Authors Note:
Before you guys raise your pitchforks and fpoons, read till the end first.
Enjoy the chapter
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The walk to the Twilight Manor took less than ten minutes.
Yuji had made it before the sun had fully risen, with the streets still being quiet only with the earliest risers roaming the streets tiredly. The guards at the gate recognized him by now, with one of them giving him a curt nod as he approached.
"She's expecting you." The guard said, and Yuji didn't bother asking how Loki knew he was coming.
With Finn's group still in the Dungeon, the Manor appeared emptier than it usually was. Various members of the Familia who stayed behind could be seen walking through the main entrance into the connecting hallways.
Gareth had stayed behind to help look after most of the operations that still needed to be completed. He held a stack of ledgers under one arm and stopped when he saw Yuji.
"Mornin'. Loki said you might be dropping by." The dwarf studied him for a moment, then gave a gruff nod. "Good luck."
He made his way up to Loki's (Finns) officer on the upper floor of the central tower. The door was open by the time he arrived, and the Goddess was sitting on the desk rather than behind it, with her legs swinging idly as she read through a stack of papers. A cup of tea sat beside her, still steaming.
She looked up the moment she heard his footsteps step past the doorframe.
Their eyes met.
Loki didn't smile, grin, smirk or crack a joke. She just looked at him with those vermillion eyes, fully open and waiting.
Yuji stood in the doorway for a moment, hands in his pockets. Then he let out a slow breath and closed the door behind him.
"I have conditions." He said.
Loki tilted her head. "Go on."
"First. I need to know how much freedom I'd have. I'm not interested in being deployed like a weapon or kept on a short leash. I move on my own terms, on my own schedule and if you need me, you ask, not order."
Loki crossed her arms, her expression neutral but attentive.
"Second. My past is mine. You'll learn about it in time, because I owe you that much, but I decide when and how much. You don't dig behind my back and you don't share what you learn with the Guild or anyone else without my say so."
"And third?"
Yuji paused. The next words were harder, not because they were complicated but because they required a kind of honesty he'd lost over the years.
"I'm not looking for a leash, Loki. I've been trying to move away from a life like that, I'd need to be able to move on my own terms." He met her gaze. "I'm joining because I need to stop running."
The room was quiet for a moment as Yuji thought of his next words.
"I've spent the majority of my life convincing myself that being alone was the smart move. That keeping my distance was how I honoured the people I lost." He paused for a beat before continuing. "All that did was turn me into exactly what my grandfather warned me against."
Loki kept her full attention on Yuji, no smile or playfulness could be seen on her face.
"I'm doing this to change. I'd probably be terrible at it, but I need to try. I owe it to the people who told me to stop being an idiot, and I owe it to myself." Yuji took in a breath. "So, if you can work with that, then I'm in."
Loki was quiet for what felt like a long time. Her vermillion eyes didn't waver from his face. She slowly uncrossed her arms and leaned back on the desk.
"Lemme address your terms." She said, her voice neutral and even. "First, freedom. My Familia ain't a cage. First, when I call an expedition, everyone who's able to handle the deeper floors has to go. That's non negotiable, its how we stay on top and also how we pay the Guild its taxes. If somethin' threatens the Familia directly, I expect every member to show up. Other than that?" She shrugged. "You do you. Finn handles most of the stuff in the Familia anyway, with Riveria and Gareth helping him. Anything involving the bigger picture or Gods, thats my territory. Your day to day is your own."
She then held up a second finger. "Second, your past. I ain't gonna pretend I'm not curious, 'cause I am. Painfully so. But I don't go diggin' through my children's histories without permission. Never have. Ask Aiz, Riveria or anyone else. They'll tell you the same."
She held up a last, third finger. "And your reason for joinin'." Her expression softened, just barely. "That's the best reason anyone's ever given me."
She slid off the desk and walked towards him, stopping a pace away. The top of her head barely reached his chest, but her presence filled out the room.
"I've given my Falna to cowards who wanted glory, to desperate people who had nowhere else to go, and to broken kids who just needed someone to give a damn. The ones who came to me because they wanted to be better?" She looked up at him. "Those are the ones who stayed."
She extended her hand out to him.
"Welcome to the family, fossil."
Yuji looked at her hand, and then took in with his own.
