Tyrant's Favorite | Sukuna Ryomen x Reader

039. Thanks To You

800 years ago...

Uraume was certain he was going to die.

Before being known as the Impossible Belt, a tribe lived there, doomed from its very beginning. The gods designated this place, shrouded in perpetual fog, as the sacred site where a village was to be founded. No one understood why. Nothing grew there. Vegetation withered before flowering, unable to photosynthesize in the mist. Food was scarce, temperatures cruel, and hypothermia became the leading cause of death. And if that wasn't bad enough, a boy was born with the power to freeze everything he touched.

They discovered him in the most tragic way: his twin brother, already ill and shivering on the verge of delirium, reached out a hand seeking warmth. Uraume took it. A moment later, his brother was nothing but a body of ice. A broken statue.

The village was quick to react. Carrying blazing torches, they descended from the hills as one beast, hungry for justice and fear. They were after the creature that had emerged from their very wombs.

Uraume, barely eight years old, fled as best he could through stones, snow, and the distorted shapes of the landscape. He had short legs, little strength, and a soul too soft to face hatred. He didn't run fast enough. Someone caught him, grabbed him by the collar of his kimono, and threw him into a wooden box as if it were a cursed object.

He screamed, cried, kicked, begged through tears. He sobbed he hadn't done it on purpose, that it was an accident, a mistake... Just one terrible error. His mother knelt before the crowd, begging them not to kill her son. She'd already lost one, so why take the other too?

From the darkness of the box, Uraume peered through a crack. He saw his father stumble through the snow, struggling forward, his face ravaged by helplessness. He wanted to reach him. But his body, just as weak as the boy's, was no match for the collective fear.

"Dad! I'm here!" Uraume screamed until his voice broke.

"Uraume!" His father exclaimed through burning tears of rage at being powerless to do more.

Then he saw a flash of light, the one that would end his life.

The tribe's leader lit a great bonfire, a brutal, dancing flame that would mark the end of the cursed boy's life. The flames weren't just fire: they were judgment, rage, fear turned into punishment. One by one, the villagers joined the burning judgment with their torches, forming a circle of cruel light around Uraume's fate.

Inside the box, the boy could barely breathe. The air grew heavier, thicker. He knew what was coming. Heat began to seep through the cracks. First it was a warm whisper, then a fiery slap that seared her skin before it touched her. Fear crept up his throat, like an animal with invisible claws.

And then, he did it. In a desperate act, Uraume summoned the only thing he had: the cold. His trembling body clutched at the savage technique that had doomed him, and in a last attempt to cling to life, he froze the box from within. The walls creaked as they solidified, trapping the air, the wood, his own breath—everything was enclosed in a coffin of frost. He closed her eyes, praying inwardly that it would be enough to stop the heat.

Then there was silence.

A minute that lasted an eternity.

Until the screams from the underworld became present.

He could barely distinguish his parents' voices over the clamor of the village. Everything mingled in a single, heart-rending chorus: pleas, screams, cries, fury. It was a primitive chant made of pain and fire, and that noise was what truly froze Uraume inside.

He didn't even know what was happening out there. He only felt something advancing, relentless, like a strong force, but coming for him. An invisible pressure was beginning to eat away at his icy sanctuary. The ice, his shield, began to creak. Warm drops slipped through the cracks, as if the world itself were weeping over his hiding place.