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A Formless Path to Shape One's Soul (Jujutsu Kaisen Self-Insert/SI [But Closer to an OC SI])

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Chapter 6 || School's Out
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    • Chapter 6​
    School's Out

    It's the Twenty-First of April… and there is no class.

    The others are lounging about with this kid with a beanie I don't recognize. Takuma… something, I think he was called.

    I really forgot I was in the auxiliary part of the school year. Summer courses? No thank you. Tokyo Jujutsu Students only get the finest soul rending pre-recorded classes. From Contemporary Society to Mathematics one the entire curriculum is a big-fat-l for me. Contemporary Society is detestable, Mathematics 1 kills any advantage of asking questions in class when everything is pre-recorded. Language 1 where I'm getting poor grades because "my calligraphy is bad". Science 1 is hell, because not even the Hag remembers the scientific equations. Health is a placeholder subject meant to waste people's time in my opinion. Home Economics somehow got me an F for suggesting euthanasia as an alternative for the elderly who lack purpose in life.

    The only thing mildly bearable is Physical Education and Cultivation, since that got me closer to beating the shit out of Atsushi.

    If I wasn't cheating at every chance I get, I have the feeling I'd sure be suffering right now.

    All and all, pretty good! No funerary flowers or scribbled desks or menacing letters to speak of.

    Just one small issue:

    If I don't convince Gojo to let me take the remedial exams, I'm literally going to be stuck here as a First Year student.

    That would be hell.

    I already got used to three morons. Thank you very much. I don't need more people in my life.

    And thus, I entered the staff-only break room as soon as I realized he was inside one rare morning where the first-year teacher was actually on-campus, a "Hey Teach Gojo! Can I take the remedial exams?"

    "Why?" Leave it up to the laziest teacher around that is missing for most of the lessons to be the contrarian.

    Still, he postponed my execution. If there's anyone preventing me from doing the first year for the second time, it's him.

    "Look, if you let me take the exams," I say, reciting word-for-word what I've practiced for hours to do "I swear to whatever god is out there that I won't bother Miss Ieri after the next mission."

    "Pass." The slumped over teacher raises a single finger. He seriously looks as if someone took a tall identical puppet of him and slumped it over the armchair in the most unflattering way possible. "I don't think that's possible."

    His posture fits him, though.

    Well, that plan failed. Time for plan two: bribery. I doubt there is any cash I can procure for him to care, so food it is. "Alright. Well, back near my old, old home, there should be this place that makes fried ice-cream. I could put in a good word for you?"

    "Is it good?" He asks, finally looking up from his slumped over position. It's not like it matters, he's got those bandages over his eyes.

    But regarding the question: I guess?

    I didn't have much pocket change to spend on ice-cream but I do remember I got banned from the establishment after I got caught sneaking in the backroom.
    "Yeah." I lie. For all I know… "It's good."

    "How about another chat with that lady of yours?" He suggests.

    I stiffen up. "I don't like letting her out."

    "Why?"

    That's the first time someone has asked that.

    Why do you feel faint? We saw you just beat up an entire group of people?

    There's two reasons why I don't like allowing the Hag to take control of my body.

    She tends to do things in the least comfortable way possible.

    And…

    …It's not something I tend to admit, but… "I… tend to feel faint afterwards."

    "..." There's an uncomfortable silence that stretches in between this moment and when I speak up again.

    He seems surprisingly serious for something like this. The smile and cocky tone is gone.

    "All over. Not weak as in… physically weak, not light-headed as in hard of thought." It's neither of the pair. I like feeling intellectual, I guess, but I don't think the words from my limited reading can explain just how I typically feel after waking up after one of those events. There's… carnage, sometimes, but no injuries on me. It's just that, somehow… "I just feel… less of myself, I guess."

    As if a chunk of my soul had gotten gnawed at by the witch resting inside of my head. Some memories feel more distant, although still clear, some feelings fade.

    Gojo's face scrounges up. There's an understanding there, something I'm not privy to. When he finally responds, I don't detect any particular emotion in his voice. "I see."

    "Send me the address. I'll get the entire class to go on a little trip come the weekend." He responds, after a moment of deliberation. "I'll see what I can do for your exam."

    "Thank you Gojo-sensei." In what feels like forever, I bow down in gratitude towards someone else. My back isn't used to bending this way, and it still feels alien. "Thank you so much."

    And my cumulative debt towards "the strongest" kept rising…

    I might as well declare myself indebted for life at this point.

    Could you even run away from a debt that exists within your mind alone?

    "Don't mention it." He answers, waving his arm around as e sits upstraight for the first time since I entered into the teacher's lounge.

    And with that, I leave the teacher be.




    It's the Twenty-Second of April.

    This is the last week the others will be around on campus. And starting today, there's only three days for socializing before everyone went their ways for summer.

    I saw the only second year around. Someone by the name of…

    Yeah, I forgot. She looked forgettable. Short hair and all I almost confused her with a guy.

    Take a deep breath in.

    It's only exams of every subject you hate! What could go wrong? And you have… until Six in the afternoon to finish them all.

    I check the clock. It's four thirteen.

    I've wasted four hours and thirteen minutes trying to find a way to cheat without Gojo noticing me from behind the teacher's desk.

    Every time I think he's dozing off, he moves again.

    I get the feeling he'd rather be doing something else.

    Right.

    No way this can go wrong.

    I always had the ultimate cheating tool: myself!

    That's right, with the incredible power of being stuck with the imaginary friend I made for myself when I was two (it's hard to think of her in any other way), I can leave the boring task of memorizing stuff to the elderly fart who told me about the horrors of war when I was trying to pass history.

    Definitely no way this could go wrong.

    Gojo can't see internal dialogue… Can he?




    I feel like dying.

    Ever since yesterday, I've been waiting for the exam results. I presented the last one exactly at six, so I totally have to thank someone for doing sweet F.A. while I was out here cracking my brain open to answer most of the big questions of the world.

    She popped up in the last two hours.

    Two hours I rapidly spent trying to coax an uncooperative bag of complete and utter shit into giving straight answers.

    I still think I passed though.

    There's no way I didn't pass.

    For ever since I got the test results two hours before dinner time, I have not taken a single sip out of the instant ramen I had made for myself.

    It's grown cold.

    The test answers sit by the beside of my room. A manilla folder, still unopened.


    Do I dare?

    Do I indulge myself?

    These are the last days for the summer in which I will spend with the morons of my grade. I don't want to spend them bemoaning my misfortune.

    On the other hand… existing with nail-crushing anxiety until I open the folder means I don't get to spend any time harassing the trio at all.

    I bite the bullet.

    Oh…

    Oh… dang.

    This is bullshit.





    Gojo hated to admit he was wrong. He hated to admit he missed a detail, or arrived at the wrong conclusion, or neglected to pay attention he had noticed. This was of the third category, his least favorite.

    It meant that even with the six eyes, he was still utterly blind to some things. Resentment over past mistakes boils over to this newly found one, despite it's magnitude being far less troublesome.

    But it seems Wada Azami doesn't actually have a natural resistance to being a vessel for other souls. He paid little attention to a fact he otherwise overlooked, and he was just becoming aware of the pervasive aftereffects that followed.

    It was good-intentioned ignorance that led him to ask for an interview with whatever lived inside Azami.

    He wouldn't make that mistake again.

    So maybe, that voice from the interview… Perhaps there was some truth in its saying that it tied itself down to a vow, if it had not overtaken the young one's personality completely.

    The new question is… why?

    And could he find out without having Wada-san switch out with the voice again?

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    This chapter is, essentially, an in-between point. A transitional chapter, really, without being an interlude. And hey! For all it stands, it's got a lucky number too.

    (7 is a lucky number).

    Has Azami passed? Has she failed? Is she due for spending copious amounts of time suffering classes she cheated her way into passing? The answers to these questions come next week.

    Because I feel rather tired with college starting back up.

    Los
     
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    • Youch, so using her self-insert powerup isn't a great idea then, at least not for the immediate future. That's good, means it's not something that can be used every time things are rough, should help keep up stakes and stuff.

    I wish her good luck on the exam results though, turns out that even if ur smart and have an older person who's been through it before as a cheat device you can't just undo years of homelessness.
     
    Chapter 7 || Day That Went Away
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    • Chapter 7​
    Days That Went Away

    It's Friday. Friday eighteenth of April, to be exact.

    Early morning too. Didn't sleep too well.

    I spent my time moping over having failed one subject and barely scraping by on the rest during all of Thursday and the day after I opened my grades. I wouldn't be surprised if my pillow was still damp with spilled soda and tears.

    Someone else's tears! I don't cry, I'm an adult.

    Everyone knows adults don't cry.

    Well, there's a certain day why I'm deciding to bottle up the misery today. And that's because today is the last day I'll get to… I don't know.

    Mess around with the other morons my age? Maybe ask for a number to stay in touch so I can make fun of them from a distance. Yeah, that sounds like a plan!

    Because it's not like I'm going anywhere. I don't have a family to go back to, so as long as I can squat here and make them worry about me passing out in missions it'd be grand.

    Wandering the halls, with no end goal in sight, I try to make haste. After all, I'm pretty sure Atsushi leaves at lunchtime and the others not soon after that.

    I skip out on a good breakfast. I bought myself instant ramen for this situation. Five minutes less than if I had skipped out on breakfast entirely, but going without breakfast means growing fat, heart disease, diabetes, and getting banned from eating fries with chicken due to high cholesterol.

    I'm not risking that! That's worse than repeating a year.

    Eating whatever trash I can find means less costs invested in food in the long run.

    High sodium? What's that?

    Is it like a chemestry thing?

    Well, hopefully the answer to that is not as empty as the school currently is. Most public spaces around are typically quite empty, really. It feels more like an abandoned monastery at times, with the occasional janitor showing up cleaning up every once in a while.

    There's even a section around the courtyard before the moat leading to the school propper which seems to have been replaced as of recently. It doesn't take a genius to see the different patterns of wear and recently painted buildings not hiding the same wear as the rest of the school.
    It's still built traditionally though, so it sort of feels that I'm intruding in some sort of temple, when I'm not talking to anyone or wasting my time.

    The classroom was empty, just four tables and chairs and the teacher's desk. There's dirt tracked all over it, so it means Gojo was probably lounging there some time ago.

    Still no signs of the others.

    There's other four classrooms, and without opening them I already know that they are empty.

    There's never anyone around those, except maybe the trench-coat sword teacher, so why bother checking them? Probably gathering dust and lint by now.

    I then check the library. I've surprised Kirua and Atsushi a couple of times there.

    Especially because you're not allowed to check anything out due to some stupid regulations (and the complete lack of a librarian). It's a small building, compared to the scale of the rest of the campus. Just one long, not too tall room filled with wooden shelves and books and on the very far back a set of transcribed scrolls and filing cabinets filled with who-knows-what. It's also one of the few places which has the western style of door, just like the ones on the doorms.

    According to Atasushi, this is only supposed to be the student library. Dunno what he meant by that, but he's not here.

    I guess it makes sense. Shigure wanted to figure out if similar techniques to his had manifested in the past. That's the only reason why he had visited the library and I tagged along because Kirua was out with some friends from her last school or something.

    Was this before or after I landed myself in the infirmary for the second time…? I can't recall.

    Must not be that important.

    Most rooms seem redundant in my opinion. I know you're not supposed to go snooping about, and I certainly don't do that in the main buildings where the principal is, after all, his dolls are everywhere and I swear they look at me whenever I tried finding out where they kept the exam answers. All around campus I could find them, to be entirely honest.

    It seriously felt that they move around when I'm not looking. It's certainly a possibility, I had no doubts about it.

    I keep looking.

    More empty rooms and hallways.

    A school this size for roughly five students seems absurd to me, but apparently adult sorcerers also stay here so what do I know?

    It's not like I've seen any of them.

    But it's also not like the Assistant managers or the Janitors pop out of nowhere, don't they? Although I never see them, I figure they may stay elsewhere. And by that I mean off-school.

    Birds chirp, the sun shines with the intensity of early summer light. I exit yet another building with little to no people inside of it. Clean spaces and stuffed animals and windows and the breeze of a bright new day.

    I should have done this sooner.

    Should.

    I shouldn't focus on what I could have done. That's looserthink. Focus on what you can do now… and that is probably calling Gojo or something of the sort.

    I bring out the contact list of my phone, still walking down another stone-paved path covered in the shade of the trees.

    There he is. The only contact, whom I took the pleasure of renaming from "Great Teacher Gojo" to:
    "┬┴┬┴┤whitehead (･_├┬┴┬┴"

    It's only fitting that, in the spirit of the nosy bugger, that I would find someone last minute.

    A little taller than I remember him, and wearing a beanie, but it's a similar enough silhouette and hair color to the point where I'm confident saying it's him.

    "Oi Atsushi!" I shout, raising a hand in a mock-wave. He raises his head to look at me, and suddenly, I'm not so sure about my prior convictions about the identity of this taller wannabe. I also just noticed the fact that he's stuffed his pants onto his boots. Utterly disgraceful… it's not even winter! "You're not him."

