27 years after the death of Himmel the Hero, in the Great Sanft Forest, located in the northern lands
In the mist that hangs across the ground in spring, a buck chewed quietly. Its crown cut through the curling fog, the antlers collecting condensation as it trotted from one pile of dry corn to the other, thinking nothing of the bounty of food it had found. All the better to fuel it, to face other bucks and mate with does, so that it may succeed and others may fail.
It dropped with a thump as the arrow slid its way between the ribs on its left side, the arrow head pointing out from the right. Stepping through the mist from a blind made of moss and sticks, Senken stood taller than the buck had even with its horns. He stooped to heft the buck up, tying its hooves together with braided grass and slinging it across his broad shoulders, blood trickling onto the ground behind him as he stepped lively out of the forest, onto the path back home.
Senken had finished growing vertically for the most part, now filling his form out with muscle, his head firmly above the rest of his family. He figured he was about seven feet tall, give or take. He made it to his home, the sunrise catching the sky and casting it in pinks and oranges as he hung the buck and, using Schrein, cut its belly, letting the offal fall mostly into a bucket he had left beneath it. While it drained of blood, he went inside.
The rest of the family was sleeping, still, but they would soon wake up as the sun got higher in the sky. The fields, however, had many people throughout them. His family only had the luxury of sleeping in because they had been one of the first families to sow their seeds in the season. He reached for a bit of tinder, and placed it against his heel. The heat that suddenly came from it made the dry piece of wood crackle into flame, an easy firestarter as he tossed it into the oven and closed the door.
Senken then stepped outside to continue processing the deer. With a knife and the knowledge, one could reasonably be finished with this in an hour.
With magic, Senken could fully dress the deer in five minutes. Peeling the pelt from the skin, cutting segments and further refining them, it was all as simple as seeing it happen. This version of his technique was far more malleable. It didn't need to just be a cleaver, but a paring knife. A scalpel. A blade of any size, for any occasion.
In this aspect, Schrein had grown from what he had used with jujutsu by leaps and bounds.
Magic was simply that much more versatile.
That wasn't the only place that he had grown.
Alongside his height, weight, and magical prowess, so had grown his archery and spearmanship. Not so much in skill as in his capacity to perform to his abilities. He had traded the braided grass for deer sinew long ago, letting his bow launch with more force. His spear training had followed a natural curve with his growth, and now his mother and sister trained themselves against him, not the other way around.
Senken frowned as he stepped back inside with the processed cuts. At the rate he was going, he would have to leave his home if he wanted to keep growing stronger.
If that was even what he wanted.
Senken had, as all youth do, time to think. About what he wanted, what he needed, what he cared for.
For the longest time, he thought it was strength. An echo of a voice, his and not, crawled out from him, his abdominal mouth speaking.
"I've never needed anyone to satisfy me,"
"I eat when I wanna eat,"
"If it's an eyesore, I kill it,"
"And if it amuses me, I throw it a bone.."
"As befits my nature."
Senken looked down at the cuts of meat, deep red.
'It's not my problem if people can't understand that.' He thought. 'But does that include myself?'
Did he really want strength for strength's sake? To leave this place and face greater and greater foes until he eventually loses, whenever that might be?
No. He had the memories, the identity, the body. But he was not Sukuna. Not anymore.
He had chosen to walk a different path. If he was even a smidge of who he had once been, Heben and his parents would have been long dead, as well as almost all the people in the village for even the minor slights they had given him.
He would have wandered the land as he had before, cutting people down and eating them until someone finally came along strong enough to stop them.
He was Senken now. The son of the headman of this village who was born with extra appendages. A studious young man with an amazing talent for magic and martial combat. Someone who would be expected to leave home in time and…
Senken scoffed, tossing a seasoned cut onto the skillet, hearing it hiss.
"Become a hero," He spoke aloud. "Just like Himmel."
The idea was laughable. He had done nothing to be considered a hero. He had preemptively saved his sister from a cruel death, years ago, but he doubted he would have done that for anyone else in the village.
He lifted the cut of meat, and flipped it, looking at the browned top as he cooked it evenly.
That didn't mean he couldn't be one. He had the power to become a figure who could stand at the forefront of the struggle against evil, defeat humanity's greatest foes and guard the lives and futures of the continent.
That sort of thing…
That was an ideal he could never visualize for himself…
It didn't suit him.
It didn't interest him.
Senken cooked the venison cut by cut, sneaking bites here and there to make sure it tasted good, thinking about what would have him leave the village he was born and raised in.
Eventually, he settled on an idea.
"Senken the mage."
The idea sat in his mouth before he had spoken it in the quiet morning, finishing the cooking of his breakfast. He had the aptitude. It made use of the skills and called to his wanderlust that grew every morning, where he went a little further in the woods and always took a little longer to come back.
Senken began making a mental list of all the things he would need for such a trip, as well as what his route could take, as he sat down to his breakfast. Stepping into their living room, Heben blearily looked at his ridiculous mound of cooked meat, hair frazzled and sticking at odd angles from her head. She shuffled over, scratching her stomach, and grabbed a cut for herself, eating it without fork or plate.
Senken let out a huff through his nose. His sister had no manners.
For months, Senken prepared for overland travel. He hunted a bit more, smoking the meat of rabbits and fish. He couldn't get a map, not in the time frame he wanted to leave in.
He would see through the end of the harvest, and leave once their field was empty. He had even begun sewing, stitching together the tanned hides of the deers he had to make a large, if rough, cloak for himself. He expanded his meager quiver, readied two replacements for bowstrings, and made enough arrows that he felt he would be able to hunt for game adequately.
He could use magic for such if necessary, but why use that when he could practice his archery?
Soon, he found himself at the dinner table with his family, enjoying the meal he made for them.
"So," Senken said, finishing the mouthful of food he had. "I'm gonna be leaving."
Heben and their parents all looked up at him as he spoke.
"I want to be a mage." He said plainly. "I need to go out into the world to gather the proper experience."
Heben looked down at her meal, and their mom squinted her eyes at him.
It was his dad who spoke up first.
"Two of the lumberjacks recently quit. Off to greener pastures." He said. "I was hoping you would help, we need the wood for the winter coming."
Senken looked to his dad, his four eyes staring into the older man's two.
The only spell they had seen him cast was the one to braid dry grass. They had seen the effect of the sculpted smoke.
This was his dads way of asking him to stay.
"I'll cut down some trees." Senken said. "You'll have to haul them yourself."
"You'll cut down ten and haul them yourself." His dad said.
"I'll cut down twenty, and you haul them for me." Senken countered.
The silence was deafening, broken only by Heben scraping her bowl with her spoon.
"Deal." His dad said and walked away from the table. Wordlessly, his mom and sister followed.
He understood they might be upset, but he felt as if he may have not shared his plan the right way.