SIA 10

Gotham reeked.

That was an oft-forgotten truth about the city. Sometimes it was the trash, heaps of it in alleyways no one bothered to clean. Other times it was the people. The homeless, the desperate, the ones crushed under the heel of a city that fed on itself. A city abandoned by its caretakers and dissected into districts deemed unworthy of repair and left to rot in its own mire.

Gotham was a city run by the worst of the worst. So was it any surprise it smelled like decay?

Fortunately, in winter, the scent didn’t matter as much. The cold masked things. Bleak wind bit into flesh and froze over open sewers and gutters. The stink of chemical waste from long-abandoned factories was buried beneath sheets of ice. Even the stench of suffering took a quieter tone in winter, muted beneath the silence.

But there were places winter couldn’t reach. Places where the rot clung stubbornly to every surface, where the cold only sharpened the stench. The docks were one such place. Sukuna walked them barefoot without a care in the world.

He hadn’t gotten this far before today. Too disinterested, too bored. He’d peeked at the city alongside Boris, and knew he had not been ready, not nearly. So he had retreated first. But now, standing among its rusted bones, something faint stirred in him. Not quite excitement. Not quite anticipation.

Curiosity. Curiosity at the challenge that laid before him.

The closest thing he’d seen to a challenge in this decaying metropolis was the owl-masked figure from years ago. And now there was talk of a man in a bat mask. A vigilante, the way it was whispered, he had averted what should’ve been an ice age in a fight that happened in the middle of the city; instead, they only had to deal with the worst winter the city had ever suffered, yet they whispered his name with fondness. They whispered. about a hero.

Sukuna’s brows furrowed at the thought. The word disgusted him. The very idea behind it revolted him instinctively, even if it was his first time taking note of it. Somehow, something about its sheer concept was antithetical to him, to his way of life and belief. He knew he would love nothing more than to crush something like that beneath his heel.

But that was another time. For now, he followed the stink. Oil. Salt. Dead fish. Piss.

Four crimson eyes swept across the ruined port. Steel cranes stood tall over rust-colored water like skeletal guardians, their bodies covered with rust. Containers sat half-submerged in ice, paint faded, with their doors hanging loose. Chains clinked somewhere in the distance. Rats scurried over frozen lines of rope.

Here and there, dim figures hunched over smaller boats, half-hidden by the fog. Smugglers. The knowledge came to him unbidden. Old memories, another lifetime ago. Their posture, their tools it was all so familiar, in a way that tugged at some distant part of him. But he wasn’t here for them.

The fog rolled in from the sea, thick and slow like molasses. It curled around the dock pylons and clung to the boots of the men by the boats. It made the world softer, quieter, hid forms better. But Sukuna had seen them. And they saw him.

For a moment, their eyes met. Their hands paused. But he kept walking. Something about the way he moved. The way the fog parted around him made them look away.

Sukuna passed them, his fur-lined coat trailing behind him. His hands were buried in the fabric. His posture loose, comfortable, lazy even. Winter didn’t bite him. The smell didn’t offend him. The smugglers didn’t interest him. His only interest waited ahead.

Pier 17.

The warehouse at the end of it had once belonged to a fish-packing company. The logo still clung to the building in patches, faded blue letters that peeled like dead skin. A rusted harpoon stuck out from the corrugated wall like a wound that had never healed. The windows were mostly shattered. Where boards had been nailed up, the wind still forced its way in, dragging its moan across the empty space.

Sukuna paused outside the door. Just long enough to listen. There were no guards. No lights. No sound. But he heard them anyway. Multiple heartbeats. Hushed breathing. The weight of bodies trying too hard to be still.

He smiled in response. Then, without ceremony, he pressed both arms against the double doors and shoved.

The metal groaned. The wooden planks splintered. The entire frame exploded inward, doors slamming against the walls with an echoing crash that rang like a gunshot in the dark room.

Sukuna prowled inside.

The warehouse stank of rust and old oil, thick and metallic. Snow kissed the grime-coated windows, where they were intact. Where they weren’t, it slipped through and licked at the concrete floor. The moonlight did the rest. Pale silver light brightened the space casting long shadows that danced along the floor.

A collapsed forklift leaned against the far wall bearing pallets that towered in crooked stacks. Chains hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly in the breeze from the broken windows.