    "Uh, no." The new person said, "I'm Ino Takuma. You're looking for Inumaki Atsushi, right?"

    "Wait…" Did I hear that correctly? "Could you repeat his name again?"

    "Ino Takuma?" He responds uncertainly, probably mishearing.

    "Nonono, I mean, Atsushi's full name."

    "Inumaki Atsushi?" Oh what the fuck. His last name isn't Toge??? I mean, I thought it was just from a weird family or something because it sounded like an individual name but I wasn't about to question him on that…

    I guess he must have noticed my silence because he spoke up after a minute. "Wait, you're that new first year who joined late, right?"

    "Uh, yes. Wada Azami, that's me." I introduce myself, nonchalantly, not really thinking much about where my mouth is running off to next. "Welp, I'm off! Cya around-"

    "Wait." He pleads, "If you'd be up to talk to your upperclassman for a little while, could I ask you a couple more things?"

    "Upperclassman?" I snorted, throwing a sneer back to the relative stranger. "Pal, I barely recognize you as an acquaintance."

    A tender smile drifts into his face as he chuckles under his breath, and a mocking facsimile crosses on my face. Because that's what you do when people smile at you, right?

    It hadn't gotten me killed by the Banchō back at my old school so it's working out fine I'd say.

    On the topic of delinquents… am I the only one here with a criminal record here…? Does that make me the Banchō by default…?

    "So you don't find an issue with it?" Ino's voice cuts through the mental haze as just as I began planning how to take over the gangs of local schools in order to become their empress.

    "I totally find an issue with it." I say my goodbye after that. "Bye."

    "Why are you a sorcerer?" He blurts out, as if he were desperate for an answer.

    "I told you that I didn't want to answer your silly questions."

    "I want to help people." He gushes. Big dreams right there, almost makes me jealous. "And being a sorcerer is something only people like us can do."

    "I became a shaman because I didn't want to die. The higher ups wanted my head." I don't think I've seen anyone be this disappointed and desperate with anything I've said. Not shocked, just disappointed, perhaps more than a little upset with how blunt I was. I've grown numb to it, thankfully. "That's all there is to it."

    I look away after that.

    "I don't believe in anything," I say to the floor. "No noble reason like yours. No grand cause of family pressures or anything of the sort. Sorry for the disillusionment, but I can't stand being jealous over something like that."

    I take a long sigh to break the silence before I get going again.

    "You'll be on your way?" He asks, lost, almost.

    "Yeah." My conscience nags at me for a while. I could entertain his request, perhaps. Later. "Before I forget, do you mind giving me your number?"

    Abrupt silence is his answer.

    "It'd be nice to talk to someone new every once in a while." I will further explain.

    "Sure." retrieving his phone, I practically get walked through the step-by step process of learning to register someone to the contacts list by someone who clearly has seen better days.

    Which is to say, finding out the number, calling them then immediately canceling the call to prevent bone cancer or something, and saving the number from the history list into a contact.

    Thankfully, there was no asking why I asked their number, beyond what I had already explained so there was no need to explain the schematics of how in this world, I'm the one true bully.

    Everyone else is the oppressed under my iron heel.

    Tremble before the might of my power as I give you an embarrassing name on my contact list, Taku.




    Sure enough, by process of elimination, the entire crew is in the courtyard.

    I can't get it wrong after the fifty-fourth failed guess. I'm just that clever.

    If I had gotten it wrong now I would have literally cried. I have no luck. Best brain on this side of the country but no luck. I could sign up for the lottery and it would somehow end up in a lawsuit.

    "Azami!" Kirua exclaims, running from under the shade of the tree where the other two are lounging about, sharing snacks and other sweets. "You made it!"

    I had a lie prepared already for why I didn't pop up."I was practicing in the shut-in competitions but I gave up halfway."

    "Sure. Suuure." They state in a tone I can't quite place as they drag me by the tree with a tone I can't quite place, "C'mon, Inumaki-san's family brought traditional candy and Shigure has been stuffing himself full.."

    There's an audible nothing as someone realizes something isn't quite right. Betrayal flashes across Shigure's Eyes, "Your family name isn't Toge???"

    I didn't know that before today either, but it seems Kirua did. Is Isoda really that dense? I steal one of the star-shaped cookies off the bag sitting on the grass. It tastes sheet, and it has a creamy inside reminding me of red bean paste. I nab another one when no one else seems to be looking.

    "I–" I can feel the annoyance build up inside Atsushi. I'm particularly glad to see it aimed at someone other than me for the first time since I've met him. "I literally told you this in the first week. Were you even paying attention?"

    Understanding, then, I add "I didn't know either because Gojo introduced me to him that way and no one bothered to correct me."

    "I actually expected you to figure out the answer, considering you kept peeking over his shoulder to copy his notes." Kirua defends herself. I don't think Atsushi really cares what I thought his name was as long as I tried to beat his smug grin during training into outer space. He doesn't really respond to any of our comments.

    "Did you actually believe Gojo's half-assed rant about my potential surpassing the whole school!?" That is a thing? Since when? I have not even seen Shigure do any large-scale jujutsu in my entire stay here, just crushing corpses with that perpetually sheathed sword of his. "And that whole part about Ijichi somehow beating him in hand to hand?"

    Ijichi can beat Gojo in hand to hand combat!?

    I shouldn't have written him off.

    "I guess I–" It takes him a moment for him to notice his best friend's questioning stare. I know what he's thinking, or at least I think I do. It's rather amusing because I'm pretty sure I thought the same thing too when I first heard his name. "...better not answer that!"

    Although that's more of an answer than anyone needs.

    "Unbelievable." He has the expression of someone who's been told something so stupid it loops disdain into amusement once again. "I can't even do Jujutsu."

    Does that mean he needs the swords? I still don't think that diminishes his efficiency, though. Shigure apologizes nonetheless, although on his benefit, he did figure out one of those two mentioned statements were actually true. "Sorry."

    "It's fine." Atsushi responds, even chucking a little. "Don't apologize."


    And silence stretches out after that.


    I think it might be uncomfortable, but everyone else seems content. No conflict, no talking, no drawing or zoning out. So I put up a neutral–feeling smile to not stick out like a sore. Just the sound of the wind running through the trees is more than enough to ease myself into asking what I came here for in the first place.

    "So… would anyone be up for giving me their numbers?" I abruptly break the subject into the stretched-out-silence. "I feel like it's a while before I see you people again and I'd like to send threatening messages every once in a while."

    Laughter all around.

    It doesn't feel like mocking, though.

    I don't know what it might be called.

    Things sort of spread out from there. Atsushi, unsurprisingly, dictates his phone number first. He had it memorized already through some process I'm sure I would have called dark magic. I debated with the other two whether to name him "Knowitall" or "Cheat Sheet".

    I settled for Name thief after the enlightenment Isoda and I had gone through this day. It's him who dictates his phone number next, shortly after Atasushi leaves us with the candy his family gifted him so he didn't carry it back to some complex of some sort, although we talk for a few minutes afterwards. I can tell he is less abrasive than when I met him, although I don't know why.

    On the topic of the so-called "clan complex"... I'm pretty sure that I would have called it simple if I was there, but I don't think I could name any single family's residence a complex, to be honest. How complex can such a place be anyway.

    Isoda fumbled his phone unlock, so it's Kirua the one that dictates the number afterwards, beaming with pride at having it be a rather stupid cypher repeated twice. Something something "answer to the universe" or something of the sort. Rather repetitive, all things considered. Six sevens, all in a row! I joked around that given her technique's vow, it was rather apt, although she waved it off.

    She left shortly after that. Just a mother and a father, rather than a whole squadron of aunts, uncles, and cousins that took Atsushi away. I didn't settle on a name before that.

    But she's the first person that… Well, according to the hag, she asked Gojo to postpone my execution. The name I settled on is "Friend?" although it feels wrong and misplaced and obtuse. I still didn't know too much about her to really decide on anything, and she did call me awful once…

    There's a ding from Shigure's phone. He packs his bags shortly afterwards, looking somewhat downtrodden.

    He is the one that has the least issue with everything. He asked for my number instead, and sent me a message shortly after that. I named the recently saved number as "Art-School student". I don't think anyone can draw with the quality he has with the frequency he did to remain an active shaman, so I figure he's earned himself a promotion from aspirant to student.

    The sky turns a caramel gold after he leaves by himself, something about catching the bus on time.

    Stips of white slowly turn orange, then pink, then a soft purple as the sun goes down.

    I sit there until crickets start chirping.

    The silhouette of trees and houses seemed so strong until the lights turned on. Now they seem diffuse against a darkening sky.

    It's a short trip back to my room. I know where it is, after all, and it can't move. It's not a person.

    It's a short amount of halls and trees back to the room. I check the new contacts for messages and I find none.

    I sigh in defeat, before a familiar presence shows up in my peripheral vision.

    "Oi!" My teacher shouts, raising two fingers in a mock of a greeting. I make sure to not stare at the fashion disaster too hard, especially at the fact he was wearing sunglasses indoors. "Took you long enough."

    "Gojo!?" I question. "What are you doing here?"

    "Taking you away for summer vacation." He states this as if it were already a fact, and if I was a dunce for wondering why he was here. "Obviously."

    "Taking me where?" This is very important. I don't want to be sold for organs. It's happened before but I never got to the "organ removal" part of the deal.

    "Away." He answers vaguely. "So the higher ups don't work you to death."

    I responded after a moment. "...why?"

    "Because you're a kid." He replies with finality.

    But that's the issue, because I'm not done. "I'm not a kid."

    "You're a teenager, then!" There is no room to protest that label. Gojo is too loud and obnoxious for me to meaningfully intervene. "You deserve to live out your youth without worrying about curses all the time."

    My initial suspicion: he plans to steal my identity, or sell my organs, or… something less tasteful… "...this isn't like–"

    "No! No, not at all." Seemingly reading my mind, he raises his hands defensively, waving them from side to side as if to block the accusations I'm launching against him. "I'm actually taking care of two other kids at the moment."

    I had the feeling he was making up for having their parents killed or something. The hag isn't complaining or anything of the sort, but I've never followed anyone with good reason. And unlike other times, I can't hurt Gojo. "Prove it."

    "Sure!" He says with the same sort of energy of a kid eager to show how proud he is of his younger siblings: "Here is Fushiguro Megumi, and over at the bleachers is Fushiguro Tsumiki. And of course, me, the greatest tutor of all."

    And indeed there's a picture. Gojo, with sunglasses that are dyed opaque, leaning forth without covering a girl with bangs on the sides of her face, sporting a long, brown hairdo. Over at the field, besides where Gojo pointed with his freakishly long finger, is a younger looking kid, with black messy looking hair and facing away from the camera as they dribble the ball close to the edge of the field.

    I stare at the picture for what seems like hours. It seemed unreal.

    "Here's a better picture of Tsumiki, I don't know if you can see her very well, but she's the one at the piano." He says, ignoring the fact that the picture showing this Megumi kid, who might be a girl for all I know, wasn't very good at all.

    And much in the same vein, this picture isn't particularly good either. It's… of an orchestra, and over at the side, at a large piano, sits the dwarfed Tsumiki. It's the same girl from before, wearing a school uniform rather than street wear, facing away from the camera as that's the way the piano was set. This picture isn't a selfie, though it doesn't take away from the fact that I felt he got kicked out of the concert not long afterwards..

    "Call one of them. I want to make sure this is not some random kids you've been–"

    "Stalking." Did he just… read my brain? Or am I just that predictable? He dials away nonetheless, tapping. "That would be impractical for time consuming reasons, and because Megumi would–"

    "Hello? Gojo–san?" The voice of a young boy speaks through the phone. A saved picture of a scruffy kid with messy hair, the same one from the soccer picture, looks at a snake exhibit from a zoo I don't recognize. I don't think it was staged, but it's hard to tell how well it's framed.

    "Actually." I respond, snatching the phone away from Gojo before I realized I touched him, turning to face the phone again because I have better things to do than trying to kick my teacher's teeth in. "This is one of his students, Wada Azami. You are a real person, right?"

    He answers confused. "Yes…?"

    "Good, because if you never hear from me again, make sure to check the newspapers to make sure I didn't end up as organs in the black market. Or worse."

    "Alright?" I don't like that questioning tone, so I decided to get myself a backup shortly after hanging up.

    "Wait." I raise a hand to Gojo after hastily slapping his phone back onto his hand as I hastily tap away at my phone, sending a very similar string of text to Kirua before storing my phone away in one of the pockets I had sewn into my jeans. "Alright, ready."

    "Really?" That's the first time I've heard something close to actual confusion in his voice.

    "Don't need much more than a jacket and jeans to survive the summer." I state, matter of factly. Wearing too much got you a heat stroke, but at least you didn't have to suffer the cold in the street or an abandoned building. "I also wanted to see if I could steal some of your more money to buy clothes."

    I have more clothes than I could remember having in the last five years, probably even before that, too.

    But oddly enough, I still wanted more. Is that really such a bad thing?
    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    Sorry for the delay on this one. I struggle with character interactions sometimes. One of the things I've wanted to get good at is drama.

