Twisted and Accursed, Chapter 23

The darkness enveloped Lisa, cloying and heavy like a thick fog that clung to her skin. Her heart hammered in her chest, each beat louder than the last. She tried to think, to reach out with her power, but the usual flow of information, the constant buzz of answers in the back of her mind, was gone. She was alone. Terrifyingly alone. Her power had been a constant companion that suddenly not having it was... horrifying.

Before her stood the shrine, twisted and monstrous, its base formed from the bleached skulls of bulls. The grotesque structure loomed, larger than life, and everything about it felt... wrong. Its roof, adorned with horns and human skulls, seemed to leer down at her. The mouths—those four gaping entrances with their human-like teeth and slick, wet tongues—oozed malice. And that other mouth, smaller, nestled between the layers of the roof, felt like it was watching her, waiting.

Her eyes widened and her breath hitched.

The figure in front of her was worse. Tall, too tall, with a grin that twisted into something more sinister with each second. His body, covered in intricate black tattoos, looked like it had been drawn from the very shadows that surrounded them. And then there were his eyes—cruel, cold, brimming with hatred. His form would shift every few moments, losing height and musculature, even losing two of his four limbs; and, in those moments, he almost looked exactly like Taylor Hebert, if only for the four eyes, the malicious grin, and the tattoos.

What the fuck?

Lisa had no idea who he was. But she didn’t need her power to know that she was in unimaginable danger.

“Hello, little girl,” he said, his voice deep, resonant, with an edge of mockery that made her stomach churn.

Lisa tried to move, but her legs were rooted to the spot. Her power remained silent. The overwhelming sense of doom crept through her body, cold and inescapable. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t fight. She could only stand there, her mouth dry, her hands trembling.

The man—no, the monster—stepped forward, closer now, his grin widening, revealing sharp teeth, crimson eyes glowing like coals in the darkness.

“I can smell your fear,” he continued, his voice dripping with satisfaction.

Lisa clenched her fists, desperate to speak, to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mind was screaming, shouting at her to move, to run, to do anything, but her body refused to obey.

Then came the pain.

Without warning, the man—Sukuna—flicked his hand, and the world around her shifted, bending at his command. Lisa gasped as something invisible tore through her left arm. The pain was immediate, sharp and blinding, as if her flesh had been sliced open by a scalpel. Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked down to see her arm—gone. There was no blood, but the pain remained, radiating through the stump where her arm used to be.

She fell to her knees, her eyes wide with horror.

“W-What the hell...?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Sukuna grinned wider, his four arms flexing, his fingers twitching in delight.

“Dismantle,” he said, his voice rich with dark pleasure. “Come on, try a little harder. I thought you Parahumans were supposed to be survivors?”

Another slice. Her right leg this time. It disappeared, just like her arm, leaving her unbalanced and collapsing to the ground. The pain was unbearable, worse than anything she’d ever felt in her life. She screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the darkness, by the oppressive weight of his domain.

Tears streamed down her face as she tried to crawl away, her remaining limbs dragging her forward in a desperate attempt to escape. But Sukuna didn’t let her go far. With a flick of his wrist, her other arm was gone, the agony causing her vision to blur.

Lisa couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning, the malformed shrine looming over her like a monstrous sentinel, mocking her helplessness.

Sukuna crouched beside her, his cruel grin never wavering.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? How fragile humans are.” His fingers, cold and rough, traced along the side of her face, his sharp fingernails drawing blood. “So easy to break. So easy to destroy. If I wanted to, I could rip your mind apart. But I won’t. Where would be the fun in that?”

Lisa sobbed, barely conscious, her vision dimming as the last remnants of her strength slipped away. She could feel it—the slow, deliberate dismantling of her body, piece by piece. The pain. The terror. The hopelessness.

With one final slice, her remaining leg vanished, and her consciousness gave out.

The darkness consumed her.

Lisa jolted awake, gasping for air as her eyes snapped open. She was no longer in that hellish place. She was back, in the real world, lying on the cold, hard ground, right in front of the refugee camp. Taylor was gone. And so was that monster and the shrine that loomed over the both of them. But the pain... it lingered. Her arms, her legs, they were still there, but the memory of their loss was seared into her mind. She was whole, but her body trembled uncontrollably, as if it hadn’t fully realized that it was safe.

Not even her power could make sense of what just happened.

Kneeling, shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks, she let out a sob, her hands clutching her arms as if to reassure herself they were still attached. Her breath came in short, panicked gasps.

And then she heard it.

Sukuna’s laughter, echoing in the back of her mind, dark and sinister. It felt like it would never leave her, a constant reminder of the horror she’d just endured.

Lisa didn’t know what he was. She didn’t know what he wanted. But she knew one thing for sure.

She was terrified. She had never been more terrified of anything in her entire life. Coil... if he was still alive, couldn’t even compare. Lisa shuddered, her hands shaking so violently that it seemed as though she’d just dipped them in a frozen river.