The entire place held its breath in anticipation. This was not just a building. It was a stage, this was all a play, and Sukuna was the guest of honor. He stood in the middle of it all and tilted his head slightly back.

“I’m here,” he called. His voice echoed against the walls like the crack of a whip. “Show yourselves.”

His opponents responded immediately as something heavy dropped from above. In an instant, it was on him and coiling fast. Sukuna barely registered the movement: a sinuous shape, burnt orange and black scales flashing in the dark, wrapping around his torso and arms like a living vice.

Fortunately, he had already read its intent. When the creature began to tighten, aiming to crush him with brute force, he tensed immediately, his inhuman muscles hardening instantly.

“Whatsss thisss… he isss sstrong!” the attacker hissed, their thick tail constricting tighter in desperation. But it had made a fatal error. It hadn’t accounted for Sukuna’s other mouth. As the coils clamped around his midsection, the fanged maw that split his stomach grinned wide, and bit down hard. Scaled flesh tore like leather under fang. Blood, bitter and caustic, poured across his lower jaw, but Sukuna didn’t flinch. He bit deeper.

A shriek tore from the creature’s throat as it thrashed. The coils loosened instinctively, and Sukuna’s secondary arms, still free, lashed out and seized the writhing tail.

With a flex of his upper torso, his primary arms broke free. One hand shot up and clamped around the serpent man’s throat. The other grabbed a scaled forearm and yanked, wrenching the creature bodily off him. For the first time Sukuna saw his opponent clearly.

Piss-yellow eyes with vertical slits. A half-human, half-reptile face. The bastard snarled, mouth splitting open to reveal curved fangs—

Sukuna twisted his head aside a split second later just as a hissing cloud of green venomous mist erupted from the creature’s throat. The green-tinged fog rolled past him like rot-smelling steam, and blasting behind him, yet despite his dodge, he could feel some of the venomous mist had touched his ears.

“Tch.” Sukuna clicked his tongue in irritation, before adjusting his stance. He felt more motion in the shadows, more heartbeats, more feet slapping against cold concrete. One heavy set of thumps in particular sent his heart racing.

He had only seconds before they closed the distance. He needed to finish this one now. With both hands wrapped around the snake-man’s torso, one gripping beneath the arms, the other hooked at the hips, Sukuna pulled.

Veins bulged across his arms and neck at the effort he exerted. The snake-man screamed, tail thrashing wildly, black-tipped claws scrabbling at Sukuna’s forearms, but it was too late. The tension in the warehouse ratcheted up as the snake man’s screams increased. Bones strained. Muscles tore. A sickening series of pops echoed through the air as joints dislocated, sinew stretched, and skin began to split.

Then finally, a wet, disgusting snap cracked through the warehouse as the man’s body was torn clean in half. Entrails spilled like rope. Blood erupted into the air, warm and slick as it splattered across Sukuna’s chest, arms, and grinning face.

The two halves of the snake man hit the floor with a wet slap. Twitching. His eyes wide, unable to believe the truth, he was dying, he was dead, and with the knowledge that his killer did not even bother to spare him another glance, his broken and still twitching form was already forgotten.

Sukuna barely had time to breathe in the scent of blood before he heard a cry, “Copperhead!” He looked up, just in time to eat a gray fist to the face.

The impact was like being struck with a battering ram. His neck snapped to the side and his feet left the ground. Midair, spinning, he caught the sting of burning pain as multiple projectiles embedded into his body. One clipped his ribs, another tore into his shoulder. Then there were the follow-up loud booming sounds, gunshots.

Then he landed. He slammed into the decrepit warehouse wall and crashed through it before rolling into the snow outside, a blur of flesh and blood carving a trail through ice and concrete. He skidded to a halt beside a dead forklift, steam curling from his body in the winter air.

There was blissful silence for all of a second before Sukuna pressed his palm to the ground, and he slowly rose to his feet with a dry chuckle rumbling from his chest as he looked down. “This is all your trap and meticulously planned ambush led to?”

He glanced at the wounds. There were pockmarks on his skin, but the bullets had not dug deep enough thanks to his dense musculature, so they had not hit anything important. His tight bled freely, but not enough to matter; his stance was still solid. The gray fist that had slammed into him had done the most damage, but even that had not hit flush. He’d turned with the blow at the last second, taking the momentum without the full trauma. Still, it had hurt. And that was good.