    But hey! That's why I'm writing this fic anyhow. What's a little struggle on the path to improving one's skill?

    …I also tried making a fried egg with a mold for the first so it fit on a sandwich. It got stuck to the mold, but it was still edible.

    P.S. I'll probably post two chapters this following week but no promises.

    Los
     
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    • Chapter 8 || One of those Days
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 8​
    One of Those Days

    As it turns out, Gojo can't drive. Nor does he like taking the subway.

    So it's Ijichi who drives us to the place where Gojo is staying, because somehow, despite looking older than Gojo, he is somehow younger than the moron.

    Guess stress really makes you look older, doesn't it?
    I hope I don't end like that. I really hope I don't end up like that. All frown lines and stress marks and baggy eyes and smelling of insecure dietary habits.

    I take a moment to smell my clothes.

    Fuck.

    They still smell of the instant ramen from the morning.

    I gotta get a hold of myself.

    I look out of the window.

    The city at night always looks so ugly to me. The streets seem clear from a car, but I knew otherwise. I didn't frequent this area much, though. Two floors buildings with apartments on the first and second floor didn't lend themselves much to my prior lifestyle. No abandoned apartments or houses either, so that's out as well.

    Is it weird that I still feel I could bounce back at this point? As if… shit were to go down at the school I could still have a reliable friend to turn to. Not the Hag, she isn't reliable nor a friend, not anymore.

    Whenever I speak with her it's thinly veiled sarcasm now and things I should have done long after I'm done with them. She's gotten bitter with age.

    She used to be much more friendly back in the day. Now it seems all she does is sleep and egg into social interactions as if she wanted to do the talking.

    So what if she wasn't an imaginary friend after all! She should shut up and let me live my life at this point. She isn't needed.

    "What's on your mind?" Gojo asks, suddenly, twisting back in a way that can't possibly be safe without a seatbelt, especially for someone on the co-pilot seat.

    "Nothing."

    "Did anything happen back at the school?" He inquired, leaning forwards slightly. "You did look quite upset back there."

    "Nothing happened." I spit back, looking out through the window again.

    "Then why did you look so moopy, eh?" He prods, jabbing a finger at my personal space I swat away.

    "Because I knew no one would come for me."

    I can practically hear Ijichi's throat get frozen as he shrinks into his seat and pretends to be invisible, despite being the driver. I can see this all too clearly from behind the copilot seat.

    Because I know Gojo's technique is some sort of shield, and because I decided I had better chances of avoiding conversation, I decided to break my own rules and sit behind him. Not like it has stopped him from engaging in conversation. He wasn't even wearing a seatbelt.

    "But I did." He mocks offense by pointing a finger at himself, all sprawled out front as if the glove-box of the car was some sort of couch. He almost looks offended like that.

    "I didn't know that." A hungerless pit seems to form inside of me. I knew I was going to be alone. Its just… bird fly, fish swim, I go by myself. That's how it's always been. Even when my mother and grandparents were alive, it's how it's always been. It shouldn't have been different this time. It might still not be too different. "I… didn't know that."

    "I heard you the first time." His speech jumbles up, even as I understand the words he's just said. But everything else is just a jumble.

    It's just noise.

    Why wasn't this the same? Why was someone picking me up? How many birthdays had I spent with mediocre gifts or sitting alone in a room. How many New Years had I wandered aimlessly. How many Christmas dinners had I only seen outside of a window, staring at collections of people inside of warm rooms while I was freezing my toes off outside. I've hardly ever had cooked meals that were not my own, rooms I had to not share up until I was completely abandoned. How is this real? This can't be real. There is no way— just how many times have you imagined this happening while the hunger pains racked your insides? A missing family member showing up and scolding you for never calling before taking you in and giving you a home and a bath and… Or suddenly, a stranger looking at you with pity rather than disgust and choosing you to bring you to school, to get clothes, to get help with the horrible things I kept seeing on a daily basis that others couldn't see? How is this–

    "Yo! Azami!" Gojo's voice snaps me back to reality.

    Relief partially floods me as I respond. "What?"

    I don't want to know where my brain was headed. It's like a festering wound collecting dirt and grime and lint, and I'd rather ignore it as long as possible.

    "Wanna prank the Fushiguros when we arrive?"

    "Why?" Why would anyone want to do that? Isn't this sort of like a legal guardian deciding to prank their kids? The tone he is using highly suggests that. Is that legal? Is that ethical?

    "It'll be totally hilarious! Just imagine it, I give you the keys and with that jacket of yours you can totally pretend to be invading the house, and then I'll show up to introduce you to–"

    "I'll pass."

    "Then how about this: you enter through the front door, obnoxiously loud…"

    "Whyyy…" This is giving me a headache. I appreciated the noise I'd just prefer if it came from someone other than him.

    "Okay! I got it." He states, clapping his hands and pointing at the roof of the car with a pleased grin on his face. "You'll enter through the back door and…"




    I don't know how he talked me into this.

    It takes me a moment to fully hop down from the patio wall, muscle memory guiding me through the motions as if the last time I've done this being yesterday.

    I really cannot remember how he talked me into this.

    My brain has run out of reasons why I have just agreed to this with little issue. I come through the backdoor with reckless abandon dropping off my shoes into a neat pair as I switch on every single light on the way to the living room before collapsing on the couch with a dramatic spin.

    "Greetings, it is I, the couch crasher. I will proceed to sleep on your couch and annoy you by watching soap operas." I deadpan, to no one in particular. The house seems empty.

    After a moment of silence and encouragement from home invading Gojo giving me a thumbs up from the neighbor's balcony, I shout what I said earlier in the same deadened tone.

    He's now got a whiteboard.

    He's writing… with spirit? It's even got this doodle of me but I don't look that skinny! Nor short. As a matter of fact, even though that drawing is meant to represent me, that's not how I look at all (I'm not that short, and my hair isn't a mess)!

    How the hell would I even say something "with spirit"-

    "Did Gojo-san rope you into this?" A voice coming from the stairs quickly makes itself known. It's the same voice from the phone, and it's the same kid from the pictures, except, perhaps, stretched a bit vertically. Same messy hair, pale complexion, permanently annoyed face. Despite the rather obvious lamp cosplay, or rather, because of it, Megumi instantly spotted Gojo looking down on us.

    "He bribed me." I remember now. How he managed to convince me into this. What was it that he offered?
    Oh, that's right. A bike. "That's it. I'm done now. Goodnight."

    "You can't just—" It's clear he recognizes me from my voice, given how little fuzz he makes due to my unwelcome appearance. It's the couch-sleeping that he seems to take an objection to. And he makes sure to let me know as such. I try to ignore him as I turn away from the light and close my eyes. "Show up and sleep on our couch."

    With one eye open to respond, I counter, "Totally can."

    "No you cannot." He protests, slamming his foot down in a less than impressive manner of intimidation. Eleven year olds don't tend to be very intimidating. Wind blows as Gojo-sensei enters the front door with little fan-fare, ditching the bandages for tinted black glasses and shoes for neon orange slippers at the entrance and closing the front door with a wave. "I don't care what you told her, Gojo. Find her somewhere else to stay!"

    "And you'd throw me out on the street again?" I interrupt whatever Gojo would have said with my own brand of mean-spirited slander. After today, I needed it. "Heartless."

    "That's not—" Once again, he turns from me to the recently entering Gojo, who seems to have been enjoying making himself tea in a tall cup, adding several spoonfuls of sugars more than should be enjoyable,"You could have figured out something else. We barely have room here."

    "I could have." There is nothing more to it. Gojo stretched out after saying that, his hands almost reaching the ceiling as he yawned immediately after the initial stretch. "But I figured out that spare room collecting old toys could use some redecorating, don't you think?"

    A soundless yelp comes from the kid. To his credit, he does attempt to present as stoic, although he is currently failing miserably.

    "The antisocial type always seems to be the loudest." I sagely comment.

    I feel the stare even as I close my eyes to not see it. The figure which I know to be Fushiguro Megumi stumbles over his words several times before he even outputs a single understandable sentence. "What does this even accomplish? We don't need a babysitter. That room isn't a spare at all."

    "Think of me as the home intruder living inside your walls who is willing to commit arson to keep this couch." It's always that incredulous look that I cherish the most. For the first time as far as I can remember, Gojo seems to be on my side of making someone's life miserable.

    "You can't keep the couch." The kid doesn't seem too eager to allow me to sleep here. His stoic facade is crumbling by the second, and the next time he opens his mouth he's practically shouting, "That's worse than taking up the storage room!"

    "I don't know Megumi, it would save a lot of money off a proper bed and cleaning supplies." Gojo says, scratching his chin.

    "Would be worth too…" I say, seriously considering something Gojo said, immediately making me feel as if I'd gone insane. "This might be the most comfortable couch I've slept on."

    Dismay. If he were more sensible to unexpected situations, I feel like he would have fainted. Or burst a vein out of frustration.

    "Welcome back Gojo-san." A new voice, emerging from the staircase lazily yawns a greeting. Likely taking a nap, since it's only twenty-two hours. Too early to go to bed on vacation, in my opinion. If Megumi was the one that showed up first, this one must be Tsumiki. "Who is "

    "Good evening Tsumiki!" The teacher greets. "C'mon Megumi! I know you missed me too, where's your greetings?"

    "Hi." Megumi deadpans in a tone flatter than the one which he greeted me with. Is it even possible to go flatter still without being a computer?

    "Pfft." He blabbers out, sitting on the kitchen's table, looking down on us all. "On the topic of answering both of your questions: She's my student! She'll be your flatmate until can own an apartment of her own, or something of the sort."

    "So roughly three years?" Better than nothing in my opinion.

    "More, if you can't find a place to stay in."

    "Oooh ok."

    "So it'll be like having an older sister?" Both Tsumiki and Megumi speak at the same time, except Megumi says "freeloader" instead of "older sister". I prefer to think he got the wires on his brain twisted up instead and mixing both terms. Did they sound similar…? No, absolutely, but I can dream.

    I visibly see the cogs turning behind Gojo's head as he throws up his arms in faux brilliance. "Sure! Think of it that way."

    I don't know if he's referring to being a freeloader or the sister part.

    I sure hope it's the latter.

    "For today, though," he begins, sticking a tongue out at the taste of his tea before pouring sugar over it much as if it were a saltshaker before downing it all in one go, "she'll be staying sleeping on the couch."

    Dismay fills Megumi's face as he turns to face Gojo with a dismal expression. Tsumiki seems content with running down the stairs with a recently acquired blanket set, and I simply present my most recent brand of shit-eating grin.


    Honestly, this beats having my organs sold on the black market.




    It wasn't until I started receiving worried messages in the early morning that I realized I never told Kirua of I wasn't getting sold on the black market and now even an unknown number was panickedly messaging me asking if I was alive. I'm too late to respond to any of them, of course. I slept like a baby with no worries whatsoever.

    Ooops.

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    I did some clearing up of some chapters and titles, since I spotted a few differences from the plot sheet that were more than a bit lacking. Interlude numbers have been fixed up, same with chapter numbers. Post chapter notes have been kept the same because I'm too lazy to dare and touch those. Same with a couple of errors with dates and the such, including Azami's birthday (it's 13th of May of 1999, but I fudged that up several times).

    Fortunately, it's fixed now, so I can hopefully forget about it forever more. Although I am a single woman writing, spell checking and making sure there are no plot-holes so if there's any feel free to say so.


    Megumi is probably getting conniptions out of this arrangement. More reasons than the obvious to be revealed soon.

    Los
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 4 || Reflections of a Word
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 4​
    Reflections of a Word

    Ino Takuma hadn't lost many people in his life.

    It's not to say he hadn't lost people at all, of course. When he was a mere child, far too young to remember properly, he remembers telling the Daycare attendant that his mother had died fighting monsters. He did not remember her face, or her voice, or how she towered over him. Still, he felt deeply melancholic whenever he tried to recall the times before.

    As if part of a youth most got to experience, of having two parents, was stripped away from him. His father never recovered after that, and turned to boose for an answer to his sorrows.

    Had lost a friend to a car accident, once. He remembers the curses following the procession like some sort of black swarm of flies being attracted to decomposing carcasses. Which in a way, it was. Funerals tend to attract curses like that, he'd come to learn several years later.

    To his father's credit, he never mistreated his son. He never got drunk on his job. And he never became an absent figure in his upbringing until he was sure his kid could take care of himself.

    He always assisted at the table tennis club matches whenever he could, no matter how disheveled he looked. He took him to the movies, and to parks, and in a particularly long streak of abstinence, to see family over at Kyoto as well as a couple of other trips heading to Okinawa, when the money was a little less than tight and he could afford such luxuries.

    So despite his situation, Takuma never was lacking in support. Neither he was lacking in friends. His easy-going and hard-working nature ensured he was always surrounded by friendly faces up to the day he started down the same path his mother had traversed: that of becoming a Shaman.

    Even when he started down the path of being one he managed to find his way to the heart

    He thought he understood why people kept being sorcerers when Kie bit the dust. His teacher's friend, Nanami had said as such: Being an accountant is shit, being a sorcerer is shit, so he might as well do the thing most people couldn't do. He certainly hadn't considered it that way.

