It was 7:00 PM—the hour when dusk blankets the quiet town of Kowa in a veil of gray. Inside the "Sakamoto Grocery Store," the only sounds were the constant hum of the refrigerators and the warm, inviting aroma of simmering *Oden*.
Behind the counter stood Taro Sakamoto. A man of massive frame, wearing a green apron over a yellow shirt, his round glasses reflecting the store's dim fluorescent lights. To any passerby, he looked like a friendly, neighborhood shopkeeper. But beneath those layers of soft fat and tranquil silence lay the legend of the greatest hitman to ever walk the underworld.
Suddenly, the bell above the door chimed.
A man walked in whose appearance felt entirely alien to the setting. He was tall, lean but built with a lethal edge, dressed in a high-end black suit that accentuated his sharp features. He bore a striking resemblance to a youth named Megumi Fushiguro, but his crimson eyes held nothing but absolute contempt for all living things. Intricate black tattoos crept from beneath his collar, etched onto his jaw and forehead like ancient royal seals.
This was **Ryomen Sukuna**.
In this era, Sukuna wasn't inhabiting a vessel; he had somehow reclaimed his own physical form, retaining those youthful, sharp features that masked thousands of years of slaughter.
Sukuna walked with arrogant confidence. Every step radiated an invisible pressure, causing the soda cans on the shelves to rattle. He stopped at the checkout counter and placed a shriveled, mummified human finger—one of his own ancient remains—on the counter as if it were currency.
"Fatty," Sukuna spoke, his voice a demonic rasp laced with condescension. "Do you sell anything worth tasting in this dilapidated dump?"
Sakamoto didn't look up from the magazine he was flipping through, but his eyes behind his spectacles didn't move a millimeter. He could feel the "Aura." It wasn't the aura of a professional assassin; it was something far more malevolent… something that reeked of ancient death and rot.
"This store doesn't accept strange currency," Sakamoto replied calmly, marking his page and slowly closing the magazine. "And human fingers cause issues with the health department."
Outside the store, Shin—the young assassin with the gift of mind-reading—was watching from a distance. Cold sweat poured down his brow. He tried to read the tattooed man's mind, but all he found was a cosmic scream from the abyss—a black void that devoured everything.
*'What is that thing?'* Shin thought in terror. *'He's not human… he's not even an assassin… he's a walking catastrophe!'*
Inside, Sukuna's eyes narrowed. A sadistic grin spread across his lips, revealing sharp fangs. "Oh? It seems I've found something interesting in this bloated corpse. Your energy is strange… solid as steel, yet suppressed like a dormant volcano."
Sukuna slowly raised his hand, forming a "Dismantle" gesture with his fingers. "Let's see how long that stupid smile lasts before I carve you into thin slices."
Sakamoto didn't flinch. Instead, he reached under the counter and pulled out… a floor mop.
"Rule number one of the Sakamoto Store," Taro said, adjusting his glasses. "No making a mess."
The pressure in the room exploded. The storefront's glass shattered from the sheer force radiating from Sukuna, while Sakamoto stood as firm as a mountain, ready to face the King of Curses with a weapon that cost only a few hundred yen.
Sukuna moved. It wasn't human movement; it was a "flicker" of nothingness. The moment he flicked his finger to launch his **"Dismantle"** technique, the air hissed with the sound of tearing silk. The store, its owner, and the shelves were supposed to be split clean in half.
But the invisible blade of energy hit something unexpected.
Using the steel handle of the mop as a lever in a swift, circular motion, Sakamoto didn't just block the attack—he *deflected* it. Sukuna's blade passed over Sakamoto's shoulder, obliterating the beverage cooler behind him. Cans of cola exploded, spraying sugary mist everywhere.
"I warned you," Sakamoto said, his tone devoid of emotion as he stepped through the mist. "That cooler was expensive."
Sukuna's eyebrows arched in a mix of surprise and demonic delight. "A human with no Cursed Energy… no visible Heavenly Restriction… yet he moves with such precision?" Sukuna laughed loudly, the tattoos on his face seeming to pulse. "You don't fight with instinct, fatty. You fight with 'experience' drenched in the blood of thousands!"
Sukuna lunged, aiming a direct strike at Sakamoto's heart. But Sakamoto, with a fluidity that defied his size, rolled under the checkout counter. mid-motion, he snatched a handful of hard candies. With incredible thumb-pressure, he flicked them like sniper rounds.
