I remember dying.
Not in the dramatic way people imagine—no slow-motion montage, no final speech, no warm hand reaching for mine. Just a simple, ugly ending that felt like someone snapped a wire inside the world and everything went dark.
Then the dark blinked.
A sound like a coin hitting glass rang through the nothingness, bright and sharp, and I opened my eyes to a place that didn't have walls, sky, or ground—just an endless, pale space filled with drifting motes of light. Some of them spun lazily like dust in a sunbeam. Others moved with purpose, as if they were watching me.
In front of me hovered a circle—too big to be a wheel, too clean to be a halo. It was made of overlapping rings of symbols that slid past one another like gears. Every time they aligned, a different set of images flashed: a sword, a crown, a monstrous eye, a hand wrapped in bandages, a mouth full of fangs.
A voice spoke without speaking.
GACHA ALLOCATION: REINCARNATION PACKAGE.
SELECT: SPIN.
I didn't question why a cosmic afterlife looked like an app feature. I didn't ask who built it, what god was running it, or why I—me—had been given a choice.
Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was instinct. Or maybe something deep inside me understood that the universe had already made its decision, and I was just being allowed to watch the animation.
I reached out. The air felt cold, but the circle buzzed like a living thing. My fingertips didn't touch glass or metal—more like pressure, like pushing on a membrane.
SPIN CONFIRMED.
The rings accelerated. Symbols blurred into a storm. Images snapped past too fast to comprehend—wings, horns, halos cracked down the middle, beastly silhouettes, city skylines under red moons.
And then the wheel caught. It didn't slow. It stopped. So abruptly it felt like reality hit a wall. Three results appeared, stacked like cards.
APPEARANCE: RYOMEN SUKUNA (VESSEL FORM).
A face stared back at me—my face, but with a crueler symmetry. Pink hair cut short and wild. Eyes too sharp to be human. And markings—thin black lines that crawled along skin like a curse pretending to be ink.
ABILITIES: FULL SUKUNA KIT (PRIME).
A flood of information pressed against my skull. Not knowledge the way you learn it—knowledge the way you remember it, like the body had always known how to do these things and was simply waiting for permission.
Slashes that didn't care about armor or distance.
A domain that imposed my will on space itself.
Regeneration that mocked injury.
A presence so absolute it made the concept of "threat" feel like a joke.
TRAIT: IMMORTALITY (ABSOLUTE).
My throat went dry. I didn't get a sword. I didn't get a sacred gear. I didn't get a "chosen hero" blessing. I got a monster's crown.
The wheel pulsed once, as if satisfied.
NAME REGISTERED: SUKUNA.
I felt it slide into place—like a seal stamped onto my soul. Not a nickname. Not an alias. A label the world would accept.
The pale void shattered like a mirror, and the pieces became light. Then the light became heat. Then the heat became war.
I fell through a sky the color of bruised iron. Wind clawed at my skin. Clouds below boiled like smoke. Somewhere in the distance, something screamed—long, metallic, dying.
I should've panicked. I should've flailed. Instead, I laughed. Not because it was funny. Because the sensation of being alive again hit me like intoxication, and the power humming inside my bones turned fear into an irrelevant language.
The world rushed up. Not a city. Not a forest.
A battlefield.
An entire continent of violence laid out beneath me—blackened ground split by trenches and craters, rivers that ran too thick to be water, and banners—hundreds of them—fluttering above armies that shouldn't exist together in the same reality.
I recognized the shapes before my mind caught up.
Feathered wings.
Bat wings.
Fallen wings like burnt paper.
Armor etched with scripture.
Sigils that burned crimson and violet.
High School DxD.
The words came unbidden, almost calm in the middle of chaos. Like a file name you find on an old computer and suddenly remember everything inside it.
This was the Faction War—the era after the God of the Bible had died and the balance of the supernatural world had cracked. Peace talks that never held. Old grudges dressed up as holy duty. Devils, angels, fallen angels, and every opportunist crawling from the dark, all convinced the other side deserved extinction.
Below me, a mass of bodies collided.
Light speared down from a cluster of winged figures—angels firing spears of holy power into a line of devils whose magic rose like infernos. Fallen angels answered with black lightning that split the sky and turned a dozen soldiers into ash.
A shockwave rippled across the ground.
A dragon-shaped construct made of demonic energy slammed into a barrier of holy light. The impact shook the horizon.
And in the middle of it all, standing on a ridge of broken stone like he belonged there, was a devil with a crown of horns and eyes that burned gold. His aura spread like smoke, heavy and arrogant.
