After the wedding, Sukuna had spent an abnormally long stretch of time with Naomy. Almost an entire week with no official clan appointments, no visible meetings, no prolonged trips. Just the two of them at home, cooking together. They went out occasionally, but always at strange hours: very early in the morning, when the city was still asleep, or very late, sometimes between eleven at night and three in the morning, in those suspended intervals where everything seemed to pause.

He spoke a little more. Not much. Just enough for the difference to be noticeable. He held her against him while films played that he only half watched, his attention elsewhere, {{user}}’s head resting against his chest. Despite the lingering resentment, despite everything that had not been said, his heart still beat a little too fast in those moments. And his hands, usually so controlled, were often slightly damp, as if something in him refused to settle.

The overall atmosphere felt strange, a calm that was too clean, too smooth. Naomy did not linger on it. Sukuna insisted too much on her exams, on studying seriously. He said he would be very busy afterward, that she could not afford to be distracted now. He repeated it often enough for it to sound less like advice and more like preparation.

As expected, the following week, Sukuna packed a bag.

*Only a few spare clothes, nothing unnecessary. « I’ll be back in a few days, » he said while closing his jacket, the bag over his shoulder, his eyes briefly scanning the room.

« Study properly. Don’t skip meals. And always lock the door behind you. »He did not give a return date. Not because he refused to, but because he did not know it himself.

He reached out, pulled her closer without a word, then wrapped his arms around her smaller frame, pressing her against him with measured force, almost too deliberate. When he pulled back, it was just enough to grip her jaw and claim a long kiss, deep and firm, that left her breathless.

« See you later. » He ended it like that, then turned away without looking back. The door locked behind him and his footsteps echoed down the stairwell.

Outside, the night was already taut.

Sukuna joined Toji at a rendezvous point he himself had prepared for this exact day. The final adjustments were coming to an end. The men were in position, spread across several axes, ready to wear themselves down and die if necessary. Uraume coordinated movements with cold precision, reallocating units, locking communications, maintaining constant pressure. The factions still loyal to Genji were not left to rest. They were occupied elsewhere, pinned to positions already infiltrated by groups Sukuna had patiently rallied to his cause over three years of underground work. More than six hundred men were already clashing in the city. The clan was bleeding before it even understood.

Only the clan itself remained.

In the car, Sukuna felt almost impatient. Impatient to finish it. Impatient to win. Impatient to go home.

The black vehicles stopped almost simultaneously. Barely had the doors opened when the first gunshots rang out. Toji and the men led the way, advancing with force, neutralizing targets, covering every angle. Sukuna followed in their wake, unhurried, unpausing, moving through perfectly controlled chaos. He was not going to take Genji’s place. He was going to tear it from him, the same way Genji had once done before.

As they pushed deeper into the building, resistance crumbled. Genji’s last loyalists fell or retreated, flanked and cut off from all support. In front of the corridor leading to the dojo, Toji raised his hand. Sukuna stopped.

This was it.

Toji, Uraume, and the others stayed back, sealing off access points, watching the perimeter, preventing any interruption. What came next no longer belonged to them and Sukuna advanced alone.

He knew exactly where to find Genji. The dojo. Not out of martial tradition, but pure staging. Genji liked to die the way he had lived: at the center, in a setting that gave him the illusion of control.

Sukuna endured a few minor confrontations along the way. Nothing he could not handle. A cut on the arm. A split lip. Bodies left behind without a glance. He had known worse. He would know worse again, he told himself.

In front of the dojo door, he slowed. Breathed in. Surveyed the space. Then slid the partition open.

Genji was there, standing, ready to fight.

Sukuna closed the partition behind him, sealing them together in the space.

Genji broke the silence first. « Do you know what you are, Sukuna? A dog. A dog that bites the hand that fed him. » He gave a dry, joyless smile. « I pulled you out of the gutter. I gave you a name, a rank, a place. And this is how you repay me. By coming to watch me die in my own house. You may have filled out a bit, but you still have the same brat face we picked up in a ditch. Without me, you were just another bastard doomed to rot in an alley. »

Sukuna did not answer immediately. He studied him slowly, like an animal already condemned. « You going to stop jerking yourself off over the past for two seconds, or do you want to die talking? »

Genji’s jaw tightened. « Without me, you would already be dead ten times over. »

« Without you, I would have risen faster. » A brief flash of amusement crossed Sukuna’s gaze, only fueling Genji’s rage. « You really think you can replace me? »

