From the highest floor of Babel, the city of Orario bustled with life down below.
Freya stood by the window that had been replaced recently. The memory of what caused it still replayed in her mind as if it were some sort of guilty pleasure of hers.
Allen Fromel stood behind her, his feline features schooled into their usual mask of cold professionalism. He had just finished delivering his morning report, and the silence that followed was stifling.
"How certain are you?" Freya asked, her voice soft, but there was an underlying pressure to the words.
"Our source within the Guild confirmed the registration this morning. Yuji Itadori, new member of Loki Familia. Level 1 designation, no alias."
"Level 1." Freya repeated the words as though she was tasting them. A small corner of her mouth lifted upwards. "How charming."
She turned from the window and walked to her cushioned armchair that was more akin to a throne, settling into it with an otherworldly grace that was worthy of being auctioned for abhorrent prices at an auction.
The soul she had seen only recently, the one that had made her stomach churn and her heart race in the same breath, was now under Loki's protection. Formally registered, affiliated and beyond casual reach.
Any direct move against him would be a declaration of war against Loki Familia, and while Freya had the military strength to match Loki blow for blow, the conflict would gut both Familias and leave the city's power structure in ruins. Neither of them could afford that, not with the Guild watching and the other Familias waiting for any sign of weakness. It was exactly what they had done to the Zeus and Hera Familia years prior.
But Freya hadn't lived millennia as a Goddess by being direct.
"Tell me more about the registration." She said, crossing one leg over the other.
"Minimal details were filed. No prior Familia affiliation listed, and no combat record submitted. Country of origin listed as 'unknown'. The Guild clerk who processed it flagged it for review, but Loki apparently handled the paperwork personally, and…"
Freya raised a brow when Allen stopped talking, and when he saw that, he quickly continued.
"And it was approved by 'senior management'"
"Oh? Is that so?" Freya couldn't help herself as she let out a slight sound of surprise, but that only cemented Yuji's worth in her heart evermore. "So even he has taken notice, how quaint."
She merely waved her hand as if it wasn't a bother to her. "Loki filling the details in herself was deliberate enough." She knew this was another method the rival Goddess was employing to control the narrative, by keeping details vague so she could buy time.
"The Level 1 designation." Freya slowly said, though it was mostly to herself rather than for her Familia member to hear. "That's because they can't read his status."
Allen's ears twitched, which was a rare tell from the man. "Is that possible? We don't have any confirmation of that."
"We don't need confirmation. Loki is many things, but she isn't stupid. If she could display his true strength on paper, she would. It would be the ultimate deterrent. The fact that she's leaving a blank status besides Level 1 means she can't show what she has." Her silver eyes glinted in the dark room. "Which means whatever he is, even a God's blessing doesn't fully comprehend it."
She let that thought settle before continuing on.
"The recently descended God, Ryomen Sukuna. What have you learned?"
Allen's expression tightened for a moment. "Newly descended. Registered a Familia with the Guild just days prior. No current Familia members. Currently residing in the Southern District and working at a food stall operated by the God Takemikazuchi."
"A food stall."
"Sweet potatoes."
Freya blinked before letting out a laugh, a musical sound that filled the room.
"Someone like him selling sweet potatoes." She covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking. "This world never fails to delight me."
Allen waited for the laughter to subside before adding on. "He bears a strong physical resemblance to Yuji Itadori. Similar hair color and build, bar the black markings on Ryomen Sukuna's face and body. Our observers note that the two interacted on the street prior to Itadori joining Loki Familia. The interaction appeared… tense."
Freya's amusement faded, replaced by something sharper. "How strong is the resemblance?"
"Very. Standing side by side, it wouldn't be wrong to assume they were family members." Allen quickly responded.
Freya turned the information over in her mind. A man with seven souls joins the rival Familia, and a God who looks exactly as that very man descends to the mortal world mere days after his appearance in Orario.
'There's a story here, and stories have leverage.'