    He understood Atasushi, having scouted the school two years before becoming a student with the sole desire to help his younger cousin, the sole bearer of the Cursed Speech technique, not be overwhelmed by the pressure and hatred the higher ups had for the inherited technique, as well as what had happened to the kid's parents to want to help him grow as stress free as possible.

    He understood the second, now third, year's reasons for being a sorceress, as absurd as it was. Seeking self improvement through such a career… struck him as odd, but nothing he found too out of the ordinary, for a shaman. Furthermore, he thinks there's reason enough to believe there might be another reason he didn't know about.

    The other two first years probably had a reason similar to his. None came from large Sorcerer families, one of them didn't even know of any sorcerers before he joined the school after getting scouted by Yaga himself.

    Which just left Wada.

    Why did what she said shake him up so bad?

    She only wanted to be a sorceress to prevent getting executed. He heard it happened, sometimes.

    Was it because Kie was dead?

    Maybe it's related to that. Did her death shake him up enough that he wasn't sure he wanted to be a sorcerer anymore?

    The answer to that question doesn't come to him.

    So he was on his own.

    He considers calling her to ask for a further explanation, but he doubts there is. "That's all there is to it" she'd said.

    It was similar to Kie's "Because I can". Except, perhaps, in the reasoning behind it.

    Kie became a shaman because she could.

    Wada became a shaman because she didn't have any other choice. Is it really that big of a surprise that she'd say her only reason was to stay alive?

    That didn't explain the jealous tone, though.

    He didn't consider that earlier, before he hopped onto a bus just in time to have his dad arrive from buying pastries. They'd eaten chocolate cake together that evening, before Ino had secluded himself in his room as his father had gotten down to watching the latest baseball game.

    He wonders why she was jealous of him. Her tone and expression didn't hide it very well, despite the apparently obvious expression of such.

    "No big reason like yours." he repeats once again, looking out onto the streets as lights lit up and an airplane passed overhead.

    He didn't think of his reasoning as something that stellar. Certainly not now.

    But perhaps…

    He considers several of his mentors. Kusakabe was unreadable in terms of being a sorcerer. Nanami he already knew.

    Gojo had saved many sorcerers, so perhaps… no, not perhaps. He knew that if Azami wanted to stop being a shaman, she could just tell him. Gojo is strong enough to tell the higher-ups to get lost. And she certainly didn't seem to care about being a shaman enough to warrant staying if she had no better reasoning.

    So perhaps, that line, "No big reasons like yours," was more akin to a half-truth. There is a reason there that is important to Azami, although she viewed it as inferior to his.

    But for that reason, a selfish one, was less impressive than his own… than doing things the right way…

    Being a sorcerer is not as pointless as his despair led him to believe.

    He dials Nanami Kento a moment later, despair faded enough to give room to neutrality. He was their tutor on the mission when shit hit the fan, and later resigned from the position after the curse they'd been sent after had been revealed to be an amalgamation of several grade-ones, stitched together.

    He remembers Kie, and later Nanami-san, had described it as a "proto-cursed womb."

    Little matter, his convictions reinforced, his mind returns just in time to gloss over the greeting of the ex-salaryman.

    "Nanami–san?"

    "Yes?"

    "If I am to become a grade–one sorcerer…" he says, taking a long breath in, "I wish for you to be the one to reccomend me for promotion, should I ever become a grade-one shaman."

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    Some things changed, some things stayed the same.

    Los
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 5 || Gojo Reminisces on Faces and Expressions
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 5​
    Gojo Reminisces on Faces and Expressions

    Satoru Gojo, despite being the strongest human alive, knows he is blind to people sometimes.

    Infinity formed a bubble that protected him from the world, and by extension, most of the human experience. His almost instinctual level of control of cursed energy makes sure that even if something got past it, he wouldn't be hurt. He walked on the surface of a lava lake in order to exorcise a curse and all he got for his troubles was the experience. Summer or winter, he couldn't feel why most people wore coats or went with shorts and no shirts unless he consciously allowed Limitless to drop.

    Even before he made Limitless automatic, the gap between him and most people, sorcerers or otherwise, was so large it took him months to learn to read the expressions of his classmates.

    That's why ever since his best friend left, he's paid extra close attention to people's faces. Their expressions, the micromovements, the little pauses in between each word. He still struggled when he first started, but he quickly learnt to read people's feelings and expressions. He could even be called a master at this point, he reckons.

    He's practically become immune to getting lied to, even if he just met a person. Of course it didn't work if the person believed what they were saying to be the truth, but it made him even more of an asset. It's no wonder he's been put in charge of interrogations after he figured out how that worked.

    It's not the same with everyone, he knew. Some had different tells, others had very minor ones. Kabutoya had a habit of rolling her tongue and tightening her cheeks whenever she said something of dubious veracity.

    The second year student, now moving on to third, made no attempt to hide the blatant lies she spewed out, although she tended to roll her eyes and pause in between breaths irregularly whenever she did.

    Wada would often tighten her forehead's muscles and move her jaw sideways just before spouting blatant untruths. To her credit, every single one of them were more absurd than the last.

    The thing that lay within Wada, however, had no such tells. He'd seen incarnations of cursed objects in the past, and every time they had carried over the mannerisms from their first life.

    He wonders if the king of curses had similar control over his first body, given he was apparently able to sprout mouths on his extremities had the two main ones become blocked. Not that it happened much from what he read, but he could do it.

    It's not like this is entirely unfounded either. Ryomen Sakuna's fingers are cursed objects. Theoretically, they could be incarnated into a host, no matter how unlikely the possibility. Would someone somehow survive the malignant cursed energy running through their body from attempting to absorb one of the fingers… Sakuna would be reborn. And should this happen, he had no doubt it would possess superior control over the body he incarnated in than the thing inside Azami.

    Asking for another swap was too risky. He reckons every time Wada swaps out she risks getting her soul overwritten. Being strong didn't help him here. Wada wanted help, but this isn't something he can just curb stop into obedience or intimidate into doing as he wants to. He knows so little about it he's left trying to prod and guess in the dark.

    So he had to go off the vows it implied existed within it.

    It couldn't be an autonomous shikigami, as they can't form vows. Even if it was a shikigami based off an imprint of one's soul. A cursed corpse was out for a similar reason unless they were like Yaga's kid. Panda. Whatever.

    Cursed Spirit, Curse User, or a partially Sentient Cursed Object were the only alternatives that could potentially pull off what that thing could have done. Cursed Spirits could possess bodies, no big surprise there. Curse Users could be a little trickier, but it's no big surprise that techniques that would allow the possession of others were a thing. After all, that's how the last bearer of the six eyes died, neck snapped within her own crib by a stranger puppeting her mother.

    A sentient cursed Object is a little more out there. After all, he only really was familiar with Sakuna's Fingers as an example of a cursed object choosing it's host, and should this be an anomaly too it would be something he'd find himself obligated to tell the higher-ups solely due to the implications of such a thing happening.

    Swapping out twice on will, although due to the strain on the body it caused Wada to black out both times.

    He's met a couple of curses that could affect one's soul in his time as the strongest. One of them was a curse born out of disappearances and abductions. The other one born out of an urban legend spreading through the web. From what he'd seen, a small interaction shouldn't cause a human body to black out, so that must be intentional. Is it part of the Vow? He is not sure.

    Azami doesn't remember the conversation either, so that's another thing to keep in mind for later.

    What he does know is the incredible amount of cursed energy contained within. He's actually rather surprised. It's rather smart to hold a domain within an interior domain and use that to hide any residuals from the outside world. He didn't even notice that until they switched for the first time. It's… curious. There's innate techniques based around regular applications of cursed energy, that much he knows. Elder Someya can increase his reinforcement to near absolute imperviousness for limited amounts of time. He's read that a past sorcerer could output enough cursed energy to level cities. He reckons this technique is something similar, but with bottling up cursed energy, making the storage more efficient.

    Onto other subjects, he knows it's… about as old as Azami. "I should have had a life too" implies that whatever it is, it was young when it chained itself down to the girl. Willingly or otherwise.

    That's another thing. It cannot be a vow with anyone else. Had it been with her mother it would have been free to take over the body as soon as the report of her mangled corpse arrived at Jujutsu Tech. It couldn't have been her father, since he was never around to see her grow up, jumping from one woman to the next like some lecherous curse of a parent attempting to somehow birth as many children as possible.

    The vows it made had to be done with Wada Azami herself, even if she doesn't remember them. He cannot make any deductions until he asks her about them, although he figures it's likely she won't remember them.

    After all, she didn't remember any of the conversations she had with him, while possessed by it.

    He hates treading with caution. Even metaphorically, he is boastful and loud and obnoxious and likes screaming his presence out onto the world for everyone to hear. It's the way he reminds himself that he is alive and free and unconstrained by rules and tradition and the pressure of the dead and living all at once.

    But he will continue to be cautious in this case, just this once.

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    Had to re-read a bunch. Might do some good to simply treat my author notes as half-truths, slander, and lies. Also oh hey bonus chapter.

    Los
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 9 || Settling In
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 9​
    Settling In

    Saturday would be pretty nice if I had normal school. Of course, I hadn't known what that was like for several years now and the morning of Saturday 19th of April of 2014 is no different.

    It also just so happens that today I had been put in charge of cleaning up the storage room while Tsukumi was staying over at some friend's house. This also meant I had to cook for the little bugger I had been left with, since they didn't know how beyond the essentials and meatballs. On the topic of which…

    "No." The eleven year old states, getting in the way of the door.

    Gojo had left to take care of some "issues" and had left me and the two kids at the house in Adachi. One was at a friend's house, and I was dealing with the other one blocking the door

    "Right." I affirm, crossing my arms looking at the still closed door, key in hand. "Why not?"

    "Because I don't want to." He says in a way only an eleven year old can with a condescending tone indicating faux superiority.

    I nod slowly at that. "Sound logic."

    A car passes by on the outside. I stare at the kid's eyes, and they likewise stare back at me. I always hate it when kids figure out what I'm about to do. Megumi is clever, there's no doubt about that.

    I dive for the door. Megumi is barely a second behind me in doing so.

    And to be fair to him, he reacts faster than I do. I'm still four years older than him so it's not hard to push him to the side. Inserting the key and twisting it once to unlock the room, I twist the handle and…

    I found it recently locked.

    He's got quick hands if he can outspeed a pickpocket like me. The bugger locked the door without me noticing. I barely managed to catch him stuffing the key into one of the pockets of his track pants. "You little shit. Give me that. Gimme the key!"

    He looks straight at me. "No way."

    "Look." I hold "If you were not Gojo's kid-"

    "I'm not his kid" He interrupts.

    "Whatever." Sure. Don't know when he picked them up anyway. They might end up being like me except younger for all I know. "If you were not under his care I would have already threatened you to tear off your fingernails. Gimme the key."

    "No."

    "What's so hard about telling me why?"

    "Nothing." he admits, "I just don't want to tell you."

    "Do you really have to make this difficult?" I point towards the door. "I'm just going to break the door down if you keep making problems. The room was given to me."

    "You wouldn't." He challenges.

    "I would. I really will y'know." I only need to cram the skin of one of my fingers into the lock to make it nonexistent. Heck, due to cursed energy reinforcement I didn't even have to resort to self harm to break a lock for once. So it's a room, and I've got a couch (since that was a gift). I don't say this of course. The kid feels like a shaman, but he's still just a kid. I seriously hope he finds something else to sink his time into, like watching movies or something of the sort. "It's a room. And I've got a couch. Better sleeping conditions than the floor anyhow."

    Resigned."I'm going to remove a few things from the room." "Please look away."

    "I don't give a shit if you keep dresses or posters or whatever creepy shit you kids get these days inside there." He seems unfazed and unwilling to re-open the door. I'm in no hurry to find out, but I figure it'll be pretty obvious. How clever can an eleven year old be?

    Right. He isn't opening the door.

    He wasn't asking, wasn't he? Fine. I throw my arms up as I turn around with a spin, aggravated. "But sure, go ahead. Pretend I'm not here for all you care."

    I sat on the stairs after that. By the very orientation of the stairs, sitting on them my view is confined to looking at a painted white wall.

    I could possibly sit the other way around but that risks me falling down the stairs.

    Experience tells me that such a thing would be painful.

    I wonder why he's so angry at me. Ever since I've arrived, he's been pissy.

    Is it because I apparently ruined the configuration on the TV? I don't know how I did it, but I guess messing around in the options trying to find a way to turn the thing off did that. But it's not my fault that I was in the same room I wanted to sleep in for the day! Blame whoever placed it there,in the living room, completely open, the controller on the coffee table just sitting there, completely untouched…

    Are there any Italian contacts that Gojo knows about? I don't know what anything is saying anymore, at least in the settings area of the television. Channel switching still works fine.

    Right. So it can't be the TV. Must be something else.

    "Are you done?" I shout looking at the wall.

    After a moment of shuffling and the slamming of a door, an answer arrives."Yes."

    "Brilliant." The world grows smaller as I stand. "Anything to keep in mind before I claim the room as mine?"

