A/n pov:
The oppressive hush of the shrine had always been Sukuna's favorite, but recently he had taken to carving a particularly cruel design into it
He toyed with a particular pattern
On some mornings he would leave large portions of food, the scent of seasoned meat and steamed rice clinging to the damp air of the room, on others, he would scrape the trays until nothing remained.
It was a fickle existence, one of, starvation, and false abundance. Just enough to keep her body from withering away, but never enough to truly sate her. A cruel diet meant to leave her body in a permanent state of confusion.
All that Sukuna wished to witness was the very instant of hope that crept silently into her chest so that he could observe its destruction.
Every evening, he would watch her from the dark corners created by the tall pillars. If there was anything left after meals, Suta would eat in silence, with reverence, using her small hands to carefully collect every grain of rice like it was a priceless gem.
And when the bowls were emptied, without changing her expression, she collected the pottery to wash them in the icy well water.
She didn't waver. There was not even a flicker of disappointment in her eyes.
Nothing changed.
And that was why he got irritated and watched her so much. Human body reacts to a long absence of food. It turns desperate. The mind starts to become irritable and fragile. Fear and disgust would usually seep from the skin of any person held by him. But, Suta did nothing of those things. She tolerated her growling belly just as passively as she tolerated the air in her lungs.
Now, Sukuna found himself leaning against the cedar columns much more often, crossing his arms over his chest, staring with four eyes at her tiny, moving figure. It wasn't driven by some sudden desire to be merciful towards her. This was simple and purely scientific curiosity.
Why can't you crack like the others do?
On one hot summer day, the heat settled thick in the central hall. He found her kneeling there on the cold floor, with a rag in her hands. She was cleaning the flawless surface of the stone with painstakingly slow speed. The stone was already perfectly clean, without any dirt left on it. However, she was dragging the cloth across over and over again. Not because it was dirty, but because simply she had decided it was a task that she needed to be repeated. Her moment was dull, rhythmic and completely pointless.
Sukuna let out a dramatic sigh as he broke the silence of the hallway.
"Brat[1]."
Suta paused in the middle of her stroke; her whole body changed position. She looked up at him, her face half-buried behind a curtain of hair. The blankness of her expression never faltered.
"Yes, Master?"
Sukuna frowned at her, pulling his lips into a sneer. "Why are you so amused with doing nothing at all? You're about as entertaining as watching paint dry on a gravestone."
She blinked at him with dark, unresponsive eyes. It looked as if she actually considered the question, pondering what she could say to please him. Coming to no conclusion, she tilted her head just a little and asked, without a hint of malice or fear, "Shujin... How do I amuse you?"
The word reverberated throughout the silent corridor like a rock being thrown down a well.
Shujin.
However, she had not called him that in the terrified voice of a prisoner or the respectful voice of a servant. No, it simply fell from her mouth naturally, as though it had been her sole means of identifying someone else throughout her life.
This was the utter acceptance of absolute possession, ingrained into her very essence.
Sukuna stopped for just one moment before the sheer ridiculousness of the situation caught up with his annoyance, and he began laughing.
However, she had not said it with the trembling terror of someone held against their will or the stiff formality of a servant's response. She had let the word fall softly from her lips in a natural manner as if it were the only way of addressing another human being. It meant absolute ownership, ingrained in her very being.
Sukuna stopped for a moment. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation then broke through his frustration, and he began to laugh.
The hearty chuckle reverberated in the high-ceilinged shrine, so loud that he actually had tears running down the corner of one eye that he wiped away with a sharp fingernail. "Shujin?" he asked again as he continued to laugh. "Oh, brat... you are quite the odd one."
As his laughter ceased, there came a change in his expression. His smile faded into darkness, giving way to a cold clinical menace. He was devising a wicked experiment.
He gestured with one of his thickly tattooed fingers towards a wooden bucket containing murky gray water that she had been using for cleaning.
"Lift it up," he commanded in a lowered voice.
Suta did not delay. She got to her feet, gripping the iron handle of the wooden bucket with her little hands.
"Get on one foot."
Immediately she did as she was told, raising her left leg so that she stood on one foot. She was just too weak from starvation to lift the bucket. Within moments her frail arms started shaking furiously. The filthy liquid splashed around in the bucket, threatening to overflow from it. She couldn't keep her balance; she was trembling in her core as she tried to make her unwilling body do what he wanted it to.
Sukuna observed her with keen interest, his arms crossed over his chest and his predatory eyes fixed on her.
He watched her temples wet from sweat, watched her struggling physically with her body to maintain her balance.
A few heart-stopping seconds passed. Suta's foot slipped on a wet surface of stone.
She gasp sharply as she lost her footing completely. She went down, hitting the stone floor with a heavy thump. Her wooden pail toppled over, and a torrent of dirty gray water cascaded across the floor, drenching her clothes.
Sukuna let out an unpleasant laugh. This time, he did not laugh loudly as he had before; he laughed a sarcastic laugh, which amused him greatly.
And there was another sound which chilled him to the bone.
Even Suta laughed.
That's what she had been trying to mimic his voice, that unique pitch and tone of a laugh that he himself made. Perfect and eerie. She made a smile appear on her lips, and the noise escaped to the ceiling.
However, when Sukuna glanced at her, his eyes turned into slits. He realized that something wrong was happening her expression didn't change at all; her eyes were completely blank and lifeless under the fake smile. It wasn't a natural reaction; she was simply wearing a mask.
His laughter ended abruptly; it created an uncomfortable pressure of freezing cold. His cursed energy was so strong that it seemed like everything started weighing on the air.
"...What do you think you're doing?" he whispered, barely above a threatening whisper.
Suta gazed at him from where she lay in the puddle on the floor, her insincere smile fading quickly back into a neutral face. "You were laughing," she explained, her voice completely void of any sense of her embarrassment. "So I laughed too."
An irritable feeling churned inside Sukuna's stomach.
It had nothing to do with her making fun of him; he knew that she didn't have it in her to do so. What annoyed him was the fact that she didn't even comprehend why she shouldn't laugh like he did. She showed no remorse about falling, no anger towards his cruelty, and no sincere happiness from laughing.
He moved forward, towering over her tiny form with his great shadow covering her fully on the ground. His face was distorted into an awful, ancient rage.
"Don't you ever dare copy me again, brat," he growled out.
She nodded immediately, not at all troubled by the hatred pouring off him in waves. "Yes, Shujin."
The same word. Soft. Compliant. Blank.
Sukuna looked down at her, the odd feeling within him persisting. This isn't satisfying. Bashing a proud fighter is entertaining, but beating a desperate beggar is amusing. Yet, this girl wasn't breaking. She had nothing inside her to break. There was no reaction here only replication.
And for a curse whose power came from the wild emotions of humans, that emptiness was deeply disturbing.
Sukuna stopped by the exit door of the hall, turning to look behind him at her arm making small repetitive movements.
The rage that was deep inside him started to take a different shape. A horrifying smile appeared on his face, as he opened all four of his eyes wide with malicious intent.
Fine.
Since she apparently did not know how to feel anything, he would just teach her how to do so. He would create her soul from scratch and then destroy it. Physical pain would yield nothing-he would use something far more subtle and painful.
He would pamper her until she was expecting that, and then he would deprive her of everything. He would show her some compassion until she lowered her defenses, and then he would trample those emotions under his feet. He would fill her with hope little by little until she could realize how much it feels like to lose something. He will make her feel every ounce of emotions.
To be continue.....
[1] shujin means husband in ancient japanese (I did some research and i got this i hope it's correct if not please let me know)