Chapter Text
There was someone new in town.
Things like that were always big news in a town as small as theirs, where everyone seemed to know everyone.
The steps Uraume took through the main street and its many side alleys, squished in between houses, were small, careful and never hurried, always taking their time as they walked.
Everyone knew everyone, yet Uraume knew them best of all, always listening to what people were saying, their lips much looser than normal whenever Uraume was there, as if they didn’t exist at all, curious eyes skipping over their small form, words of greeting never offered in the first place.
”— I saw him just this morning, he’s very tall and—”
”— I heard the Yamasakis say their neighbor saw him and he was quite handsome, she said that—”
”— well of course she would say that!”
Words were ringing through the air, drifting here and there, the marketplace busy but Uraume’s steps never faltered, despite the amounts of people there was always somehow space for Uraume to walk straight ahead, uninterrupted, a place always open near the stalls they frequented, as if the town itself was a living thing, moving and shifting to make space.
It was not so, it was just an ordinary town, but space always opened up wherever Uraume went, so much so that when they’d been younger they imagined they had magic powers, the skill to bend even time and space to fit their small body in its many crevices, wherever they chose.
But it was not magic that created space, Uraume knew. It was their father’s knife, cleaving and slicing, it was the stench that clung to their mother’s apron that never went away, the redness under her nails and the silence of the animals kept right behind their house.
Death.
Blood.
Uraume stopped at a stall, pointing towards the vegetables they wanted. The woman behind the counter was frowning, packaging Uraume’s purchases as quickly as she could without a word exchanged between them, placing them in their bag with shaking hands as if it might bite her, never looking at Uraume directly. She didn’t hold her hand out for the money, Uraume knew to place the coins on the counter instead, not staying to watch how the woman collected them with her handkerchief, wiping them clean while tsking and muttering something under her breath.
There was no sun, no breeze, just the faint light of the oncoming winter that loomed somewhere beyond the utterly white horizon, about to descend upon them like a storm from the mountains in the distance. The air was dry and biting, eating away at whatever patch of skin was exposed to its hungry teeth, snapping like a dog smelling prey.
Uraume walked, the skin of their fingers red and their breath misting in the air as they stopped again at a different stall, the merchant there was a fisherman, someone who existed closer in the world to Uraume and their family, who dared to meet their gaze when no one else did, if only briefly. Even he still grimaced when Uraume spoke.
They pointed at the food they wanted, the man told them the price and with a subtle smirk Uraume haggled, knowing it was a game they’d win every time. And indeed, the man tried to argue the price back up, frowning and eye twitching from barely disguised anger, yet the longer he did so, the longer Uraume had to stand by the stall and the more others began to avoid it, creating space, creating space, and soon enough the man agreed with a snarl, all but shoving the wrapped up fish across the counter. Uraume smiled, leaving the laughable amount of money there, resisting the urge to throw it on the floor instead, for the simple glee of seeing the man crawl to get it all.
Uraume never minded the space, the loneliness. They quite preferred the calm and the quiet, never needing to mind the others or pretend to care. They liked that people didn’t speak to them, didn’t look at them, moved out of the way when they walked. They liked the freedom of it, of being born tainted. It meant that no one ever wanted to associate with them, it was almost as if the rules of society didn’t apply to them.
There was freedom in it, in the space and the silence. The stain that everyone could see, could smell, was something Uraume was glad for. And with their back turned, they could feel the fleeting gazes of the townspeople on their small body, watching them and judging them, wishing for them to go already, to return back to their house by the foot of the mountains, where they didn’t have to see them at all.
Though, as Uraume walked further and further away, it almost felt as though there was something else there now, among those familiar frightened stares. As if something was lingering, watching them more carefully than ever before.
Uraume stopped in the middle of the road, then swiftly turned to look back, though there was no one there. But, indeed, they had heard the news; there was someone new in town. Yet with a sigh Uraume gripped their shopping tighter and carried on, knowing whoever this new person was, he was sure to learn quickly enough to mind his own business and to keep away from Uraume and their family.
The way back to their home was long, the lone family kept far, far away from the rest of the village so the other townspeople could cling to the illusion of their family being separate, different. They weren’t wanted near the others, their very existence polluting even the air around them.
Back at their home, Uraume walked in through the gate, closing it with a soft click as animals scurried around the enclosed yard, sheep and pigs that they kept and raised, some were bought from the farmers who lived in the next town over.
To keep the meat fresh, their mother had explained.