    There's a pause in Megumi's step before he hands over the keys.

    "You should probably take Tsumiki's stuff to her room."

    "Yeah, I wouldn't know what any of that is."

    "I am planning on helping you out." He says after a long, drawn out sigh.

    "Righto." I proclaim. "Lead the way oh great Megumi."

    "Don't call me that." A glare is sent my way.

    "I've practically been a thorn on your side for a whoooole day now." A day was long enough for Kirua and Shigure. I'm still getting the hang of this social thing again, "But fine I guess. Fushiguro-kun it is."

    "...Do you really want to be passive aggressive with everything you say?" The irritation is palpable in his voice alone, even if he does an impressive job of hiding it with his depression and fluid body language. "Aren't you worried someone might take it the wrong way?"

    "I only take jabs because you're Gojo-sensei's protege or apprentice or something." Outright aggression and paying with an eye for an eye would no doubt get me kicked out. I proceed to shrug, then I lie: "I've given up on caring what people think of me."

    "Fine by me." He grumbles, turning around from the door which I believe leads to his room and handing me over the keys of the room that will soon belong to me by tossing the key over, then opening the door.

    Are those cleaning supplies? Toilet paper? Hygienic pads? Soap?
    Is this where most of the non-perishable groceries are kept!?
    "I'm rich." Riiich. With three "i" to denote how rich I am. Actually swimming in money right now. I could live off these for months. Literal months. Probably a year. Or two. Because I'm actually rich!

    "Is there something funny?" I stop giggling at that.

    "I'm ric-" I shut up, then start again. "No. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Go on."

    "All of the clothes here are Tsumiki's." He says pointing at a closet that I overlooked, on the edge of my peripheral vision.

    "Awesome." I go back to looking at the piles of groceries.

    "Gojo-sensei will probably ask us to move the heavy duty cleaning supplies to a closet or a bathroom." He points at some bleach and drain cleaner and other caucastic agents I don't bother myself with looking at. I'm still enthralled by the valuables. "Don't touch them meanwhile."

    My blood runs cold, but then I remind myself that those will still be in this house, and I calm down when I realize I can keep them all to myself. By force, if necessary. "Uh-huh."

    Aggravated, he tries the good of asking me into sense. "Are you lis-"

    "Yeah, yeah" I waved him away as if he were a wasp. I wonder if I ignored him for long enough if he'd go away… wait. I got to take the clothes. Right. Damn.
    No freedom for the wise in this tyrannic home. "So all of the clothes and toys here go to Tsukimi-"

    "Tsumiki." His glare grows a little stronger.

    "Tsumiki's Room. Gotcha. Got it." He hasn't stopped glaring. "What!? I really did get it."

    "Do you remember where I told you it was?" Uh, nope, but I can figure it out.

    His room is on the second floor. First floor has the kitchen-living room and a room that correlates with the garage door. Megumi (because thinking of him as Fushiguro would get confusing real quick) didn't descend the stairs when he was moving… whatever. Thus, his room must not be the garage and be up on the second floor. Four doors on the second floor, so one for him, one for his sister, and one for their absentee parents (ah the nostalgia…)

    "Second floor right besides your bedroom?" I correct my tone afterwards, "Yeah, I mean, upstairs right besides your room."

    "And which one is it?"

    No clue. So I point to a random one off to the right, to the opposite direction from the storage room "Uh… that one."

    "Lucky guess."

    Slander and lies! "I didn't guess!"

    "Whatever." He moodily answers and the irritation boils over into something else. "Now help me move"

    And so I do.

    It wasn't that much. I don't know why he needed help other than not wanting to leave me alone. Which is rather annoying. It's not like I'd raid the fridge and leave it empty and make a mess of the house… actually, I'd do the former, not the latter, but that's just about it. Then I'd go back to pretending to haunt the class group chat to Atsushi's disdain and Isoda's actual sadness.

    Because he believes it!

    Really helps out that Kirua is helping along there.

    Or was.

    I'm not sure but I think she's growing tired of the joke.

    "How is it like learning to be a Shaman?"

    The question comes out of nowhere and it takes me out of drinking the soda I had so gratuitously taken from the fridge. I don't recognize the brand, but it tastes like Cider almost. I checked the label before. Huh, peach cider soda. No alcohol though.
    "You really shouldn't be one."

    He descends the stairs a little more, making his way down nearly to my level by the receding sunlight coming through the glass doors of the living room.
    "Just answer my question."

    Did I finish it so quickly? I peek through the hole in the can from which I've been drinking the soda from. Poor move. A droplet falls into my right eye as I make it face downwards. It stings, but it's manageable. If I cry later on, will my tears be sweet? Or tears from that eye, I mean.
    "Yeah, I get it. You're young, you're trying to go on the whole "hero's journey" or whatnot. Out of what's most likely self interest, I might add…" His face narrows down at that. I don't think he liked me saying that "It's not worth it."

    "I don't have a choice." He says, finally reaching my level on the stairway sitting down and trying to match me at eye-level. I'm still taller than him, although not by much. "Tell me."

    I scoff at that. Trying to crush the can between my hands. "You're being taken care of by Satoru Gojo. The Gojo. You can always say no."

    "I can't." He says, with renewed determination. "My father-"

    "Died to curses? Oh how tragic." I probably sound more mocking than I intend. I try doing that exercise Gojo showed me once, to crush a can with cursed energy from both ends as I do my best to soften my tone to something more amicable. "I get it, really, I do-"

    "My father sold me to the Zen'in clan." The can explodes. Metallic smelling powder falls down around the blasted piece of metal as I turn to look at the unfazed puberadolecent.

    "You're joking, right?" I can't believe that. How could someone– yeah, I didn't have stellar parents, but I knew two people who did and that's baseline enough. I hope it's a shit joke, because… "If you aren't, I'll fucking kill you."

    "I know." I freeze at his stare.

    What?

    What???

    You're not… supposed to say that.

    You're supposed to be like "oh Wada san, you're joking?" or "You're not really going to do that."

    Not… believe me at first try.

    Am I really such…?
    "This is the deal Gojo struck. I study at Jujutsu High. And they don't take me and my sister to their compound."

    "Piece of shit." At least my father had the decency to disappear when I was just two rather than selling me off to some strangers. "Why not just murderize the shit out of them?"

    "Because…" He says with surprising confidence for someone who I'm sure has interacted very little with the jujutsu world, "No one wants a loose canon, even if he's the strongest, I think no one would want to follow him like that."


    That makes sense. Too much sense. I hate the fact that it makes sense. It'd be better if it didn't make sense. He's too smart for a kid. Does he know that? He might be impossible to work around.

    The sun finally leaves my legs. Sundown is soonish. Birds stop chirping as they go to sleep. Some early cicadas sing, despite not being summer just yet.

    "Are you sure you're eleven years old?" I fall back on the discomfort of the stairs sticking at my back. "Kids shouldn't be this clever. Makes it hard to take advantage of them."

    He doesn't answer that. Simply raises his eyebrow.

    "If it makes you feel better I'm at a similar deal, I think." That piques his interest.

    "Did your family sell you to a big clan?" He asks, trying to look back over his shoulder to my collapsed form.

    "Pft-" You're a funny little man. No wonder you're called blessings. "No way. I just can't be let go because I engaged in grand theft."

    He blinks. As if to ask if I'm serious. Which I am. I technically have done worse. Crimes upon criminals don't count, and in the other case I'm still not aware of what happened so I'm not holding it against myself.

    "I'm working out the debt to society." I shoot him finger guns from my prone position. "How cool is that?"

    His expression is unreadable.

    Finally, he answers: "I don't understand you at all."
    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:

    I blame the delay on Megumi. He's hard to write. At least for me.
    Also Isaac. And a sudden trip I really didn't expect. Family trips are exhausting. I might need a vacation after that just to write. Go out to the sea, enjoy the breeze, have some fish and chips and regional seafood.

    Yeah, that sounds great.

    Next chapter is coming out on time. I promise.

    Los
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude ???
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude ???​
    uh
    Hey –
    ononowhystart with
    ome n owhere-     i have no clue how to start this.

    ive been suck– stuckin the body of a todler and i don't know what to do

    –this is a cry for help-
    this is a letter reequesting assistance tp anyone that mithgt read this. i am dont know what to do ive been suffocating all this time

    when someone thinks about a do over they think of
    fixing their mistakes
    trying their best with forethought
    not taking their brackets off to early
    finally sticking to a crarrer or doing something useful
    writing a novel at young or being a kid genius or sticking out
    helping people
    harming people
    being special
    everyone wishes that to some degree
    sticking out

    not suffocating in a warm goop where everything screams of pain
    slowly starving to death in a sickly warm blackness
    squeezed against a fleshy, squishy wall
    not doing anything at all because nothing can be done

    i realize now what i did to stay alive back then
    maybe i wish i hadn't
    im surprised no one found me
    or found her, or her mother

    there's just so much wrong with how im liivingg nwo- now

    lying to a four year old, pretending to be an imaginary friend.

    i've bound myself to over fourteen different vows to prevent myself from harming the person that should have been my twin had i not become a macabre birthmark hidden away in her armpit

    within this confine of my soul that ive shaped into a coast, i've figured out over thirty four different ways to utilize the unvarnished twin's technique. i've practiced thirteen of them, and tomorrow i'm borrowing it again to test out another one moroe

    through an accidental oversight and poor chance, i realized i chained myself to this body having no way out

    please help me

    i cannot help myself
    ………………………………….

    The cry for help written on the back of a manilla folder is twisted by a limp appendage and clumsily eviscerated with a flick of the wakeless hand of a six year old, leaving a fist-sized crater on the floor. The body stumbles in a dreamless stupor as tiny snowflakes of processed wood pulp fall around her, retrieving a drawing from the fridge before slapping it onto the floor and getting back to writing again.

    ………………………………….

    imagine an apple
    -thats the first thing i did funnily enugh-
    imagine an apple
    see its colour
    light red, almost orange. those are the pulpy ones, feeling almost sandy but not quite and definitely the best despite the sour burn of the green ones and the milky sweetness of the ones you got as a gift .
    feel it's texture.
    its smooth, so smooth but not quite. imperfections almost invisible to the naked eye prop up here and there. dirt dust insect residue. as you pass your fingernail over them they fade away. the stem is always rough, brownish, dead. no life from a tree flows into this stick
    squeeze it
    just to make sure it's there. squeeze it. feel how it pushes against your hand. not hard enough to make it pop and pour its juices all over the floor, just hold it there
    ihow does your hand look like i forgot-
    smell
    it smells like nothing for now, applely and cyanide goodness hidden by a thin but nonetheless resilient layer of yellowish-orange-red skin that begs to be bitten into
    not now not yet
    hand
    it pushes against your fingers when you apply pressure to it. not hard enough to pop it, or scar it, or dimple it. just hard enough to push back. it realer now, somehow. toss it up. feel its weight as it comes down. see it fall? feel the pull of gravity against your hand?
    it falls too fast
    stuff to clear up later
    taste it
    it has a taste, a texture on the inside too. bite, bite, bite. chew, chew, chew, swallow, smell. it tastes applely enough. a smidgen of sourness covered by a gentle watery sweetness and some je ne se quais on the back to top it all. hard crust, soft interior. sandy like a pear. good enough to be a favourite fruit
    spin it
    take everything from before.
    take the weight and the texture. the color and the taste. the push, the smell, the inner workings.
    meld it a thousand different ways
    does it snap back? can you make another apple? this one with a brown spot? perhaps this one with a worm?
    how do worms look like again?
    time to work on something more important now.
    the beach remains my favourite place. theres this one from my childhood, one besides a cliff where the sand is rocky and coarse and terrible and useless to build castles. crabs lay on the rocky shore ready to snap at fingers, and dead jellyfish wash up frequently.
    this is my favourite place in all of the world?
    start with a grain of sand.
    a terrible, horrible, too big grain of sand. coarse and large enough to get stuck under a fingernail and stick painfully to the soft meat underneath. cherish that pain, that memory, that texture of something long gone.
    go on to make another one
    and one after that
    repeat as many times as it takes to match the number of stars on a scale of ten hundred thousand stars to a grain of sand.
    when you fill the small melenatic cloud, work on the clifside
    remember the horrible rock where you cut yourself? the one where you broke your head chasing an elder sibling? Where you watched crabs and lost pails and shoes and cried a lot hiding from the scalding sun, only to chase after someone else again?
    start on the stairs, the grass static as to not change, and the always wet staircase leading up to the houses.

    then there's the sea. a beach needs water, or else id just be a stone filled desert

    i try to form a molecule, at first. then another before realizing progress is too slow. theres still no whater to be seen. what to do?
    a rough approximation could work.

    i try that. a mass that feels like water and behaves like it. surface tension, taste of salt, waves crashing down on a coast.

    the result isn't pleasing. i try again as the relationship with the one you're being a parasite to turns distant. conversations turn to loose words, loose words turn to feelings, loose feelings turn exchanges of ideas, and even those become semi-weekly dumps of knowlege. languages, actual history, life skills and nothing more.