They had a plan. He could see it now, clear as day. The now named Copperhead to bind and immobilize him. Then the heavy hitter. Then the ranged support.

Smart. Calculated. Coordinated. Perfect. If he’d been anyone else, it might have worked. But they didn’t account for him. For what he was. His combat instincts ran so deep they weren’t just habits for he had not learned them. They were deeper than simple biology. He moved before his mind caught up; every twitch, every action was a reflection of brutal reflexes honed over countless acts of slaughter and murder against stronger memories. And now?

Now he was smiling with joy for the first time. A real smile, wide, full of teeth and delight. His arms stretched out at his sides, blood dripping from his fingers as he welcomed the warehouse’s new residents. “Inhuman,” he muttered to himself. “Monstrous.” He licked the blood from his lips, tasting the sum total of Copperhead’s life.

“Just like me.”

The cold wind howled, snow fell, and Sukuna laughed, welcoming the challenge as they walked out of the new entrance he had created with his body.

The first was a girl barely half his height. She was covered in black and burnt orange tactical gear stitched with chainmail, holsters, throwing knives, and compact explosives, she moved like a loaded weapon. Twin pistols gleamed in her gloved hands, already raised and tracking him. While her eyes burned with anger at being thwarted. He knew at once she had been the one to plan the perfect ambush.

Behind her came a second girl was just as young and, dressed in flowing green cloth with yellow highlights. There was no armor or visible weapons. Just soft silk robes and a porcelain-white cat mask with narrow slits for eyes and red markings. Her feet made no sound as well, another trained professional. And finally, last through the door, came the brute.

A walking wall of pale gray flesh, hulking and massive. White, rotted hair hung limply over his face. He wore the tattered remains of a funeral suit two sizes too small and now stretched over a body designed for destruction. The real threat. Sukuna grinned as he remembered the force of the blow that had sent him flying. Then, a voice cut through the chill air from above.

“Oh, he’s not the last. I am.”

Sukuna’s left set of eyes snapped upward while his right remained fixed on the three before him. A fourth figure hovered in the air atop a black, shifting cloud, barely the size of a child.

He was blue-skinned and black-haired. Dressed in a crisp and pristine old-fashioned suit. Cradled in his arms was a purring black cat with unnatural green eyes stuck on his form. The boy smiled, but it didn’t spread to the rest of his face. It was like he only learned the lip motion without the other motions that went with such an act.

He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. He simply watched them.

The hair at the back of Sukuna’s neck rose and his smile widened in anticipation, but the next words from the boy’s lips doused that fire.

“Name’s Klarion,” he said, petting the creature with long, slow strokes. “Don’t mind me. I’m not really here to fight. Just tracking a… curious anomaly.” He tilted his head. “I’m simply here for the show. They’re the ones you’ll have to deal with.” In front of him, the girl in orange whipped her pistols toward the sky.

“What do you mean you’re not with us, witch?” she hissed. “You took the job!”

Klarion didn’t even look at her. He gazed at Sukuna as if observing a strange, beautiful wound in reality. “And?” he drawled lazily. “Come on Ravager, If you, Cheshire, and Grundy can’t handle one maybe-malformed spawn of Trigon, then truly, there’s no hope for you.”

Cheshire, the girl in green, said nothing. She merely tilted her head toward Sukuna. The gunslinger gritted her teeth in response. “You smug little—” But Sukuna didn’t care for the chattering.

His heart was slowing. The rush was fading. The blood cooling on his skin reminded him the thrill was fleeting. He’d found what he was looking for, something worthy. A fight not mired in the dullness or weakness of mundane humanity. A fight that would finally push him.

So he stopped listening. Instead, he moved.

In the blink of an eye, Sukuna launched forward. There was no warning, no roar, just pure violence. The concrete cracked beneath his feet as he shot across the distance like a fired cannon. Four arms spread wide.

The girl in orange was distracted, but even then, she moved like she’d known he was coming. Like she’d expected it. Her twin pistols snapped toward him in an instant and barked thunder. Muzzle flashes lit the dark.