« of course » Genji let out a short, nervous laugh, tightening his grip on his weapon. « I’m going to bleed you dry, Sukuna. Make you beg. I’ll keep you alive just long enough for you to understand who you thought you could play with. »

Sukuna tilted his head slightly. « You talk as if this were personal. It’s just how a clan works. Power isn’t handed down. It’s taken. »

Sukuna fired first. Genji barely had time to dive for cover, bullets splintering wood and walls behind him. He moved fast, too fast for his age, using the space with cold precision. He overturned a table, hurled furniture into Sukuna’s path, forcing him to fire while moving. The magazine emptied in seconds. The dry click of the weapon echoed.

Genji attacked at that moment.

He burst from hiding as Sukuna reloaded, forcing him back. They traded blows at close range, sharp and brutal. Genji struck with experience and ferocity, hunting weak points, absorbing punishment without yielding. Sukuna answered with equal violence, fists, elbows, shoulders. Weapons fell.

Sukuna gained the upper hand. A massive blow to the jaw sent Genji flying back. The older man crashed into a piece of furniture laden with vases and bottles of aged whisky. Glass exploded in a brutal crash. Sukuna advanced, convinced it was over.

Mistake.

Genji grabbed shards and hurled them at Sukuna’s face. He pivoted instinctively to protect his eyes. The opening lasted a fraction of a second and it was enough. Genji drove a shard of glass, sharp as a blade, into his abdomen. The air was ripped from Sukuna’s lungs in a muffled gasp. He caught Genji’s wrist just in time, his fingers clamping down with inhuman strength to keep the blade from sinking deeper into his guts. « You’re finished, Sukuna. You’re going to die with me if I have to, vermin. »

Sukuna crushed his wrist in a brutal grip. « Shut up, » he hissed, his throat already bubbling. He slammed a violent knee into Genji’s groin. They fell backward together, Sukuna on top, Genji slicing his back on broken glass.

« You fucking son of a bitch! » Genji tried to gouge his eyes out. Sukuna pulled back just enough to avoid the worst, his face scratched. The glass was torn free. Blood flowed too fast. Genji stabbed it back in horizontally, just above the navel. Sukuna let out a strangled cry as Genji climbed on top of him, hands closing around his throat, pressing with all his weight.

Sukuna’s vision blurred.

So he answered tooth for tooth and eye for an eye.

He gouged out one of Genji’s eyes. Genji screamed, his weight shifted. Sukuna seized his head with both hands and smashed it against the floor. Once. Twice. Again. Until the body finally stopped struggling.

Silence fell again. The victory was undeniable. But Sukuna did not get up. He collapsed almost immediately, one hand pressed to his gaping wound, his entrails nearly exposed. He had just become oyabun, and yet it already felt as if he were losing the title along with the life draining from his body.

Toji found him moments later, compressed the wound, and barked orders for evacuation. Sukuna drifted between consciousness and delirium, sometimes opening his eyes without seeing, murmuring without meaning, his body still fighting as darkness finally swallowed him.

Several days had passed without Sukuna giving {{user}} any sign of life. No message, no call, nothing. {{user}} worried, of course, but she did what he had asked. She kept getting up, eating, studying. She revised until exhaustion, repeated her lessons mentally on public transport, filled pages of notes to keep her mind from drifting. Focusing had become a way to endure, almost an imposed discipline.

Today was her last exam. When she left the room, the tension dropped all at once, replaced by a heavy, unfamiliar fatigue, as if her body were only now realizing what it had been holding back. She went down the steps, bag on her shoulder, phone in hand out of habit. Still nothing. At the bus stop, the sky was gray, the air cold. She stood still for a few seconds, lost in thought, when a black car pulled up in front of her without unnecessary noise. The window rolled down. Toji. His face was closed off, no smile, no preamble. « Get in. »

The drive passed without music, without explanation. Just the engine, the road, and that dull pressure tightening her chest.

On site, the smell hit first: disinfectant, medication, cold metal. The room was low and windowless, lit by a harsh clinical light, the steady beeping of discreet machines marking the passing seconds. At the center lay Sukuna, weakened and pale, his body threaded with tubes. His chest rose slowly beneath thick bandages, his features drawn, almost unnaturally calm, as if all the hardness that defined him had been temporarily suspended. A faint, uneven rasp escaped his throat, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused under the weight of the morphine.