A high-class devil.
He lifted a hand, and demonic circles flared.
"Advance!" his voice thundered across the field. "Crush them! Show them what it means to defy—"
He never finished.
Because I landed.
Not gently.
Not with an explosion of magic like a dramatic entrance.
I simply arrived, feet touching earth, and everything within a hundred meters reacted as if the world itself had recognized the wrong kind of predator.
The ground cracked outward in a web.
Dust lifted in a ring around me.
And the war—this endless screaming machine—hesitated.
Dozens of eyes snapped my way. Angelic, demonic, human, inhuman. Some saw a teenage boy with strange markings. Some saw something worse. Some didn't see me at all—only the pressure rolling off my body, the way it made their instincts recoil.
The first to move was an angel.
He dove from the sky, wings flaring, spear of light raised high. His face was noble, set with righteous certainty.
I tilted my head.
He came down like judgment.
I raised my hand like boredom.
A thin line appeared in the air.
Not light.
Not magic.
A cut.
The angel's spear split in half before it touched me.
Then the angel did too.
His body separated cleanly, like he'd been sliced by an invisible blade that didn't bother to announce itself.
For a heartbeat, the two halves hovered midair.
Then gravity remembered them.
They hit the dirt with a wet sound.
Silence spread, stunned and sick.
Somewhere behind me, a devil whispered, "What… what did he do?"
Another voice—fallen, sharp—answered, "That wasn't demonic power."
I smiled without warmth.
"Try again," I said, and my voice carried farther than it should have.
The battlefield erupted.
Angels surged forward, furious, holy light flaring.
Devils answered with hellfire and destruction.
Fallen angels swarmed from above like carrion birds sensing a feast.
And every one of them made the same mistake.
They treated me like a participant.
I wasn't.
I was the event.
I stepped forward.
A line of devils charged, weapons raised, eyes shining with battle hunger. Their leader—a broad-shouldered noble with a spear of crimson energy—roared as he closed the distance.
I didn't dodge. I didn't block.
I flicked my fingers.
The space in front of me segmented into a grid of cuts.
The spear vanished first, severed into neat sections. Then the devil's arms. Then his torso. Then everything behind him—soldiers, banners, even the air itself—split into pieces like a painting sliced into strips.
The bodies fell in slow, confused collapse.
Blood misted the wind.
Some of it touched my face.
I licked it off my lip and chuckled.
Not because I enjoyed it.
Because part of me did.
And that part wore my name like a crown.
The angels tried to burn me.
Holy light slammed into my skin, so intense the air turned white.
It should have seared, purified, erased.
Instead, it washed over me like warm rain.
A sting. A brief annoyance.
Then the flesh repaired itself as if reality was embarrassed it tried.
I raised my hand toward the angelic formation and drew a shallow line across the horizon.
Dozens of wings fluttered.
Then stopped.
Then fell.
Like leaves cut from a tree.
The fallen angels reacted faster than the others—not out of bravery, but because they understood what uncontrollable power looked like. They hurled black lightning and cursed arrows and spells that distorted the space around me, trying to bind, slow, contain.
My markings pulsed.
My eyes sharpened.
For a moment, something surfaced behind them—something old and amused.
"You're adorable," I told them.
I snapped my fingers.
The binding spells unraveled like thread. The lightning bent away from me, striking their own ranks. The arrows vanished midflight, bisected by cuts too precise to be seen.
A fallen angel with torn wings screamed as he dove straight at me, desperation shining in his eyes. He held a spear coated in something darker than darkness—a weapon meant to kill what couldn't be killed.
He thrust.
The spear hit my chest.
It pierced.
For the first time since I arrived, I felt something like pain—sharp, satisfying, almost nostalgic.
The fallen angel's face twisted in triumph.
"I got you—!"
I looked down at the spear in my chest.
Then I looked up at him.
And I grinned.
"Good," I said softly. "You made it interesting."
My hand closed around the spear shaft.
The fallen angel tried to pull back.
I didn't let him.
I leaned forward instead, letting the weapon drive deeper.
His triumph turned to confusion.
Then to fear.
Then to screaming.
I tore the spear out of my body and whipped it sideways.
The blade didn't cut the air.
It cut him.
He came apart in three clean pieces.
The wound in my chest closed a second later, flesh knitting like water refusing to stay parted.
I breathed in, slow.
The war had become a ring around me—armies stalled, staring, unsure whether to attack or run. High-class devils watched with narrowed eyes, calculating. Angels hovered with rigid discipline, but their formation wavered like a prayer losing faith.