Sukuna wasn’t deterred. He tore through the storm, four arms shielding his head, ignoring the way the bullets chewed into his limbs before being stopped cold by coiled muscle. A heartbeat later and he was in front of her. Her eyes widened, that, she hadn’t predicted.

He hit her like a freight train, all momentum and malice backed by raw inhuman strength. His fist slammed into her gut so hard her feet left the ground, but instead of bursting apart at the seams, she rocketed back, and he let out a burst of laughter in response.

She was superhuman too. Which meant she could hit harder, and take the punishment that followed. Perfect.

Before he could follow through, he caught movement from the corner of his eye, Cheshire. One moment she stood still, silent and poised. The next, she was airborne. Her heel dropped from above like a guillotine. Sukuna grinned in response. His body moved like a machine built for murder. He pivoted clean on his heel and caught her by the leg mid-strike. But before he could slam her into the concrete, she flicked her arms and star-shaped blades screamed for his eyes.

He dropped her and stepped back on instinct, right into the path of a charging gray fist.

“Solomon Grundy, born on Monday,” the brute rumbled, voice like crumbling stone. Boom. The punch somehow managed to hit harder but unlike the first time, he was prepared for it. Sukuna had braced. All four arms came up just in time, absorbing the blow. Still, the impact sent him skidding back, bare feet gouging deep into the asphalt, but he refused to fall. His pride refused to let him be sent flying again.

He held his ground. Then he dropped his guard and grinned. The brute roared, stomping forward like a battering ram. “Christened on Tuesday.” Sukuna ducked under the next wild swing. “Married on Wednesday,” the beast bellowed. A backhand came, a clumsy sweeping arc. Sukuna jumped onto it, used the arm like a ramp, and slammed both feet into Grundy’s face. The monster staggered but didn’t fall. “Fell sick on a Thursday,” it muttered, still shambling forward. Another charge. Sukuna met it head-on, grinning wide.

Finally. A real fight. Someone who could take it and give it back just as hard. For the first time, he was meeting a match physically, someone stronger than even him, but strength wasn’t everything. Not in a real fight. He stepped back, narrowly dodging another flailing blow as Grundy continued, low and grim “Grew worse on Friday…”

Sukuna backtracked again, weaving between wide haymakers and deflecting bone-shattering punches with sharp, instinctual movements. Each step, each dodge, drew the gray brute further from the others. He could hear it now, the waves crashing, slow and steady, slamming against stone. The pier. He was at the edge of the docks.

“Died on Saturday,” the brute muttered, mournful now. It raised both arms and brought them down in a crushing overhead blow. This time, Sukuna stepped into it. He caught the descending arm, twisted at the waist, and with a sharp breath and a surge of power, threw the monster over his shoulder.

Grundy sailed through the air heavy as a truck and disappeared into the churning black water below. For a moment, all was still.

Then pale gray eyes broke the surface. They stared up at Sukuna without hate, without rage, without fear or joy. “Buried on Sunday,” Grundy whispered and just before the waves swallowed him whole. “This is the end of Solomon Grundy,”

Sukuna watched grundy sink, an unfamiliar emotion filling him, before his instincts kicked in.

He dove to the side as a sai carved into the concrete where he'd stood. Cheshire. She had been tailing behind Grundy the whole time. The air split with a shriek of steel. Sukuna twisted just as a sword came flying for his neck from the right. Ravager. He dropped his stance, grounded himself, and raised one arm.

The blade bit into his forearm, but he ignored the pain. In the same breath, Cheshire lunged. The second sai gleamed in her hand, coming fast and low. But Sukuna moved like a machine made for the sole purpose of combat. He shifted his weight, thrust out his free hand, and caught the blade mid-strike, palm first. He felt flesh tear as his muscles tensed.

But he didn’t let go. Instead, he looked at the two girls who had struck from opposite angles the moment he dropped Grundy. He gave them a small nod of acknowledgment. That rare sliver of respect he reserved for fighters who didn’t flinch.

Then the fanged maw on his stomach widened without a sound. That was all the warning they got.

His secondary set of arms lashed out. In one smooth motion, Sukuna yanked Cheshire forward by the weapon still gripped in his hand and buried a double-fisted blow straight into her side. The impact landed with a dull, brutal crunch.

