Tyrant's Favorite | Sukuna Ryomen x Reader

044. The Next

A girl...

A girl was born.

Toji held the baby girl, who had been born barely a month ago, in his arms. His body seemed clumsy in contrast to her fragility, so tiny it barely filled the hollow of his forearm. He looked at her with a mute intensity, as if he still hadn't fully grasped what was before him.

The day of her birth had been announced as a promise of celebration, what was to be the happiest day in the kingdom. But Toji trembled. Not from joy, but from suppressed frustration. Just because a girl had been born didn't mean he could ever be disappointed; if it were up to him, he would only have daughters. That was why he had chosen such a feminine name as Megumi for his first born. He was frustrated because everyone, from healers to fortune-tellers, had sworn she would be a boy. An heir. A strong figure. A projection of the lineage.

But a girl had been born. And with that, a curse was also born.

Toji knew what was coming. The world would show no mercy to her. They would look at her with doubt, with suspicion, with that poisonous condescension that doesn't scream, but hurts. They would make her feel less for things she couldn't control, they would make her doubt even her right to exist fully. She was barely a month old, and she already felt judgment beginning to fall upon her.

"She won't be able to take the throne, Your Majesty, but look on the bright side. If King Gojo or King Nanami produce a male heir, she will be able to marry them," Naobito, the former commander, now part of the royal court, told the king, trying to cheer him up.

But it had the opposite effect. In less than a blink of an eye, Toji placed Tsumiki in the crib and took Naobito by the neck, strangling him in his powerful arms. Naobito's oxygen was suddenly cut off, leaving him paler than a sheet of paper.

"You'd better watch how you talk about my daughter from now on, or I'll cut your tongue out in no time, you slithering worm." The king threatened him and slammed him to the ground. "If I managed to take the throne as a non-sorcerer and crown a baker, I'll make sure she does too."

Tsumiki began to cry, begging for the body warmth of her burly father. Toji released the old man and carried his princess back in his arms and kissed her forehead, watching the gray-haired man could barely stand after being deprived of his right to breathe. Toji tightened his embrace a little, as if by doing so he could protect her from the world, from fate, from everything he himself had been unable to prevent.

"I didn't mean to offend you, my king," Naobito stammered.

"I know. You meant to offend her, and I will never allow that," Toji scolded.

He nodded toward the door, signaling for the man to leave. Naobito gathered what little dignity he had and left the baby's room. Toji glanced at Naoya, who was leaning against the wall, having witnessed the entire conversation.

"I'm surprised you didn't defend your father," Toji said, gently patting his baby's back to get her back to sleep. "Did Sukuna's queen really change your outlook on life?"

"On life, love, destiny, power... Everything, she changed everything." Naoya sighed.

Toji knew that feeling well. Too well. He'd experienced it with his wife. At first, he thought she was just a common baker, easy to conquer and forget, but over time, he discovered she was stronger than many men he'd faced. A woman who sometimes managed to dominate the most troubling situations in the kingdom with a direct hand, who became the firm anchor of his wild ship.

So when she saw Naoya hunched under the weight of silent guilt, she knew what was going through his mind before he said a word. It was the first time she'd seen him like this: so defeated by himself. That same Naoya who had once been a feared, ruthless commander, capable of taking lives without hesitation to keep the Zen'in family's power intact. But since his return to the kingdom, something in him had changed. He was quieter, as if every unspoken word was stuck between duty and remorse. His eyes had no shine; they were filled with a thick silence, with thoughts no one else could touch.