    ignore the relationship turn bitter and the nickname become more real than your first name

    its less important than what youre doing

    try making water again. too viscous, then not viscous enough. surface tension feels all wierd, sploshes in the wrong way. water droplets don't stick well enough. then they stick like putrid, salty paint

    get distracted with the outside world. talk to a couple of people. fail to change anything and sink back into yourself after reliving death several times.

    it took me three years to make water feel like the real thing.

    three years shouldn't feel like that long.

    it did to me.

    days to days to days to weeks to months to months to days again and when it's all over the result isn't good enough. the mist isn't quite right, water runs down too quick, doesn't soak up in the rocks well enough

    and the amorphous blobs that were my feet no longer looked anything like i felt feet should look like, for i had been locked up far too long to remember how my feet looked like.

    far beyond the flesh, the feet, the legs, the bones, the hands, the eyes the reflections and the voice and the-

    i didn't feel like myself

    i don't think i remember how it felt like to be me.

    and i only had one person to blame

    her

    if she had been the one to starve within that fleshy prison, i'd be living a fufilling llife. she wasn't even living well. no friends, barely any family. ate junk food nine days of the week. barely did any exercise, and passed class only with the knowledge i gifted. cheating through life.

    she didn't deserve to live. that seven year old was wasting their life.

    it should have been me

    it should have been me

    i knew how to live. i could have learnt better, talked better, interacted more

    i would have talked eagerly, made friends, did things

    it's been ten years, but it feels like centuries.

    i dont miss my old life. i barely even remember it

    but the feeling of loosing myself, watching pieces of me meld and crack away...

    its not anger or sorrow, it's something else.

    i just wish i was someone again.

    i have bound myself to a prison of the soul that eats away at who i am. my screams are silenced by the chains i have placed around my mouth. my struggles are tied and drowned, my sorrows are left to rot, festering within this imagined beach that is almost enough but never quite. forced to tend my warden's wounds, i fade a little more every time i hide away from the world.

    i don't remember how its like to feel human anymore

    every time i take control of the body, the movements are a little more stilted, less automatic.

    breathing, blinking, pumping blood, making the intestines work…

    i couldn't help myself. i can't make this work

    i miss my life

    i miss the beach

    if anyone can read this

    please help me
    ………………………………….

    The letter doesn't live long. Coated with the last involuntary tears the parasite will feel, it's torn to bits by clumsy hands not used to moving muscles. The tatters from its prior sibling are collected into a white pile, scooped up, and swallowed forcefully. The possessed child then stands up, leaving behind a fractured table and a trail of blood from a recently broken head, and goes to sleep on her own bed, lightless green flame healing the wounds to the point where it's impossible they were there at all.

    When her mother wakes up, the trail of blood and red-stained pink pillow will be the reason why she takes to looking for a monk to exorcise this curse. This search will lead to her death, four years later.

    Azami will forget the incident ever happened. She will assume her mother ran off with her boyfriend, leaving her child to starve alone in a shoddy apartment in the middle of a red-light district, forgetting all the career changes and sacrifices the controlling figure had made for her. They were not enough.

    The figure within the child lost most of her emotions the same year, when she took control of the girl's body to cave in the face of one of her classmates with a flick of her hand.

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    This really was intended as a bonus nitpick as I sit out the Hurricane.

    Lore Dump? Flashback? Call it however you want.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 10 || Colloquy
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 10​
    Colloquy

    Twentieth of April. Sunday, early in the morning. I am… shopping for groceries with Tsumiki while Megumi is off to practice football with some of his classmates. I really would have rather had him accompany us, but after the argument escalated to calling Gojo on the phone, he ended up telling me off with the saying quote on quote: "get yourself a hobby" after siding with Megumi.

    I really… really should do that.

    Dunno what I'd do for a hobby though. I guess being a Shaman counts as a hobby? I don't know how to do many other things. I guess I do search for dumb people online to laugh though. But that doesn't count as a hobby. Going for walks helps me think, but it's not a hobby either. It's too boring.

    "What are you thinking about?" Tsumiki's voice breaks through my thoughts and brings me back into the present. The here and now. The only time that exists. People often say the past exists too, but no sir or miss it really doesn't. Have you ever been to the past? That's what I thought.

    "That I need a hobby." I answer bluntly. Figuring out a way to get to visit the past could be a nice hobby, but then I realize it already exists. It's called "photography". I could do that. That'd be a hobby, right?

    "And why is that?" She asks innocently, with a twist of her head that makes the question even more tacit than it was before.

    Why is she… oh, right, she was asleep at the time of the argument. "Because Gojo says that I'm bothering Megumi trying to buy him over to being part of the staying at home club."

    "I didn't know Jujutsu High had clubs." She comments eagerly. She does know she's not going there, right? It's likely just Megumi, from what I know. Also the staying at home club isn't' a real thing. I made it up. I'm going to assume Tsumiki already knows that I don't want to get talked down to by trying to explain what it is to an eleven year old.

    "It doesn't." I shoot that comment down nonetheless. "But students are free to partake in off-school extracurricular activities."

    "Really? Like what?" She asks with a smile. It melts my dead heart but then I remember the horrors of dealing with my lowerclassmen and the feeling goes away.

    "Kirua goes to a Gymnastics Gym. Shigure goes to Art Class I guess. And I think Inumaki-San…" I'm calling him that because I'm still pissed he didn't attempt to correct me on his actual last name. You had two months, asshole. I would be upset on behalf of Isoda if he wasn't such a pushover and didn't forgive him immediately after noticing he had been pranked by Gojo and his own attention span making sure every time he got corrected it didn't. Kirua also kept the prank going. I should feel angrier with her but bullying her isn't as funny as doing it to the other two... "He has private tutors. I don't think that counts as a club, but I actually think he likes learning, the dork he is."

    "And you didn't have any?" She asks, intrigued. I guess those could be considered hobbies.

    "Nope." I kicked the ground and a pebble goes flying into a rain canal as we entered the street that could very well be considered a marketplace. "Why would I? I'm not… I don't do things."

    "It seems like you're helping me shop for groceries right now." She states matter-of-factly before she takes a short pause to wave at a lady cleaning up their stall, to which she responds in kind as we grow closer to her. Is this where Tsumiki does her shopping? Neat place. "That's doing something, right?"

    I bitterly scoff, waving the good natured comment away. "Not like… not like that. I just…"

    Exist mediocrely? Without purpose? Barely exorcizing curses because the school asked me to? What if that somehow failed at even that? What If I somehow managed to drop out? Without dying somehow due to that execution still on hold. I didn't want to be on the street again. Every yen counted. Getting gifts, sodas, snacks, food- it's all nice. It's hard to say how much better it is compared to drinking water off public sinks and eating any scraps I could get my hands on. I don't think it may happen. But if I could save up money, I will. Gojo may be the strongest and most handsomely paid of all sorcerers… but just in case. I'm just making sure I'll be fine regardless.

    "You just what?" Tsumiki asks again, with a disarming tone only younger kids can master. She'll grow out of it soon, but it's working well enough for now.

    I take a glance at her and feel terrible at possibly disappointing her because she actually means it. Is this how it feels to have someone to look up to you? Feels miserable.

    "I dunno." I shrug. "Exist."

    "Well, that's something everyone and everything does." She replies as if she's stating something obvious. I feel like I just got smacked in the face.

    "I know." I'm not stupid. Everything exists, always.

    "I mean…" She pauses, weighing her words before she resumes speaking again. "Is there anything, any activity or hobby, that you like doing?"

    "Browsing the internet." I shrug. "Pissing people off is fun, I guess."

    She looks shocked that someone could admit to that so openly. Poor Tsumiki. Her only exposure to a troublemaker is her brother and now she's assuming everyone plays chess in their heads all the time. "Doesn't that make you feel bad?"

    "Yeah, it got boring fast." I guess being bored is a negative feeling. Technically, that counts as "feeling bad". It got boring after the fourth person. One could say something outrageous and false twice and you pretty much have every reaction ever. "I wonder how some people can do it for all of their lives."

    "Good evening Fushiguro-chan!" The lady that we stopped by when Tsumiki waved earlier finally finished setting up her shop. Her stall seems to be

    "She is Wada-San, Miss Senju." I wave at the lady with that introduction. She raises her eyebrow at that. Was I meant to bow? I don't think so. There's still a look in her eye. Suspicion? Recognition? "She's helping take care of us with Gojo-Sensei."

    "Is she now?" She asks incredulously, raising an eyebrow before scanning my face with a keener eye than before. "Haven't I seen you somewhere?"

    "I don't know." I reply flatly. "I don't remember your face."

    But the lady is right, she does seem familiar…

    Although, now that I consider it…

    Didn't I run off with fruit from her stall two years ago…?

    Right. Play it cool. You've had a bath since then. Also a hairbrush. You'll be good! I'm totally unrecognizable. I've turned a new leaf. Now I only work in the service of the community. Which means only robbing from three people. And they're not here right now.

    So I'm clean. No crimes for the last… four days.

    "Anyway!" Tsumiki interrupts our staring "contest", if it could even be called such a thing. "We were going to get some spices, seasoning. and rice, isn't that right?"

    "We were?" A disappointed glance tells me the answer right away. "Oh yeeah… Wasabi, shoga and miso, right?"

    The disappointed glance collapses under a sigh. "Some soy sauce too. As well as some Radish since we're close to running out."

    "Very well!" The lady says "Did you bring your bags with you."

    "Yup!" She didn't. She reaches inside of her purse, and brings out…

    Huh? Foldable cloth bags? Those exist? Since when? Where? What the heck? How…?

    "Did you bring the money?" Tsumiki asks. "I know Gojo-san gave it to you."

    "Huh? I only brought my phone." Analogies for "I brought the phone and case I repurposed into a wallet." Poor Kirby had to lose a shoe but the pink puffball is now happily carrying my school card and yen. No need for an annoying second badge to carry around! Also, I'm keeping the money, thank you very much. I never know when I'll need it.

    "I know you made your phone case into a wallet." She responds, unamused. "C'mon. You don't think Gojo gave you that money to keep, did you?"

    "Yes way." He gave it to me. It's mine. He gave it away so it's not yours it's mine and if anyone says anything else they're wrong. I'll keep it brief, though: "He gave it away, it's mine."

    "Me and Megumi heard what he said and we were on the first floor!" Oh really? I raise an eyebrow at that. It does not deter her

    "Did you?" I scratch my head at that. What did he say? I know he required me to nod for confirmation I understood something. Make sure to… hmm. It seems to have slipped my mind. Oh well, "Kind of weird I didn't wake up properly, then."

    "Megumi says you sleep like a corpse." She pouts at that. She's evidently using her brother as a way to prevent associating herself with the opinion. But I don't judge. I've met plenty of "righteous" people and Tsumiki may be the first one the term applies without quotations.

    "Which is why I put effort into always sleeping last." She raises an eyebrow at that. Don't believe me? "You know what they do to people who fall asleep in class? It takes hours to wipe away the permanent marker Tsumiki!"

    "You shouldn't be sleeping in class regardless." She whispers. And I pretend not to hear.

    I hum as I do my damndest best to look away. Hey look! A crow. Aren't they neat? I'm glad my mother was wrong and they don't actually go after people's eyes.

    I would have continued trying to keep the money if she didn't shoot some puppy eyes my way. "Petty please can you pay???"

    "Fine, fine." No one can blame me! If they can resist getting stared down by that then they're probably heartless. Or sociopaths. Or both. "I'll pay. How much was it… ?"

    The response takes some time, but when the astonishment wears off, "Senji Akiara, young one."

    "Right. How much was it, Senji-San?" I ask, finally retrieving the phone off the inside of my jacket and flipping the backside open

    "So the four bags of rice, and the miso and the wasabi and the other things…" She places the things on a clear space besides the wasabi roots. Surprisingly, it seems like Tsumiki does not buy pure wasabi, rather the pre-packaged tubes. I've never had pure wasabi before. Should I? Is it good? I have the money for it, but I'd rather not spend it. I counted ten-thousand yen from what Gojo gave me this morning. This spending should be small beans, right? Ten-thousand yen is kind of overkill. I doubt prices have increased so much since I got enrolled… "Four-thousand, Four-hundred, seventy yen."

    "Huh. I was expecting a bit more." I open the backside of the phonecase, pull out a single five-thousand note and place it beside the groceries as Tsumiki begins to offload the groceries on a pink bag. Just the spices and seasonings? Wait… she places the rice on the orange foldable bag.

    You're offloading me to carry twenty kilograms of rice in a flimsy bag! "These are yours. Cya!"

    "Wada-San." The stern voice gets me to turn around before I get to play catchup to the younger Fushiguro, looking firmly at the lady who now I'm certain has recognized me. Here comes the chewing out, the demand to pay back what I stole with interest. Or getting my head on a platter. Getting processed through the hell that is the Japanese justice system that would be proven right in suspecting me to be guilty because I already- "I'm glad you turned your life around."

    Eh… What?

    We share what feels like a long, awkward look. Shuffling uncomfortably on my end follows.

