TRY NOT TO FALL APART

YOU'RE PERFECT JUST THE WAY YOU ARE

hard on yourself,

You're lying when you say dream of nothing. While it began like that, it was certainly not how it ended.

At first, you're drowning. In the movies drowning is loud and splashy, someone yells and waves their arms; they dip below the waves and come up in dramatic fashion while those on shore scramble to rescue them.

But in that moment, a sense of anguish, more than pain, had taken rule of your heart. Darkness envelops you. The water closes in around, filling you with a deep dread. And you hold your breath, feeling like your chest is going to burst. Burst! Burst! Burst! Like a bomb planted neatly in the curved pit where your heart once was. Red and black splotches dance in front of you and you can't remember if your eyes are closed or not. The initial coldness hurried away; it was a coldness coming from a merciless whine. A desperate hot wave comes over you instead. Your heart beats rapidly in panic. The urgency for air was more apparent than ever. There weren't red blotches in your field of vision anymore. It was all black.

And then, you awake, gasping for breath like a dumbbell had been burdening your chest.

"A warm welcome," Someone crows and you turn your head so fast you get whiplash. "Oi, sit up. I wanna talk to you."

Sukuna's eyes glow in the midst of a fervour, haunting you as they gleam unwelcomingly in the darkness. You scowl, a wave of fear initially rolling over you. When you realise you are in what looks like his Innate Domain, you relax a little.

He doesn't have his full power yet, you remind yourself. He can't kill you here.

...yet.

"What do you want?" You sneer, lips twisted as you inhale, shakily getting to your feet.

He sits in boredom atop a monstrous pile of skulls which carve out a throne worthy of gods to embellish. Sukuna wears an idle expression, a swoon of darkness eclipsing his orbs as he speaks menacingly, "You... are quite a brat. All day long, I have to put up with the vessel but also you; you stick to him like glue."

"How are you doing this?" You look around, feeling your heart become swollen at all the dripping ebony staring back at you. "How have you brought me here?"

Sukuna rolls his eyes, but he doesn't budge from his position, "Brat, did you not pay attention to anything I told you in our last encounter?"

"What? Memories and other jumbo. A bunch of lies that you're using to try and... manipulate me," You spit out the words, finding them hard to say.

The demon god simply arches an eyebrow, almost smiling at your response, "I have the capacity to feed you lies and watch you slurp it up like some idiot dog. I can give you more lies than stars in the sky, girl."

"So?" You tilt your head, finding his speech lacking conviction and grandeur.

He flashes before your eyes suddenly and you feel your body swerve in the air, chest pressed instantly against the ground. You feel a huge weight decimating the ridges of your spine and after lifting your chin slightly, you realise Sukuna is sitting on you to keep you from moving.

He purses his lips, "I have no reason to lie to you, moron. At least, get that through your thick skull."

"Oh, shut up," You roll your eyes as well, "You can't kill me here."

"Believe me," He says annoyedly, "You'll be the first to die. But before that, I want to indulge you in your past. I can interact with you because at some point in your pitiful and weak life, you drank my blood."

"I most certainly did not!" Your jaw drops, "And if I did, I don't fucking remember it."

Sukuna's claws dig into your skull as his iron grip tightens around a tuft of your hair, "Of course, you don't. Your memories are locked so-"

But his words drown out after that.

Someone's knocking at your door is what wakes you up. Your head stings with a painful headache as your eyelids flutter. The sound of knuckles crashing against wood on repeat stirs your head and you turn in the direction, groaning. The dream felt too far away for you to bother latching onto, on the cusp of glory yet barely fluttering on the tip of your fingers.

Sunlight hazily sifted through the thin curtains, gracing your skin like the wings of a fragile, fluttering butterfly. You throw your legs over the side of the comfortable bed and grimace, making your way to the door with a grumpy expression.

The door opens and Fushiguro remains bleak as his midnight blue eyes linger on your wrinkled shirt and tired figure, "Did you oversleep?"

"Maybe," You scratch the back of your head, yawning in the process, "Man... why do we have to wake up so early?"

Fushiguro scoffs slightly, "It's just like school for non-shamans. Did you think you were going to have a free pass now that you live here?"

You wave off his remarks, "Har har. Very funny."

