After my mother's death, my life became even more monotonous. I hunted three times a week, bathed twice in a nearby river, and slept from sundown until sunrise.
The only moments of genuine interest came when I practiced my powers. They were strange, almost alien, but also innately familiar. I already knew they were fueled by negative emotions, but I also understood, on an instinctive level, their names and functions.
Dismantle a ranged slash that cuts through anything in its path.
Cleave a powerful cutting ability that allows me to slice anything I touch, precisely in any way I can imagine.
I had a feeling there was still more I could do, but I had no idea where to start. So I practiced what I knew, using both abilities daily for different tasks. I'd use Dismantle to fell a tree and then Cleave to turn it into perfect logs. I did the same with hunting, neatly processing animals and evil spirits alike.
The second thing I learned was how to sense the spirits. When one was nearby, the air itself felt putrid, though my nose detected nothing. That's when it clicked. If my powers were fueled by negative emotions, what if these spirits were negative emotions given form? I had no proof, but it was the only theory that made sense.
inally, I learned to feel and manifest the energy within me. The first time I tried, I was just curious if I could use it without a specific technique like Cleave or Dismantle. The result was a sudden flash of blue, greenish, and black fire that engulfed my fist. When I punched a tree, it was instantly pulverized.
Realizing I could actively bring this energy forth, I tried to get a better feel for it. That's when I made a crucial discovery: this was the reason I was so much tougher and stronger than a normal six-year-old. The same energy I used for my attacks was instinctively flowing around my body, with the highest concentration in my fingers. I also learned that if I consciously cycled the energy, I could get even greater benefits.
I learned all of this in two years.
During those two years, I honed my skills. Dismantle could now travel eighty feet in a single second, and I could use Cleave to reduce an entire tree into fine splinters. My physical prowess also grew to a level that would make even the best Olympic athletes green with envy. I could jump higher than a house, outrun a car, and punch with the force of a top-tier heavyweight fighter. The power honestly felt overwhelming, almost unfair.
My body also seemed to be growing taller than it had any right to, and I wasn't sure if it was a result of constantly cycling the energy through my body or another effect of my condition.
Those two years were a period of serene calm. I lived alone in the shrine, which I had repaired with the planks I created using Cleave.
Life was boring. Monotonous.
But it was calm.
That all changed on one of my routine hunts when I came across three men. They were dressed in what I assumed was Japanese hunting attire, given the bows they carried and the duck one of them held.
None of them had any particularly distinctive features. They all had black hair and slanted eyes. The only thing that set them apart was their build: one was short with a slight belly and a mustache, another was tall and lanky, and the one in the middle was of average height with his hair tied in a knot.
We stood staring at each other for a tense five seconds. Before I could utter a word, they screamed and ran, thankfully heading in the opposite direction from my shrine. I sighed, watching them go. People were truly jerks, even in ancient times.
I thought that would be the end of it. My appearance, after all, was undeniably frightening; they would surely think I was some kind of monster or demon and warn everyone to stay away.
I was proven wrong the next day. A large mob marched toward the shrine. Some carried torches, others had swords, but the majority were armed with bows and arrows.
There were about twenty people in the mob, all led by the man with the hair-knot.
They stopped abruptly once they reached the clearing in front of the shrine, and many of them gasped audibly at the sight of me. With my enhanced vision, I saw some begin to shiver while others broke out in a cold sweat.
I simply stood at the shrine's entrance, my arms crossed over my chest. At eight years old, I was already five feet tall, so I wasn't much shorter than they were. They didn't know my age, of course. My only tell was the lingering baby fat on my face, but in their fear, it seemed no one cared to notice.
"F-foul Demon, how dare you come and forsake this shrine?!" the guy with the hair-knot screamed at me. I didn't recognize most words he said, except for 'Akuma', since it was the same word the villagers from my mother's village called me before we left.
"What did you do to the woman that lived here?!" another voice spoke up, and I couldn't see who had said that.
"Yeah! She used to come to the village a few times, but she suddenly stopped two years ago." This time, it was an archer from the far right; he already had his bow drawn and pointing at me. "Was it you?! Did you kill her foul demon?!"
Akuma. That word again. It felt like a deliberate insult, and I was certain it was. My anger flared, but I quickly suppressed it.
I could still resolve this without bloodshed. I slowly raised my arm, noting how almost everyone flinched, and then slapped my chest. "I am. Sukuna," I stated, using the simple, choppy words I'd heard my mother use for me.
To be sure they understood, I slapped my chest again, enunciating each syllable. "Su-ku-na." I think I got the point across. The mob started whispering amongst themselves, and some of them cautiously lowered their weapons.
"Is it mocking us?"
"What do you think that means? Sukuna?"
"Is that its name? Sukuna?"
"Is it trying to communicate with us?"