In the distance, I felt bigger presences shifting.
There were monsters here who could level mountains. Leaders who carried legends on their shoulders. Beings the world called Satan-class, Seraph-class, Grigori commanders—names that mattered.
They were coming.
Good.
I wanted to see if this universe had anything worth biting.
A pressure rolled in from the east—immense and demonic, like a storm made of pride. From the west came holy light so dense it felt like a wall. Above, fallen energy moved like a dark tide.
Three forces converging.
Three factions.
Three answers to the same problem.
Me.
A devil landed on a broken pillar not far away—tall, elegant, crimson hair, aura like a royal decree. His eyes flicked over the carnage and settled on me with the calm of someone used to being the most dangerous thing in any room.
An archdevil.
An angel descended opposite him, wings spread wide, expression solemn, spear held like a symbol instead of a weapon.
A fallen angel hovered above, smiling with sharp teeth and sharper intent.
They didn't speak at first.
They simply looked at me.
I looked back.
Then I yawned.
"You're late," I said.
The fallen angel's smile twitched. "Who are you?"
I spread my hands slightly, as if presenting myself.
"Sukuna."
The name landed on the air like a curse.
The devil's eyes narrowed. The angel's grip tightened. The fallen angel tilted his head, as if tasting the word.
"Sukuna," the devil repeated, slow. "That is not a name recognized by any House."
"It is now," I said.
The angel's voice came next, controlled but edged. "This battlefield is under divine jurisdiction. Stand down. Explain yourself."
I laughed.
Divine jurisdiction.
In a world where God was dead, they still spoke like the rules mattered.
I took a step forward.
The ground groaned.
The air thickened.
"Here's my explanation," I said. "You're all loud. You're all ugly. And I'm tired of watching you pretend this is righteous."
The devil's aura flared, a warning. "Careful, boy."
I looked at him like he was a dog that had learned to bark.
"I'm not careful," I said.
And then I moved.
Not fast.
Not slow.
Just enough.
The world behind me blurred.
A cut flashed.
The devil raised his hand, conjuring a barrier of demonic power—dense, layered, ancient.
My slash hit it.
The barrier split.
Not shattered—split, like someone took a knife through paper.
The devil's eyes widened a fraction.
The angel thrust his spear, holy light surging.
My second slash caught it midline.
Holy light separated cleanly.
The fallen angel cast a binding spell from above, dark chains snapping down toward me.
My third slash cut the chains into pieces before they could touch my shoulders.
Three attacks.
Three answers.
I didn't even draw breath.
For the first time, the three leaders looked at each other—not as enemies, but as allies facing something they didn't understand.
I could have killed them then.
It would have been easy. It would have been satisfying.
But I wasn't here to win a war.
I was here to end it.
I stepped into the center of the battlefield, lifted my arms slightly, and let my presence unfurl.
Cursed energy—my energy—rolled out like heat off pavement, invisible but undeniable. It didn't feel like demonic power. It didn't feel like holy light.
It felt like a verdict.
Soldiers dropped to their knees. Some vomited. Some screamed. Some simply froze, their minds refusing to process the predator standing among them.
The leaders resisted longer, but even they stiffened, jaws set, eyes narrowed against the pressure.
I spoke, and my voice carried across the entire war.
"Enough."
Not a shout.
A statement.
The air vibrated.
And then I opened my domain.
It didn't explode outward like a spell. It unfolded, elegant and terrible, as if space itself decided to obey me.
A shrine rose behind me—not built of stone, but of meaning. An altar carved from inevitability. The sky inside it darkened. The ground inside it became smooth, as if the battlefield had been erased and replaced with a stage meant only for slaughter.
Within its range, my slashes didn't need distance.
They didn't need aim.
They simply happened.
The armies tried to flee.
The domain did not care.
Cuts bloomed across the battlefield like flowers in reverse—opening bodies, slicing wings, severing weapons, splitting formations into confusion and ruin.
It wasn't random.
It was art.
When the domain faded, the battlefield looked like a painting someone had ruined with a thousand fine lines.
The leaders still stood.
Barely.
The devil's suit was torn, blood running down his face, but his eyes were sharp with rage and—beneath it—something like respect.
The angel's wings were ragged at the edges, holy light dimming, but he held himself upright.
The fallen angel's grin had vanished entirely.
They stared at me like men staring at a storm that had learned their names.
I exhaled slowly.
The war was over.
Not because anyone surrendered.
Because nobody was brave enough to continue.
I turned away.
"Remember my face," I said over my shoulder, casual. "Not because it matters. Because it'll haunt you."
