again.
Sky.
A deep blue stretching overhead, unfamiliar and empty. The kind of sky that feels too open, like a trap. He sat up, joints creaking slightly not from age, never that. But from unmistakable forced change. His muscles felt… different. Off. Like they remembered something his nerves hadn’t caught up to yet.
His fingers flexed. Five? Ten. Still ending with long black nails bordering claws. No extra eyes. His tattoos were still there, crawling up his arms and across his chest like burned ink.
He exhaled.
Alive.
Not dead, or sealed, or bound to some brat sorcerer. Free but somehow… wrong.
Wherever this was, it wasn’t the afterlife.
Or if it was, it was a damn lazy one.
A groan pulled him from thought.
Not his.
Someone else. Close.
He turned.
A woman lay in the grass a few feet away, pink hair splayed across the weeds like cherry blossoms after a storm. She was curled in on herself, trembling slightly, her haori torn and dirt-smudged. She wasn’t one of his. Not a sorcerer. Not a cursed spirit.
Too… human.
But also not normal.
He could smell it on her. Power, buried and reeling.
A kindred type of broken.
“Where the hell am I…” he muttered, standing.
The woman stirred again, breath hitching sharply as she sat upright.
Dead.
She had died.
She remembered it.
The heat of Muzan’s blood. The sounds—the cries of the dying. Obanai’s hand in hers, his warmth fading faster than her own heartbeat. The final flash of light behind her eyelids, and then—
Nothing.
And now… this.
She gasped, breath catching in her throat as she shot up from the grass. Everything tingled. Her fingers, her arms, her legs—it all felt like it belonged to her but had forgotten how to be her. Like waking from the deepest sleep in the world and finding your soul only half-attached.
Her vision swam. Grass, sky, flowers. A bird called nearby.
A dream?
No. Too vivid. Too cruel.
A man was standing near her. Tall, muscular. Shirtless, with deep black markings spiraling across his arms and chest. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion, but not rage. Not yet.
Not Muzan. Not a demon. But certainly not normal.
“Wh-who—?” she started, then winced at her voice.
The man stared down at her like one might inspect a spider.
“Not from here either, huh,” he said finally, his voice low and rough.
Mitsuri blinked. “I—I don’t know where ‘here’ is ! I was just—there was a fight—and everyone—” Her throat closed.
Obanai’s smile. Giyuu’s quiet nod. Tanjiro’s scream.
All gone.
She curled her arms around herself, heart hammering. “I… I was supposed to be dead. ”
The man gave a dry chuckle. “You and me both.”
She glanced at him. He didn’t look like any warrior she’d seen. No sword, no armor. His energy was so hectic and strange. sharp, cold, but… distant. Not entirely the demonic aura she was used to. No this man had no uncontrollable hunger but the kind that could be described as curiously peckish.
Her breaths to calm herself did nothing as they spiked coming out more and more erratic with his eyes never leaving hers.
“I don’t know you…” she said warily.
He deadpanned.
“I don’t fucking know anyone here.”
Swallowing, she brought her hands in her lap. Digging deep into her skin underneath her ragged uniform skirt as if the pain could ground her. As if the red prickling quickly at her already blood caked chipped nails could wake her up from this nightmare of the unknown.
“Where is…here?”
Rolling his eyes he brought both his arms behind his back cracking them at the same time.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be standing around waiting for you to cry about it.”
She flinched slightly at the tone, then squared her shoulders. She may be terrified and grief-stricken, but she wasn’t going to let some shirtless tattoo guy intimidate her. Clearing her throat of the bile and sobs threatening to come up she spoke hardly any clearer.
“I’m Mitsuri Kanroji , Love Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps. Who are you?” Cringing at the taste of crusted blood on her lip she didn’t waver in the minutes passing in silence as he assessed her.
He tilted his head, gaze unreadable like what he was hearing was equal to that of someone asking him what something as obvious and simple as a stick was.
“Sukuna.”
She waited for more.
Nothing came.
She narrowed her eyes. “Just… Sukuna?”
“The Strongest. The King of Curses. You’re welcome.”
Mitsuri stares harder. “That… doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
He smirked.
The girl was fragile.
He could see it in her eyes filled with mourning, disbelief, that spiraling loss that clung to people who thought their purpose had died with the last swing of their blade.
And yet… she hadn’t collapsed.
Not completely.
She sat beside him now, cross-legged in the grass, hugging her knees as they both waited for the world to make sense.
“Do you feel weird?” she asked after a long silence.
“Weird how?”
“Like your body’s not yours. Like you’re… out of sync.”
He glanced at his arm. Flexed. The skin moved perfectly. The strength was there. But she wasn’t wrong, something was very off. His cursed energy was present, but it didn’t hum the same way. It felt more… foreign. Less corrupted, more neutral.
Purified, maybe. Or diluted.
The air around him didn’t cling with malice.
Which meant either this world didn’t recognize his power…
Or he wasn’t in his world at all.
“You’re right,” he muttered. “It’s like being stretched. Pulled out of shape.”
Mitsuri frowned. “It doesn’t feel like demon energy. Or poison. Or anything I’ve fought before.”
“Same.”
“Then where are we?”
“I’m starting to think it’s not where we are . It's what . ”
She looked confused. He didn’t clarify.
The man was insufferable.
Not mean, exactly, just… aloof. Detached. Like someone used to being above consequences. The way he talked, it was like he didn’t expect the world to punish him for being rude.
And yet, he wasn’t unkind.
He hadn’t attacked her.
Hadn’t mocked her when she cried softly into her sleeve fifteen minutes ago, trying not to think about her friends' corpses. He just stood nearby, arms crossed, watching the horizon like it might insult him.
He was powerful. That much was obvious.
But more than that, he was…
Confused.
She didn’t think people like him got confused often.
The wind blew softly, rustling the grass around them.
Then, in the distance—
A voice.
Faint.
Young.
“…Mom? There’s… there’s people in the backyard…”
Mitsuri sat up straight instantly.
Sukuna’s eyes locked in the direction of the voice. He took a step back, sinking slightly into the shadows of the hedges behind them. Instinct.
“I hear someone,” she whispered. “A child?”
“I noticed.”
They both crouched low, watching.
A few moments passed before the voice returned closer this time. Softer.
“…Hello?”
A girl emerged from the bushes, wearing a faded pink dress and holding a small watering can. Her hair matched Mitsuri’s almost perfectly rosy and tied in a small flat bun. Her face was round with wide, green eyes that blinked owlishly as she stared at the two strange adults sitting in her garden.
Mitsuri froze.
So did the girl.
Sukuna, beside her, tensed slightly not in preparation to attack, but with the cautious instinct of someone unsure if this was the trick.
The girl opened her mouth.
Then screamed.
“AIIIEEE!! STRANGERS IN THE GARDEN!!”
And turned to flee.
“Wait!” Mitsuri jumped up, nearly tripping on her own leg. “It’s okay! We’re not—!”
Too late. The child was already halfway across the yard, shrieking.
“Should I kill her?” Sukuna asked, sighing like he was deciding on if he felt like washing dishes.
Mitsuri turned to him, all disgusted and horrified. “ NO! She’s just a little girl!”
He shrugged. “Wasn’t going to. I’m just asking .”
“We need to explain! We need to figure out where we are, and who she is, and—and—”
Footsteps thundered from the house. A door slammed open.
More voices.
Adults.
“Get down.” Sukuna growled.
“I don’t do stealth!”
“You do now!”
They ducked behind a low bush as the adults ran into the garden.
“Where? Where did you see them, Sakura?” the woman asked urgently.
“I—they were right there! ” the child pointed. “A scary man with tattoos and a pretty lady!”
Mitsuri’s cheeks turned pink at that.
“Gone now,” the man said, scanning the area. “Could’ve been genjutsu.”
Sukuna twitched. That word…it buzzed wrong in his ears. Unfamiliar.
“You think shinobi are playing around in our yard?” the woman hissed.
“Doubt it. But we’ll keep watch.”
Eventually, after several tense minutes, the family returned indoors. Mitsuri and Sukuna waited in silence under the bush, sharing the strangest eye contact of their unnatural lives.
Finally, Mitsuri whispered: “She said her name was Sakura.”
Sukuna leaned back slightly. “Kid’s got lungs.”
“I think… we’re in someone’s backyard.”
“No shit.”
“And that means this isn’t a dream.”
Sukuna stared at the stars above.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s not.”