A small lamb came to greet them, nosing at their hand and butting its head against their legs as they walked, begging for treats like a little puppy. Uraume smiled down at it, this little one had been a gift from the farmer since it was too frail for breeding, too small to be eaten.
The back of their home was more quiet, there Uraume could toe off their shoes in peace and leave their shopping in the kitchen for their mother who worked there, receiving a few kind pats to their head and a gentle smile from her as they walked through the small house to the front where there was a separate space for their shop, their father there busy serving customers.
He spared Uraume a cursory glance before offering them a spare apron, expecting his child to get to work taking orders and packing up meat for the people who bought it. Not hesitating, Uraume did as expected of them, having gotten used to the work from a young age, after all this job was to be their sole inheritance.
The stain of death and blood could never be washed away, it was something that had clung to Uraume from their birth, a stain of red splashed across their otherwise pure countenance.
Watching the people coming and going, never so much as wanting to look directly at them let alone touch them grew the contempt Uraume felt for these people who treated them as if they were not humans, only something humanlike, more animal than man.
Death was in their very blood, written deep into their bones, separating them into something else, confining them in these small spaces outside of the village but unlike their parents, Uraume could not spare any understanding or sympathy to the people who had confined them there, they were stuck seeing the way these people needed the labour them and their family provided yet for doing this work they were shunned, kept away from everyone else in this collective hallucination of them somehow being other.
Uraume shook their head at the thought.
The loneliness they were stuck in was so deep, so profound, it felt like a natural state to Uraume now.
Throughout the day, the trickle of customers coming and going slowed down, Uraume freed by their father with another cursory wave of his hand, taking off and neatly folding their apron and disappearing into the back of the house where their mother was.
She was washing her hands, the table bloody beside her and an assortment of knives and tools there, all laid out cleanly next to the washbasin.
”Were you good today?” she asked without looking over at them, Uraume’s eyes transfixed on the way the blood swirled in the water as she brushed her nails clean.
Uraume nodded, jumping up on the counter behind her, their legs swinging in the air. ”Uh-huh.”
She glanced at them quickly from over her shoulder. ”Go feed the animals, I need to speak to your father.”
And just as easily Uraume hopped back down with a nod, their white hair swishing with the movement right as the door to the shop opened behind them, another customer walking in with their parents greeting the newcomer enthusiastically.
Outside the sky was so white it hurt Uraume’s eyes, them needing to squint as they walked out of the door, wrapping up more layers around them to keep away the chill. It was getting colder and colder, even now as Uraume paused to look up, they could see small snowflakes gently drifting in the air, slowly, the ground hard and frozen under their small feet.
It would be that time again soon, they knew, the animals didn’t do so well in the wintertime.
They grabbed a bucket of feed, enjoying the strain of work in their arms as they carried it to the pen where they kept the pigs. Usually their parents didn’t let them feed the pigs, too scared about them falling in there with them and being eaten alive all the way to the bones, but Uraume liked feeding the animals. And they were more grown now, they could handle the responsibility.
A feeling always came over them when they saw the pigs eating the scraps from their shop, omnivores as they were, even devouring remnants of other pigs as if it was nothing. Uraume’s eyes were wide with fascination as they watched them do it, wondering if the animals ever knew, if they could taste the meat of their own kind, if the taste was beloved.
The front door swung again, creaking on its rusting axis, Uraume’s eyes were still stuck on the animals even as steps could be heard just on their other side, walking, walking, then slowing down to a stop.
The animals were screaming, a pack of birds taking off into flight as Uraume turned as if silently called upon, a feeling coming over them as a pair of eyes watched them and the gaze upon their skin felt like a living thing, maggots crawling in and over rotting flesh, burrowing in deep.
Something in the pits of their belly lurched as they saw the man standing just some ways away from them, on the other side of the fence that wrapped around their yard.
He was tall and handsome, just like everyone had said, quite large and muscular with a peculiar hair color, red like springtime or the stained pink of Uraume’s hands as they washed away the blood.
Something shone in his eyes upon being noticed, like he was glad to have Uraume’s attention on him, something which no one had ever been glad for before. They spent many moments just like that, seeing each other, looking and watching, the world ceasing to exist until there was nothing but the two of them, the wind and the screaming animals, screeching and wailing.
With a sharp smile the man walked away, but as they watched him go they could feel something of him stay with Uraume, stuck within them, something sharp like a splinter in the very meat of their body, right under their skin, too deep to see.
They could feel it prickling, piercing their flesh as they moved through the days until they saw him again, their heart jumping and sputtering as his eyes fell on them once more and as their gazes met, Uraume was sure the man could see the way Uraume hadn’t been able to breathe properly even once in his absence, they were sure he could see something of himself in them, bathing in their eyes, as if he could recognize himself inside of them.
