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Chapter Text

[. . .]

"Perhaps the only mercy in this world was in my mother's womb."

[. . .]

Chapter 1

Momma's Boy

[. . .]

Ryoumen Sukuna.

A man turned curse. A curse turned King.

The Disgraced One, they whisper.

The King of Curses, they fear.

Raw, unbridled anguish exudes from that name—the title of the damned. The mere mention of his presence contracts knots of oblivion churned between the asphyxiation of death and the cruel nurture of bloodshed. It is a monstrous being none dare evoke, for the monster himself is said to come looking, lurking beneath the coldness of the shadows.

He is War itself. He paints in death, inking every brushstroke in sanguine, splattering fields in the wet, repulsed essence of gore. Enemies fall to his feet. Heads hang in his walls. Bones and flesh linger in his hunger, in his mouth of avarice, savoring the innocent and agony on his foul, lashing tongue.

Stories told far and wide are nurtured under his cruel hand. He revels in the taste of terror.

Ryoumen Sukuna has no mercy.

Rumors suggest that he has always possessed this nature. So harsh. So unforgiving. After all, there is no one left alive to contradict such assertions.

But the truth resides in the light sealed beneath his dead heart. Of golden memories chained in rust, embedded into the bloody soil of a happier time. When he had been more innocent. When he had a love bestowed upon him unlike any other.

When he had not been a title, but a boy seeking out a mother's love.

A time before he ever was Ryoumen Sukuna.

[. . .]

Mother is strong.

That's the first thought that passes through his head—the initial notion that asserts itself with authority in his mind.

He is small. Weak. A mere babe fresh and ugly from the womb, pressed against his mother's breast in a firm and tender hold. A woman with eyes a soft jade and hair a long, silken pink peers down at him with an adoration so profound it feels unnatural against his slime-coated skin. There is a strange, purple marking shaped in a diamond planted on the center of her forehead that hides a fountain of strength he wants for greedily.

Her features are contorted in fatigue, but the power within her probing fingertips is something he is quick to latch onto and try to take for himself, relishing the rush he feels seep into his tiny body.

He basks in her clemency for just a brief moment.

He intends to bite, for his eerie, sharp teeth to seep into her carnal flesh, in the next. He knows he will fail, for he is not a normal child, but an abomination birthed by a mystery. He is not so human and not so different from one, but a secret third thing. And it's true. He doesn't pierce skin, meat, or bone.

Despite this, he settles. He is not punished for it, and instead he is welcomed further in her warmth. It tells him he is adored. That he is wanted.

It is like a normal child with their mother. To coo and watch in fleeting fascination the strength of their guardian.

"My Sakuratsu," She soothes, effortlessly removing her calloused fingers from his mouth to cradle his horrifying face. She leans forward with all her warmth, and he is enveloped in her comforting scent, squirming against her lips pressing lovingly against his forehead. "My child."

He doesn't know what this is.

But his first memory of coming to this world is wrapped within his mother's mercy.

[. . .]

He is Haruno Sakuratsu, first and only spawn of Mother Sakura.

He is named after her, that much is obvious. His arrival into this world was not initially intended for the purpose of being named, but he has taken it in with vast gusto. He is indeed a being hatched with some knowledge. He possesses an innate understanding, suggesting that he is not entirely human, a trait inherited from his mother, who embodies a source of pure energy. Consequently, it is only fitting that he exhibits a level of intelligence that surpasses that of other entities in this realm.

For that, he is immensely curious.

He knows mother is a gentle creature. She is there for him nearly every second of the day, cradling and caring for him. He cannot speak, so therefore he cannot ask, but it seems she knows what he intends to say regardless. It's not often that he thinks, no. He's just an infant. But there are moments he allows himself to.

(If she is Mother, then who is Father?)

She tells him a lot of things. Of this world, of its creatures.

She loves to take him outside bundled in soft blankets to point and instruct, and he, Sakuratsu, takes it all in. He memorizes it all.

And when it is time to head inside the small wooden home he was born in, she repeats the process, gesturing to the worn furniture and funny trinkets they keep in their home. It quickly becomes boring as she continues throughout his weeks of infancy like this, but not boring enough that it becomes torturous. For he is new, and therefore easily entertained, loved within her kind embrace.

He finds she is quite fond of his crib.

"You are an adorable sleeper," She insists, setting him down on the plush cotton. He looks up at her blankly, blinking his two pairs of eyes—the two engorged on the right side of his face, and the other more human ones.

Her smile is kind.

(But he is too young to see the depth of sorrow she keeps behind it.)

[. . .]

He grows quickly.

He is a newborn, and soon an infant, and later sooner than that he's crawling just four months after his birth.

Mother is happy. She claps and squeals with every achievement, and he preens at her praise with bubbly squiggles, reveling at the affection he receives for his triumphs. Yes, he thinks as she hugs him close while she roasts a particularly large portion of venison over their makeshift flames inside a clay stove that makes his mouth water at the smokey scent engulfing the air, I deserve this.

He is rewarded for his efforts with the meat she goes out to hunt for. His only source of nutritional value after finally giving up his weaning on his mother's milk.

He eats vegetables, yes. His mother isn't strict, but she does enforce rules he follows dutifully. For she is the powerful being here, and he is her son, so therefore he must listen. He doesn't quite like it, no, but he can't complain when she does her best to help him. If she says he needs vegetables, then he will eat them.

However, vegetables are rare in his nutrition. She feeds him mostly meats, because that is what his body can primarily digest.

He is somewhat of a carnivore, according to Mother. Foods such as rice, spinach, cabbage, and onion are okay to eat. Other foods cause him much indigestion, such as radishes and bamboo. She avoids those entirely.

Although his rapid growth has lessened because he no longer feeds from his mother, it is nonetheless a quick adaptation. His meaty diet helps in that lot, and he is all too greedy to pick up the pace. The mouth in his stomach likes to messily engorge itself in beef, causing a messy ordeal that leads to baths. He quite likes those, for the water is warm and the scent of the soap lathered on him matches his mother.

In fact, he likes baths so much, he is purposeful in creating messes to achieve that.

It's probably his fifth bath in the afternoon when his mother takes him out of the tub she washes him in just after he's eaten, gently drying his pouting face with a raised eyebrow and a white towel in her hand.

"I hope you're not dirtying yourself on purpose, Sakuratsu."

He shrinks a little in confusion at her careful words.

She wraps him in the towel and lifts him to eye level. "Right?"

He squirms, trapped in the coils of the dreadful rag of injustice. "Bah?" He tries, realizing it's his first attempt at speech.

She freezes, staring at him with wide eyes.

He is then hugged tightly.

She quickly forgets his scheming, far too elated at his newest achievement.

[. . .]

Three years pass.

He achieves much. Walking. Talking. Simple cognitive motor functions that exceed excellently, hastily phasing through his unexpected years of toddlerhood by the time he completes his first year. Mother laments about seeing her 'baby' grow so soon, but she is also proud that he's managed so much. At three years, he should be able to do as much as that of a normal child, but not nearly as good as he does already. An advantage his mother's genetics have blessed him with, surely. His mother had told him that due to his biology, he must be at least five years old, if not six.

It means he's old enough to come with her to the villages she goes to.

Dressing him in a white kimono wrapped in an obi and an extra hifu because it was cold despite him running hot, Sakuratsu tries to stay still but fails, far too excited at the prospect of finally being able to explore the world his mother blesses.

Mother gently tells him to remain seated while she puts on his tabi and sandals after being done putting on his clothes after a riveting bath, but he doesn't listen.

It's by the grace of whatever Gods are out there that she manages to succeed after a tedious thirty-minute process.

"Ah," She perks, straightening from her crouch and reaching for the extra garment behind his impatient self, "Let's not forget this!" A generous hood tied to his clothes, for if it rains.

"I want to leave now," He grouches upon discovering that they aren't finished after all, scowling at her with puffy cheeks.

She pulls away to look at him, unimpressed. "That's not very nice to say, is it Saku-kun?"

He frowns, fiddling with his fingers. "...No," He mumbles reluctantly.

"You must ask politely."

His face scrunches. No, he almost spits, I want to go now. But he doesn't. Instead, he waits a few minutes, thinking on his mother's lessons in social etiquette. "...May we please... go outside, now?" He tries, trying not to make a face.