Sukuna swiped the candies away with his bare hand, but felt a sudden sting of heat. "What?" He looked at his palm; the candies had pierced the surface of his skin before shattering.
Outside, Shin felt like his head would explode. "He's… he's not thinking about killing!" Shin screamed internally. "Sakamoto-san is only thinking about how to clean the sugar off the floor after the fight! While this monster… his thoughts are a forest of crucified corpses!"
Suddenly, the ground shook. Dark shadows began to pool in the corners of the store. Massive black dogs with glowing eyes—the **Divine Dogs**—began to emerge, even though Sukuna hadn't explicitly summoned them. His physical form, manifesting in a "Megumi-like" state, was reacting involuntarily to the sheer overflow of his energy.
"Let's raise the stakes a little," Sukuna whispered, bringing his hands together to initiate the **Ten Shadows**. "I want to see how your 'store rules' hold up against the hell of shadows."
Sakamoto didn't say a word. Instead, he slowly took off his glasses and wiped them with his green apron. In that moment, his heart rate dropped to a state of absolute stillness. The image of the "friendly shopkeeper" vanished, replaced by the Legendary Assassin who never missed his mark.
Sukuna didn't wait for him to move. With a silent roar of energy, **Nue**—the massive, masked bird—burst from his shadow. It soared under the cramped ceiling, smashing the fluorescent lights and plunging the store into darkness, save for the sparks of electricity crackling from the beast's wings.
But in this darkness, Sakamoto saw even clearer. To him, combat was nothing more than a calculation: *Distance, mass, and angles.*
As Nue dove with its electrified talons, Sakamoto pulled a thin metal wire—used for hanging promotional banners—from a display. In an acrobatic blur, he spun around a support pillar, using the wire as a snare. In less than a second, the cursed bird was tripped by its own momentum, crashing violently into the coffee machine.
"Impressive," Sukuna muttered, seeing how Sakamoto neutralized a high-grade curse using nothing but "junk." "But can you hunt the shadow itself?"
Before Sukuna could clash his hands to summon **Mahoraga** or any other entity, the shattered store door was kicked open. But this time, it wasn't just a passerby.
A boy in a Jujutsu High uniform stumbled in, gasping for breath, his eyes wide with shock as he stared at Sukuna. It was the real **Megumi Fushiguro**. Megumi froze; he was looking at a "perfect" and terrifying version of himself. Same face, same hair, but with those haunting tattoos and an energy that made his lungs tighten.
"You..." Megumi's voice caught in his throat. "Who are you? How do you have this form?"
Sukuna turned slowly, his bored expression returning. "Oh, the pathetic original has arrived? Bad timing, kid. I'm in the middle of a business transaction."
In that split second of distraction, Sakamoto struck. He didn't use a knife or a gun. He slid across the cola-slicked floor, appearing behind Sukuna in the blink of an eye. Sakamoto pressed a plastic "Store Loyalty Card" against Sukuna's neck. The sharp edge of the card was pressed hard enough against Sukuna's artery to draw a thin line of blood.
"Time's up," Sakamoto said, his voice as cold as ice. "You've scared the customers and destroyed property. Leave now... and I won't charge you for the damages."
A heavy silence followed. Shin watched from outside, his heart nearly stopping. Sakamoto was threatening the King of Curses with a plastic card, while a stunned sorcerer stood before his own demonic "twin."
Sukuna let out a low chuckle. The tattoos on his face suddenly faded, and his eyes returned to their normal color, though his arrogance remained. "Sakamoto... I will remember that name. Not just because you are strong, but because you are the only man to ever treat the King of Curses like an 'annoying customer'."
With a simple wave of his hand, the shadows and curses vanished. Sukuna walked toward the door, stopping beside the frozen Megumi to whisper in his ear: "Learn from him how to carry the majesty of the shadow, you pathetic boy."
Sukuna stepped out into the night, vanishing into the darkness as quickly as he had appeared.
Sakamoto exhaled, his body returning to its "fat," friendly shape in seconds. He adjusted his glasses and surveyed the wreckage of his store. Then, he looked at Megumi, who was still trying to process what had happened.
"You," Sakamoto said in his shop-owner tone. "Since you're the one who attracted that customer here... do you know how to use a mop? We need to clean this place up before my wife gets back."
Silence fell over the ruins of the shop as Megumi Fushiguro—one of Jujutsu High's strongest students—stood there holding a mop under the supervision of a legendary hitman. A new chapter of madness had begun, where curses met the laws of the market.