    "Uh…" Although to be fair, I'm not sticking around for that, I glance away, uncomfortable. This may be awkward, if Tsumiki gets most of her spices and fruits from this stall. I'm just… leaving. Not helping her with this again. And I don't know what to say. "You… too?"

    And then, I leave. I don't hold the bag by the handle, since it would break. I know that much.

    It… doesn't weigh that much. I'm surprised.

    But not only that. The next street over. There's like… a smear. Not a visible one. But it's familiar regardless. It's a cursed energy residual, I recognize that much. I now realize that I've always been able to feel them. But I only really started to notice them recently. This residual in particular…

    It harkens back to all you can eat buffets and green dresses.

    But I have something I have to focus on today, and thus I put a metaphorical pin on it and get going to intercept Tsumiki.

    It takes a little bit of jogging, but catching up is easy. She didn't get too far. Actually, I think she was waiting for me. And since I'm the one carrying the rice and the heavier things, I really find that somewhat impressive.

    Guess all that training is paying off! If I keep this up, I'll be an olympic athlete in no time.

    "Hey! Why'd you leave me?"

    "Huh?" She asks with surprising amounts of genuineness. "Didn't you have a history with Senji-san? I felt it'd be good to allow you to clear that up."

    Oh. I really expected her to actually be malicious this time. It'd be easier to deal with. "Please don't do that ever again."

    "Okay!" She responds eagerly, appearing to think I smoothened things over with the store owning lady. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

    "Do you know what Megumi was hiding in the storage room?" I'm taking advantage of this opportunity.

    "Hmm… his stuffed animals?" She responds with uncertainty.

    "Are you serious!?" I suppress a laugh when she nods. I suppress a cackle after that. Poorly. "Do you… do you remember any particular ones?"

    "Not really… but I have pictures from when he was younger where he has them on his bed. He hasn't thrown any of them out, I don't think." She answers meekly in an emotion halfway between contentedness and confusion. Contentedfusion I'll call it.

    "Blackmail. Blackmail for days!" I giggle in what I feel an onlooker could consider deranged.

    I feel giddy already. This is the best thing that has happened to me. Ever. I'll never have to do chores for as long as I live!


    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    Not putting San on Miss Senji's name because I feel like that'd be redundant? I'm not good at languages, but I'm still not too set up on this one to be entirely honest.

    Tsumiki is arguably harder or easier to write depending on who you ask, because she doesn't have that much character fleshed out.
    For me, it's the former.

    If it turns out her personality is any different I'm likely going back and re-writing any chapter containing her.

    For real for real now. I promise I'll update weekly.

    Or Mario can have my spleen. That's what I decided.
    He's outside my window isn't he?
    Los
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 11 || Trail
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 11​
    Trail

    21st of April. Monday. Roughly… nine in the morning? I feel like a ghost, I shouldn't be up this early.

    I know why those residuals seem familiar.

    I'm going after them. Jacket. Phone. Sneakers, Track pants because it's kind of cold (11 degrees celsius). Bandages? I know Miss Ieri doesn't like me using them for "frivolous activities" but… this may be important. I'm taking them anyway. Jujutsu uniforms may be sewn out of curse resistant materials, but they made you noticeable. Good for hunting curses. Not so good for trailing them. I'm only wearing my button-up shirt then.

    I descend the stairs.

    "Good Morning Wada-San!" Tsumiki's Voice greets me with a surprising degree of warmth. It takes me a moment to compose myself after nearly suffering a heart attack on the stairs from that. "I think I figured out what your hobby is!"

    Megumi gives me the stink eye from the kitchen bar where he's eating his rolled up omelets. I'd blow him a raspberry if I could. "Blackmail". It didn't work. For all my efforts, to try and convince him to wash my dishes for me, he didn't do anything.

    "Oh really?" I did discuss that with her after I got done bringing the rice back from the marketplace. I used it as a distraction from getting berated for trying to Blackmail Megumi into cleaning my dishes after dinner. It's not my fault he finds owning stuffed animals embarrassing! Nor is it my fault his cheeks growed hot red after saying "and" to me! He'll grow out of it, I swear. "What is it?"

    "Your hobby is…" Dramatic pause for effect. Drumroll please. "...Doing your best to avoid doing anything at all!"

    I pause.

    She stands proud beside her seat, crossing her arms and looking high on the coat-tails of solving a terrific mystery.

    On one hand, that doesn't sound like a hobby at all.

    On the other… that's definitely me.

    "Uh, good job!" I compliment. I still feel disingenuous doing that. "I'll take you two out for crepes today?"

    "Horray!" She cheers. Megumi gives me the stink eye once more as I open the door.

    "Oh, Tsumiki. Make sure Megumi cooks today." The stink eye becomes two stink eyes. Then a glare. "I ribbed him about it the other day but I genuinely fear the only thing he knows what to cook is meatballs with sauce."

    "Okay!" She states before quickly hopping back on her stool and finishing up her half eaten omelet in a blink of an eye.

    "You better come back early." Megumi adds. It doesn't take much to realize I'm not just going for a walk. I do think he has ulterior suspicions on why I'm heading out and I don't blame him. "I'll be watching you."

    "Creepy. Please don't?" He looks unbothered. Fortunately, I planned ahead! I've dealt with plenty of rowdy (similarly aged to myself) underclassmen. I could deal with a probably genius 11 year old. "Great. By the way, I got all the keys so no running out, got it? Byyyyeee~"

    I don't give any of them a chance to answer. I close the door on both of them and lock it shut.

    Gojo is coming later today. He messaged us all on this group chat he has called "Fushiguro Household" with dozens of emoticons on both ends. It doesn't even read as "Fushiguro Household" because most of it is blocked by a giant smiley face waving two flags. It reads just as an emoji string, Fuku dot dot dot because it cuts off there. Really annoying. I tried to stage a coup but he later claimed being the administrator was the same as being a dictator and he was appointed for life.

    Moron. Still. He should be here by two pm. That gives me, roughly… uhhh…

    Nine plus two is eleven, plus two to make twelve… and the extra… ah. That makes four? Five! It's five. I knew that. I'm smart. I do math. Anyway, that's five hours. Should be enough. After all, I've seen hours fly when I'm killing my lifespan, so five hours? Not that short.

    So it shouldn't be that long. Go to the Adachi market, find the spot where the residual was at, follow its scent, and be back before two to avoid getting a lecture by Gojo. Simple? Simple!

    The sun is out, but covered by clouds. Partially overcast? I guess, but it's still surprisingly and refreshingly cool. Not too cold. Just cold enough that jogging in a jacket feels nice. No birds are chirping, but I think I saw a stray dog past a corner of houses. Poor things. If I wasn't so focused on getting to the market, I may have actually stopped to see what the curse I felt nearby was. Ah, future problems for future me. She may regret finding regretful stuff, but residuals don't stick around forever.

    Past the traffic light, past another corner.

    I wonder why the entire world isn't plagued by curses. There's a lot of negativity going around these days. But from what I've seen, all of the curses appear in Japan. It feels… off.

    They should be all around, right? It makes no sense for it to be otherwise. But they're not. Why didn't wars provoke an influx of Curses? Why is social media even a thing when a mere rumor could start up an imaginary vengeful spirit? Seriously the more I think about it the more it bugs me. I've tried finding other shamans through the internet and the first thing I found was Jujutsu High's own web crawlers and web administrators reprimanding me for potentially breaching the statute of secrecy before I found someone who lived in Mexico. And they didn't even have a technique! I think I remember Principal Yaga saying that techniques originated from the human collective subconscious, or something like that. Then why aren't people with techniques outside of Japan more common? It should make sense, right? I can't be going insane that'd be cra-

    Bad doggy. Stalker doggies. That's not a dog. But it's not entirely a curse either, I realize.

    It's a Shikigami? It's a Shikigami. And it feels like someone I know and tried to blackmail quite recently, too.

    Fushiguro Megumi… you prick. You sent Shikigami after me!? You may only really be a blessing to your sister but you're making my life hell. I'm telling you little man, you make me miserable. I turn another corner and then another. Then one after that. I see one of the wolves run on a fence and another leap onto a roof in order to follow me. I doubt things like those fences should support them, but it's not like Jujutsu makes sense beyond 'it's made from resentment'.

    Section Skin: Left forearm underside size: small.​
    I rip a small square off my own arm before laying it down on the ground and willing it to life with a wince. Two arms, two legs, a head and that's all. I place my jacket on the swelling mass after removing my phone before spinning it around and pushing it forth after telling it to run in circles for ten minutes and head to the Fushiguro's household to merely rest at the backyard.

    I still haven't figured out how to deactivate them without them becoming shreds, and I'm going to get my jacket back, dammit.

    I run at the same time it does. Dogs, even if they look like huskies, shouldn't have good eyesight if I remember correctly. No color vision. And if my plan works out well enough, I should be home free from the animals before Fushiguro, if he can see through his pets, realizes what's going on.

    Great, now my shirt's sleeve is stained red. And the bandages in my pants pockets make me feel like I should have brought my purse with me because it just looks like I'm carrying drugs in there now.

    Well, here's a chance to lighten the weight. Walking and bandaging oneself isn't really recommended, but who's going to stop me? The Medical police? Ha! Fat chance. I open a bag and extract one roll of the white, stretchy fabric and the pins that come with it. I start loosely, cringing from the stinging before I close an eye as I start tightening the bandage around the affected area. Eight wrap-arounds, and I hold the bandage semi-taught with my face as I get the pins and finish tying it off one by one.

    Tadah! As if nothing happened at all. Just ignore the stinging and searing pain of having your subcutaneous layer exposed to the air and rubbed against sterile cloth and It'll all be good.

    I don't feel the dogs nearby. Did I throw them off? Hopefully so! I know for a fact these "fresh" puppets smell like blood, so I sure hope they went after it rather than me. The marketplace is nearby. I don't feel them close. But I still feel watched.

    One completely white, another completely black. Red circular seals on both of their foreheads. Weird shikigami, those two. I wonder if they're merely copies of curses like Kirua's…

    I go out of my way to avoid the old lady's stall. I don't dislike her, but there's a lot of… yeah. It's something. I don't know what to name it.

    I found the spot once more. Off the upper corner of a building. A general store that I saw yesterday. It's… tangey, almost. But the familiarity is painful to a degree.

    It's not as "fresh" as it was before. It's become dispersed somewhat. Hazy. But it's still there.

    It goes off somewhere. I head for the alleyway. I'm not the best at reinforcing my body with cursed energy enough to do things like jumping up buildings, but I try regardless. Legs, feet, spine, organs. I don't want to liquify myself by just jumping, but Gojo admitted it had happened before. I don't know to who, just that it happened. Breathe in, breathe out. Leap.

    Air dances around me as a boom lifts me off the street, concrete cracking where I once stood. The world speeds rapidly downwards, then it slows down.

    And before I give it a chance to speed back upwards, I grab onto the ledge for dear life.

    Climb over, rest my feet and hide from the possible onlookers below. I haven't really paid any attention to that, but I hope I'm in the clear.

    I can't help the feeling I may still be watched. I look back down, just to check.

    Here's a better angle to examine it anyway.

    There's that residual, of course. But there's another. A curse? It doesn't feel like one. I mean, it does. But only halfway? It may be a technique, because a Shikigami feels like the owner anyhow.

    But what sort of technique feels like a curse anyhow?

    It heads… south west, I think. Past the street, into the city. I could follow the residual trails from the rooftops. I have enough space to get a running start. If I'm lucky, I may not even need reinforcement for this. My sneakers squeak and make a sound similar to scuffing as I run to the railing of this rooftop. The metal bars ring as I use them to leap…

    And for roughly two seconds, I fly.


    This memory isn't a happy one. I have lots of those. I just don't remember them often. Things like exploring my grandparent's country house. That time I won third place at the student math contest back at my old school. Going shopping for birthday cakes with my mother. That sort of thing.
    This one should have been happy, I reckon. Perhaps if I had made more of an attempt to fit in, or be normal or that sort of thing, I guess I wouldn't have gotten picked on so much.
    It was… sports day. Seven years ago or something of the sort.
    Putting it like that, I feel kind of old. It certainly feels like ages ago. Now that I think about it, I'm not even sure if it was six or seven years ago, putting my age at eight or nine.
    My old school tended to blend together like that. One monotonous spread of… events. No causes, just things that tended to happen to me and my reaction always was a separate thing.
    Right. Sports Day. I had signed up for both the 100 meter run and the long jump. The school had sand pits for that. Just off the small track that surrounded the football field. They always were covered when they were not used by some sort of white tarp. I'm surprised there even was space for it, but I reckon they found that since there already was a storage shed they make better use of the last patch of green by making it into a track for long jumping rather than planting trees for shade or turning it into an outdoors cafeteria. Instead of any of that, what we got was a concrete wall. And the said long-jumping field.
    Well, there I was, sitting in the small patch of green grass as I sat down and waited for my name to be called up to compete with the lower classes since despite my painfully average academic performance, I was ahead of them by three years.
    It's hard to believe I'm now failing classes. My scores in math were above average. Now I'm lucky to have passed.
    I wonder what those grades are doing for my Hensachi scores…
    …
    Well, I had been sorted into the younger years, for obvious reasons.