The delighted expression on his mother's face calms him instantly. "Very good, my little prince!"

He straightens, puffing his chest at the praise. That's right! He's a prince!

She grabs for a basket to throw over her shoulder just after that, grabbing onto his hand that he eagerly clenches.

Soon, they're on the road.

He cannot remain idle. He lets go of her immediately after they venture away from the forest they've inhabited for his entire life, frenziedly running around. His neck twists and turns with every new sight, red eyes alight with fervor as he makes a memorial map in his head for future expeditions. He's light on his feet as he jumps through the new smaller trees in his path, hanging off the branches, calling for his mother not far behind him, showing off to her what he's capable of.

It's not anything new that she already knows, but she cheers him on all the same, always with the soft warning to be careful.

He doesn't need to be careful. He's strong. Maybe the strongest ever, second to his mother. Granted he hasn't met anyone else, but still. He's been left out of his mother's sight a good few times while she hovers close inside their tiny home, trusting that he will be fine, and in those times, he has broken bones and other such things. Of course, she'd notice during their monthly check-ups. She was a healer, she told him. A good one at that.

But by the time she realizes what's happened, he's already healed.

Still. He got scolded for it.

"Just because you have my regeneration ability," She began tightly, running a motherly hand through his unruly pink hair as he perched himself sadly on her lap, "It doesn't mean you mustn't be careful. It's important. What if one day you get hurt and I'm not there to help?"

"I'm strong," Had been his stubborn response, and in turn, he got his cheek pinched for it. Hard.

Now, as he gallivants through the wilderness, he doesn't negate that fact still.

He can certainly take care of himself.

He doesn't—

His heart sinks as his subsequent attempt at jumping to a tree branch ends in disappointment, his short arms failing to reach the higher limb he had grossly misjudged in length.

Just as he prepares himself for another brutal fall, his mother is there to catch him in mid-air, eyes narrowed.

His eyes widen and he promptly hides his face in her chest as they gently fall down.

He hears her sigh once her feet plant themselves on the earth.

"I told you to be careful," She murmurs, brushing his prickly hair behind his ear. A gentle notion to let him know that she isn't truly angry. She never is.

He doesn't say anything nor does his realization that she's correct yet again stick. After ten minutes sulking in his mother's arms, contemplating on whether he should just stick to his mother for the rest of the journey, he turns his face back to the outside world, glaring with judgement at the trees.

He will conquer them.

He squiggles in his mother's hold.

She stops walking to set him down. "More running, hm?" She asks, raising an eyebrow at him as he looks up at her with a pout.

"I will conquer those trees," He hisses in promise.

She smiles, a twinkle in her eye. "Oh?"

"Yes," He nods sagely. "I will grow bigger. Stronger. Soon, I will be leaping through them with ease."

She nods with him, suddenly serious. He perks. "You will. But first, you must conquer the ground," She whispers conspiratively, clenching her fist in the air.

Shocked, he looks down, realizing his own trial and error. "Really?"

"Yes," She states, crouching to meet his gaze. He lets her pinch his cheek as he lets out a warning growl for her audacity. "Running is a skill. Endurance is a passion. Stamina is a sacrifice. If not for the agility in the strength of your legs, then you won't be able to succeed in your victory against the trees."

Sakuratsu nods in the affirmative. His mother is correct. Per her sage advice, he will heed it flawlessly. It's a strategic plan. If he doesn't build his strength in his legs to cover vast distances on the very dirt he walks on, then he will not have the endurance nor agility to jump through the trees without issue. He needs to do this first. But how?

His mother answers his unuttered question by pointing in front of her. "Why don't we practice? Challenge me in a race, Saku-kun. If you can outrun me and reach that rock, then you will have passed your first lesson." Her appendage centers on the moss-covered boulder just at the precipice of the forest.

Sakuratsu abruptly quakes with energy. "Yes!" He exclaims, and takes off toward it before his mother can say go.

He can hear her laugh behind him.

He doesn't win.

But he demands many more challenges with her throughout the way, panting with glee at the face of his mother who looks back at him at every one, glowing in the freedom of the morning sun.

I will win, he promises himself.

His mother's laughter echoes in the distance.

[. . .]

His mother holds the dangling corpse of a dirty man wielding a rusted knife hours later.

Sakuratsu watches with mild trepidation and fascination as the man lets go of the knife lifelessly, hiding behind his mother's legs and within her long brown cloak, peering up at the uneven angle of the man's neck enraptured in his mother's wrathful touch. His mother's energy spasms with a frosted callousness that makes him feel uneasy.

Like the heavy winter storms just before spring.

They had been laughing, as usual. He had gone ahead of her in the newest race, never one to run out of energy. She hadn't either, but he had been given an opportunity that he took greedily upon finding her distracted collecting some floral herbs on the fruitful ground.

It was there that he was attacked by a man hiding in the tall grass.

He hadn't expected him. They'd been close to a settlement, and therefore Sakuratsu should've known, but he had been so distracted, trying to win his mother's race that he hadn't...

The man had grabbed him roughly by the clothes, but that was it. His mother hadn't even given him a chance to react.

For in an instant, his mother had pushed his tiny self within the safety of her cloak, grabbing onto the man with such ferocity that Sakuratsu had meekly clamped himself against his mother's leg, trembling at the crack that followed.

Now there he harbors, silent as his mother drops the body with an air of defeat.

"Too hard," She whispers to herself, though he manages to hear. She stands still, staring at the body, not saying anything else.

She remains that way for so long that he begins to grow worried, so he hesitantly tugs at her long sleeves, eyes wide. "...Mama?"

At the call, his mother snaps her head down at him.

There is no emotion on her face. He nearly flinches.

But as quick as she is to look at him, her expression softens. "Oh, my baby," She breathes mournfully, lowering herself to his stature. He lets her cradle his face with steady hands, lets her murmur apologies for having him see such a horrible display. He lets her put the hood over his face, lets her put hers in turn as she easily lifts him with a strong arm, guiding him with a secure carry by her hip.

He is bound in her embrace, carried the rest of the way.

He makes no complaints.

His first experience with a human is dusted with remnants of death.

[. . .]

Despite the horror of his first death, Sakuratsu is unfazed.

As he roams his heavy gaze with wonder at the bundle of humans around him, going about their day carrying wood or other unique objects while sparing him and his mother glances of disinterest, the death hardly leaves his mind. It's not tainted with disgust nor fear. Worry yes, for his mother's odd reaction afterward and during her impressive display of power. But other than that? He's fine. In fact, he's intrigued.

He always knew his mother was strong. Therefore, he has assessed that it's normal, because he's strong too.

It's the humans who are weak. Why are they so weak? Is it not correct to be strong to survive a world so challenging?

It feels wrong to see them so weak.

They are the abnormal, and for them to challenge his mother's hand brings a dreadful wrath he cannot explain.

He is... angry, too.

Not at his behest, no. He has contested animals greater in size than he and won effortlessly. Besting a human shouldn't be impossible.

What he's angry at is the audacity that stupid, inferior waste of meat had of attempting to hurt him to get to his mother.

His mother, who is gentle and kind. His mother, who deserves to be worshipped and given everything.

His mother, who now holds him tightly, head down.

He sneers at the eyes of children who catch his gaze, relaxing with satisfaction when the children gasp and run away. He does not like humans, he thinks. They smell awful. They all look like they're dying too, skeletal and frail. Easily beatable. Easily conquered. He despises the way they hobble around, some tiredly, some dreadfully. None hold happy faces, perhaps except the children huddled around like the rats he's seen scurrying in his Mother's forest.

Still, there's a hopeful part of him that cannot be diminished.

Perhaps other humans may be strong. Like Mother.

But as he uses his senses to the distance, he doesn't feel much of a difference. Except perhaps the various floating monsters clinging onto people or buried in ugly corners as they make their way through the marketplace.

Curses.

He knows they're curses. That's what they're called. Curses who run away from him as his mother comes close. Or maybe it's his mother who scares them? There are so few. So little. He hasn't seen a curse at all in his mother's home and forest. This is the first time he sees one and yet, he knows what they are.

He doesn't know why. But it's knowledge he has had since birth.

Like his energy.