"I think-"
"Everyone!" The man with the hair-knot roared, his voice cutting through the whispers. "Don't let this demon's tricks fool you! It's trying to make you drop your guard!" He wildly waved his arms. Whatever he was saying, it carried a palpable sense of danger. "We have to kill it now, before its tricks work! Archers, shoot it! We'll finish it off while it's wounded! Attack!"
He pointed at me with his katana, and in that instant, I knew peaceful resolution was no longer an option.
The archers swiftly aimed their bows and fired. I unfurled my arms from my chest and flicked my fingers, sending out a flurry of weak Dismantles that cleanly bisected every incoming arrow. This seemed to have a dual effect on the mob: it terrified them, but it also spurred the swordsmen into a frenzied charge.
Since the moment I was born, everyone had treated me like a monster, a demon, a curse upon the land. My mother was exiled simply for giving birth to me—how was she supposed to control that?! She came to hate me, seeing me as the sole source of all her suffering. And though I didn't hate her in return, I still resented her for never showing me anything but contempt.
And now this.
The first people I'd seen in years, I tried to have a conversation, and they ran in terror. They came back with a mob, and when I tried to introduce myself and resolve things peacefully, they responded by trying to kill me!
I leaped back from two simultaneous sword swings and then, with a flick of my wrist, slapped away two arrows while catching another two out of the air.
I used Dismantle to shatter their katanas, but they still came at me, trying to stab me with the broken remains, while others threw the shattered blades at me.
Then I saw it. They lit their arrows. They aimed for the shrine.
My home.
The only thing I had left.
Yeah, fuck them.
With a silent roar of anger, I sent out two powerful, wide-range Dismantles, and the forest fell into an unnatural silence. One by one, they began to fall apart. Each body is separated into three clean pieces. I had aimed for their throats and stomachs, but for those who were shorter, the slashes sliced straight through their heads and foreheads.
Finally, the last to fall apart was the one who had brought them all here, that arrogant asshole with his hair-knot.
He stood for a few seconds longer than the others, a brief eternity, and I felt a surge of satisfaction as his eyes widened in terror. The line appeared exactly at eye level.
And just like that, the battle was over. The clearing was no longer a battleground, but a silent field littered with body parts.
I let out a long sigh. It was going to be a pain to clean up this mess. I really wished I had fire as one of my powers.
Somewhere else
Mizuki ran as fast as his legs could carry him, lungs burning with every desperate stride.
He never thought it would come to this. When Minamoto had burst back from his hunt, frantic and babbling about a demon in the forest near the old shrine, everyone in the village had looked at him as if he were mad. But they couldn't dismiss his story entirely.
Not only was his account corroborated by Inuza and Kanoto, but Minamoto was also their village's best and most reliable hunter. He knew the woods like the back of his hand and had been sent out specifically by the village elder to investigate the strange scarcity of animals in the area. His word carried weight.
Instead of dismissing his story, the village elder had listened intently. His reason for believing Minamoto wasn't from the corroboration, but from a similar experience of his own years ago. The elder never fully explained why he believed him, but Mizuki had managed to overhear him saying something about how "weird that it could be seen."
When Minamoto gave them a description, it gave them a rough idea of how to find the demon. It wouldn't be hard to miss. It resembled a human, but it had light red hair, four arms, and four red, bloodshot eyes that stared into your soul.
The elder then ordered a group of fighters to be organized and go exorcise the "curse." For some reason, the elder had called it a curse instead of a demon, and Mizuki didn't know why, but it didn't matter now.
When they had arrived at the shrine, the demon-curse looked at them with a bored, unsettling expression. It had the gall to dress like a human, wearing the worn, tattered rags of a kimono that probably belonged to the priest who had lived there years ago. Worse yet, it had dared to take on the face of a child, though it couldn't hide its true nature. The corruption was obvious: the right side of its face was grotesquely deformed, and four blood-red eyes stared straight into their souls.
The curse tried to trick them, to make them lower their guard. But Minamoto had seen right through its devious plot, and they attacked before it could react.
The creature blocked their initial assault, but that didn't matter; they still had the numerical advantage.
When he saw the swords shatter, a cold, primal fear shot up the back of his neck, screaming at him to run. To warn the others. And so he did.
Not long after he fled, all sounds of fighting abruptly ceased. The chilling silence was even more terrifying than the battle's noise, and Mizuki feared the worst. His fears were confirmed when no one came back down from the shrine; if they had won, they would have already returned.
As the village's roofs began to appear through the trees, a wave of relief washed over him. All he could do now was run to the village elder and tell him what had happened.
Several days later
It took some time to get rid of all the bodies. Since they were the ones who attacked me, I didn't even bother burying them. I simply threw them as hard as I could into the surrounding forest, leaving them for the wild animals to deal with.