Her ribs broke instantly. Blood and air erupted from her mouth with enough force to send the mask flying before she could even scream. She flew backward, her limbs loose, her eyes wide with shock. Sukuna didn’t bother tracking where she landed. He didn’t need to. She wouldn’t be getting back up. For all her speed, and all her technique, she was still human.

His gaze shifted to the other girl. The leader.

She had already let go of her sword and retreated, nimble on her feet, she smoothly unsheathed two extra knives from a hidden sheathe and braced. Her eyes were locked on him, and her stance was tight. Ready for whatever came next. More importantly, her eyes shone with something that sent a thrill down his spine. Gone was the anger, now there was only fear.

Sukuna's grin widened. "You had your shot."

He ripped her sword out of his arm, blood spraying as steel tore free, and flung it aside without a care. So far the blow from her sword had been the most dangerous blow. It had cut deep enough to kiss bone. He exploded forward, closing the distance between them in an instant.

The girl didn’t hesitate; he would give her that. She lunged forward the instant he closed in, twin knives flashing out in a cross aimed to rip his chest open. Then she went for the eyes, the throat, every blow aimed to kill. However, unlike what she expected, Sukuna didn’t duck or sidestep.

He blew through it.

One arm snapped up to catch her wrist mid-swing. The other clamped around her throat, fingers digging in like iron clamps. Her second blade scraped uselessly off the hardened bone that served as his disfigured eyes as he lifted her into the air. She kicked at him, carved lines across his arms, but his four hands moved like a machine.

He slammed her into the ground. Once. Twice.

A third time, harder, until the asphalt cracked and her breath left her lungs in a broken gasp. Her mask split. Her lip bled. Sukuna raised a fist overhead, then he brought it down like a hammer.

Her arms snapped up to block, and for a split second, it looked like she might hold. But his strength crushed right through. The cracking of bone shot through the silence. The scream she let out was choked, forced through grit teeth. He didn't stop. Blow after blow came down like falling boulders. Chest, shoulder, gut. Brutal. Relentless. He wasn’t just fighting again. He was destroying her, wailing into her with machine-like movements, only when her guards dropped, when all she did was lay on her back as his fist bruised flesh and broke muscles, only then did he stop.

He grabbed her by the collar and lifted her again, letting her dangle half-conscious, knives long gone, one eye already swelling shut. His other hand cocked back for the finishing blow, and for a moment, there was silence. "This was fun." He admitted to her barely unconscious form, then he moved to finish her off.

Till two blades drove their way clean through his back and out of his torso. The steel scraped against the ribs of his chest, and he knew that they had pierced his heart somehow.

He blinked, confused, as warmth spilled freely down his front. Blood. A lot of it. He looked down at the blade jutting through his heart, at the crimson soaking his skin like ink in water. His head turned slowly, mechanically, to glance over his shoulder.

Behind him stood a man dressed in black and burnt orange, his body thick with muscle and armor, every inch of him built for war. A male version of the girl Sukuna had been pummeling only older, heavier, and far more lethal. Despite driving the blade through him, the man didn’t even look Sukuna in the eye.

Instead, he planted a boot against Sukuna’s spine and kicked, sending him crashing forward, tearing the blade free as his body sailed down the pier. He skidded along the cracked pavement before coming to a slow stop, coughing blood. Behind him, the man had already moved, standing between Sukuna and the broken girl he had nearly killed.

“I’m disappointed in you, Rose. I—”

Whatever else the man meant to say was lost. Sukuna barely heard it. The words faded, drowned beneath the sound of his own heartbeat slowing. Cold crept into his limbs like fog rolling in from the sea. He looked down again, watching the blood pool beneath him in spreading silence.

And yet… he smiled.

He was dying, wasn’t he? But there was no fear. No sadness. No regret. Only the memory of pale gray eyes staring up at him without judgment. Grundy. Still and solemn, accepting of the end.

Sukuna closed his eyes. Perhaps he should accept his own end as well. His life had been short, but he had his fun. His mother was safe and set up, and Boris would take care of her. With him dead, the family shouldn't care as much about them. Perhaps it was time to truly rest.

As he drifted off into Nothingness, the last thing he heard was a snap, a mental chain breaking loose somewhere deep inside, and a laugh. A malevolent laugh.

"No."