Like his mother's energy.

Like—

"Sakura-kimi!"

Sakuratsu turns his head at the same time his mother does at the sudden call. He narrows his sights on an old woman with greying hair, smiling brightly and cradling several stitched garments on her lap. She sits on a crate beside a fabric stand, tended to by another woman, though this one looks significantly younger with a less welcome expression on her face.

He keeps an eye on her specifically as his mother approaches them.

"Itado-oba-sama," His mother replies kindly, bowing. Sakuratsu doesn't know what to do when the old woman's eyes land on him, so he opts to cling to his mother possessively, tiny fists clenched onto her clothes with distrust.

"Ah!" Says the old woman, "I see you've brought the little one around, finally!"

His mother straightens her stance, bouncing him in her arms for a quick grip fix. "I have, yes. This is little Sakuratsu-kun," She murmurs, reaching to part hair away from his face. He leans onto the touch.

"So cute!" Oba-sama says, and Sakuratsu wrinkles his nose at the tone. "Is Oba-sama so lucky to finally witness Sakura-kimi's husband, as well?"

Husband? Sakuratsu tilts his head questionably, looking at his mother. He has never heard of that word before. He has no idea what it means. His intrigue with the odd buildings, the dresswear, and overall atmosphere of this so-called Village may prove fruitful yet. There are many things he has yet to see. He will ask about the term 'husband' later, when the old, ugly humans have gone away.

His mother's smile looks forced. "I'm afraid not, Oba-sama."

The old woman nods. "Such a shame. He was a fine-looking young man. Why, even my daughter had been caught unawares by his handsomeness! When is he set to return?"

His mother holds him tighter. "Not soon, I'm afraid. His business takes him far, and it will be many years before he may return," She answers cordially. A melancholic energy hovers around his mother. He places an open palm on the collar of her neck, searching in confusion to make it go away. His mother gently goes to hold his hand instead, using the same hand that killed the man.

Oba-sama looks sad. "So long? You are a strong woman, Sakura-kimi. I do not envy your years apart from your beloved. He is so strong too, to be apart from such a wonder as yourself."

His mother hums. "We are fortunate to have one another. I will wait for him. I have hopes he will come back soon." Lies? Sakuratsu thinks. His mother brushes a thumb over his skin.

Oba-sama inclines her head. "Such grace. Such loyalty. May the gods' protection be with you and your husband."

His mother bows. "May the gods' protection be with you and your family as well, Itado-oba-sama."

Sakuratsu breathes in relief, thinking that their conversation is finally over. It has brought too many questions to his impatient mind, and he must talk. He must ask his mother what everything means.

Unfortunately, the daughter of the old woman interjects with a question. "Sakura-kimi... forgive my boldness, but is your child...?"

His mother looks up at her, "Is my child what, Hajime-san?" She asks carefully.

Hajime-san shakes her head. "Nothing offensive, Sakura-kimi. I'm just curious. He is also... another being, like your husband had been?"

His mother's tense shoulders relax. "...Yes."

At that, two pairs of eyes lock on him. They seem to hover closer, nearly too close, and Sakuratsu doesn't know what this means. His mother even lifts his hood a little, revealing the rest of his shadowed face.

The two gasp.

Sakuratsu shrinks and his mother drops the hood. What do those inhalations of breath mean? Are they good? Are they bad?

"He has his father's eyes!" The Hajime woman points out in delight, and Sakuratsu stiffens. Her previous stoic expression is now one of glee.

"That he does!" The old woman nods along with her daughter, toothless smile wide and sincere.

Father.

I have a father.

Who is he?

"Who is my father?" He finally erupts, though his voice is careful. Hesitant.

Instantly, the air grows somber.

"Ah," Oba-sama sags in her crate. "He has not met him, has he?"

His mother stays silent.

And that is all the answer he needs.

My father is nothing.

[. . .]

Ryoumen Sukuna sits upon the grass of his garden, contemplatively staring at the pond before him, rippling at the touch of his moving finger dipped into the waters. With one hand he holds his head, arm placed on his bent knee, solemn in his pondering poise.

He stares into the red of his eyes, wondering just what his mother saw in him to love him so much. To love a child so wrong. So... cruel.

Had it been the man she saw in his eyes, the man she married?

He has never thought of his father since... Since. A man whom he had never seen, nor ever will see, except in pictures crafted by his mother's stories.

What had she seen in my father, I wonder?

"Sukuna-sama."

He lifts his head, finding Uraume standing next to him. Their reflection is unmoving in the water. He hums to acknowledge their presence.

They continue, punctual as always, "Your dinner is ready."

He closes his eyes. He breathes.

He is famished, he supposes... He'd nearly forgotten the time.

He almost scoffs.

Reminiscing gets me nowhere. She is gone.

"Let us eat," He rumbles, standing and dismissing his disgusting pity-fest away. Uraume follows after his heavy steps, hands hidden within their sleeves.

He leaves his mother's pond.

The water goes still in his absence.

Chapter Text

[. . .]

"A mother's love transcends even the darkest hearts. But nothing lasts forever."

[. . .]

Chapter 2

Mother's Day

[. . .]

Ryoumen Sukuna stands contemplatively inside the intimate storage confines of his expansive temple.

It is a home built by his own hands, located within a sacred place—his mother's protective cedar forest. The forest is tall and enchanted, one of the last kindnesses she left behind, created just for him, told by the scriptures she left inside his childhood toy box. No man or woman can travel through it unless directed by one of her blood, or following the rare trail she had paved that only Sukuna knows the way to.

Sorcerers and Curse Users alike have been lost to its ominous shadows that lurk with the infestation of curses lured by his power. Creatures that his mom had eradicated, until Sukuna took over.

In her absence, he has let the obscene malidiction of the world probe at the entrance. Oh, he tried to fight it at first. He'd slashed away at the curses, tore bone and flesh from every human that dared trespass. But over time, he'd realized his attempt to keep his mother's forest pristine was useless. He was not his mother. He wasn't pure of heart.

This forest was already tainted with his sins.

That, and the ancient treasure he holds, one he currently angles to scrutinize the defects of, created during his infancy by one of his mother's friends.

Here, he holds a figure of his great Mother Sakura, worn and done by the old hand of the nosy Itado-Oba-chan right before she passed.

It has been a good handful of years since that old woman's death. He hadn't mourned her; she'd never been anyone of importance to him. But she'd been useful, he supposes. She'd been his mother's confidante and his occasional caretaker. That had to have meant something to Mother.

He runs his eyes across his mother's statue for the nth time, and he laments slightly at the chippings on the sides, how much of her he's lost. It barely compares to what his mother looked like. But it's a capture of her beauty all the same.

His mother had given him this just before her disappearance.

He knows it's pathetic of him to mourn her, even still. Years upon years, since then.

Yet how could he not, when every corner of his life still carries the echo of her absence?

He is no longer that lost teenage boy seeking his mother's beating heart in a wasteland. Those years had passed, and with them the raw grief had dulled into something heavier, quieter, lodged in his chest like stone. He has grown, still seeking revenge, even now as a thirty-year-old. Boredom has clung to his every bone, forever faced with the unequivocal strength blessed to him by his mother's womb.

One he has heard is being kept by a high-ranking individual that Sukuna intends to torture and collect from.

The rumor twists in him like a blade, but he cannot look away—if the truth lies there, then perhaps so does the last fragment of her that has not been lost to him. It's a foolish gamble. He shouldn't care, should move on, because clinging to his mother's memory is a waste of time.

But he does all the same. Because even after all this time, it was she to give him mercy. It had been her to adore and teach him, however malfigured and ugly of heart he was. In moments of solitude, he replays those lessons, as if they might tether him to something human. That memory endures when all else has rotted. She could have thrown him away. He knows no sane person would want someone as monstrous as he for an offspring.

And yet.

"Mother," He murmurs, wistfully thumbing the head of her statue. "I come to you today, on the day of your Birth."

A day in spring.

Fitting, for someone as beloved as Mother.

He knows not if he's correct. She'd only told him it was a day in spring. They'd celebrated it together every year with a sugary treat he will never get the chance to taste again.

