Chapter 7: Flashback
The heavy oak door thudded shut behind Dante, the finality of the sound echoing in the sudden silence of the VIP lounge. He still held Dabi crushed against him, one hand a vise grip on the back of his neck, the other banded like iron around his waist. Dante’s forehead pressed hard against Dabi’s, his breathing ragged, his entire powerful frame vibrating with barely contained fury and something deeper, darker – a bone-deep shock that radiated like cold through his skin. The scent of ozone and ancient power clung to him, sharp and electric.
The others were frozen specters. Shoto’s concerned frown deepened, Hawks’ golden eyes narrowed with suspicion and suppressed anger, Toga watched with unnerving fascination, Shigaraki looked vaguely bored yet alert. Dante’s siblings exchanged weighted glances, their usual detachment replaced by wary tension. Only Vincent remained focused, his gaze fixed on the door, hand still near his concealed weapon.
Dabi ignored them all. The possessive claim – "Mine" – still resonated in his bones, a desperate anchor thrown against the churning sea of Sukuna’s reappearance. But the jealousy, the visceral fear of that ancient, arrogant presence, clawed at him. He pushed slightly against Dante’s chest, not hard, but enough to force a sliver of space between them. Dante’s molten gold eyes snapped down to his, burning with intensity.
“What did he want?” Dabi demanded, his voice low and rough, scraping against the thick silence. He needed to know. Needed to understand the shadow Dante had tried to bury, the ghost who walked back in with four eyes and missing fingers.
Dante didn’t loosen his grip, but his gaze softened infinitesimally, the fury momentarily banked by the raw demand in Dabi’s voice. He exhaled, a harsh, humorless sound. “Help,” he rasped. The word tasted bitter. “He said he needed help.”
Dabi blinked. Help? The King of Curses? The entity Dante had torn apart? “Fucking what kind of help?”
“Didn’t say.” Dante’s jaw clenched, the muscle jumping. “Just kept repeating it. Insisting.” He leaned his forehead back against Dabi’s, the contact seeking solace. “And he kept saying… he didn’t want to fuck anything up. Anything I had going on.” Dante’s voice dripped with contemptuous disbelief. “As if showing up here, looking like that, after everything… wasn’t the ultimate fucking disruption.”
The irony was grotesque. Dabi felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. Sukuna didn’t want to interfere? Yet his mere presence was a seismic event threatening the precarious stability Dante had carved out – the club, his siblings, the fragile new thing burning between Dante and himself. “He expects you to just… what? Forget? After what he became? After what you had to do?” Dabi’s voice was tight.
Dante pulled back fully then, though his hands remained on Dabi, one sliding up to cradle the side of his face, calloused thumb brushing the edge of one of Dabi’s scars. His gaze was ancient, haunted. “You don’t understand, little phoenix. You don’t know what he was. Before.” The pain in his eyes was raw, a wound ripped open after millennia. “Seeing him… like that… the monstrous shell… it’s…” He searched for words, failing. Then, a decision hardened in his gaze. “You need to see.”
Before Dabi could ask, before he could protest, Dante’s thumb pressed firmly against his temple. Not painful, but insistent. The world didn’t dissolve; it ripped.
Sudden pressure. Then, blinding sunlight. Dabi gasped, blinking against the glare. He stood on a windswept cliff overlooking a churning, impossibly blue ocean. The air smelled of salt and wild herbs. Beside him, but somehow distant, like a figure in a painting, stood Dante. Younger, though no less powerful, his expression softer, open in a way Dabi had never seen. His eyes, molten gold even then, held a warmth Dabi hadn't known they were capable of. And next to him, leaning into his side with effortless ease, was Ryomen Sukuna.
Before.
Sukuna looked… different. Human. Fiercely, breathtakingly human. Tall and leanly muscled, his skin sun-kissed, adorned with intricate, swirling black tattoos that spoke of power and heritage, not corruption. He had only two eyes – sharp, intelligent amber eyes – crinkling at the corners as he laughed at something Dante said. His dark hair was wild in the wind, his smile wide, genuine, radiating a charismatic vitality. He clapped Dante on the shoulder, the gesture full of easy camaraderie and deep affection. This wasn’t a monster. This was a man. A powerful sorcerer, yes, but vibrant, alive. Dabi felt a pang of something sharp and unwelcome – jealousy mixed with a strange sorrow.
The scene shimmered, shifted. A dimly lit chamber, heavy with incense. Sukuna sat cross-legged, meditating. But something was off. Sweat beaded on his brow despite the cool air. The tattoos on his bare torso seemed to writhe, darker, more defined. His eyes, when they snapped open, held a flicker of crimson deep within the amber. Dante stood nearby, watching him, his expression tense with worry. “Ryomen?” Dante’s voice, younger, laced with concern Dabi recognized as deep care. Sukuna offered a strained smile. “Just… pushing the limits, old friend. It’s nothing.”