Her grip was firm and warmer than he expected.
"Don't make me regret this." He said.
"That's my line." Loki said, her smirk finally returning.
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The inscription room turned out to be Loki's own bedroom, situated at the very top of the central tower. It was built with sturdy stone walls with heavy curtains lining the windows. A single, large bed was situated at one end of the room.
"Shirt off, face down." Loki said, closing the door behind her.
Yuji raised his brow but complied. He removed his overcoat and shirt, folding them both on the desk. Loki's eyes briefly tracked the network of scars across his torso, the faded marks on his forearms and two missing fingers, but she said nothing.
Loki patted the bed and he lay face down, resting his chin on his crossed arms.
Loki moved behind him, sitting on the small of his back as she drew a small blade and pricked her finger. A single drop of red, divine blood, seeped out from the wound. It was practically luminous, brighter than anything a mortal possessed.
"This'll feel strange."
"I know."
She pressed her finger to the centre of his back.
The warmth came first. It spread outward from the contact point, sinking through muscle and bone with a depth that made his instincts flare up for a moment. It wasn't painful, but it felt strange and foreign, like a door inside him was opening up, one he didn't know existed.
Then the Falna reached deeper, searching for the soul it was meant to bind to.
It found more than one.
Loki felt the resistance before she saw it. The hieroglyphs forming beneath her finger tip stuttered, then surged, branching outward in patterns far denser and more complex than any first inscription should produce. They didn't flow in clean lines but were fractured and split, tracing paths that seemed to conflict with each other before settling into an uneasy, messy arrangement.
The six cursed remnants inside Yuji reacted to the divine contact. They contracted, pulling inward, but they didn't fight the Falna. They had simply refused to be included, coiling around Yuji's soul as if to protect it from the foreign invader.
The Falna faltered for a moment, causing Loki to frown but as it relayed its intentions towards the overprotective souls, they slowly relented, leaving a path open. The divine blessing continued on, flowing between them like water before binding itself to Yuji's primary soul, leaving the six others untouched.
Yuji's own soul, accepted the Falna unevenly. The blue, pure half that represented his humanity resonated with the divine energy, brightening as the blessing took hold. The black, cursed half of his soul resisted, not aggressively but passively
The result was a Falna inscription that was, to put it mildly, a mess.
The process took over five minutes, with Loki finally withdrawing her hand, her expression was a mixture of fascination and concern that she didn't bother masking.
"...Huh." She simply sounded out.
"A good 'huh' or bad one?" Yuji asked, feeling her grow still as she sat on his back.
"Ask me again when I figure out what the hell I just wrote." Loki replied, her voice carrying a quality he hadn't heard from her before. It was genuine uncertainty. "I've inscribed Falna onto hundreds of people, Yuji. I've never seen anythin' like that."
Her fingers lightly trailed the inscription on his back, a look of fascination and unbridled excitement grew beneath her eyes. She even felt reluctant when she slowly moved off his back, going to a desk and pulled out a piece of parchment.
She was going to begin writing but paused, tilting her head sideways. "Your status is… incomplete. Parts of it are clear, others are garbled, like somethin' is interfering with the reading. There are sections I can't interpret at all, symbols I've never seen before."
"Is that a problem?" Yuji asked as she began putting on his clothes.
"Not a problem, exactly. The Falna is stable, I can feel the connection. But readin' your status properly is gonna take time and probably a few updates before the hieroglyphs sort themselves out." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Whatever you are, Yuji, your body didn't accept my blessing the way a normal person's would. It accepted it on its own terms, and even then, it's being fussy."
Yuji nodded at her words. He could barely feel the inscription on his back anymore as it settled into him like a second skin. What he did feel was the warmth that came from it.
"Nothing's ever simple, is it?"
Loki let out a short laugh. "Yeah, but that's what I live for."
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They spent the next hour going through logistics.
Apparently, Finn had left the guest room Yuji occupied previously empty, reserving it for him. The Pallum figured it was going to come into use at some point, and this time he was right, even as he was deep in the Dungeons.
"Guild registration is gonna be tricky." Loki said, leaning back in a chair in Yuji's room. "Officially, you'll be listed as a new member. No level designation until we can actually read your status, but you'll be listed as a Level 1 by default. Everyone starts off there, no exceptions. Falna uses whatever you have now as your starting point, be that a decrepit old man, a veteran fighter or a bumbling kid."
