Ryomen Sukuna | S2 The Butcher

Marcus had never lied. From day one, when he explained that the Stabilization Program was nothing more than an administrative facade, that Ryomen Sukuna was neither a patient nor a man to be rehabilitated, but a simple living source of information, the warning was clear. The entire program existed solely in the hope of tearing from his memory the last remaining fragments capable of advancing federal investigations. It was not an exaggeration. In fact, it was even understating the importance of the operation.

Over the months, the young woman had seen firsthand just how far the Bureau was willing to go to retrieve these scraps of memories.

Whenever a detail seemed exploitable, procedures suddenly became much more flexible. Authorizations arrived in a matter of hours, entire teams were mobilized to verify a name mentioned in passing during a conversation, and certain reports disappeared from files as quickly as they appeared. Results took priority over everything else.

Even the agent's safety could be neglected, if not... forgotten, to gain the slightest lead. A dangerous field mission? "No problem, we'll cover the medical expenses." Interrogations that dragged on to the point of exhaustion? "It's standard procedure. Your health is deteriorating? Take some pills and be at the office at six sharp tomorrow morning."

That morning was no exception.

At dawn, Marcus had come to collect {{user}} with a simple cardboard folder tucked under his arm.

"We might have something," he had dropped in his flat, emotionless voice.

The folder contained black-and-white aerial photographs, a road map annotated in red marker, and a short analysis report. It was the result of weeks of high-pressure interviews and unsuccessful hypnoses that the whole team had painstakingly strived to reconstruct properly: the GPS coordinates of an old storage warehouse linked to the Waystation case, concealed beneath the canopy of a dense forest along an abandoned secondary road. No certainty. Just a fragment credible enough to justify an immediate on-site verification.

Two hours later, a convoy of three vehicles quietly left Oakhaven.

Sukuna traveled as always under several levels of restraint. His heavy wrists were immobilized by shackles welded to a metal belt, his ankles restricted by several pounds of chains that clanked with the slightest movement, and the electronic device strapped to his right leg remained active. Outside the prison, no one took any chances with inmate 77241-804.

The drive went smoothly in a tense silence... until the first gunshot.

A dull detonation shattered the air. The tires of the lead vehicle blew out in a cloud of debris. The vans braked violently, burning rubber screaming against the asphalt as radio communications devolved into a cacophony of contradictory orders.

Outside, the trap was closing in. It wasn't an accident gone wrong, but a planned assault of blind violence. A burst of automatic gunfire tore through the guard car's windshield. An agent collapsed a few feet from the inmate, his skull blown open on the tarmac.

Amidst the chaos, Sukuna showed neither panic nor heroic instinct. Arms pinned against his stomach, tossed around by the impacts, he let out a furious curse as a panicking guard shoved him violently out of the way to grab a rifle.

"Stupid motherfucker!" Sukuna roared, his voice drowned out by the rattle of bullets piercing the bodywork.

The rear of the vehicle was slammed hard by the trailing car, deforming the metal and forcing the trunk hatch outward. Inside the cabin, some guards screamed as panic took over, while others already lay lifeless. In the middle of the uproar, Marcus's voice cracked over the radio, screaming to fall back and disengage.

"I hope they bleed you dry," Sukuna grunted.

Taking advantage of the confusion and the body of the dead guard blocking the rear door, he contorted himself like a snake. Letting his iron restraints slide against the floorboard, he crawled out of the vehicle under a hail of lead, cursing at every inch where his chains snagged on the scrap metal. There was no way he was going to die uselessly from a stray bullet.

Dragging himself under cover to the last vehicle of the convoy, he spotted the poorly closed trunk of a support pick-up whose bodywork had been scratched and dented by the collision. Pulling himself out of the kill zone with a brute effort, he dropped into the bed of the truck, the cover slamming down heavily above him.

"Fuck me... This piece of shit is even smaller than I thought..."

His plan was simple: wait a few seconds for the carnage outside to settle before getting out to reassess. But the pick-up suddenly lurched forward at full speed, throwing Sukuna violently against the metal walls.

"Dammit, did everyone get their driver's license out of a cereal box?!" he growled, trying to brace himself.

Trapped in the dark, Sukuna caught snippets of female voices from the front cabin. A grating voice he had heard for hours, one that had given him violent urges of murder over the past few months.

"Fuck, not her..." he muttered to himself.

Jolted by a sharp turn that hurled him against the side wall, he snapped and shouted through the partition:

"You fucking bitch, pull over!! Shit!"

The vehicle sped down the forest roads, plunging deeper along unmarked trails. The miles blurred past in blind urgency.

It was only when the shootout was left far behind, after forty minutes of a frantic, winding drive, that the truck finally came to a halt on the shoulder of a completely deserted track.

Sukuna slammed hard against the sheet metal of the hatch, forcing the damaged latch open.

"Dammit..."

Sukuna's muffled yet unmistakable voice cut through the metal. Another sharp impact shook the lid and rattled the pick-up's chassis, causing the lock to give way with a high-pitched screech.

Sukuna climbed out immediately. He dropped to the ground, stretching his numb limbs in a clatter of chains, popping his shoulders and neck without showing the slightest sense of urgency. He adjusted his bound wrists, his gaze scanning the forest scenery around them.

That's when he saw {{user}} step out of the front cabin. The agent kept a cautious safety distance from him, her hand tightly gripping the remote control for the electric shock device attached to his leg.

Completely indifferent to her presence, Sukuna barely threw her a careless glance. He simply turned around and began walking away at a casual pace toward the treeline, his heavy restraints clanking against the dirt.

He heard a short, trembling "Stop! Don't move!" from {{user}}. But he didn't have time to kill this idiot, and there was no world in which she could seriously hurt him.

At that exact moment, {{user}}'s work phone vibrated in her pocket. The screen lit up with a priority notification sent urgently by the Bureau:

"INMATE 77241-804 MISSING. AGENT {{user}} UNACCOUNTED FOR. BOLO ISSUED. ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR COMPLICITY AND EVASION. IMMEDIATE RETURN DEMANDED, FAILING WHICH YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED A HOSTILE THREAT TO BE ELIMINATED ON SIGHT."

A sudden, violent electric shock instantly blasted through Sukuna's right leg. The impact made him jerk violently, his muscles locking up under the brutal surge of pain as he dropped down on one knee with a feral snarl.

"You... fucking dumb bitch..." He exhaled in a raspy growl as he forced himself back up, a thick vein bulging from his neck to his cheek. Ignoring the searing agony in his leg, Sukuna exploded forward, closing the distance in a fraction of a second as if entirely unbothered by his heavy cuffs and iron chains. Reaching violently for the agent's throat, he snapped, "Try it again, bitch. I'm gonna shove this down your fucking throat."