As you lift your hands to rub your tired eyes, Fushiguro leans in, suddenly concerned. He takes your wrist and holds it to the light, looking at the bandages and old bruises. "When did you get this?"

"Yesterday," You suddenly blank on the spot; your throat clamps up as if choking on all the words you want to not say, "It's healed pretty well so you don't need to worry."

Fushiguro narrows his eyes and they bleakly rove over your figure, "Did someone attack you? Will you be fine for today?"

"I'll be fine!" You laugh, "It really doesn't hurt. I mean... it hurt a lot when I first got it but like that's to be expected, right?"

"Don't overwork yourself," He purses his lips and despite the reserved expression on his face, you can spot the care in his tone, "I'll see you at the training grounds when you're ready."

With that, he leaves you standing in the doorway, catching your breath as you listen to his footsteps grow diminutive in sound. And then you can no longer hear him; he is gone and for some reason, you're afraid.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Training is simply put, exhausting.

You're sitting on the stone steps of the courtyard's entrance, swathes of air worming into the cavities in your lungs. The colours of sky merge and blur like a person has taken their thumb and smudged all the colours of the wind against a blank canvas. As pink seeps into cerulean, you exhale, vision disorientated as the hours fly by.

The skin on your body feels numb, layering cracked bones and spilling wounds. Your flesh feels itself in ripples, one by one upon the daze of an angel, waves of exhaustion rolling over you. The cursed energy boiling in veins of slippery ichor and blood is unwavering, even minutes after you stopped channelling it.

You used to think Cursed Energy was the same as powers of heroes on the big screen, flashy auras and powerful attacks and a conveyance of destruction beyond emotion; energy demands to be felt in more ways than one.

But really, it was a foolish thought fed by the lies all movie stars seem to spew. Cursed Energy wasn't a superpower; it was a killer.

And even though Fushiguro had clearly told you not to overwork yourself, you had only gone and done it anyway, slumped slightly now as you try to shake off the remnants of energy.

It felt like your nerves were electrified in a state of adrenalinic panic. Every thought ever conjured in your mind just expands outwards like you've been moving back and forth in a black hole centred in the middle of the universe.

"Salmon roe?" Someone mumbles, the syllabic words end in a high pitch so you assume it was a question for you.

Sorely, you turn your head and look endearingly at Toge Inumaki, one of the second years. You had done your battle stance practice with him a few hours ago, yet it seems like he hadn't broken a sweat. In this early dawn his eyes are the morning dew, scattering the nascent rays, ever illuminating your soul. It's the kind of purple that comes with lavender in the spring, or when you had trekked up the mountain earlier this night and seen all the colours of the wind and more.

He has a piercing gaze, almost like a bullet locked and loaded from such a quiet yet precarious look.

"Hm?" You look up, wondering what he said. It sounded all cryptic and jumbled up in your mind, like a knotted silver lining that you can't untangle so you end up snapping it.

Panda answers for you, "Oh, he asked if you're okay. Training did seem to take a toll on you."

You don't reply, eyes just lingering in contemplation on Panda. I mean, Fushiguro had briefed you at some point about there being a human-like Panda as one of the second-years but still. The wave of initial shock seemed to still be persistent, even hours later.

Maki hands you one of her spare water bottles, narrowing her already sharp eyes, "You're doing extra training, aren't you, [Y/N]?"

"Uh... no...?"

She swats your head, "Baka, honestly! You think we don't notice you keep overloading on work? You're gonna end up killing yourself and not your opponent at this rate."

A sour expression is made evident by your frown after drinking some cold water, "Well... what do you want me to do? The Kyoto Exchange is in a month!"

"Mustard leaf," Toge says curtly.

You arch an eyebrow, gulping down the final droplets of water and Panda translates it kindly, "Take a break. You learnt five different techniques today and already mastered some of the tougher ones."

"Fine," You purse your lips, "Maybe I'll just fuck around and do nothing for a week."

You had said that in a joking manner but after your arm burst into flames from movie night with Itadori ( that's a story for another day ), Ieiri-san benches you. For a whole week.

But the pain is just an engravement of a lesson. You can't master a sword without being cut by your devotion to it's art. The blade is sharp for a reason and all you have to do is turn it away from you and at Sukuna's annoying face.