---please read beginning author 's note----

"...Starlight?"

Oh,

fuck.

The rain stops, but it's hardly a mercy when Yuuji suddenly appears in the murky swamp of Sukuna's Innate Domain, staring at him the way a child would if the monster under their bed started crying the moment a flashlight was shone on them, a look of sheer bewilderment on his bruised features. Like he can't believe what he's seeing, let alone hearing. A completely unpredictable plot twist.

All things considered, it's a fairly appropriate reaction when Sukuna has just accidentally called him the special name he used to refer to his children before their deaths.

It was an uncharacteristically careless error for someone whose every move has been scripted for a thousand years; a slip of the tongue that plunged him in freefall, and he'd rather hit rock bottom than never reach the ground.

For a man whose childrens' names meant

dream

and

mercy,