‘Nothing’ grew.
Another shift. A battlefield, littered with broken bodies. Sukuna moved like a whirlwind, terrifyingly efficient, brutal. His face was twisted, not in rage, but in a cold, detached fury. The tattoos were stark black against his skin, pulsing. One of his hands, clenched around a sword, shimmered unnaturally. Dante fought beside him, but his movements were increasingly defensive, trying to contain, to shield bystanders from Sukuna’s widening destructive arc. “Ryomen! Enough!” Dante roared, but Sukuna’s amber eyes, now shot through with veins of crimson, barely registered him.
The descent.
Darkness. A cavern, or perhaps a temple ruin. Sukuna knelt in the center, surrounded by flickering, unnatural black flames. His body was changing. Subtly at first – the muscles knotting denser, the skin taking on a harder, almost scaled texture. Then, unmistakably: a second pair of arms began to push, bulge grotesquely beneath the skin of his upper shoulders, straining against his tunic. His face was contorted in agony or ecstasy, Dabi couldn’t tell. The amber eyes were almost entirely consumed by crimson hellfire. And beneath his lower eyelids, two vertical slits began to glow, opening slowly like malevolent blossoms. Dante stood at the edge of the darkness, his face a mask of horrified grief. “Please,” Dante whispered, the sound raw, ripped from his throat. “Fight it. Come back.” Sukuna turned his head slowly. The four eyes fixed on Dante. There was no recognition. Only ancient, chilling hunger and the crushing weight of pure, unleashed curse.
The point of no return.
The final shift was sudden, brutal. Sukuna in his true form. Towering, monstrously muscled, four powerful arms ending in clawed hands. The barbed-wire tattoos were etched deep, glowing faintly with inner malice. The four eyes – two blazing crimson orbs above, two vertical slits below – radiated pure, sadistic amusement. He stood amidst utter devastation, a cityscape burning around him, screams echoing like distant music to his ears. Dante faced him, alone. The younger Dante’s face was a landscape of grief and grim, terrifying resolve. His own power radiated out, a counterpoint to Sukuna’s suffocating darkness. They spoke, words lost in the memory’s roar. Dante’s expression shifted from desperate plea to absolute, sorrowful finality. He raised his hand. Power coalesced – raw, ancient, devastating.
The memory didn’t show the act. Dabi felt the intent – the soul-crushing sorrow, the lethal certainty. He saw Dante surge forward, a golden comet against the consuming black. He saw the moment Dante’s hand closed around Sukuna’s wrist, the sickening crack as fingers tore free, a flash of blinding energy. Then, mercifully, nothing.
Dabi gasped, staggering back as the cliff, the incense, the battlefield, the monstrous form, and the blinding pain tore away. He was back in the VIP lounge, Dante’s hand still cradling his face, the frantic pulse of the club’s bassline thudding through the floor. He sucked in a ragged breath, his knees weak, nausea churning. The echo of Dante’s sorrow, the horrifying spectacle of Sukuna’s transformation, the sheer, brutal finality of that last moment… it clung to him like smoke.
“Fuck,” Dabi breathed, his voice trembling. He looked up at Dante, truly looked. The ancient pain etched into every line of his face, the haunted depths of his golden eyes – it wasn’t just history anymore. It was visceral. He understood the cost. Understood the impossible choice. Understood the ghost walking back in wasn’t the man Dante loved, but the monstrous consequence of losing him.
Dante’s thumb brushed away a bead of sweat Dabi hadn’t realized was there. “He’s not that man anymore, Dabi.” Dante’s voice was low, rough with the weight of millennia and the residue of shared memory. “He’s the curse. Pure and simple. What stood outside tonight… that’s all that’s left. A walking plague.” His gaze burned into Dabi’s, intense, seeking. “He has no hold here. Not on this place. Not on my family.” He paused, the intensity deepening, becoming fiercely possessive, protective. “And never on you. You have nothing to fear from him.”
Dabi believed him. The raw conviction in Dante’s voice, the echo of that devastating choice… Sukuna was a threat, yes, a terrifying one. But he was also a monument to Dante’s capacity for ruthless love. And Dante had claimed him. Dabi. The possessiveness Dante had shown, the desperate need to anchor himself in Dabi’s reality after confronting that ghost… it ignited something primal, possessive, and fiercely protective in Dabi in return. The jealousy wasn’t gone, but it was consumed by a hotter, more urgent fire.
The fear, the shared trauma, the overwhelming need to assert life in the face of that resurrected death… it coalesced into a single, scorching demand.
Dabi grabbed the front of Dante’s shirt, fisting the expensive fabric. His pale blue eyes met Dante’s molten gold, blazing with a raw intensity that mirrored the ancient power facing him. “I don’t want to fucking talk about him anymore,” Dabi growled, his voice thick with need. “I don’t want to think about curses or dead lovers.” He pulled Dante closer, their bodies flush again, the hard ridge of Dante’s arousal pressing insistently against his hip. “I want you. Now.”