I walked through the silence.
No one stopped me.
No one dared.
Legends aren't born in songs.
They're born in whispers.
I didn't stay to negotiate peace. I didn't offer terms. I didn't declare myself king.
I left.
Because the moment I stayed, I would've become a symbol for someone else's agenda—and I despised agendas more than I despised blood.
But the battlefield didn't forget me.
They rebuilt it in their minds, sharper and crueler each time they told the story.
They said the war stopped because a demon arrived who didn't belong to any faction.
They said angels tried to purify him and failed.
They said devils tried to claim him and were cut apart.
They said fallen angels tried to bind him and found their chains severed like thread.
And they said, before he left, he sat down at the center of the battlefield on a throne made from skulls—calm as a monarch, bored as a god.
That part wasn't entirely true.
I didn't build a throne.
Not deliberately.
But when you stand in the center of a massacre and the dead stack around you, the world makes furniture out of consequence.
I sat because my legs were tired.
And because I wanted them to see me relaxed.
Power hits harder when it looks effortless.
I remember the faces that stared at me then—soldiers, nobles, commanders. Some were horrified. Some were fascinated. Some were already turning me into a myth to cope with the reality.
They didn't know my name.
But they saw my eyes.
They saw the markings.
They saw the smile.
And the Underworld—always hungry for stories—took that image and fed it to itself until it grew teeth.
They called me:
The Demon Who Stopped the War.
The Unknown King.
The Cursed Emperor.
I didn't correct them.
I didn't deny them.
I simply kept moving.
I found Kuroka months later.
Or maybe she found me.
Time in that world didn't feel like it did on Earth—days stretched, nights blurred, and the Underworld had a way of making distance feel like a suggestion.
I was walking through a ruined district on the edge of a noble territory—broken buildings, scorched stone, the kind of place where the poor went to die quietly while the rich pretended it didn't exist.
I smelled blood before I heard the voices.
"Spread out!"
"We have her cornered!"
"Lord-sama wants her head. She's an embarrassment!"
I turned the corner and found a small square littered with cracked tiles and shattered lanterns. Three devils stood there in noble attire—expensive coats, polished boots, arrogance dripping from every line of their posture. They weren't high-class. But they were noble enough to believe their status could replace skill.
In the center of the square, crouched like a wounded animal with claws still sharp, was a woman with black hair and golden eyes, cat ears twitching, tails flicking behind her in agitation. Her clothes were torn, blood staining her side.
Kuroka.
Even injured, she radiated danger. Senjutsu lingered around her like a wild current, different from demonic power—older, cleaner, and harder to control.
One of the devils lifted a spear of demonic energy. "Any last words, Nekomata?"
Kuroka's lips peeled back, revealing fangs. "Nya… you talk too much."
She tried to rise, but pain bent her back. Her eyes darted, calculating escape routes that weren't there.
I watched for a moment.
Not because I cared about their feud.
Because I wanted to see if she would still fight when death was certain.
She did.
That alone made her interesting.
I stepped into the square.
The devils turned, startled.
"Who are you?" the spear devil demanded.
I looked at him, then at Kuroka.
Her eyes widened slightly.
She recognized the markings.
Not from meeting me.
From stories.
From nightmares.
She swallowed, and for the first time since I arrived in this world, I saw someone look at me with something that wasn't purely fear.
It was awe mixed with hunger.
The spear devil scoffed. "Another stray? Leave. This is noble business."
I sighed.
"Noble business," I repeated.
Then I cut his head off without moving.
The spear devil's body stood for half a second, confused, then dropped.
The other two froze.
One stammered, "W-what—?"
I walked forward, slow, letting them feel the pressure that made armies kneel.
They tried to run.
They didn't make it three steps.
Two clean slashes. Two bodies fell apart. Blood painted the cracked tiles.
Silence returned to the square, broken only by Kuroka's shallow breathing.
She stared at the bodies, then at me.
"You…" she whispered. "You're real."
I tilted my head. "Was there doubt?"
"Nya… there's always doubt." Her voice was raspy, but it carried that catlike lilt even now. "Legends are usually lies."
I crouched in front of her, close enough to see the tremor in her tails, the way she tried to hide how badly she hurt.
"You killed your master," I said, not a question.
Her eyes flashed, defensive. "He deserved it."
"I don't care if he deserved it." I reached out and pressed two fingers against the wound at her side.
She hissed.
Then the pain eased.
Not because I healed her like a priest.
Because my power forced her flesh to stop failing.
