Strength and weakness

"Brother, what's your name? You feel so familiar."

Alluka tilted her head in confusion, her gaze settling on the uneven line of stitches across the forehead of the person before her.

Something about him felt familiar, though she couldn't say exactly what.

"It's only a name other people happen to call me. It doesn't matter."

Kenjaku gave a stiff smile, a sheen of cold sweat gathering at his temple without him noticing.

Ryomen Sukuna sat cross-legged nearby. At the sight of Kenjaku's expression, he laughed without restraint.

"I've delivered the message, so I'll be leaving."

Kenjaku had no intention of airing his past humiliations. He flicked his sleeve and turned to leave.

Ryomen Sukuna rose casually, unconcerned by Kenjaku's departure.

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the shutters. Sukuna walked toward Alluka with the light at his back, casting her entirely in his shadow.

"All you can do is grant wishes. So fragile you're utterly useless."

Perhaps anyone else, upon hearing that any wish could be granted, would have all sorts of thoughts. Their greed would snowball, growing larger and larger until their desires erupted at some breaking point, driving them to do something irreversible.

Just like those people from the Northern House of Fujiwara.

But for Ryomen Sukuna as he was now, anything he wanted was within easy reach. He had far fewer complicated thoughts about it.

"I'm sorry, Brother."

Alluka lowered her lashes, her gray-blue eyes growing misty.

She didn't know Brother's real name, nor could she help him. Perhaps she really was rather useless. Nanika could easily grant the wishes of the adults in the Fujiwara Clan, but when it came to Brother, neither of them seemed to know what he wanted.

Ryomen Sukuna's crimson eyes shifted, and he called toward the doorway:

"Uraume!"

The silver-haired boy appeared at the shoji door in an instant, as though he had materialized out of thin air.

"Lord Sukuna, what are your orders?"

Uraume wore a hakama apron to keep the dust off his clothes and still held a sharp kitchen knife. Clearly, he had rushed over from the kitchen.

"I'm going to find Yamata no Orochi. I'll be back in a couple of days."

Uraume watched Sukuna leave, his rose-red eyes filled with sorrow.

"Am I too weak...? Lord Sukuna used to take me wherever he went."

Uraume looked as forlorn as someone drenched in the rain.

"Little Ume, you're not that weak. Brother said I'm the useless one."

Alluka gave him a sweet smile, wisps of hair brushing her soft cheeks. She looked adorable.

"..."

Uraume wiped his face with the back of his hand and turned his gaze to Alluka.

Uraume had never considered Alluka weak.

He had seen how she could turn an ordinary person into something so extreme in next to no time. If not for Lord Sukuna's mercy, he would have died at Sugawara Kazukazu's hands back then.

But her body had not a trace of cursed energy and seemed so frail it might shatter at a touch. No matter how powerful her ability was, she couldn't use it against someone like Uraume, who fought without any sense of fair play and struck without a word.

His expression grew serious. "You're coming to the mountain behind the house with me tomorrow."

"Huh?"

An excited flush rose to Alluka's fair cheeks.

During her days at the Shrine, she had been kept tucked away like a precious, fragile treasure. Those people had feared the slightest harm coming to her. What would they do on the mountain? Play a fun game?

With those eager expectations, she was hauled out of bed by Uraume the next morning.

Alluka thought Uraume wanted to play with her. Uraume, however, intended to train that frail body of hers.

"Curses are the waste products of humans' negative emotions. The cursed energy that spills out gathers together and forms all sorts of cursed spirits..."

Realizing that Alluka truly knew nothing, Uraume let out a long sigh and began explaining.

Even without cursed energy in her body, she needed to understand how it worked, lest she accidentally stumble into something and get herself killed.

He also needed to buy Alluka a cursed tool.

Uraume felt he was worrying himself sick over her.

"Huh?"

Faced with these unfamiliar terms, Alluka looked utterly bewildered. She had no idea what Uraume was talking about.

"...Anyway, let's start with two laps."

Noticing the look in Alluka's eyes, Uraume abandoned his explanation.

He had wanted to explain how cursed energy circulated, but then decided there wasn't much point.

His intentions were wonderful. Reality, however, was cruel.

Only a few minutes later, Alluka collapsed on the ground in exhaustion. Even the tuft of hair sticking up from her head had wilted.

"Little Ume, can we stop running?"

Alluka held out her hands and wheedled at Uraume. Exhaustion blurred the ends of her words together, making them sound as sweet as maple syrup.

"Ah."

Uraume picked Alluka up.

He had expected her stamina to be terrible, but not this terrible. Even the commoners at the foot of the mountain ran faster than Alluka when fleeing curses.

"Little Ume, can you pat my head?"

Alluka rested obediently on Uraume's back and continued wheedling.

Uraume's raised hand froze as he suddenly recalled the scene just before Sugawara Kazukazu became a monster.

Lord Sukuna had once said that all those rope people were the work of the presence within Alluka.

Sugawara Kazukazu had become that thing after fulfilling three of Alluka's requests. Those rope people must have appeared after someone refused...

Surely not...

He turned and gently placed his hand on Alluka's head.

Alluka wore a harmless smile, a faint sheen of sweat still glistening on the tip of her nose from her run.

"Little Ume, praise me."

Alluka blinked and made another request.

"You're amazing."

Uraume sighed, thinking, Just as I thought.

The moment he saw the child called Nanika, he knew his guess had been right.

So unless Alluka chooses to do it herself, you have to fulfill three requests to wake her?

"Do you have a wish?"

Nanika turned her deathly pale face toward Uraume, giving him her full attention.

Like Alluka, she liked Uraume very much.

Since she couldn't help Brother, she wanted to grant Uraume's wish instead.

"Well..."

Uraume knew Nanika could genuinely grant wishes. After some serious thought, he asked cautiously, "I want Lord Sukuna to have the tastiest meat there is."

Uraume didn't know that making wishes through Alluka required an equivalent exchange. He thought it over and found he had no particular wish he wanted granted.

If there was anything he wanted, it was for Lord Sukuna to enjoy the finest, most delicious food. That was what he would devote his life to achieving.

"...Okay."

Nanika twisted her head, accompanied by a teeth-grating creak.

The instant she agreed, all the meat in the homes of Heian-kyō's nobles vanished without a trace. Every bit of the missing food piled up inside Sukuna's residence.

There was so much that it spilled out beyond the residence.