📖 Chapter 22 – "Mama, Are You Real?"
The woods were quiet — too quiet. Mist curled around Lucius's boots as he wandered between the trees, his footsteps light but heavy with memory. Each step took him deeper into a place time had long forgotten.
> "Why do some memories feel warm… even when they end in blood?"
His voice echoed faintly — or maybe it was only in his head. Then he heard it — soft and broken — a whisper that belonged to a much younger version of himself.
> "Where is my mom…?"
And just like that… the present began to fade.
It was a cold night, the kind only a cursed moon could bring. A much younger Lucius sat alone under the silver sky, eyes swollen with tears, hugging his knees.
He cried for something he barely remembered… but deeply needed.
Then, she appeared.
A tall figure stepped from the shadows — black hair flowing, small horns glowing under the moonlight. Her eyes weren't human, but they held warmth. A gentleness that no one else had offered him.
She knelt before him, brushing his cheek with a clawed hand.
> "It's okay… I'll protect you."
The boy's voice cracked.
> "Mama…?"
She smiled — not out of mockery, not out of confusion — but with pure acceptance.
> "If that's what you want to call me… then yes. I'm your Mama now."
What followed was a fleeting miracle.
She fed him with her own hands. Sang to him at night. Watched him fall asleep, tucked under leaves and star-shadows. And for the first time, Lucius smiled — not because the pain had gone, but because someone finally saw him.
> "You're not like the others," he told her one day, handing her a small flower.
She held it like it was treasure.
> "For the first time," Lucius would later think, "I felt safe. Like the moon had sent me a second mother."
That night, he lay in her lap, watching the stars.
> "Will you stay forever?" he asked.
> "Until the stars forget to shine…" she whispered, and kissed his forehead.
But the jungle knew no peace for long.
Cursed energy trembled in the air. Even the trees began to shiver.
> "They've found us," she whispered, her smile fading.
The Gojo Clan arrived like ghosts — silver-haired, cloaked in light and malice. Their eyes said one thing:
Erase the mistake.
> "That cursed woman… she's hiding the demon child," one of them hissed.
Lucius ran behind her, shaking.
> "He's just a child!" she screamed, arms spread wide to shield him.
But they didn't care.
An arrow struck her back.
Lucius screamed, "MAMA!!!"
She didn't fall immediately. Her hands lit up with violet flames, her claws extended. She fought — gods, she fought — but there were too many.
A cursed blade found her chest.
She dropped beside him, bleeding.
Still, she smiled.
> "Don't forget… the moon chose you."
Her body crumbled into petals — cursed, beautiful, and final.
Lucius didn't cry.
He just stared.
> That was the day I cried without a sound…
and broke without a scar.
The memory faded, but the ache remained.
Back in the present, Lucius sat beneath that same cursed moon, silent, unmoving. A single tear slid down his cheek.
> "I called her Mama," he whispered, "and they took her away."
The red marks returned — crawling like flames across his neck.
> "They all must pay."
He looked up at the stars, fists clenched.
> "Sukuna… you saw it all, didn't you?"
Inside him, a voice rumbled — cold and cruel, yet somehow protective.
> "That pain… is why we will never be weak again."
And so, the boy who once cried for a mother…
…now walked, eyes sharp and heart burning, toward the throne of a king.
🌙 To be continued in Chapter 23: "No Mercy for Memory"
🩸 Moon of the Fallen King continues…