Her eyes widened, pupils narrowing. "What are you?"
"Sukuna."
The name hung between us.
Her breath caught.
Then she smiled—small, feral, reverent.
"Sukuna-sama," she said, and the honorific sounded natural on her tongue, like she'd been waiting her whole life to kneel to the right kind of monster.
I watched her for a long moment.
Then I stood.
"Those nobles will send more," I said.
Kuroka's smile sharpened. "Let them."
I considered her—her strength, her spite, her loneliness. A creature hunted for refusing to die quietly.
"You want to live?" I asked.
She blinked, then laughed under her breath. "Is that a trick question, nya?"
I extended my hand.
"Come with me," I said. "Be useful. Be loyal. And no one touches you again unless I allow it."
Kuroka stared at my hand like it was a holy relic.
Then she took it.
Her fingers were warm, trembling, clawed.
The moment our skin touched, I felt her decision solidify. Not just gratitude.
Devotion.
Love, twisted into worship by the simple fact that I had looked at the world that hunted her and decided it bored me enough to kill it.
She rose, unsteady, and moved to stand at my side like it was the only place she belonged.
"I'll do anything you need," she said quietly.
I smiled.
"I know."
Time passed.
The Underworld continued telling stories about the demon who stopped the war.
Some tried to find me.
They failed.
Some tried to imitate me.
They died.
And through it all, Kuroka stayed beside me—my shadow with golden eyes, my right hand, my blade when I didn't feel like dirtying my own.
She was clever. She was vicious. She was loyal in a way that made most devils look like children playing at devotion.
And she loved me.
Not the way humans love, soft and hopeful.
The way a starving creature loves the hand that fed it and the teeth that tore apart its cage.
I didn't reject it.
I didn't encourage it either.
I simply let her orbit me like a moon around a planet that didn't need her gravity.
Because in a world full of factions and politics, having someone who would burn the world at a whisper was useful.
And because—if I was honest—I liked the way she looked at me.
Like I was inevitable.
The day I arrived in Kuoh, the air smelled different.
Earth.
Human city.
Concrete and electricity and shallow lives moving in predictable lines.
I stood on a rooftop overlooking a quiet neighborhood, the afternoon sun painting the rooftops gold. The world below was normal in a way that felt almost obscene after the battlefields and noble courts and endless supernatural posturing.
Kuroka appeared behind me, as silent as a thought. She wore a hooded cloak, but I could still see the tips of her ears twitching beneath it.
"This is Kuoh Town," she murmured. "The place you wanted."
I nodded.
In the distance stood a school—Kuoh Academy—its buildings clean, its grounds peaceful. A place where teenagers worried about exams and crushes while devils played politics in the shadows.
Somewhere in that town, a fresh story was unfolding. A red-haired devil princess freed from an arranged marriage. A perverted boy who had clawed his way into something bigger than him. Factions shifting, chess pieces moving.
I had waited until the moment between arcs—the quiet after one storm, before the next.
Kuroka leaned closer, voice soft. "Are you going to join them?"
I glanced at her. "No."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, curious. "Then why come?"
I looked back at the school.
Because legends, no matter how bloody, grow stale if they never evolve.
Because I hadn't come to rule the Underworld.
I had come to see if this world could produce something worth breaking.
And because Kuoh was a crossroads—a place where devils, angels, fallen, and strangers collided.
Where secrets were sloppy.
Where a demon with my face could walk among them like a knife hidden in a sleeve.
"My war is finished," I said. "Now I'm bored."
Kuroka's smile returned, bright and dangerous. "Nya… boredom is always when you're most terrifying."
I stepped off the rooftop.
Not falling—simply letting gravity do its work until the air beneath my feet accepted my presence as a fact.
I landed in an alleyway near the school, sunlight spilling in from above. The sounds of students carried faintly—laughter, footsteps, the normal rhythm of a life that didn't know it was standing beside a pit.
I adjusted my collar, feeling the markings beneath my skin like a sleeping beast.
Somewhere nearby, fate was gathering its threads for the Holy Sword incident, for Kokabiel's arrogance, for battles that would shape this town.
I walked toward the street like I belonged there.
Because I did.
Because the spin had placed me here.
And because sooner or later, Kuoh would look up and realize the war that ended in a throne of skulls hadn't truly ended at all.
It had simply moved.
Kuroka followed, silent and devoted.
And I smiled, stepping into the human world.
Not as a savior.
Not as a king.
But as Sukuna—
the demon they remembered by face,
the legend without a name,
and the curse about to become Kuoh's worst secret.
To be continued.