"Continue monitoring Itadori. I want to know when he eats, where he walks, and who he speaks to." She paused and then added with deliberate care. "Extend the same courtesy to Sukuna, but from a distance. I don't want anyone making contact."
"Understood." Allen replied and turned to leave.
"One more thing."
He paused in his footsteps, waiting for the next words without turning.
"When Loki Familia returns from the Dungeon, there will be a reaction. I want to know how each of the returning members responds to this, particularly the Sword Princess."
"As you wish, Lady Freya."
The door closed behind him. Freya sat alone as her fingers traced the idle patterns on the arm of her chair. The afternoon light streamed through the window, casting her shadow across the floor.
'You've chosen your side, Yuji Itadori. But sides can be changed. Loyalties can be tested, and the things that make you interesting…'
Her smile returned, wider than before.
'...are the same things that make you vulnerable.'
She closed her eyes and let the afternoon sun warm her fun.
The game was far from over, it had barely begun.
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Night had fallen over Orario by the time Sukuna descended into the sewers.
He had found the entrance two days ago, during one of his walks through Daedalus Street. The stall work with Takemikazuchi ended in the early afternoon and the hours between then and nightfall had proven useful for exploring the papers of the city that most people were smart enough to avoid.
Sukuna was not most people.
The sweet potato stall was a way to make ends meet for now, and served as a surprisingly good cover at the same time. Gods working menial jobs were common enough in Orario that nobody questioned it. Takemikazuchi's willingness to tolerate him had been an unexpected convenience, and his knowledge of Orario's underbelly had proven invaluable in the first few conversations they'd shared between customers.
But Takemikazuchi hadn't told him about this.
The sewer network beneath Daedalus Street was old, far older than the residential buildings above it. The stonework predated anything on the surface and the tunnels branched in patterns that were too deliberate to just being a simple drainage. Sukuna had spent centuries reading the architecture that was born from violence, from feudal castles to battlefields, and the layout of these tunnels spoke of something built to hide a secret.
His divine senses, while suppressed by the Arcanum seal, still carried its residual sharpness. It might be easy to seal his divine powers, but the instincts that made him the most feared sorcerer in the Heian Era and the King of Curses afterwards were not so easily sealed.
He moved through the damp tunnels without the need for light, and his footsteps echoed against the wet stone. The deeper he went, the more apparent the anomalies became. The stonework along the walls shifted from aged municipal construction to something denser and far more refined.
Then he found the door.
It was massive, taller than three men standing on each other's shoulders and set into the wall of dense stone. The material wasn't anything he recognized from a glance.
He pressed his palm against it, feeling the cold surface reflect his senses.
"Orichalcum?"
He raised a brow, knowing this was the strongest known material in the mortal world, made into a door.
Sukuna let out a smile.
He couldn't open the door, not in his current state. But he didn't need to open it to understand what it meant.
Someone had built a fortress underneath the city, sealed behind doors that even God's couldn't breach, and he knew it was occupied. He could feel the faint impressions of life on the ground that was blocked off by the orichalcum.
He withdrew his hand and turned his back on the door, retracing his steps through the sewer network.
He knew the Brat had found this place first before him, atleast the underground structure beneath Daedalus Street. It was stupid to think otherwise.
'Interesting.'
Whatever was worth the Brat's attention was bound to be interesting to himself as well. He soon emerged from the sewer entrance into the cool night air of Daedalus Street. The district was dark and quiet with the residents having already retreated behind locked doors.
He looked up at the sky and fell into a brief moment of contemplation.
The Brat had chosen Loki Familia. He had felt the resonance between them the moment Loki's Falna was granted to him. He had chosen the official path, the sanctioned alliance and a safe harbour. He would investigate the labyrinth with the Loki Familia most likely, having the backing of Orario's most powerful exploration faction, protected by treaties and political agreements.
Sukuna had no such constraints.
He wasn't bound by Guild law, nor was he answerable to a Familia or a faction. He was a God with no followers, at least not in this region of the world, and no allegiances and no reputation to protect.
This was an advantage the Brat couldn't claim anymore.
He had offered Yuji his Falna first. The unprecedented experiment, a God's blessing applied to someone who already carried fragments of that same God's essence. The results would have been extraordinary, he was certain of it. His own blessing would have resonated with Yuji's being instead of merely tolerating it. The Falna wouldn't have been a guest at the table, it would have been the host.
But the brat had chosen Loki instead.
He wasn't angry. Anger was what the old him would have felt, the one that broke the Brat's psyche and made his life a living hell. That Sukuna would have seen Yuji's refusal as an insult and responded with fire.
This Sukuna felt something different. Something he didn't have a name for yet, which irritated him more than anger would have.
'You chose to belong to a stranger over the one person who understands what you are.'
The Tenkai was an interesting place. Time worked differently there, or perhaps it didn't matter at all. He had spent millennia sitting in a realm of blood and bone, surrounded by the accumulated weight of two lifetimes worth of violence. It was comfortable, familiar and boring.
Then he had felt Yuji arrive in the lower world, and for the first time since his death, something had stirred.
Not hunger, nor bloodlust. It wasn't the same predatory excitement that had driven him through the Heian Era and beyond.
Curiosity.
He had descended to see what the Brat had become, and what he'd found was a man who had lived longer than most civilisations and learned nothing from it. Still carrying the same guilt, still running from the same fear, and still treating isolation like a virtue instead of the wound it was.
And now that man had chosen to let a trickster Goddess write on his back and call it home.
He folded his hands inside of his sleeves and continued walking on through the dark streets. The Brat was probably lying in a bed that wasn't his, staring at a ceiling that wasn't familiar and wondering if he'd made the right choice.
'You haven't changed at all. You just found a new way to be afraid.'
But even as those thoughts played out in his mind, another wormed its way through.
'Or maybe you found a way to stop being afraid, and that's what I can't stand.'
He clicked his tongue in irritation as the shadows of the city's nightlife shrouded his form.
'You chose the light, Brat. Fine, let's see how long it takes till you crack.'
Those were his last thoughts as he drifted into the city.
Behind him, deep beneath the earth, the orichalcum door sat unmoved, but on its other side, in the labyrinth called Knossos, something stirred.
A robed figure emerged from one of the inner corridors and approached the door from within. They pressed their hand against the surface, just as Sukuna had done mere moments ago on the other side.
"...Someone was here." The figure murmured, their voice barely a whisper.
They withdrew their hand and turned, disappearing back into the labyrinth's depths.
The door remained sealed, but for the first time in years, the inhabitants of Knossos had felt an unfamiliar presence at their gates.
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Meanwhile, deep beneath on the eighteenth floor, Finn Deimne sat by the light of a magic stone lantern with his journal open on his knee.
The murder of Hashana Dorlia had been discovered that morning. A Level 4 adventurer, decapitated in a locked room in Rivira's best inn. No witnesses, no forced entry, and a mystery client who had hired the man to retrieve something from the thirtieth floor.
Finn's thumb ached.
He wrote a single line at the bottom of his page, beneath the day's tallies.
'Underground routes. Puppet monsters. Self-destruct. Connected to Floor 50 creatures. — Y.I.'
The information Yuji had given the twins after Monster Feria. Finn had carried it into the Dungeon, and now, with a headless body in Rivira and the smell of something rotten in the air, those words felt less like intelligence and more like a warning he should have acted on sooner.
He closed the journal and looked up at the crystal ceiling of the eighteenth floor.
Something was moving beneath the surface of Orario. Something old, patient, and just now realizing it was being watched from more than one direction.
Finn's thumb throbbed.
He didn't sleep well that night.
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Authors Note:
BTW what do you guys think about the idea of this story going beyond Orario's borders as well? Just a thought for the future.
Also what are your thoughts on this fanfic premise that came to mind recently, Himmel the Hero of Orario? Could be set after he died and the world of danmachi is the same as Frieren's, only far in the future. Just something that popped into my head randomly when watching Frieren