A mont ago, Yuji had been standing with her. Now, he had vanished without a trace.
For a second, a chill ran down Nobara's spine.
"Itadori! Itadori!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the stillness.
At the sa ti, nails infused with cursed energy materialized in her hands, her weapons for casting techniques.
"Maki! Maki-senpai!" she called again, louder this ti, her voice tinged with desperation.
But her calls were t with silence. The dark forest remained eerily quiet, its oppressive stillness gnawing at her.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar sensation began to creep in—a profound loneliness, as if the entire world had abandoned her. It felt like she was the last person left alive.
---
On the other side, Yuji was equally confused.
He had just turned his head for a mont, and when he looked back, Kugisaki Nobara was gone.
"Kugisaki! Kugisaki!" Yuji yelled, his voice sharp with concern as he began searching the area.
He couldn't fathom what was happening. It wasn't like Nobara to wander off or disappear without a trace.
"Kugisaki! Where are you?"
But no matter how much he called out or scoured the forest, there was no sign of her.
"What's going on?" he muttered, frustration building.
He couldn't hear any sounds of a struggle or danger, nothing that suggested Nobara was in trouble. And yet, she was nowhere to be found.
As Yuji wandered through the shadowy woods, a sense of helplessness washed over him.
"Why does it feel… so lonely?"
It was strange. Yuji had been alone before plenty of tis, in fact—and he'd never felt this kind of emptiness. Scratching his head in confusion, he ca up with an idea.
"Sukuna! Can you hear ? Say sothing!" he shouted, hoping for a response from the King of Curses who shared his body.
But all he got in return was silence.
"Damn it, he's ignoring again," Yuji grumbled, his irritation growing. "Of course, when I actually need him, he's no help at all!"
Frustrated, he slapped himself twice on the face to refocus.
"Ow!" He winced at the sting. Perhaps he'd hit himself a little too hard.
Still, there was no response from Sukuna.
"When I get stronger, I swear, I'll make you pay for this!" Yuji muttered bitterly. He knew there was no point in dwelling on Sukuna's unhelpfulness now, so he continued trudging through the forest, feeling more lost than ever.
What Yuji didn't realize, however, was that Sukuna wasn't deliberately ignoring him this ti.
---
Within Sukuna's domain, a space built from bones and shadows the King of Curses sat on his throne, his expression calm and eyes closed as if in ditation.
But then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
"What's this? That brat's presence is gone!" Sukuna growled.
It was unusual—unnerving, even. He could no longer sense Yuji's presence.
He was certain Yuji hadn't died. If the boy had, Sukuna would have been dragged down with him, and that clearly wasn't the case.
But sothing was wrong. Very wrong.
And it wasn't just Yuji. Sukuna could sense it, an unfamiliar emotion stirring within him. It was the sa sensation that seed to grip Maki, Nobara, and Yuji at this mont.
Loneliness.
For a mont, Sukuna frowned. This feeling was foreign, almost laughable. After all, he had existed as a cursed king for over a thousand years, utterly indifferent to such emotions.
But Sukuna wasn't one to overlook the obvious. He knew this loneliness wasn't natural. It hadn't co from within, it had been forced upon him.
"Hahaha! So that's how it is!" Sukuna's laughter echoed through his domain.
"Loneliness, huh? Interesting. Very interesting!"
For the first ti, Sukuna began to understand the true nature of the space they had been trapped in.
Previously, Sukuna had dismissed the area as an incomplete domain, a flawed space without the guaranteed hit effect that domains typically possessed.
But now he realized he'd been wrong. This wasn't an incomplete domain at all.
"This domain doesn't lack a guaranteed hit effect," Sukuna murmured to himself, his eyes gleaming with understanding. "It's been replaced with sothing else entirely."
What could replace a guaranteed hit effect? Sukuna already knew the answer:
Cursed Binding.
As the King of Curses, Sukuna was intimately familiar with the concept of cursed binding.
Binding curses involved sacrificing sothing in exchange for gaining sothing else—like a trade-off.
Take the first generation of "Heavenly Restriction," for example: Fushiguro Toji. He had given up all cursed energy in exchange for monstrous physical power that surpassed human limits.
It was a balance of extres. Excelling in one area ant being utterly devoid in another.
And now, it was clear that this cursed domain operated on a similar principle. The loneliness they felt wasn't a coincidence, it was the binding.
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