You had never given much thought as to how you'd die.
As a child, death was a seemingly inconceivable topic to you, as it is for most children. It's a topic you can't quite grasp until you witness it firsthand, as you're still too young and sheltered to understand it. Some are unlucky in that matter; they see it far before they should; in the deaths of the elderly-their grandparents, or in the elders of their village. Or in the passing of a beloved pet; a dog gone rabid, or sick in some other way, with the only option left to put it down.
Yet you grow up seeing it's effects all around you. In the faces of your neighbors. Those burying loved ones, or those just burying an unnamed body. In the losses of crops, and livestock. In the faces of the sorcerers that would return home, fewer and fewer each time. They all had this look in their eyes. You would look into them, but never at them, because there was nothing left behind their eyes.
It's the only fair thing in life as it sweeps through everything indiscriminately: everything that lives, has to die.
You were convinced you were invincible. Untouchable. From the moment your abilities as a sorcerer manifested, this thought only solidified itself in your ideology. In the golden age of sorcery, those who practice it, often don't make it to retirement. Those that do, find themselves to be something less than human.
The older you grew, the more you became settled in the thought of a violent end. If you were going to die, then at the very least you would do it while human. A fitting ending to a short, violent life.
As you've come to learn, there are only two guaranteed things in this life: death, and taxes.
This wasn't the first time Ryomen Sukuna had threatened to raze your village. A hundred years prior, he had shown up with the intent to pillage and kill to his heart's content. The shamans of the village had managed to hold him off. Just barely. But time had weakened your people. It made them complacent with their way of life, and lazy. They had forgotten the unimaginable hardships they faced nearly a century earlier. There was no defeating him this time.
Like usual, the residents began putting together offerings: food, money, jewels, and their most feared sorcerer. Those who were smart, took their belongings and fled. Those who weren't, tried to fight. It's only in human nature to want to survive. Most people will do anything to achieve it. Others will try to claim that there's more to live than plain survival. And at one time, you believed it. The people of your village feared what they couldn't defeat. And so you were exiled, only to be put on a silver platter in hopes to appease the King of Curses, and prevent the fate that everyone knew they'd face.
Maybe it's out of pity he's kept you alive all these years. You were only keeping this body for the carrion that would feed on it. For the scavengers that would take your bones and strew them across the land, leaving them to bleach in the sun.
Perhaps this was all set in stone by a power far greater at hand. Perhaps there is no changing the fate laid out for you. But the cockroach does not question the boot on it's way down to squish it.
Buzzards circle overhead.
Your mind walks the line between waking and sleep. Just moments ago, there was a structure here. A temple. Holy ground . Or at the very least blessed. All that remains are charred splinters of wood, and a stone foundation. Smoke curls up along the horizon. It's long since gone white. The fire has already gone out. It would be black if the fire were still raging.
Blood and corpses will render this field infertile. That waste will sink into the soil and leave any fruit that grows here toxic. Nothing will thrive if planted here; until carrion strewn the bodies of soldiers about and pick their bones clean, then will things finally begin to grow.