Yuji nodded as he put his few clothes he had away into a drawer. Gareth had apparently sent someone to grab his belongings from the boarding house the moment he saw Yuji step inside the manor.
"That's fine."
"It won't be fine when people find out you can flatten a Floor 49 boss and you're registered as a Level 1." She said dryly, her eyes looking at the ceiling of the room, the chair she was sitting in leaning back dangerously. "But it buys us time. The less attention we draw right now, the better."
She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Once Finn's group gets back, we'll need to have a proper sit-down. He's gonna want to know everythin', and honestly, he should. Riveria too. The core leadership need to understand what they're workin' with."
"I'll tell them what they need to know."
"That's all I'm askin'." Loki paused before her expression shifted. Something sharper entered her eyes. "I hate to admit it, but there's gonna be fallout from this, you know. The moment word gets out that I've taken in a new member, especially one who showed up with my expedition, and whenever your real strength is exposed, people are gonna start askin' questions."
"You mean Freya."
Loki's squinted eyes opened a fraction as she looked at Yuji. "Among others, but yeah. She's at the top of the list right now. She's had eyes on you since you exited the Dungeon with my kids. Now that you're under my banner, she can't just reach out and grab you, but she also isn't the type to sit back and accept it."
Her thoughts went back to the short confrontation she had with Freya, after the events of Monster Feria. She already knew that most of the monsters were charmed by Freya, a sick game of hers, as she had taken an interest in someone else besides Yuji. However, even she was confused by the appearance of the monster that attacked the twins and Lefiya, and Loki could see it in her eyes.
"I can handle Freya."
"I know you can, but that's what worries me." Loki said with a grin that didn't fully mask the seriousness underneath it. "I don't want you handlin' her, Yuji. I want you ignorin' her. The moment you engage with Freya on her terms, you're playin' her game. And nobody wins that game except her."
Yuji considered this for a moment before nodding. "Fair enough."
"Good!" Loki said, before standing up and stretching her arms above her head. "I'll leave you to get settled in. Grab some food and try to relax for once. Finn's group won't be back for a few more days, and until then, you've got nothing to do except exist."
She walked past him toward the door, pausing at the threshold.
"Oh, right." She turned back over her shoulder, "Sukuna. I need to know more bout him. Not today and not immediately, but soon. If he's gonna be a factor in this city, I need to know what I'm dealing with."
Yuji stayed silent for a moment before responding, "You will, but it's a long story."
"I've got nothin' but time, fossil." She said with a grin, before it morphed into a smirk. "Well, I've got eternity, and apparently you have a few more centuries. Close enough." One detail she forgot to mention was that Falna would extend a person's lifespan considerably.
She stepped out, and before she closed the door, she left behind one last remark to him.
"Welcome home."
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Authors note:
Okay, now you can bring out your weapons and whatnot. This is the path I've chosen to take for now. The premise of this story is Yuji finding peace, but for everyone peace has different meanings. For him, it doesn't mean living like a hermit alone forever, he's already been doing that for centuries and it didn't work, he was still as empty as before. With a new world and beings that could outlive him, his resistance to making connections or attachment will lessen, but it wont be smooth.
As for why I didnt have him join Sukuna's Familia, the door isn't closed forever. For now, it wouldn't make sense for Yuji's character to choose to join him. Sure he already killed him once so that cycle of curses was over with, but that doesn't mean its all flowers and rainbows between them, sukuna still made his life a living hell. Narratively, sukuna familia would be the more interesting character study, but with loki familia it makes for a better story. This opens up the rest of the Danmachi plot as a lot of its events converge to the loki familia. Sukuna will still work as a shadow hanging over him and the story, the door isn't closed yet. He could still be an avenue or tool Yuji might turn to later if things changed.
Its a chekhov's gun with a very long fuse.
So don't worry, Sukuna will represent those who don't like this situation and will continue to ragebait
As a teaser and something you guys can look forward to in the future of the story, just picture what Yuji could do against an outside army composing of level 1-3's.
P.S. completely unrelated but if people want to beta readers to proofread mistakes for me, add me on discord, my user is Suploly