Why the hell did she even stay in Brockton Bay for this long? Oh, right, no public transport – no buses, taxis, nothing. She’d have to walk out and that meant she’d have to deal with all the nutjobs wanting to take advantage of the chaos.

“Lisa!” A familiar voice called out to her, followed by footsteps against dry soil. “What the hell happened to you?”

....

Taylor gritted her teeth as she wrapped a dark piece of cloth over her face and hid her hair so that no discerning feature remained of her. So that no one would ever recognize her. The truth was out, it seemed, Taylor seethed. Someone, somewhere, must’ve taken a photo or video of the battle between Sukuna and Lung, connected the dots, and concluded that she was responsible. And now, that same conclusion was shared by, at the very least, most people. After all, people needed a scapegoat; they needed to blame someone and that someone was her. Then again, to be certain, she was at fault. If she hadn’t jumped off a window, just because Doctor Halsey told her to, then... well... none of this would’ve happened. Brockton Bay would not have been reduced to a post-apocalyptic society usually only seen after Endbringer attacks.

It didn’t matter anymore. None of it did. The only thing she wanted now was to find her father.

After that.... she really didn’t know.

However, since her dad wasn’t in any of the large camps, it must mean that he was in the smaller ones, the ones in gang territories, the ones she was actively trying to avoid, because there was a very high chance she’d get into some kind of fight against a cape. And, though the very thought of it, disturbingly, did not bother her as much as it used to, Taylor did not like the idea of taking human lives. The last thing she needed or wanted was even more blood in her hands. Therefore, her only choice was to hide, to pretend that she was anyone other than Taylor Hebert; to hide her hair, the one part of her that kept the memory of her mother alive.

It stung, but there were far more important things than her choice of aesthetics, things that had to do with life and death.

As far as she knew, the closest of the smaller camps was close to the abandoned Fortress Construction HQ, which... as far as Taylor knew, had always been abandoned or, at least, hardly occupied. Apparently, the whole building was turned into a refugee camp, after the original owner donated it to the city government, before fleeing the city.

Her father probably wasn’t there, but... she had no choice, either way. Plus, it was one of the very small camps that wasn’t under the control of a gang, which was nice. It certainly made things simpler. That said, just because it wasn’t under the protection of a gang did not mean there were no capes around. The heroes were also patrolling, after all, and Taylor definitely did not want to meet someone like Legend ever again – or any member of the Triumvirate for that matter. That’d just be a one-way trip to the Birdcage.

And that was exactly what-

No... actually... Taylor had absolutely no idea what Sukuna wanted. They’ve never even really talked before – nothing remotely meaningful, at least. She didn’t know anything about Sukuna beyond his murderous and possibly genocidal tendencies. Brows furrowed and eyes narrowed, Taylor sighed and ran into an empty alley, long since abandoned by anything alive, even rats and insects. It was dark and quiet. Perfect. She then climbed into an open window and into an office space that was filled with stacks and stacks of dusty papers. Pumping a little bit of Cursed Energy into her eyes, Taylor found, improved her vision just enough so that she could see comfortably in the dark. And there, she found the bathroom sign and followed it to the women’s room, inside which was a large mirror, scratched and cracked in a few places, but otherwise intact.

She breathed in and stared at the mirror. “Sukuna.”

Her reflection shifted. The face remained the same, but it was undoubtedly another person, Ryomen Sukuna, grinning back at her – four-eyed and fanged, covered in black tattoos. A monster, wearing her skin. “What do you want, brat?”

“No, I should be the one asking you that question,” Taylor said, gritting her teeth. Her hands shook. She hated Sukuna with every fiber of her being, but she needed to know; she needed to understand what he was and why he did what he did. “What do you want? What’s your goal here, huh? Why the hell did you even choose me?”

Sukuna raised a brow and was silent for a moment, before shrugging. “Huh, thought you’d never ask. Well, first and foremost, if I had a choice, then I wouldn’t have chosen you; who the hell would wanna choose you? Look at yourself. There’s nothing interesting about you; if I had a choice, I would’ve chosen one of your bullies. As for why I’m here... huh... I actually have no idea. I just woke up here one day and have been stuck since then. As for what I want....”

Sukuna chuckled. “That’s a neat little surprise that we’ll be saving for later.”

Taylor’s eyes narrowed further and then... it clicked. “You’re... you’re not from this Earth, are you?”

Sukuna raised a brow. “No. Most definitely not. My old world would’ve been so much more interesting if it was covered in Parahumans and had to deal with Endbringers every few months. Alas, all we had were Cursed Spirits, Jujutsi Sorcerers, and Curse Users.”

Taylor stared at her reflection for a moment longer, before leaning back and shaking her head, sighing. She closed her eyes. And then, Sukuna spoke again. “Would you like to learn how to use the power inside you?”