    "Isn't it true that Wada-chaan is competing with the younger kids in an attempt to cheat?" An obnoxiously loud whisper shook me from my thoughts as I finished tying my shoes. I knew that voice. The irritating way of emphasizing Chan as if to imply I was a cute little kid. I hated that. Every time I tried explaining it to a teacher they just brushed it off, like if nothing was wrong.
    I tried to shut out the voices with a frown. I wasn't allowed to move from the assigned group, lest I wanted to be disqualified. It's not like the winner won much. Just a free pair of banana splits at a nearby ice-cream parlor. That was good enough for me to compete, although personally, I had begun to regret signing up at all. It went on for several minutes. "Oh she's doing it just to cheat. To appear good, to win some ice-cream, poor little kid "
    "It's true!" Matsumura Rie states with a mocking glee. "And she's…"
    "Shut up Matsumura-San!" I don't remember most of the conversation, only that at that point, I snapped, "I do this. I do that. Why…!? Why do you care?"
    "Why do you care enough to make a scene?"
    "Because I'm not going to allow you to… to… drag my name through the mud like this!"
    "I feel like you're doing that all on your own."
    I feel a thousand different stares all burrow themselves into my back, my mother, one of them, all the way from the bleachers. My stomach churns. Crawling away into what I hope is an unseen corner, I hope and pray for this entire stupid event to go away.
    I won, by the way. First place. But the unwanted feeling stuck.
    The ice cream wasn't bitter. Far from it. But it sure tasted like it.

    My foot gets caught in the railing. I lowered it too quickly, and now a stumbling, rolling, skidding halt is the price.

    Concrete, even with Cursed energy reinforcement, is not a nice place to come into a sudden halt. It feels like a slap given with a hammer covered in sandpaper before rubbing salt in the injury. Trip, fall on your face, roll, and come to a sudden stop kissing the floor.

    It could have been worse.

    But holy fucking hell did it hurt. I don't care what kind of person loved concrete enough to kiss it, but now I know it's not me.

    I hope whoever does that loses their lips.

    The following jump comes easier. I don't trip this time. The flight is shorter, more direct. Footwork more exact, and the roll is calculated even if my shoulder still complains.

    The one after that even more so. No pain, just a minor slip.

    The last one… it's a mixture of good progress and poor footwork. I tripped on my foot as I stood up and ended up kissing the roof again. My knees hurt like hell, but I don't think I'm going to end up with a limp afterwards. My face hurt more. I think I burst my lip.

    Up here, the trail is clearer.

    Past the river, over a bridge, then it vanishes through a street and…

    …I leap down, street cracking under the pressure of my curse energy reinforcement flaring up and popping as I collide with the ground. Shivers run up from the impact, but I'm fine. Ish. I feel a bruise coming. Not that I pay any mind.

    Lots of car horns and insults were sent my way as I ran through traffic, making sure to not get hit by a car or knocked down by a personin doing so. Then I run like hell. I think I know where it's leading to.

    I could barely see it from up on the third floor, but I've seen that building on TV! Some of… new age cult? Lots of criticisms of people going missing and such. But it must be ordinary (read: filled with mafiosi) if Gojo hasn't been sent to clean up.

    Time Vessel Association. That's the name. I always thought the building looked pretty neat even if it took so much space…




    Megumi knew his plan worked to perfection as he put play on his phone that was carried by his bird-like shikigami. People typically didn't suspect two different kinds of shikigami to trail after someone at long range. And the Wada girl was no different. Allow the dogs to be lured away, and keep Nue up in the air recording the ground with his phone for as long as possible before it had to return due to its range being extended too far.


    The video is shaky when Nue flaps its wings. This is to be expected. The gliding is when most information is gathered.

    So far, no crimes to speak of. Just go on the path to the market, avoid the lady from the stall Tsumiki always got discounts at, and cross several alleyways. Then do a little bit of invading property, nothing he hadn't done so far. But then she lounged around after face planting onto the roof. Smelling for something? No, he doubts that. Not even someone as dumb as her would invade private property to smell something. She couldn't be looking for a vantage point, or examining the building in particular. This wasn't the tallest building that was easily climbable, and the building in particular fell into the wayside of going to the next building and face-planting there too. Then trip as she jumped over to the next one, and the one after that.

    Then the recording goes blurry as the flapping of Nue's wings makes the recording practically unusable. But she had seen something. And had run through traffic and foot traffic to chase after it. Nue had to return after that, he had run out of range.


    Megumi wonders what it is that she saw. He should ask Gojo about it.




    I tried calling the hag. She seems distracted trying to make water in my head again. Then I told her to piss off.

    This is personal.

    I think this is what it would feel like, signing up for a marathon. The doors to the courtyard are large, almost as if they are something out of a Bhudist temple. But lots of people are flowing in and out.

    Several of them are accompanied by others. True believers no doubt. But the ones looking uncertain… most of them have curses. I see a man with a fly burrowing metaphorically into his skull with a drill-like appendage. A young student with a leech reaching into her ears. One reaching down into a lady's…

    Cursed energy blasts from my fingers. It's akin to a loose cannon shooting firecrackers. The curse is exorcized, but the woman collapses as if stuck with a baseball bat.

    I can't imagine all these curses are being brought inside for good reasons anyway. "You're welcome."
    The forming crowd stays behind me as I walk through the courtyard. A leech-like curse flows through the floor like water running down a crack, but a kick that takes a piece of the sidewalk solves that quickly enough.

    The doors are wide open, and the space is surprisingly quiet for such a large event. There's murmurs, but my sneakers sound painfully loud here.

    The inside of the building is as spacious as the outside. Even if it looks like a proper cult meeting. People wearing white shirts and red pants sitting down on their knees in perfect lines. Most of the audience is in this uniform. All of them seemingly enthralled by what is going in front of them. A man, up on a podium with two young girls, is holding a large blanket over a piece of paper held by the girls, assisted by what seems like a flyhead. Both of the kids… they can't be older than Megumi.

    My sneakers continue to squeak as the man speaks loudly enough for all to hear.

    Those three are all sorcerers. The one wearing the robes looks like a poor imitation of a monk that appeared on TV. The other two… I haven't seen. And I don't care for them. The man that feels the most like the secondary residual, with his hair running down his shoulders and kept out of his face in a bun, proudly announces the donation of one-hundred million yen, and the piece of cloth falls down, unveiling the check.

    It's just paper. My sneakers squeak some more until I come to an abrupt halt a good ten meters from the stage.

    Respectful applause from the puppet-crowd follows congratulating the owners for the proud donation of a small fortune.

    I wait for the chatter to die down. "Hey you!"

    The crowd turns.

    "Who, me?" The man looks behind him confused. It's an act, he smirks afterwards. The two girls with him giggle. The crowd breaks out into hysterics.

    "The man with the bandaged eye," I state clearly for my voice to be heard, "where is he?"

    He hums for longer than he has any right to do as the two girls, one blonde and one not, follow the inaudible whispers of the flyhead curse out of the stage with the check. The man falls down, and sits down cross-legged. "You know bandages come off, right?"

    The crowd laughs again. They're laughing at me. It's pissing me off.

    "Scars around the forehead and eye are pretty memorable details, I'd say." There are murmurs amongst the crowd about it being a curse. I sneer at that. Yeah, laugh me off then speculate about coming here for a curse. Literally the worst kind of person is in this room right now, and it's making up the entirety of the population contained within.

    He smacks his head, almost mocking. "Of course! I do know a person like that…"

    The crowd gasps as every other sound mutes out of my senses.

    "They're my friend!" He states, pointing at himself.

    Of course. You feel like them, if so slightly. Did he use his technique on you? I don't care.

    "Give them to me." Gasps follow as I feel one-hundred different stares burrow themselves into my back. "I just want to chat."

    He raises an eyebrow to meet my grimace. He knows better. Of course he knows better. He's a sorcerer. Not a single one I've met has been upfront with their opinions and thoughts and goals. Not even me.

    The crowd breaks into murmurs again.

    "And if I don't feel like selling them out?" The man teases, shit eating grin plastered onto his face as he leans on his arm which is simultaneously resting on his leg. "I'd be a shame for him to be unavailable, considering the distances some people travel to get here. What if I can't give you an appointment now?"

    My left eye twitches, closing shut halfway before I steel my nerves. I never was good with dealing with stress. I hate this crowd. I hate this man. I hate the situation that led me to this very room on this very day. I am fully aware I might die doing the stupidest thing of my lifetime, and my death would have no greater impact except making a bunch of lives more tragic and miserable. But hundreds of people die doing stupid things a day. It's the stupidest mistakes, the ones that hurt the most. Accidentally peeling your finger with a potato peeler, brushing your hand past a flame, forgetting the clothing iron is on and burning your fingerprints off. I'm not in a good mental place right now, being so close to finally figuring out where the old lady went after she ditched me in an apartment.

    "You'll die." So is it really that big of a leap to attempt murder at this point? The skin of my left hand bubbles, peeling off in a stinging, familiar pain that will no doubt leave me marred for the rest of my life. The sole sound I register amongst the gasps within the auditorium and the squeaking of my sneakers as I approach the stage is my voice, and that of the monk. "You're fucking dead."

    He stands up with a bounce, cursed energy swelling up behind every word of his, he twists his right hand in the air as a murky blackness emerges from a hole in space and the stuff of nightmares are made of drip out like pitch-black tar. A black stream of melded teeth, faces, legs, carapaces, shells, bones... "You're only meant to say that… after you've killed the other person."
    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    My million-dollar ice-cream idea is called cliff-hangers, where it's ice-cream sandwiches but the end is made of a different kind of ice-cream sandwich forcing you to buy another one to have a full bar of a possible continuation to the last bar you bought.

    Why don't I have a Nobel prize for cooking?


    Los
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 12 || Playdate
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 12​
    Playdate

    "You'll die." The girl says, staring with her eyes open too wide and with a tone rehearsed too little to symbolize anything close to mental stability. In the eyes of the crowd sitting down, they knew she was going to try and fight their master. Those waiting outside for the broadcast to end think she's insane as her arms go limp, and she takes the first step of many in walking towards the man on the stage.. "You're fucking dead."

    On one end, standing amongst the bowing crowd, is Wada Azami. She has no greater plan beyond a nebulous idea of finding what happened after her mother "abandoned" her. No great statement to make, no dream to achieve. She likens the feeling of staring at the priest on the stage like staring down a pit. She tended to compare a lot of things to drops. Pits, canyons, abysses, the ocean. Just like she saw herself as a veritable black hole for potential, forever incapable of achieving anything of value, she likened the figure attracting the attention of the curse-addled waiting outside of the doors to the large room and the praying cult members as trying to stare down a marine trench. Completely immeasurable.

    Said figure is Getō Suguru, who will be her opponent. A name that struck fear in every sorcerer working under either of the Japanese Jujutsu Schools. Of the man who routinely went to exorcise a grade one curse in a mountain village and only returned to Tokyo after seemingly snapping and killing every man, woman and child within the small, dying village. Of the man who went to his parent's house after being branded as the worst of all of the Curse Users, and who murdered his parents on the sole merit that they couldn't use Jujutsu. One of the three special grade sorcerers in the country. The man capable of manipulating cursed spirits.

    "You're only meant to say that…" He says, pausing as to allow enough curses to coalesce above his raised right hand, they drip down, like droplets. Malformed children, stretched out, inverted insects, mummified carcass with way too many fingers. "after you've killed the other person."

    The floor shatters, wood chips and concrete flying around where the girl once stood. The doors are slammed shut by green, sickly looking three-headed giants with mangled hands. Wada flies, her fingers tangling together into a two-handed fist, skin under both palms bubbling. She swings on the spot where Getō once stood, only to have the extending figures that shot out grasp at air.

    When she lands, shocked, she turns around just to catch a glimpse of the figure who delivers a roundhouse kick to her stomach. She bounces twice before she rolls to a halt on the other end of the stage.

    Her lungs complain. Her diaphragm spasms. Her ribs cracked. She stands up regardless. Stumbling, catching one breath in three as she brainlessly charges the man again.

    The crowd chants. Prayers towards the only figure they knew as a god in this little religion of theirs. Although their leader, their master, sees them as nothing more than well trained apes.

    The curse he'd been holding onto since the death threat was sent his way, Getō thinks, is only useful because of its physiology. Sharp. And snaps his arm onto the charging, sputtering child, flexible enough to serve as a whip.

    A line of black crosses the stage only few of the crowd can see. Wada jumps, and when she lands, the bottom half of the stage curtains fall, a perfect cut ignoring folds. The stretched out ribs snapback, and the kid rolls under them. Getō angles the curse towards the floor… and the reinforcement that would have saved Wada pops and collapses into itself after reacting too harshly to the activation of her technique.

    Curious. That wasn't meant to happen. Curses did tend to react to one another, but not so violently. Was this separate from her technique? Getō feels more invested in this mockup of a fight every second it goes on.

    No. That'd be wrong. He feels interested in this kid's limits. Her motivations, her dreams. Did she live like he did? