Sukuna’s Isekai Adventures 1

The world shudders as something slips through the cracks.

His first year of life was a confusing mess of still-forming neurons, brain cells, and synapses trying to connect faster than they should.

That year was a chaotic mix of sounds, colors, and the rough feeling of threadbare cloth around his body. His strongest memory of that particular period was a sentence, one imprinted in his memory because, in another life, it was repeated with similar vigor.

“Drown or throw that monster into Slaughter Swamp, or I’ll throw you out of this house.”

After that day, he felt cold—colder than any baby had any right to feel. His only real warmth was the figure that tried their hardest to share their body heat with him.

He fondly remembered the soft calls of a woman’s voice as she rocked him to sleep, cradling him in her bosom with soft lullabies that dragged him into oblivion.

Which was why staring down at that figure, breathing slowly on the ground in an alleyway, felt like a cold hand gripping his heart in a vice. He was in his fifth year, alone and confused, as he took hold of the woman with his four hands and shook her. She remained unmoving, and her body felt like fire.

“Mother?” A voice of pure innocence called out.

The slowly dawning realization of what was happening rapidly realigned the synapses and neurons in his brain, as pathways locked behind a binding vow and forced into dormancy—lest the still-forming brain burn out and melt out of its ears—began to loosen earlier than they should have.

Centuries of memories slowly trickled through the gap in the lock that was supposed to protect him, rapidly rewriting his brain as clarity suddenly came to him for the first time in five years. True clarity.

“Mother?” A harsher voice called out, lacking the innocence and naivety it once held and containing only the barest amount of compassion.

Four eyes peered down at the slowly breathing woman, lacking the confusion that once rested in those eyes, instead gaining something else—a harsher, darker glint.

He pushed himself up and turned away from the woman, completely ready to walk off until he felt something wet drip down his nose and onto his lips. His lips darted out, tasting what he easily recognized as blood. One of his still pudgy arms rose to wipe off the trail, leading to a smudge as he was forced to rethink.

His brain was bleeding. His cursed technique had not fully imprinted on it, and centuries worth of memories were still leaking into the notably squishy organ. It was too early, and there would be consequences for this.

He needed to retreat and allow the brain and body to recover. Yet his psyche had already fractured. The slowly forming personality that should’ve been inhabiting this body had retreated.

So the first thing he did was plug the leak, putting a stop to the rapid brain damage and halting the rewriting of the brain that was already happening. He would not be able to reverse all the damages, but already, the folds in the brain had multiplied and grown deeper.

When he retreated back into his shell, the boy that would take control wouldn’t be the same as before. Neither would he himself be the same upon returning. The boy would return changed—how much, he couldn’t say, but he didn’t care either. He shrugged off the thought; regardless of what would happen, he was always going to be himself.

He could not abandon the woman. No, despite how he wanted to walk off, it seemed he had his own curse—one greater than any other, one he had rid himself of in another life, not wanting the weakness that followed such a connection.

A mother’s love.

Unfortunately for him, he would need to save her life if he wanted his other incarnation to retake control of the body.

He glanced through the memories formed in this life, ignoring the familiar feeling of being unwanted by everyone but his mother once more. They scavenged their way through the alleyways of a gothic city with high walls and higher roofs, yet, like in his past life, they remained at the bottom of it all.

He ignored the taste of scavenged rats and mice that his body had crawled off to catch, his frame resilient and hungry even without his original mind to drive him forward. He ignored his mother cleaning him up, slowly wiping the blood from his lips as she whispered into his ears.

“My little precious glutton.”

He ignored the image of his mother selling her body on the dark and dirt-covered back streets just for extra change to buy milk when hers ran out due to the extensive malnutrition she was suffering, while he grew fat and big off her struggles and spoils.

Instead, he focused on the scene in that particular memory, not the deeds. A camp of sorts, filled with the discarded and homeless. His memories allowed him to chart a pathway through the dark underbelly of the city. It didn’t take him long to find it once more.

Like a hound, he could smell the man—the one who had used her body, then threw her aside—shortchanging her and laughing her off with a backhand blow when she tried to ask for her dues.

He had not recognized what he witnessed from the eyes of a child, but now he did, and it lit a fire in his heart. He was hungry.

The camp was a ramshackle set of tents, with barrels that brought some degree of warmth and light to its inhabitants, casting the darkness away from them and warming their weary bones.

He walked into the light of the camp and up to the two men standing closest to the fire that served as the entrance to their little dominion. The first man who sighted him yelped with fright at his sudden appearance.

“Holy shit, what the fuck is that?”

His partner laughed and slapped the scared man’s back as he sighted the boy’s form.

“Yeah, I can see how that can surprise you if you’ve not been in the slums for long. It’s that cursed whore’s little abomination again.”

The still-frightened man held a metal pipe in one hand with a tight grip as he continued to stare at the malformed boy who was slowly bleeding from his nose.

“I heard the rumors but—”

“I need medicine,” Sukuna interrupted their noise-making and waffling. They looked at him with surprise, and the one who seemed to be familiar with him raised a brow and watched him with wariness.

“He used to be mute.”

He ignored the statement and reaffirmed his request, his voice lacking the innocence of youth and instead bearing a harshness that left his throat sore.

“I need medicine for my mother.”

The man's scream a few minutes ago had drawn attention, and a big man—at least big by the standards of the alley—walked out. He had a bushy beard, a slightly stocky frame, and a bald head. His torso was covered only by an expensive-looking fur coat along its collar.

The coat hung on his shoulders, revealing his protruding belly, while his bottom half was covered in a ratty pair of pants. Black eyes squinted out of heavy eyelids as the man walked up to them and called out.

---

“What’s all the ruckus about?”

For the first time, Sukuna smiled—from both lips. The man was familiar. He remembered his scent, he remembered that particular backhanded blow that sent his mother to the floor headfirst.

“I-It’s the whore’s brat. He came up here demanding medicine,” the first man stuttered out a reply. As the big man walked up to them, a crowd of other homeless and deprived men and women gathered.

The stocky man stared down at him as his weather-beaten face slowly twisted into something disgusting.

“I’ve had men, women, and even kids before,” the man noted without care, as the men and women who had come out of the dark expecting a show cringed back. Instead, he licked his lips and continued, “But never a malformed child like you. So what do you say, brat? Come here, and I’ll give you some medicine for your mother.”

The look on Sukuna’s face rapidly twisted to match the man’s own, and the man was forced to take a step back in surprise. Sukuna felt his face twist as he spoke, but the lips that spoke were not visible under the ratty threadbare cloth he wore. The voice that rang out proved not to suffer from the still-growing vocal cords and rang out with the menace he truly held.

“I was hungry, and look at the maggot that fate brought to my plate.” He ignored the confusion that spread on everyone’s face and instead focused.

For the first time, he consciously relaxed the stump on the memories, allowing it to flow once more. Ignoring the second stream of blood that came down his other nose as the memories forced a change in his brain, his still-forming innate cursed technique accelerated as it carved a metaphysical brand upon his soul and body.

His cursed energy bubbled and frothed beneath his skin, as for the first time in five years it finally found a way to express its malevolent intent. Sukuna swung out one of his limbs and called out with a whisper.

“Dismantle.”

The clearing was quiet for a second as everybody stood confused. He walked up to the still-standing man and stretched forth his four hands. In the next moment, the man’s head slipped from his neck and dropped into his waiting hands.

Uncaring of the horror that was rapidly filling the surrounding area, he instead brought the back of the man’s face to his lips as he took a bite out of the neck, inhumanly grinding and chewing the meat. In the utter silence that followed, he spat out the man’s flesh with disgust on his face before throwing the head to the side.

The man was utterly disgusting, and he suddenly missed Uraume. Yet he was not here to taste the cuisine. The body finally dropped to its knees as blood spurted out of the neck, dousing his pink hair and pale skin with the life-giving liquid.

He pushed the body to the side before facing the rest. They trembled on the spot, unable to even scream or act as he stared down upon them.

“I need medicine.”

That was the last time he was forced to make the request.

...

She woke up on a bed. The closest approximation of a bed that could be found in the back alleys of Gotham, with blurry eyes. The bed was a luxurious foam covered with neat bedsheets, a rarity in the dark corners of the great city.

She could feel the form of her baby boy holding her tight under the giant coat with a white-furred collar and splotches of what she feared was blood. She shrugged the coat off and ruffled the pink locks on her little boy’s head, smiling at the way he sunk further into her.

It took her all she had to detach herself from his four limbs, and her baby must’ve been exhausted because he let her go. She stood up. They were in a tent, one that was finely cleaned with more luxuries than she had laid her eyes on since she descended into the dark underbelly of Gotham five years ago.

She took staggering steps to the opening of the tent. She needed to thank whoever had rescued her and her baby and pay them back no matter what. It took her some effort, but she finally made her way to the entrance. As she swung it open, she was greeted by the sight of a white man, seated in seiza in what should’ve been a funny scene.

“Ryōmen-sama,” the man called out in honorifics that rolled roughly off his tongue as the tent opened. His eyes were on the ground, so he did not see who he was addressing him.

So Shinori called out to clear the confusion. “Excuse me?”

His head jerked up, and he stared at her with wide eyes. The fear and terror that had been on his face swiftly changed to joy.

“She’s awake. Mother is awake,” he cried out with tears in his eyes as he grasped her hands. The activity in the camp, ground to a halt as everyone turned to her with unbridled joy on their faces as they cried out,

“She lives!”

Shinori was stuck trying to understand the cult she seemed to have found her way into.

A/N

*I know I should be finishing the next chapter of CE, but I just got off my shift and instead of going to bed like a smart person, I picked up my phone and spun this out with sleepy eyes.

Anyway, this was inspired by a writing prompt John and I talked about like two days ago. I don’t know if this is going to be updated again, but I didn’t want to leave it in my drafts, so here it is. Sukuna reborn in Gotham. Unnamed for now, till i can think up or someone suggest something.

Pinky swear, no more random fics.