"I am not the man you had hoped I would become," He admits, and he's not ashamed to say it. Mother was kind. Reverent. He is... everything but. She had never explicitly told him what she wanted him to be. No, that wasn't who she was. Sukuna has heard too many times than he can count of her unconditional love, that she would hope to see him grow, no matter who he became. "But I daresay you will not look at me in contempt, as I am."

A small comfort.

It is so tiny, this comfort.

Sukuna is not ashamed of who he is because he is his true self. He is as he should be, however many like to say otherwise. The Itado family certainly tries to say he is a being worth fighting for, but who knows? They are too kind for their own good. It's a small mercy he hasn't decided to kill them.

Ah but, he thinks wistfully, Mother told me to keep them close.

His mother had been kind. Too kind.

Smart, too. Perhaps there's a reason why she had asked of him for something so noble. Sukuna has yet to figure it out.

A downfall, in the end.

He wonders just how tragic it is for him to know his mother would love him still, as he is.

Because I am her son.

That's right.

His shoulders droop slightly.

His mother had loved as she had lived—without condition, without stain. A love so unguarded that it feels unbearable to recall, because in its purity lies the cruel reminder that she is gone.

"Sukuna-sama."

Sukuna doesn't bother to turn, nor hide his precious trinket. "What is it, Uraume?" He allows, because he's feeling particularly lenient at the moment. He supposes that's just what his Mother's memory does to him, now. Make him weaker.

His little cooker doesn't move from the doorway, casting an elongated shadow over his back, painting against the wooden walls. "You have a visitor."

Sukuna blinks. He slowly turns to them with a raised brow, centering his attention on their bowed frame. How odd. Uraume wouldn't bother him with something as simple as that. If anything, they'd kill the visitor for intruding on his sacred time. "I would have thought you to listen when I tell you I am to be left alone—" He pauses his train of words at the tense expression on their face that peeks briefly as an unknown breeze brushes white locks.

He turns fully, carefully placing the trinket back onto the cursed shelf sealed by his mother's power.

His eyes narrow. "What is it, Uraume?" He asks, harsher this time, though the tone isn't intended for them, but rather at what caused the expression on their face.

They tuck their hands into their sleeves. They remain in their practiced bow, white hair perfectly cut to shroud their face. The breeze is gone. "...A woman is claiming to know you," They say. Sukuna refrains from scoffing. A pause follows, as if they're considering their next words. Sukuna nearly tells them to spit it out, but just before he does, they continue.

"...And Mother Sakura," Uraume declares reverently and with the perfect ounce of respect.

His heart stops. The name alone is enough to shake the foundations of his psyche. Sukuna freezes, a thousand thoughts piercing his mind.

They don't need to say anymore.

Sukuna immediately stomps past them, ignited with fury.

For how dare.

A fool is at his home, claiming to know his mother!?

He will torture and savor their flesh of abomination for even considering her in thought. No one knows his mother, except him and the Itado family. No one. No other such filth will ever come to know of his mother's sanctified remembrance.

And if it is truly as it is said...

Sukuna's red eyes spark with rage.

He will find out for himself.

[. . .]

From before Sakuratsu understood the concept of thought, he had always known that his mother was a mystery.

There are many things that Mother knows that he doesn't. Underneath the surface of uncertainty lies a secret fear of not amounting to the greatness that his mother is. She represents something profoundly benign, colored in soft, forgiving pastels of a divine femininity that is one of a kind. Because of her loving nature, he, as her son, feels obligated to replicate, though it's never anything he learns the arts of. His mother is different.

She's special in the way divinity is.

As he grows, he begins to look outward. To think about things other than the grounding colors of the earth and sky, or simple matters, like what his mother will cook next, or what she'll have him do around their tiny cabin home.

Since that fateful day that Mother had taken him to the local village and exposed him to the filth of humanity, Sakuratsu had many questions.

He remembers asking his mother a considerable number of them on their way back home, babbling about why humans looked so different from them, why they weren't like him, or beautiful like her.

Sakura answered honestly: that the way of the world is to be different, shaped with nature's hand, molded by what happens outside of ourselves.

He then proceeded to ask how the world worked. He'd wondered, and still wonders, why humans seemed to suffer so greatly. Why did they roll around in their old misery? Why was it that they feared rather than loved? Why had he, Sakuratsu, been born with such strength, and they hadn't?

He recalls the gentle sadness his mother's expression wore so openly. The way she peered down at him, thumbing his cheek, his very skin.

She'd said one thing: because Humanity fears itself.

That's where the mystery behind her ties in, for little Sakuratsu.

His mother knows so much, and everything she speaks is true. He doesn't know how she knows these things. But he has long accepted that she simply is, existing as a well of knowledge he can only pray to an empty sky to become worthy of reaching someday. His mother is so kind, and Sakuratsu can't understand why. Humans are weak, he knows now. Something about that deeply bothers him, because, really, how hard is it to stand on your two feet and thrive?

His mother knows all.

And because she does, she answers the questions he keeps to himself that—

we are not all born loved.

[. . .]

When he turns eight, Sakuratsu has a sudden epiphany over dinner.

"Mama," He starts, setting his piece of meat down with his chopsticks. He's become a master at them through reluctant teachings by Itado-Oba-chan's whiny daughter. He prefers eating with his hands still, but he doesn't tell his mother that. "Have you been training me this whole time?"

Sakura lowers her pair of utensils over her bowl stuffed with every known vegetable in existence. "Training?" She tilts her head, seeming to think. "I suppose you can see it that way. If you mean teaching you the basics of living and survival, then yes. A duty as a mother for their child, though I teach you because I want to." She smiles encouragingly. "What brought this on?"

Sakuratsu shrugs. His gaze wanders down to the steak on his plate. "...Yu-yu-kun said he was... training to become a, a warrior," He finds his words, furrowing his brows. "And he asked me if I was training to become a warrior too, since I was trying to fix his form." Because it'd been stupid, Sakuratsu internally berates. Yu-yu-kun is one of Itado-Oba-chan's grandsons. He is the illest, most naive, and idiotic of the bunch. But he is the only person his own age in the village to consider him a friend.

"Ah," Sakura nods. "In matters of combat, I have been teaching you bits and pieces. It's important to know how to defend yourself."

Sakuratsu mimics her slow nod, thinking. "...Does this mean I'm going to become a warrior?" He asks carefully, gauging her response.

Sakura smiles. Sakuratsu releases the little tension in his shoulders at the sight of it. "That's your choice, Sakuratsu. I can only teach and hope that it brings you some form of joy and protection."

He savors her words in his head, feeling light and determined. "And if I requested that you teach me further...?" He tries, pursing his lips. He wants to learn. He likes fighting a lot. Yu-yu-kun will never be the warrior he wants to be, but Sakuratsu can. He's stronger. Stronger than everyone. That means he can protect Yu-yu-kun.

Sakura brightens. "You want to be a Shinobi?"

"Uh," Sakuratsu thinks, trying to find meaning in that word, but can't. He's stumped. He doesn't remember his mother talking about a Shinobi. What is a Shinobi? "Yes. That's someone who fights and is strong, right? Like you?" He clarifies, because if it isn't fighting or in his mother's legacy, then it's worthless.

Sakura laughs lightly. "Yes, I suppose."

Sakuratsu brightens. "Then yes! Teach me all that you know!"

His mother does that face again. A face he's seen well over a hundred times over the course of his life.

Her eyes crinkle with an emotion he can't decipher. Her smile is sincere, and he can feel the outpour of her love through the bond of her hand reaching out to cradle his.

But.

Sakuratsu engraves the vision of her into memory.

There is sadness.

[. . .]

Fighting with his mother is one of the best things in his life.

And also the worst.

Her combat is exceptional, beyond anything Sakuratsu ever hopes to achieve. She is inhumanely fast, and her prowess doesn't buckle regardless of whether Sakuratsu goes all out. Her hits strike true, and her agility is so fluid that Sakuratsu sometimes finds himself shocked that she's able to move that way at all. Her stamina is endless, her power eternal.

Sakuratsu's power can't even pierce. Let alone compare.

He feels like a dull blade against the tempered steel of her hands. Yet it is she who tells him that a blade begins as nothing, only sharpened through use. That cursed energy itself must be honed—tightened, shaped, and released with intention. To overflow is waste; to focus is survival.