What it was that he saw, Uraume could not say, but when they looked at him, they could see it too. They were alike, the two of them, somehow. And Uraume was breathless in their desperation to find out what that something was, who had tied this red string between them, why Uraume could feel it tugging at their intestines with every step the man took.
He was a strange man, Uraume thought, one that kept noticing them and looking at them when all Uraume had grown up used to were shifting eyes and turning heads. During dinnertime, their parents often talked of him too, his good looks and any possible wealth he might have, why he was so eager to associate with their kind, why he kept coming back.
Uraume didn’t want to think it was because of them that the man came, but each time he exited their parents’ shop, he watched Uraume working in the yard with the animals, feeding them and caring for them, and he observed them as he walked past them, only tearing his gaze away once he was too far from them to see anymore.
Where he went or from where he came, Uraume didn’t know, but they could feel the red string tugging in their belly, pulling them towards the man, again and again, and before their work had been the only thing keeping Uraume busy, but now they found themself spending time counting the looks shared between the two of them.
And days, days, days went by, Uraume begun feeling as though the man was toying with them, tugging and tugging them closer until they were walking side by side on either side of the fence, only Uraume could never follow him all the way, the edge of their family’s limits always stopped them and the man would tear his gaze away and leave, Uraume stuck right where they always had been, amidst the screaming animals.
A flock of birds broke into flight, black against the sky, Uraume watching as they flew away where they could not, hands tightly gripping the fence.
—
”Do you like it?”
Uraume was gaping at him, the first time they had ever heard him speak and the deep yet gentle cadence of his voice stoked something within them, belly dipping low.
He tilted his head, leaning on his hand against the fence while his other gripped the packaged meat he had bought from Uraume’s parents.
”Your job, do you like it?”
No one had ever bothered to ask something like that before, after all it didn’t matter whether Uraume enjoyed their profession or not, since they were born tainted, it was the only course left for them in this life.
As such, at length they nodded, eyes stuck on the man and the image he made as he slyly smiled at them like a fox eyeing its prey, dark gaze gleaming.
Uraume felt breathless as they stepped closer to him, another step and another one, again and again, yet the man never faltered, only stayed where he was as Uraume neared him, smiling all the while.
They couldn’t understand what it was the man was doing to them with his wicked smile and tempting voice, young as they were they didn’t have words for the tide that rose within them, beckoning them closer to him, the want in them suddenly to cleave his chest open so they might crawl inside his carcass, sleep next to his beating heart.
And he was smiling, smiling, always smiling as if everything in the world pleased him, every little thing was tugging on the corners of his lips, his eyes warm with mirth as Uraume walked over to him.
”So what do you do?”
Uraume cocked their head, confused. ”I’m a butcher.”
The man’s smile widened briefly, a mad grin. ”Yes, but what do you do?”
A slight hesitation accompanied by a deep, flickering breath. ”I kill the animals, but my mother is going to teach me how to skin them soon, too.”
”How do you kill them?”
Uraume stepped even closer still, close enough to touch. ”With a knife. I sever the carotid artery.” They could remember the words their parents had taught them as they had shown Uraume to cut here, here and here, this is how you slaughter.
The man nodded, still smiling and the clear joy on his face perhaps should’ve made Uraume feel uneasy, should’ve frightened Uraume. Only it did not, for some reason they didn’t know how to be afraid of this man.
”Exsanguination,” he said and Uraume nodded in confirmation, the word sounding familiar to their ears, their parents perhaps had taught it to them as well, but Uraume was still young and the word was strange, so they had forgotten.
But that evening it rang in their ears as their parents told them it was time and all three of them worked well into the night, slaughtering, Uraume leading the animals to their deaths one by one, making sure to keep calm and to not distress the animals, so as to minimize their pain and suffering.
Their usually white and pale form was all but doused in blood all the way to their elbows and the tips of their hair, the little lambs and pigs screaming, screaming, screaming as they were slaughtered one after the other, Uraume watching with wide eyes and bated breath as their father restrained the animals, each of them hanged head-down by their hind legs before he dealt the fatal strike.
At one point, their father beckoned them closer, calling them forth to learn. Despite what Uraume had told the man, they hadn’t killed any animals themself yet, having only watched and learned from their parents. But now, things would change.
Their father held them close to his body, hoisting the animal and restraining it before giving Uraume his knife, wicked and sharp, pointing again here, here, here and here, this is how you slaughter.