Dante’s eyes flared, the molten gold igniting into an inferno. All traces of sorrow, of ancient pain, vanished, replaced by pure, predatory hunger. A low growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating through Dabi. “Fucking finally, little phoenix,” Dante breathed, his voice a dark caress.
He didn’t lead Dabi towards the door. One arm banded crushingly around Dabi’s waist again, the other swept up to clamp possessively across his shoulder blades. Dante’s power surged, not the violent crackle of confrontation, but a sudden, disorienting pull. The crimson velvet, the flickering candles, the stunned faces of Shoto, Hawks, Toga, Shigaraki, Dante’s siblings – they blurred, stretched, then dissolved into absolute nothingness. There was a heartbeat of terrifying, silent freefall, the world ripped away.
Then, solidity. Cold stone beneath his boots. The scent changed instantly – from cloying smoke and alcohol to cool, clean stone, aged leather, and the faint, underlying aroma of Dante’s unique power. Dabi blinked, staggering slightly in Dante’s unyielding grip.
They stood in Dante’s private sanctum. Not the office. The true inner chamber. Vast, high-ceilinged. Walls of ancient, dark stone. Thick, blood-red rugs swallowed sound. A massive fireplace dominated one wall, cold embers glowing faintly. Tapestries depicting chaotic celestial battles hung heavy. Glass cases held artifacts that pulsed with restrained power. And in the center, dominating the space, was the bed. Huge, carved from black wood that seemed to absorb the dim light from the braziers lining the walls, draped in black silk and furs that looked like shadows given texture.
Dante didn’t give him time to adjust. The teleportation’s disorientation hadn’t even faded before Dante’s mouth crashed down on his. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a claiming. Savage, demanding, tongues clashing, teeth scraping. Dante’s hands were everywhere – tearing at Dabi’s clothes, shredding fabric with unnatural strength. Buttons popped, seams ripped. Dabi snarled into the kiss, grabbing Dante’s own shirt, yanking it open, sending studs pinging across the stone floor. Dante’s tattoos writhed under Dabi’s touch, reacting to the frantic energy.
“Fuck, need you,” Dabi gasped, tearing his mouth away, struggling against Dante’s hands as they pushed his ruined jacket and shirt off his shoulders. His own fingers scrabbled at Dante’s belt buckle, fumbling in his urgency.
“Then take it,” Dante growled back, his voice thick with lust. He spun Dabi around, slamming him back-first against the cold stone wall beside the fireplace. The impact knocked the breath from Dabi’s lungs. Dante’s body pressed against him, pinning him, the hard length of his cock grinding against Dabi’s ass through their remaining clothes. Dante’s mouth found the junction of his neck and shoulder, biting down hard enough to bruise, sucking a dark mark into the skin. “Take what you fucking need.”
Dabi arched into the bite, a strangled moan escaping him. He shoved Dante’s trousers and briefs down over his hips, freeing the thick, heavy length of his cock. It was already slick at the tip, hot against Dabi’s skin. Dante’s fingers, impossibly strong and slick with saliva or pre-come or something else entirely, shoved Dabi’s own torn pants and underwear down his thighs. One hand roughly cupped Dabi’s balls, squeezing possessively, while two thick fingers pressed relentlessly against his entrance.
“Open for me,” Dante commanded, his breath hot against Dabi’s ear. He didn’t wait for permission. The fingers pressed in, past the tight ring of muscle, stretching him with brutal efficiency. Dabi cried out, head thudding back against the stone, the sharp burn eclipsed instantly by the overwhelming need, the sheer visceral filling. Dante worked him open with rough, urgent strokes, scissoring his fingers, stretching him wide, his other hand pinning Dabi’s hip, holding him immobile against the wall. There was no finesse, only raw, desperate preparation.
“Fuck! Dante! Now!” Dabi panted, pushing back against the invading fingers, needing more, needing the fullness, the connection, the annihilation of thought. “Stop fucking teasing!”
Dante withdrew his fingers with a slick sound. He gripped the base of his cock, the thick head pressing hard against Dabi’s stretched, fluttering entrance. His other hand clamped back on Dabi’s hip, holding him steady. Dante leaned in, his chest pressed against Dabi’s back, his lips against Dabi’s ear. “You’re mine,” he snarled, the words a dark promise, a shield against the world. “All of you.”
He surged forward.
The invasion was brutal. Unrelenting. Dante’s cock was thick, stretching Dabi impossibly wide, burning deep. Dabi shouted, a raw, ragged sound ripped from his throat, his fingers scrambling against the cold stone for purchase. Dante didn’t pause, didn’t stop. He buried himself to the hilt in one powerful thrust, sheathing