It's something that comes up, a slice and dice. It's a cursed technique, his mother told him. A natural extension of his will and the raw tearing apart of matters: Dismantle, for anything unprotected, and Cleave, for what resists. She explains that his cursed energy answers to thought more than movement, like a weapon that is drawn from resolve rather than strength. When he cuts, he must see the line before it exists, must imagine the wound already carved.

Her lessons are brutal.

As gentle as Mother is, when she teaches combat, she is anything but. She learns through blood drawn and replication. She makes him strike again and again until the air itself begins to split. She forces him to listen to cursed energy, to feel where it collects in the body, and then to release it in controlled destruction. She reminds him that technique is nothing without discipline—that power only takes shape when guided, not squandered.

He makes sure to follow her indoctrination to a tee.

But Sakuratsu isn't perfect. Every lesson digs into his skin, and every stumble feels heavier than the last. He has his failures just as much as he has his triumphs. More often than not, his temper gets the better of him, ruining his concentration.

And when that happens, he lets his emotions overflow; yelling, screaming, ripping the air with his voice, shredding trees, breaking stones, tearing apart the environment his mother so carefully reserves.

She doesn't punish him.

Rather, she encourages it. Perhaps Sakuratsu reads her wrong, but she does remind him; settle the temper, focus it into humility. Her voice cuts through his storm, calm but intense, demanding he grasp the fire scorching his insides and smother it into something steadier.

So he does.

It doesn't work. His techniques keep derailing into directions opposite of what he wants. His stance wobbles, overextending his energy. During his worst moments while trying to figure out his power, his brain feels like it's bleeding, running down his nose in rivulets that his mother is quick to remedy. She tends to stop his lessons entirely for a week when that happens, insisting he recuperate. Sakuratsu feels especially useless then.

His first two years of training with Mother are a disaster.

Arguments are had, though more on his part than hers. She never yells at him back. She just listens with her gentle nature, which only works to infuriate him more, because she doesn't get it. She's perfect. She is the strongest being in existence. And Sakuratsu is just a spawn.

He tells her the cusp of his third year, when spring is in its full fruit.

He drops his hands down to his sides with a shrill, cut-off noise of fury that clogs raw in his throat. His mother tries to approach for another bout of encouragement he has heard a thousand times, and he just. Loses it. He whirls on her, lets out his anger, frustrated beyond belief. He yells and yells, echoing across the forest, until all of it is gone and replaced with sadness.

Disappointment.

The ache in his chest spreads, heavier than his bruises. His breath hitches, his throat raw. He feels small. And stupid, because like always, his mother stands there all fawn-like, with her hands tucked inside her sleeves. Sakuratsu can't stand it. He can't stand it because what she asks next is nothing short of what he dreads to hear: "Maybe we should stop for today, honey."

Guilt vomits out immediately. And he tells her what repeats in his head unbidden: that he is Mother Sakura's son. But when he fails, he feels unworthy of the title. Unworthy to stand in her shadow, unworthy to carry her blood. Because he isn't the son of a peasant but a goddess in human flesh.

Everyone always praises Mother Sakura. And he has to hide because the Village hates him. He knows. He knows they do.

He is an abomination. Different. Four arms, four eyes, a disfigured face.

Yu-yu-kun's creepy, older village friend once spat at him and tried to report him before he'd mysteriously disappeared, declaring with utmost loathing that he is something only a mother could love.

Sakuratsu hadn't thought about the interaction much at the time, laughing out loud when Yu-yu-kun finally grew some balls and immediately retorted to his creepy friend that at least Sakuratsu's mother loved him. That "since Sakuratsu's mother loves him, what does that mean about you?"

But now...

Now, Sakuratsu wonders why she even bothers at all.

Mother is...

She's different. She's pretty and strong. And all he has is strength, but he can't even seem to be good at that.

He doesn't cry. But it comes close, because he's so angry that nothing he ever seems to want to accomplish comes as easily as he wants it to. His mother always has something to nitpick, even if it comes with boundless compliments and encouragement.

He isn't perfect.

Not like her.

Sakuratsu doesn't expect anger, and he's right to think so. Sakura crouches before him, cradling his face with those warm, calloused hands of hers. Sakuratsu sniffles, angry that fat tears start to fall from his eyes, angry that he is left to feel so worthless. But his mother, always so kind, wipes his tears away with her thumb and brings him into her embrace. She holds him tenderly, threading her fingers through his hair and rubbing his back.

Sakuratsu closes his eyes, inhaling her scent of sandalwood and something sweet as he trembles. He balls his tiny fists on her white robes, listening deeply to her soothing heartbeat. Trying to find his ground.

They stand in the middle of her forest, again. Flowers curl at his feet and her knees, glistening with the dew of the morning after shower. The sun lathers them in trickles, little rays that peek between the swaying tree leaves. The woods are silent.

It breaks when his mother speaks.

"Your strength is not mine," She whispers. Sakuratsu buries his face further into her collar, rubbing his forehead into the silk of her hair. He's not in the mood to talk, so he just listens. "It will never be mine."

What!

His head jerks back, sniveling, scowling, with his eyes brimming with hurt.

She meets his gaze with a sad, patient smile.

"You are not me. And you shouldn't be me."

"Why?" He demands petulantly. The words slither under his skin, scalding and aching. It's a sickness weaving through his veins, tugging on every fragile heartstring. "You don't believe in me," he accuses, voice shaking.

Her head tilts, slow and deliberate, a soft denial. "Of course I do, my little Sakuratsu."

"Then?" His voice cracks apart, the waver betraying him. His bottom lip trembles.

He doesn't understand. His mother's words cut deep. They hurt. They confuse. They twist everything warm into something sharp, and he doesn't like it.

She runs her hand through his pink, frazzled hair, smoothing it back with gentle strokes. Once, twice, again, until his eyelids grow heavy and finally close. "Your power is yours, okay?"

Sakuratsu lets out a low, irritated hum, the sound caught between defiance and weariness.

"Your power won't be like mine. You aren't me. It'll be yours." Her hand stills, leaving behind the ghost of warmth on his scalp. At that, Sakuratsu cracks one eye open, searching her face.

He finds it—love, unguarded and certain, shining through every line of her expression. It softens the knot in his chest.

"Do you understand?" she asks, her voice steady, almost solemn. "This power is only yours to bear. Because it makes Sakuratsu... Sakuratsu."

"But I'm your son," Sakuratsu mumbles. There's no heat to it.

"You are. And I love you very much."

Sakuratsu harrumphs, clearly pleased, though he turns his head to hide the little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't care for titles. Just like how you're Sakuratsu, I'm just... Sakura," She says with a small laugh. "Just plain, old Sakura."

What!? "You're not plain!" He balks.

She raises a playful brow. "Oh, but I'm old?"

"Yes, kind of."

She pinches his cheek between her fingers, giving it a little twist.

"Ow. You will pay for that. Now you have to give me seven whole um, an-anpans," he manages out, wrinkling his nose as he swats her hand away.

He's not sure if that's the right name for the sweet treasures his mother makes whenever she's in the mood to spoil him (which is quite often). He's never heard of those before. He remembers asking Itado-Oba-chan how to make them because he wanted to surprise his mother with them for her birthday. But she didn't know either, telling him that something like sugar didn't exist. She asked around, too. Nobody knew. So he'd chalked it up as an original dish made up of his mother's power, which in turn caused him to sulk because he couldn't give her that for her birthday. Just for him to find out that she preferred syrup-covered anko dumplings.

Whatever that meant.

(It wouldn't be until much, much later, as an adult, that he found out that his mother had been feeding him imperial, traded ingredients served only to royalty.

It wouldn't be until he woke up in a vessel hundreds of years into the future that he realized just what exactly his mother was feeding him.)

"Stupid, dumb name." He adds, just because.

"No," Sakura mock gasps. "Seven? That's so much!"

Good.

Sakuratsu nods with exaggerated seriousness. "Yes, seven. Big ones, too. Because you were mean, and I'm hungry." Just a little. Maybe a lot.

Sakura shakes her head good-naturedly and stands. Her hands linger. "Alright, Sakuratsu. Let's go make them right now, eh?" She thumbs back to the cabin, "Let's take a break."

Sakuratsu scowls further. "I'm not done training yet!"

