You made me hate myself a lot.

༻𖥸༺

TO HAVE HIS SOUL TOUCHED BY THE hands of this fool felt akin to being seduced by his greatest enemy. It was close to violation, as the only person who came this close to him at his most vulnerable moment was the one who taught him how to protect it.

Perhaps it was an amusing coincidence that his vessel could not be touched. Or perhaps it had something to do with his own perception over the connection between the two of them. Regardless of the truth, Sukuna found himself greatly amused by this Mahito character.

His actions towards the forming of a pact between vessel and curse were in vain. They already had one, not that the brat could remember it.

To feel Yuji's burning hatred was a bit of an eye-opener 一 no, not an eye-opener, but more like a re-acounted lesson.

("The gentlest of people burn with the brightest of rage."

Sukuna tilted his head, red eyes trained on the figure clad in white that stood before him. "Why are you telling me this?"

Slitted golden eyes looked back at him from over broad shoulders, elven ears peaking from beneath silver strands of hair. "So that you know not to repeat the mistake of many before you.")

The lord's warning from back then had been thoroughly ignored by his distracted mind. And he had paid the price for it.

There wasn't much that Sukuna regretted, if he were to be speaking frankly. Everything he did, he did it because he wanted to, but regret一 he'd only felt it once in his life.

I was a missed chance, one that she'd given him not just out of the goodness of her heart, but for the fact that一in her words一everyone deserves a second chance. The only thing that her generosity made him realise, however, was that he had no place by her side.

It had been like a sudden dip in the chilling waters of the ocean. He, a being who revelled in the darkness and discord that it created, could not (would not), claim her as his. It would have been unfair to her, she who shone so brilliantly in her purity and kindness.

It could be said that the more he spent by her side, the more he grew to hate himself. Self-hatred. That had been a feeling he'd mused over a long time back then.

Philautia, the act of self-love, as humans so eloquently put it, was a foreign concept to one such as himself.

Love was a fickle thing to those who grew without it. It's a trivial matter that is craved by all humans. Philia, Storge and Eros 一 it's all so... fleeting, so human.

(She smiled at him from beyond raven hair, azure eyes glowing under the sun's rays and she was a radiant goddess in this plain scenery. "Hurry Sukuna!"

She was a goddess through and through. And he her devout follower.)

And he was but a slave to it.

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He'd heard of her long before he'd met her. Her story spreading across the lands of Nihongo like wildfire, consuming the thoughts of every being. Perhaps that had been the first step towards his downfall. Her story, no matter how many parts the common folk did not know, was a beacon for all that wished to test their might against the person who saved the country.

He'd mused that she would be a worthy challenge, one that would put up a great fight but fall to her knees like many before her.

Oh, how wrong he had been.

She'd ruined him, he who knew not of yokai and their spirituality, he who knew not what made a miko. He was a novice in all matters mamonoke and that had translated quite eloquently in his fight with the woman hailed as the greatest priestess in history.

The one to be dominated had been him, and he'd fallen, not unlike Icarus in flight, before her.

Yet she'd bestowed mercy onto him, smiled at his thoughts of death一the first time his own had been a concern一and extended a hand.

("You're being awfully broody. Mind telling me why?" Her question came like a reprieve from his despairing mind.

He scoffed, his red eyes glancing everywhere but at the aura of purity around her. "I lost." And what a painful reminder that was. "So hurry up and kill me!"

She appeared to be honestly befuddled at his outburst. "Kill you?" She tilted her head, raven hair spilling over her shoulder. "Why would I do that?"

Her confusion transferred to himself, two pairs of red eyes widening at the genuine admission. "You're not...?"

The look on his face must have amused her, for she laughed and laughed, yet it was void of derision, sounding as clear as a temple's bells. She smiled warmly at him, eyes of a summer sea's blue glinting with an emotion foreign to him.

"Living just to fight isn't all that fun, ne?" She turned her back to him and walked away. "So let me show you reasons to live.")

He'd followed her. Like a fool lost in a forest of pines, who'd walked off the path set to admire the world, he'd followed her.

She introduced him to a world so different and bright from the one he had known. Perhaps the way she lived, the way she viewed life as a whole一 maybe that was how he used to see the world before his cursed fall.

She showed him many reasons to live, and, unknowingly to her, she herself became the epicenter of his world.

With her kindness came revelations. And with those revelations came the unexpected realization of his existence一 that he'd follow her to the world's end, not regretting a single moment.

He'd tried to do so, but failure had become unanimous with his feelings towards her.