I was concerned a larger mob might come from the village, forcing me to kill them and create another mess, but nothing of the sort happened. I assumed they had given up after that first attempt, perhaps having sent all their able-bodied men to fight me.
Whatever the reason, tranquility returned to my home, and I was content with that.
I thought I would be more torn up about killing all those people. But they hadn't given me a choice. They refused to speak like rational human beings, seeing only a monster they were determined to kill. I wasn't a monster, goddammit. I was human.
And my name was Sukuna.
I took a deep breath, pushing the dead from my mind. I couldn't let them get to me.
Right now, I was hunting farther than I ever had before. It was strange. I was certain I wasn't killing enough animals to disrupt the food chain. So the only logical explanation was that they were running from something. I just didn't know what.
It took some time, but I eventually found a few hares, which I quickly killed with Dismantle. It would have to be enough. I picked them up and started the walk back.
As I made my way to the shrine, I caught a new scent: smoke. I looked up and saw a huge, dark cloud rising into the sky. It was rising from the direction of the shrine.
Motherfuckers.
They had attacked, but only after I had left. My body surged with energy, and the world blurred around me as I ran.
Motherfuckers.
What the fuck did I do to them? I hadn't attacked first. I had tried to communicate. They were the ones who answered with violence.
A light began to grow, shining through the trees, a sign that I was getting closer.
Motherfuckers!
I ran faster, closer, until I burst into the clearing and saw fire. Fire everywhere. The trees around the clearing were all ablaze, the small side building where I stored food was engulfed, and the shrine itself was burning.
My home was burning. The only thing I had was turning to ashes.
And standing in front of it all was a single man.
MOTHERFUCKER.
He was wearing an expensive-looking kimono—black with green highlights—and a katana was sheathed at his right side. Most importantly, a symbol was woven onto its right chest: three leaves forming the beginning of a circle of other leaves.
He turned to look at me the moment I burst from the forest. Unlike the villagers, this man was memorable. He was handsome, with piercing blue eyes and dark green hair, and wore an infuriating smile on his face.
"Are you Curse-san? You know it's bad manners to keep a guest waiting," he said. I didn't understand the words, but his condescending tone was unmistakable. "Ooohh, that's a scary aura you have, Curse-san, no wonder there are no animals around."
The fucker kept talking, as if the fire raging around him wasn't even there.
"Huh? What's this? You don't feel like a curse at all. In fact, you feel like a—" He cut himself off and began to giggle, which soon turned into a full-hearted laugh. "Oh, this is hilarious! And you had the bad fortune to be born like that. Poor mother. She must've wanted to drown you when you were born."
Suddenly, the crackling of the fire seemed to muffle, fading into the background as a single word echoed in my mind: Hahaoya. It was a word I recognized, one of the few Japanese words I remembered. It was another way of saying…
…Mother.
He had the gall—
"Well, I should give the world a favor and get rid of your ugly mug." I felt the energy stir, but it wasn't my doing. It was him. He was like me. He was like me, and he was trying to kill me.
First, he comes into my home and burns it to the ground.
"Let's get this over with, I want to leave as soon as possible," he said, raising his hand. A familiar flame, the same color as the one that had pulverized the tree, ignited over it.
Then he insulted my mother—the woman who never loved me, but who still fed and clothed me even when she didn't have to.
The man's face twisted into a sickeningly sweet smile. "Would you please die for me, Curse-san?" He reared back his arm.
And now he is trying to kill me. Like everyone else.
I made a brief down motion with my fingers.
-and his arm fell to the ground. Cleanly severed at the elbow.
I saw his eyes begin to widen, but I didn't even give him time to react.
I make two horizontal motions with my second pair of hands.
His legs fall to the sides, no longer connected to his knees, and he falls on top of them with a loud squelch.
He opened his mouth, a scream ready to tear from his throat. I closed the distance in an instant, clamping my lower arm over his mouth before a single sound could escape.
"Mmmph!" His saliva met my hand. Disgusting.
I took a moment to savor it—the fear, the panic, the pain. The sheer, unadulterated terror he was feeling right now was a sweet, satisfying sensation.
My face turned impassive as I stared down at the pathetic excuse for a human being in my hand.
Now only one thing to do.
"Cleave"
For a second, his face was a mask of confused agony, but then thin cuts began to appear all over his body. A moment later, he was nothing more than a red smear on the floor. My rage, like the flames around me, burned for a moment longer before I turned my head to look at the burning shrine.
My home. Reduced to ashes.
The rage returned, a cold, hard fire in my chest. The villagers. They sent this motherfucker after me. I knew it.
I was out here, causing no trouble. They intervened.
I tried to communicate peacefully. They attacked.
I tried to move on. They retaliated.
No more.
I'm going to kill them all.