"Okay," She nods sagely. "Then. If you can outrun me," Sakuratsu stiffens in provoked anticipation, "then I'll let you continue training. But..." She trails off, tapping at her chin in mock thought as she stares goofily up at the sky, "If I catch you... You have to eat all the anpan I make!"

Sakuratsu doesn't understand the threat. Either option is good.

But he runs anyway, laughing gleefully.

And when he's ultimately captured, snuggled, and danced around while he whines half-heartedly that she cheated, he lets himself think lightly for the first time in months.

And wonders, really, why it matters to carry a legacy in the first place, when he can make his own?

[. . .]

Sakuratsu is twelve when he is faced with death once again.

He stands soaked in the rain behind an alleyway, white hood drenched with blood. His shaking frame is racked with rage and shock, tasting the copper of his one and only friend in his mouth. Yu-yu-kun, sickly and stupid, is lying bare on the ground with a gaping wound on his neck, staring lifelessly up at the crying skies. There are violent bruises over nearly every inch of skin that was once painted by the greens of the meadows they once frollicked in.

"'Nother one?"

Two men step and kick at the body of the boy he shared his home with. Nobody else in the village ever saw. Just Yu-yu-kun, invited, because his mother was happy he had a friend.

"Put 'im down."

Sakuratsu can't... think.

Yu-yu-kun, wake up.

Hands grab at him.

His body remains still, staring. Horrified, disbelieving.

"The hell?"

"He ain't budgin'!"

Yu-yu-kun. Wake up.

But his friend doesn't wake.

And Sakuratsu is forced to stare, forced to take the attempted hits on his body that he can't feel or care for. His heart has stopped. His lungs have ceased their function. And inside him is a visceral agony that makes him want to scream to be saved.

Mama, he calls, save him. Mama, where are you?

He wants his mom.

Yu-yu-kun isn't moving.

The smell of blood, piss, and something sour ranks the air.

Nobody is coming.

"I'm tellin' ya, he ain't—"

And then rage.

Rage, so absolute, emerges like volcanic devastation. It spreads, a magma of tragedies, boiling his blood and centering directly into his heart like a mangled wound.

Fuck you. Fuck you Fuck you Fuck you, FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

Sakuratsu grabs the first flesh he can see and sinks his claws in. A scream is let out, pathetic and hoarse, and Sakuratsu doesn't care. He proceeds to break the skin, tear it apart slowly, catching the rivulets of blood that stain his hand in filth. He is mad, mad with an emotion he doesn't understand but never wants to feel again. The scream cuts short when Sakuratsu tears deeper, bone giving way beneath his nails. Vessels pop. His chest heaves with breathing sharp enough to slice, but he doesn't feel alive. He feels hollow, a vessel filled only with hate. The rain slicks his face, streaking down like tears he doesn't notice.

The second man stumbles back with his eyes wide. His mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

Sakuratsu turns toward him, drenched in blood and water, fingers dripping with meat.

His mother's words come unbidden, not as comfort, but as a command. Cursed energy is sharpened intent. Cleave what resists. Dismantle what does not.

He exhales viciously and the world changes. The alley's air bends. The man before him jerks as several lines—thin, invisible, merciless—open across his chest, his neck, his legs. For a moment, he looks confused, as though unsure who had struck him. Then his body folds, entrails steaming against the rain-wet earth.

Sakuratsu doesn't stop. He continues, slice after slice after slice.

All that remains is a pile of mush on the ground.

Sakuratsu stares. He stares until the bodies burn into his memories.

Then at his own hands. They are no longer the hands his mother has cradled and healed.

The air itself had listened to him. His fury had carved reality.

Yu-yu-kun still does not move. His body lies slack, eyes open, unblinking. And the realization crashes through Sakuratsu with greater weight than any corpse at his feet: nothing he does will bring his friend back.

The rage twists into something darker—grief that will never soften, never leave.

From that night forward, Sukuna discovers the truth.

That the weak do not live.

And that no amount of strength will keep them from death.

[. . .]

It is an evening where he sits, tired and bruised by the still water of Mother's glistening lake.

The surface ripples with the faint glow of twilight, reflecting his unveiled face. Blood trails down his arm, mixing with the water. Fireflies drift lazily above, their light mocking his exhaustion. The silence of the lake swallows his screams, leaving only the boy, his pain, and the promise of a life not fitted for the kind.

Mother finds him there. He senses her presence quickly, standing behind him. He hadn't heard her, so he doesn't know for how long she stood there for. But she's been watching.

Sakuratsu can't look at her.

He is sick.

Sick beyond measure.

Sick with grief.

Sick with rage.

He doesn't want to talk. He never wants to talk again. He is tired. He is angry. He hates the world. He hates everything and everyone.

Yu-yu-kun will never come back.

"...Sakuratsu."

"Go away," He croaks. He doesn't turn around. He doesn't care.

He's tired.

The fireflies are pretty, for things so small.

He doesn't hear her, but her presence is foreboding enough that Sakuratsu tracks her approach and then sits beside him. Warmth seeps on his side, her knee brushing his own. Her scent follows soon after, but the sense of comfort he expects to feel doesn't come.

There is an ugly contortion in his stomach, dropped by his heart.

It eats him alive.

It feels like betrayal.

He doesn't want to see her.

They don't speak for a long, long time.

Sakuratsu doesn't keep count of the hours. The night seeps, continues, until the edge of the sun breaks the horizon.

"I love you, my son."

Sakuratsu stiffens at his mother's voice. He doesn't turn; instead, he coils further into himself, shoulders hunching. He stubbornly stares at the water, ever moving. He blames the soft ripples on the wildlife, but even so, he knows the lake's movement is caused by an Other, something deriving from his mother's comforting thrum of power. His mother's energy is everywhere, here.

He sees his reflection. Empty and pathetic.

He sees hers. Solemn and knowing.

She stares right at him.

"...I know you don't want to see me, right now. You are grieving." She pauses, reaching over to brush a stray strand of grass away from his face. He lets her. "But I'm here for you. Whatever you need, I'm here. I understand it's likely not enough after what happened," She looks away from him, off into the distance. "I won't blame myself for not being there when you needed me, nor will I demand forgiveness from the world for its cruelty. This isn't about me or the world, right now."

Sakuratsu continues staring at his reflection in silence. A white fish peeks.

"...You loved him," she murmurs, voice steady, but thick with something unspoken. "And because you loved him, it hurts like this. That pain is proof, Sakuratsu. Proof that you gave your heart to another, even when the world told you to be hard, to be cruel. That is not weakness. That is something only the strongest can do."

She leans closer, brushing his damp hair back, her presence warm against the cold air. "I know it feels like the world has stolen everything from you. But listen to me: his laughter, his softness, those moments where children thrive as they are—you carry them now. They do not die with him. They live because you remember."

Her eyes glimmer with quiet resolve. "Yu-kun would not want you to see yourself as empty, or pathetic. He saw you. He chose you. And nothing—not even death—can take that truth away."

Her hand presses lightly over his heart. "Grieve him, my son. Cry, rage, break. But do not erase what he meant to you. Let him live here, with me, with you. You are not alone in this."

Sakuratsu is tired.

He is tired, and he will never be the same.

His expression twists. "...Did you lose someone... before...?"

His mother grows silent.

Then, "Lots. Too many."

Sakuratsu nods, then buries his face into his mother's chest and sobs. He feels stupid for crying, but not in front of his mother. She has always told him it's okay to cry. He needs to believe that, to continue on with his life, even if it feels like his heart is ripped out of his chest. He killed humans, he is bad, but is he good, after all? Because he did it for Yu-yu-kun. He did it because they deserved to die.

He cries for his mother too. She continues, always. How many people did she lose?

Sakuratsu doesn't know. He may never know.

But right now, he mourns. For Yu-yu-kun, for what they will never get to do. He mourns for what used to be, what he couldn't stop, what is left of his ghost and his heart.

He grieves and vows.

He will live. He will keep his memory alive.

And he will not tolerate weakness.

Not anymore.

[. . .]

Sakuratsu is fifteen when his mother disappears.

It happens overnight.

No warning, no whisper of departure beyond the sound of her feet on the old wooden floor, gone before the morning dew dries.

It happens just three days before her birthday.

He's old enough now to be left alone to his devices. He bids her farewell as she waves back at him from a distance, taking the path leading to the bright sun, casting a long shadow that nearly touches his feet. He feels nothing at her departure; she tends to come and go whenever there is a need to restock supplies or gather simple trinkets for personal entertainment. She's taken a liking to sewing lately.

She's not very good at it. But Sakuratsu likes the wonky scarves with his name. They smell like her. They remind him of warmth.

His mother always invites him to come with her on her outings, but since Yu-yu-kun's death, he hasn't found a reason to bother. It's not that he can't stomach the roads anymore; they all just look the same, and every path feels like it should end at a grave.

The village will stay for however long it'll last, and with it, Yu-yu-kun's memory.

The Itado family had planned a funeral funded by his mother's money. Everyone in the tight-knit village had gathered to mourn.

Sakuratsu had gone and watched his only friend be buried in the same land that killed him.

The dirt was damp, clinging, and he had wanted to claw it all back out, to dig until he reached the boy again.

That was three years ago, now.

Sakuratsu hasn't forgotten. He doesn't think he'll ever forget. Sometimes he dreams of Yu-yu-kun's bruised skin and wakes with his nails sunk into his palms, tasting the flesh of the mauled.

His mother notices a lot. Of his somber mood, one he tries to stifle for her. He doesn't like seeing his mother so sad. Well. She does a good job at hiding that too, but Sakuratsu can just tell. The way she lingers at the doorway when she thinks he's asleep. The way her smile falters when she catches him staring into nothing.

Nothing has been the same.

He hasn't told his mother, though he has a feeling she already knows. About his growing restlessness, he means.

There is a dark pit that hasn't faded away since Yu-yu-kun's death. It has grown and festered into his bleeding heart over time, only abated by his mother's gentle love. He sometimes tries to kill it, to make it go away. This isn't mother's way. The thoughts he gets... telling mother would feel like either suicide or a renewed death. He doesn't want to do that to her. He doesn't want to scare her. She's worried enough about him as it is.

But they persist.

It persists.

This craving for death, for flesh. For revenge. A whisper that never leaves, a hunger that sharpens when he's alone, reminding him that the world is still turning, still cruel, still full of weaklings who laugh at corpses.

This world is infested with evil. Sakuratsu wants to rid it of it all.

But he can't do it.

Killing is wrong. His mother has done it countless times, yes, but... Killing is wrong if he likes doing it.

That's what she said, technically. Sakuratsu doesn't remember right. She'd told him that revenge is a normal feeling. That it is only fair to want to enact revenge on the world for taking what it had given so freely before.

He thinks she was just trying to make him feel better. She doesn't know the taste in his mouth, the itch in his bones.

Sakuratsu just... knows.

His mother isn't evil.

She can't understand him like he wants her to.

She only kills when she has to. She's kind.

Sakuratsu is not.

His mother could insist all she wants on the good in him, how proud she is of him. But Sakuratsu knows the truth.

He sees it in the mirror every day.

So he waves to his mother goodbye until her silhouette disappears with distance, like nothing is wrong. He steps back into the home. Back to his room, to his thoughts, to the silence.

At first, he doesn't notice it.

A day passes. He tells himself it's nothing unusual. His mother often takes her time. She enjoys life, like that. The sun sets, and he lays out her scarf on the threshold, as if it might beckon her home. She does not come.

Another day crawls back. This one is slower, a bit more suffocating. The meals he cooks for her sit untouched, steaming bowls going cold in the stillness of the house. He begins to pace. He begins to wonder. His mother has always returned. Always.

But he tries to think.

She may be late because something delayed her.

She didn't explicitly tell him she went to the village for medicinal checkups on its residents, but that doesn't mean she'll stop herself from attending a patient. She always has time to spare for people in need.

Or maybe she took a longer path. She likes the scenery. She also likes expanding. She may be growing more trees as he speaks.

Maybe it's something else. Something worse.

But no. No, it's fine. He tells himself she's strong—stronger than anyone. Nothing can touch her. Nothing can harm her. She is his mother. She cannot be broken.

And yet, the put inside him gnaws and whispers: But what if?

On the third morning, paranoia wins. Sakuratsu takes up the path she had paved and walks with her long shadow still etched in his memory, stretching with warning across the dirt. He moves quickly, driven by a desperation that hardens in his chest. The forest somehow feels hostile, which is impossible because it has never felt that way before. The light is too dim. The earth is too quiet.

By the time he reaches the village, the air stinks of iron.

The sight that greets him makes his stomach lurch: ruins. Black smoke curls from shattered beams, and the crack of wood splinters under its own collapse. The village is strewn with bodies, their faces slack, their eyes staring into nothing, just like Yu-yu-kun. He stumbles through the wreckage with his hands trembling and throat raw with a sound he can't release.

His mother.

She was headed here. She was supposed to be here.

Where is she?

"Sakuratsu!"

The voice snaps him from his frantic searching. He turns, irritated and confused as to who would dare call his name, and there they are—the Itado family, huddled near the broken frame of their home. Itado-Oba-chan's face is smeared with ash as her hands shake to beckon him closer. On her back are wooden planks and several people trying their best to lift them. They need help, and as much as Sakuratsu would rather look for his mother, he can't refuse them. His mother loves them. They're her friends.

He rushes to their side, lifting debris, steadying wounded arms, and fetching what little water is left in the collapsed well from which he remembers Yu-yu-kun gathering water from. His heart pounds in his ears with every task and glimpse at the horizon, searching, always searching.

He needs to go. He needs to look for her.

Finally, when their breathing steadies and the fires die low, he dares to ask the question burning on his tongue.

"Where is my mother?"

Itado-Oba-chan's eyes glisten, deep and dark with sorrow. In her arms is a dead baby. Her newest grandchild. Sakuratsu doesn't quite care. He needs answers.

She takes his wrist, her grip weak, trembling. He lets her.

"She fought him," She whispers, voice breaking. "A... a man with red eyes..."

"What?" He hisses, seizing his hand back.

"I don't know, I don't know," Rambles Hajime next to her, her daughter. Yu-yu-kun's mother. She's older than he last saw her. "It was, was a man. He had long black hair and, and," She grips her face, blood smeared. She can't stop staring at the baby. "She, she fought him to protect us. I told her to run, he was—but she, and she didn't—"

The world tilts.

His mother. Engaged in battle. With a monster described in fragments, a nightmare given shape.

Sakuratsu can't breathe. Can't think.

His blood runs cold.

Where is my mother?

He grabs Hajime from the shirt rather threateningly, lifting her properly on her feet. "Where is she?" He snarls, and Hajime sobs out an answer.

Forward.

Forward he goes.

But he can't leave.

Guilt churns. He never liked Hajime for letting her son die. For letting him frolic about before Sakuratsu could get to him.

But they don't deserve this.

Sakuratsu's jaw clenches as Oba-chan's words echo in his skull, repeating, repeating until they blur into a constant hum of static. His chest feels too small for his heart, too fragile to hold the sharp, frantic pulse of terror rising inside him.

He stands before the Itado family, their faces drawn tight with fear, soot streaked against their skin. Their children clutch their mother's sleeves, silent but wide-eyed. They look at him as though he will know what to do—what to say.

They look at him and think he's Sakura.

He swallows the lump in his throat.

"Go," He says, his voice flat and empty. He jerks his chin toward the forest so far and tall beyond the smoking wreckage. "Follow the old path easy until you reach the cedar grove. My mother's cabin is there."

They hesitate, staring at him, searching his face for something more. A promise, comfort.

He gives them nothing. He is not his mother.

Whether or not they follow his advice, he doesn't care. He needs to find his mother.

Without another word, he turns and runs away.

His legs carry him faster than his thoughts. Each trek forward strikes the earth with a rhythm that drowns out the hollow ringing in his ears. He moves through the ruined fields, past the charred wood, into the broken lanterns. His breath burns. His throat tastes like copper.

"Mama," he mutters once, but the devastation doesn't answer.

He searches. Hours bleed into hours. His eyes scour every torn blade of grass, broken branch, and mark of a fight he prays he will not find. Not because he is scared in any shape or form, but because, unlike his mother, he isn't so merciful. If he finds even a scratch on her, he is decimating the enemy and hanging his skull in display for all to see his pathetic attempt at trying to hurt his beloved family.

His fingers tremble against the bark of posts, blood and sap sticky on his palms.

He calls his mother's name once, twice, then stops.

The hope he clings to dwindles with every passing second.

He calls again.

Nothing.

Only silence and the mocking chatter of crows in the canopy. He doesn't give up.

He focuses intently on her energy, hunting at wisps.

When at last he stumbles into a clearing of a charred, ashy wasteland that was once the meadows he and his mother chased each other in, the same grounds that he and Yu-yu-kun once played in, his knees nearly give way. The ground is crated and scarred, deepened with impact. Terrain is horribly malformed, and he finds an area so deep that it makes some sort of ravine. Mud is thick with blood.

He finds nothing.

Just blood and several pink locks of her hair.

And there, at the center of it all, he sees it.

A haori, caught on a blood sword, drifting soundlessly in the wind.

His mother's haori. The one she wore the morning she waved to him beneath the bright sun. The same familiar fabric, once soft against his cheek, now stained dark and clinging to a weapon drenched in sanguine. The breeze tugs at its sleeve, billowing it like a ghost.

Sakuratsu dies, right then and there.

Ryoumen Sukuna emerges, a week later, with a bloody haori.

And his mother's name in his heart.

[. . .]

Wearing his mother's face with hair colored in midnight, a tall woman with big, inky eyes and porcelain skin stands before him over the pebbled path leading to the temple, staring right at him.

Ryoumen Sukuna stares back, heart choked in his throat.

She is shrouded in an odd shade that reeks of a perfected, compressed, cursed energy, dressed in a bloody red jūnihitoe that eerily mimics his mother's choice of attire. Over the fabric are several black and white layers that give her an air of mystery and strength. Her expression is passive, and her posture is confident, with her chin lifted not with arrogance, but with a demand for respect.

And just on the center of her forehead is his mother's treasured mark.

A diamond.

But rather than the purifying purple shade of his mother's, hers is a punishing crimson.

Mother, he almost says the instant he catches sight. But upon further proper inspection, Sukuna relents that this woman isn't her.

There is a sinister bout attached to her, lingering like poison that his mother never had. Her eyes are narrower, her cheekbones more prominent. Her chin is sharper as well, but Sukuna can see it, plain as day.

She has his mother's face.

Sukuna feels like he's staring at a ghost that should never be.

Questions reel like rapid-fire in his mind; who is this woman? Why does she look so much like Mother? Is she an imitation? A curse? Or something else that Sukuna should have never known—never got to know? His thoughts snarl against each other, overlapping every sense.

Her face strikes him with such clarity that it unsettles him. There is a faint trace of warmth in her expression that recalls the rare softness he remembers only in fragments.

Could Kenjaku have sent her, some now experiment dressed in a skin too cruelly chosen? A puppet carved to wound him? Or is she proof of something else entirely—that his mother's legacy had wandered far beyond his grasp, leaving secrets in other lives, in other blood?

Sukuna doesn't dare entertain.

Anger, as always, is quick to meet him.

"Ryoumen Sukuna," She says, low and etched with a solemn edge. Her voice shocks him back into reality. It's deeper, a bit raspier. Less light than his mother's.

Sukuna sneers down at her. "And who are you, to address me so?" She has audacity, he'll give her that. He would've cleaved anyone who dared. But he can't find it in himself to strike this time. The most he does is twitch his fingers, a startled habit of action. Maybe it's indecision on whether or not to indulge whatever nonsense Kenjaku managed to conjure this time around.

Or maybe it's weakness.

Her eyes harden. Her intimidation factor rises. Looking like this, ready for combat, she looks nothing like his mother. It does little to soothe him. "My name is Uchiha Sarada," She answers readily. Sukuna doesn't know why, but that last name sounds familiar. But not familiar enough to care. "And I come here to return a sacred item Mama wanted to let you have."

It's a slap to the face.

Sukuna feels a sickness coil in his gut when she produces a large brown box from her sleeves. It shouldn't exist—its size is unnatural and its sudden weight presses against the air with... Sukuna carefully keeps his expression from contorting into shock. With his mother's energy. The shape is too familiar, too reminiscent of his mother's impossible pocket dimensions, yet warped, darker, as though carrying something that should never have been preserved. His pulse stutters.

Whatever lies inside, he knows it is not meant for human hands.

"You don't know me, and I don't intend for you to," She continues steadily. "I don't have much time here to spare, so I can't stay and have a chat." She eyes behind him, where Sukuna feels Uraume hover. "And I respect when I'm unwelcome."

Her eyes glide back to him. "But I'll say my peace before I go."

A silence stretches between them. The sudden rain tapping against the box seems louder than either of their voices.

Sukuna notices it doesn't touch her.

She lowers her gaze, lashes trembling. "I was told you were born here. That you're her son, too. Haruno Sakura."

Sukuna is deathly still.

"That makes you my brother. But..." Her voice cracks, just faintly, before she forces it flat again. "I won't ever know what that means. We didn't grow up together like she intended. Everything... went wrong."

She takes a deep breath. "I don't know what happened. But she's not here anymore. I know. I've searched. I've tried. You probably have, too." Her fingers linger on the box a moment longer before setting it before him, reverent as an offering. "I have more of her memory than you do. So all I can leave you with is this." She draws back, looking into his eyes. Sukuna stares into a mirror. "It isn't whole or enough. But it's all I could carry."

Sukuna stares at her—the sharpness of her features, the lines of their mother written faintly across her face.

He wonders if this is what his father looked like.

His sneer holds, but the air between his teeth is colder, heavier. "So that's it? You come from nowhere, call me brother, and vanish just as quickly? No," He steps forward menacingly, careful not to disturb the box. She doesn't move, merely continues to stare at him like she knows him. "You will remain here and tell me everything that you know of my mother at once. Or I kill you where you stand."

Sarada smiles sadly.

Sukuna's heart constricts.

In her place, his mother's image flickers. But it's not her.

"I wish I could stay and tell you everything," She says sincerely. His hands coil into fists. "But this is all I came to say. It's not enough, and I'm sorry for that. I hope you can forgive me."

Light begins to fracture around her form. Her edges blur, pieces of her body unspooling into nothing. She does not move toward him. She does not try to touch. She only holds his gaze as her body fades.

Sukuna curses, moving to seize her afterimage and force her to stay.

This is the first he has heard about his mother in decades.

He won't let her go.

He won't.

She turns around, and his hand meets air.

All he sees is a black figure, now.

"...My father sends his regards," Her voice sounds like an echo. It rings in his ears with regrets left unsaid. "He loved you, too."

She angles back.

Her eyes are as red as his.

He stops short, anguished.

"Mother did, too," She whispers, her last words pulled apart by the unraveling of her shape.

And then she's gone.

The box remains, it's wood dark with rain. Sukuna doesn't reach for it at first, too busy gazing outward onto the foggy plane of his mother's woods, searching for a figure he will never get to understand. Petrichor pelts at his feet, his skin, his face. He lets it soak, lets the water trace his every scar and tattoo. He lets himself breathe through the unexpected grief brought back to life.

His jaw tightens, but his eyes do not follow his mouth's disdain.

"Sukuna-sama."

He doesn't reply.

"...Shall I go look for her?"

He breathes in, breath rattling. His expression falls, just for a second, before leveling. "Don't bother," he grits. "Just prepare dinner. I won't indulge in this nonsense."

"Very well, Sukuna-sama." Uraume's steps echo and grow distant.

Alone again, he stands in the silence she left behind. The sneer softens to nothing. He mutters into the empty air, almost against his will: "Tch. It doesn't matter."

But his hands are shaking when he finally touches the box.

Because it does matter.

It is the only thing that has ever mattered in his life.

Sukuna thinks about trashing it, to tear away the falsity of what he's just seen.

But Sukuna is Sakuratsu.

And as much as he tried to kill him, that little boy remains, waiting for his mother to come home.

So he opens it.

A womb stares back at him.

[. . .]

One thousand years later, incarnated within a teenage fool, Ryoumen Sukuna stares with something akin to horror, disbelief, and sorrow.

For his mother stands in front of him after so many years, staring at his prison with love.