”Remember what we taught you,” he said and Uraume nodded, swiftly and with no hesitation inserting the knife through the animal’s skin parallel to the ground, just right in front of the point of its jaw, below the vertebrae. From there, they drew the knife forward and away from the animal’s spine, severing the jugular veins, carotid arteries and trachea.
The blood was immediate and large, Uraume stained even further as they looked up at their father who nodded in satisfaction before their gaze was drawn in by the animal once more, watching with fascination as it died.
”Death will occur in under 10 seconds,” he said, the two watching closely as the animal’s heart and liver malfunctioned, leading to brain death. Due to the animal’s position, it would never regain consciousness again, even if complications occurred during the initial cut. The blood flowed precipitously, without stopping until it was all gone, the animal dead as its brethren screamed and wailed, noises echoing around the slaughterhouse.
”Well done,” their father said and Uraume beamed, glad to have done well, ”go see your mother now.”
And happily Uraume went, their mother smiling as they arrived, white and small like a little lamb as they trotted through the door, though now irreversibly stained.
She gladly beckoned Uraume closer, showing them how to remove an animal’s hides and pelts, how to dehair and scald the pigs before removing the viscera and splitting the carcass in half. From the meat, their mother showed with her bloodstained finger how to select the sides and quarters for the best primal cuts, here, here, here and here, separating them from the animal’s carcass and trimming the cuts for sale and storing.
And as Uraume was boning the cuts, their knife gliding through the meat as if it was butter, the feel of the flesh under their touch silken as they trimmed the cuts, their mind grew hazy, purring inside of their skull like a well-fed cat as they worked and worked, the very movements of cutting addictive, the sounds of meat separating under their knife stirring something deep inside of them, something that was incandescently happy by this act of butchering.
Do you like it?
The smiling man’s words rang in their ears now as they cleaved and cut, their soul at peace, though only barely, as they cut and cut, more and more there was a feeling of craving something different, a want rising inside of them, though for what, Uraume could not say.
They could only think of the spring colored man who was always smiling, their knife fervently working, arms straining from the exhaustion of it, yet they found they couldn’t stop, only wanting to cut more and more, again and again, more, more, more, more.
All else disappeared, their mother’s praises and the screaming of the pigs outside, all that existed to Uraume was the still warm meat under their hands and the clean, smooth movements of their knife as they cut and cleaved, eviscerating and boning.
Do you like it?
And who would ask that? What kind of person wondered if someone could enjoy it, and yet Uraume undoubtedly did like it, enjoyed every bloody part of slaughtering, could spend an eternity doing just that, killing, killing, killing. Which of them was worse than the other, the one who was curious or the one who was the butcher?
Do you like to kill?
Do you like to slaughter?
And Uraume’s answer, always, undoubtedly was yes, yes, yes, I do like it.
I crave it.
As they washed themself later that night, watching how the blood mixed with the water in their basin, they could recall the slaughtering as vividly as anything, as if each second had been etched into their eyelids, so they might see the carnage even as they slept.
And in their dreams it was all repeated, though the smiling man was there was well, watching with that wicked, awful smile as Uraume cut and cleaved, butchered, though if they were to look down they would’ve seen that what they killed was not animal at all, but in the dream Uraume only had eyes for the man, wanting to please him, to make it so his smile never dimmed, so he might only grin more and more as Uraume killed, killed, killed for him.
To others, it might’ve been a nightmare, but to Uraume it was a sweet dream that had them burrowing deeper into their bedmat, smiling contentedly.
They could feel he was happy, and so Uraume was happy too.
—
The ground was white with snow, even the sky itself was grey and colorless as the winter chill settled in, no breeze at all to stir the barren trees, even the birds were still as they sat on their branches.
The smiling man was back, leaning against the fence, watching as Uraume fed and played around with the only little lamb left, the one that was too small for killing. A gift from the farmer.
His dark, almost red eyes followed Uraume around, his expression neutral yet pure satisfaction oozed from him, as if he was quite content standing where he was, against the fence, watching Uraume prance this way and that.
”It’s quiet here today,” he said at last and Uraume paused, taking a few steps closer to him.
”Yes, we killed the animals, there are none left now.”
The smiling man regarded them for a moment, before nodding towards the small lamb Uraume had been playing around with.
”There’s one right there.”
Uraume’s eyes flicked from the man to the little lamb by their side. They felt drawn to him, so very drawn to his presence, but even as a little flame licked through their body, they held themselves still.
