Why do you deny it?

The rain fell in relentless sheets, pounding against the imperial gardens with a rhythm that drowned out all other sounds.

Lightning occasionally split the alien sky, illuminating the strange landscape in brief, harsh flashes before darkness reclaimed it.

Sukuna stood motionless in the downpour, his black dress shirt and business pants completely soaked, clinging to his form like a second skin.

He made no effort to seek shelter, instead lifting his face slightly toward the sky, allowing the water to wash over him.

He had been standing there for nearly an hour, the perfect stillness of his posture broken only by the occasional blink to clear water from his eyes.

The gardens were deserted - sensible beings had retreated indoors at the first sign of the storm - leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Or so he believed.

"You're getting wet," a voice observed from behind him.

Sukuna didn't turn, having sensed her approach long before she spoke. "So are you," he replied simply.

Atom Eve moved to stand beside him, her red attire - modest yet elegant - now darkened and clinging to her form.

It was clothing designed to protect her modesty while still being flattering - the kind of outfit she had always worn outside since Megumi's death, never showing more than he would have approved of, even when he was no longer there to see.

"You always liked the rain," she said softly, her eyes fixed on the same distant point as his. "Even before your regression."

Sukuna didn't correct her use of the term "regression." After the dinner conversation and hours of solitary contemplation, he was no longer certain she was wrong.

The possibility that he might indeed be their Megumi, reborn or returned, could no longer be dismissed as mere delusion on their part.

"It calms me," he admitted after a long moment of silence.

The rain had always affected him this way, across all his lives. In his first life, it had been a simple pleasure.

In his second, as Ryomen Sukuna, it had carried deeper significance.

Even as the Fallen Son of Heaven, he had found peace in the rain - when the world received its blessing from above, when water sustained life and allowed new growth to emerge from the earth, the spirit of creation was at its purest.

It was a connection to Heaven that he had never fully severed, no matter how much he might deny taking pleasure in it.

They stood in companionable silence, both continuing to get soaked as the storm showed no signs of abating.

The palace lights reflected off the water-slick pathways, creating ethereal patterns that shifted with each gust of wind.

"Why do you wish to deny it?" Atom Eve asked suddenly, her voice carrying no judgment, only genuine curiosity. "That you've regressed?"

Sukuna remained silent for a long moment, considering her question with the seriousness it deserved.

"Because I failed then," he finally answered, his voice barely audible above the rain.

"What do you mean?" she asked, turning slightly to study his profile.

"Since being born," he began carefully, not alluding to his past lives that no one but he knew about, "I... I began to believe in connection. In love having some sort of power that could be harnessed. Used to achieve what pleases oneself."

He paused, gathering his thoughts. "But what you're telling me is that very love made me blind. Made me weak. Made me die and cause my child to die and lose all I had built." His voice remained steady, but the pain beneath the words was unmistakable. "Which makes me wonder if I should abandon it entirely."

"No!" Atom Eve's response was immediate and forceful, startling in its intensity.

She moved to stand in front of him, her hands reaching up to cup his face, turning it toward her with gentle insistence. Catching herself, she softened her voice, though the passion remained evident.

"That very love is what made me fall for you," she said, her eyes searching his. "Those months before... before our loss of you were the best of my entire life.

Seeing you smile so much, be so happy, be more expressive - they are things that I rewatch hours upon hours of recordings of each day, just to not forget."

Her hands trembled slightly against his skin, whether from emotion or the cold rain, he couldn't tell.

"Even if it made you lose him - lose me?" Sukuna asked, for the first time verbally acknowledging the possibility of truth in her words about his regression.

Atom Eve fell silent at this, her hands slowly dropping from his face. After a moment, she asked quietly, "Can I hold you for a moment? Can I hug you?"

Sukuna tilted his head slightly, curious at the request, but nodded slowly.

She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him with careful gentleness, as if afraid he might shatter - or vanish - at any moment.

Her head rested against his chest, and he could feel her warmth even through their rain-soaked clothing.

"Please listen to me for a moment," she whispered, her voice close to his ear. "Even if you don't believe you've regressed, humor me and listen to what happened after you died."

Sukuna remained silent, neither embracing her in return nor pushing her away, but allowing the contact as he waited for her to continue.

"Mark and I closed off after your death," she began, her voice a soft murmur against the backdrop of the rain. "We became more cold, more distant. We focused entirely on expanding and rebuilding the Empire in your image rather than anything else."

Her arms tightened slightly around him. "I was - I still am - loyal to you. I never looked at anyone else, never touched nor let anyone else touch me. But so many tried."

A slight tremor ran through her body. "So many, in fact, that Mark began to kill them. He issued a law that if anyone approached me with intentions of being with me, they would be executed."

She pulled back slightly, looking up at Sukuna's face. "He threatened me, too. Told me that I was yours - that I must wait till we found you - and that if I even attempted to be with anyone else, he would kill them.

I was furious with him - not because I wanted to move on, but because he didn't trust my devotion to you."

Tears began to fall from her eyes, warm against the cold rain streaming down her face. "We fought. Destroyed many dead planets in our rage.

And then, when the fight ended, we finally began to grieve. We cried together on a desolate world, mourning you, mourning mine and your child, mourning everything we had lost."

Her voice broke as she pressed her face against his chest again. "I've been waiting for you. Been loyal to you. So please, don't stop loving. Because I can't bear the thought that you might never love me again."

With those words, she burst into full tears, her body shaking with sobs as she clung to him. The intensity of her grief was overwhelming, the pain of seventeen years of loneliness pouring out all at once.

Sukuna stood frozen for a moment, uncertain how to respond to such raw emotion. Then, slowly, his arms came up to encircle her, holding her as she cried.