”That one isn’t meant to be killed,” they explained, stepping closer to the man, ”it’s too small to be eaten or to be bred.”
Even as Uraume neared him, the man never moved any further away to avoid their presence, the way everyone else always did. It was strange, the feeling that came over Uraume as the man stayed close to them, remaining there despite the carnage. No one had ever done such a thing before, no one had ever come so close.
It was scary, not because of the feelings Uraume had, but because they knew it might ruin them. And worst of all, they knew they would let it.
The man regarded them for many moments, looking, looking and smiling like he always did, as if he knew something Uraume did not.
Then, he said something Uraume had not expected, but perhaps should’ve. With a smile, he said ”you should kill it anyway.”
Uraume regarded him dubiously, as if they weren’t sure they’d heard him correctly in the first place. ”Why ever would I do that?”
The smiling man shrugged, his grin spreading. ”Because I told you to.”
Uraume looked back at the little lamb again, white as snow, then at the man whose gaze had never left them for even a second. Yet somehow the man knew how to tug on the red little string he had tied in the depths of Uraume’s belly, and he pulled on it now, to bring them closer to him.
And Uraume went easily, charmed and curious.
”If you kill the lamb,” the man said, the two so close now that Uraume could feel the way his breath stirred the strands of their hair, ”I’ll tell you my name.”
It would’ve been a worthless, even a laughable offer to anyone else, but Uraume was already so taken by him, thrilled to be held captive in his gaze, taking his hand without hesitation as he offered it.
”I will tell you my name.”
To have him was worth everything to Uraume, so drawn were they to him, and without much thinking they did as their parents had taught them, pulling out the knife held at their waist and walking over to the lamb that did not know what was coming and so didn’t think to run until it was much too late and it was clutched tightly in Uraume’s embrace as they raised their knife and swiftly cut out its throat, holding it on their lap as it bled out, gazing into the fading darkness of its inhuman eyes.
They gathered the little lamb in their arms as they stood up, clothes stained by its blood that was still warm. Holding the lamb they stood before the man who regarded them with something dark and lustful in his eyes, perhaps love, perhaps disgust.
”My name is Ryomen Sukuna,” the smiling man, Sukuna, said, straightening up as Uraume lowered the lamb down onto the ground.
Then they stood back up, standing straight before him with their bloodstained clothes, hardly even reaching his chest as they stood so close to each other, instead they needed to crane their head, neck bent as they looked up at him.
”And what will you give for my name?”
Sukuna laughed heartily, swaying on his feet, elated to see this little lamb playing along with him so eagerly, so easily.
With two of his large, thick fingers, he beckoned them closer. And Uraume went, nearer and nearer to him, closer than they’d perhaps ever been to anyone outside of their own family, pressed chest to chest with only the wooden fence separating them from Sukuna.
He reached out, briefly cupping their cheek before instead letting his finger play with Uraume’s white hair, twirling it around his fingers and tugging on it gently, as if to see if he could, if he’d be allowed this. He resembled a little kitten or an unruly dog in the way he constantly tested the limits of the things he was allowed to do, a greedy child in the way he took without asking. Spoiled rotten.
”If you tell me your name,” he began, drawling, spending a long time on each syllable, teasing, ”I will tell you a secret.”
Uraume eyed him, suspicious. ”What kind of secret?”
And predictably Sukuna fell silent, still smiling as he played around with Uraume’s hair as well as tracing his fingers down the side of their face and along the sharp line of their jaw, down again the side of their throat, tugging on the lapels of their bloodstained kimono.
Uraume’s chest was heaving as they stood before him being toyed with like an object, as if they were an amusement to Sukuna and nothing else. As if he only wanted to see how far he could go, what he could ask for and still have Uraume provide it, at what point would they stop and say enough. And Uraume was growing to fear such a point did not exist at all.
I think you’ll be the death of me, Uraume thought, a fate promised by the murders of crows under the wandering stars, and them helpless to do anything but run towards it, falling into the grave dug out for them. Maybe their beginning with him was always going to be their end.
Ever so slowly, they nodded, leaning their head towards him to whisper in his ear. ”My name is Uraume, like the plum blossoms.”
And Sukuna hummed, as if greatly pleased, then used his grip on their face to wrench their head to the side, then gently tucking their hair behind their ear.
With his breath against their skin, warm, Uraume at once saw the tide of destruction coming for their town and realized they would be its herald, bringing upon this town the end they had been looking for, what they all had been fearing.
As he whispered in their ear, they heard the syllables that would doom them all, unleash something caged, they knew this would be how it all started, how it would all end.
—