It wasn't a passionate embrace, but a supportive one - offering comfort rather than romance.

He held her as her sobs gradually subsided, until finally, her body went limp against his. She had cried herself into unconsciousness, the emotional exhaustion of the moment combined with the physical strain of standing in the cold rain proving too much.

As he adjusted his hold to support her weight, Sukuna became aware of another presence nearby. Looking up, he saw Eve - his Eve - standing a short distance away, watching them with an unreadable expression.

"How long have you been there?" he asked, lifting Atom Eve into his arms in a princess carry.

"Long enough," Eve replied simply, moving forward to join them. "She needs to get out of the rain."

Together, they made their way back to the palace, neither speaking as they navigated the corridors to Sukuna's private chambers - quarters provided by the Emperor that were spacious and elegant without being ostentatious.

Sukuna laid Atom Eve gently on his bed, her unconscious form still and peaceful despite her soaked clothing.

Eve disappeared into the adjoining bathroom, returning with towels. She handed one to Sukuna before using another to carefully dry Atom Eve's hair and face.

They worked in silence, removing Atom Eve's shoes and covering her with a blanket to prevent her from catching cold.

When they had done what they could, they retreated to the edge of the bed, sitting side by side, both still damp from the rain.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken thoughts and questions, until Eve finally broke it with a single word.

"Fine."

Sukuna turned to her, confusion evident in his expression. "Fine?"

Eve nodded, her eyes fixed on Atom Eve's sleeping form. "I've been thinking. About you, about my love for you, and your love for me."

She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for what she was about to say. "I've realized that since Atom Eve is another version of myself, she is me.

Which means I wouldn't be sharing your love with anyone else if you loved her too, because you'd still be loving me, just... another version."

There was something in her tone - a possessive edge, a calculation that was an obsession - that caught Sukuna's attention.

This wasn't simple acceptance; it was a carefully reasoned justification that allowed her to maintain her exclusive claim on him.

"If she's right," Eve continued, her voice taking on a harder quality, "and you remember and fall in love with her again, you can be with both of us. But no one else."

Her eyes met his, intense and unwavering. "Not another woman, because she wouldn't be me. That would mean you were loving someone else entirely."

Her fingers twitched slightly, pink energy briefly materializing around them. "And if that happened, I would have to kill her.

Molecularly disassemble her, atom by atom, until nothing remained but dust. I would make it slow, make her feel every particle of her being separating from the others."

The casual way she described such brutal violence sent a chill through the room, but Sukuna's expression remained impassive.

He had known of Eve's possessive nature, her obsessive tendencies, but this was the first time she had stated them so explicitly.

"You would have to be with both of us," she continued, her voice softening slightly. "And not have your time divided. I refuse to have any moment less with you than she does. Not a single second."

Her hand found his on the bed, her fingers intertwining with his. "All of this, of course, if the regression situation is truly the case. If you are their Megumi returned to them."

She turned to face him fully, her eyes searching his. "Are you? Could they be right?"

Sukuna considered her question carefully. The possibility had been growing in his mind since the dinner conversation, taking root in ways he hadn't anticipated.

The gaps in his memory between lives, the strange familiarity he felt with certain aspects of this world, the way his soul resonated with both Emperor Mark and Atom Eve in ways he couldn't easily dismiss...

"I don't know," he admitted finally, the words costing him more than she could possibly understand. "For the first time in my life, I truly don't know."

Eve nodded, accepting his uncertainty with surprising grace. Then, with deliberate slowness, she leaned forward, her eyes never leaving his as she pressed her lips against his in a gentle kiss.

It wasn't passionate or demanding, but tender - a reaffirmation of connection, of commitment, regardless of what revelations might come.

Sukuna returned the kiss with equal gentleness, one hand coming up to cup her face.

When they separated, Eve rested her forehead against his. "Whatever you discover about yourself, whoever you might have been before, know this: I love you.

Not just the you now, not just Megumi, but truly you - the being who exists now, with all your complexities."

Sukuna didn't respond verbally, but his hand tightened slightly around hers, an acknowledgment of her words and the sentiment behind them.

They remained like that for several moments, the only sound in the room the soft breathing of Atom Eve as she slept, unaware of the conversation that had taken place or the kiss that had been shared.

Outside, the rain continued to fall, washing away the old and nourishing the new, as it had since the beginning of time.

And in that moment of quiet connection, Sukuna found himself losing his regained doubt in the love being a weakness. Once more reaffirming for himself that it was a different kind of strength, one he had yet to fully understand or master.

The thought though was still foreign, still uncomfortable, but no longer entirely unwelcome. And that, in itself, was perhaps the most significant change of all.

As Eve eventually drifted to sleep against his shoulder, Sukuna remained awake, watching over both women with thoughtful eyes.

The King of Curses, the Son of Heaven, the strategic genius who had helped build an empire spanning seventeen galaxies - all of these identities swirled within him, separate yet increasingly connected.

If he was indeed all of these things - if his soul had traveled a more complex path than even he had realized - then what did that mean for his future? For his power? For his understanding of his own existence?

The questions had no immediate answers, but for once, Sukuna found himself willing to wait for them to reveal themselves in their own time.

After all, if there was one thing his multiple existences had taught him, it was that time had a way of bringing truth to light, whether one sought it or not.

And so he sat, patient and watchful, as the night deepened around them and the rain continued its relentless drumming against the palace walls -

a rhythm as old as the world itself, as constant as the cycle of death and rebirth that perhaps had touched his soul more times than he had ever imagined possible.

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(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all liked the chapter!

Do tell me how you found the conversations between both Eves and Sukuna?

Well, I hope to see you all later,

Bye!)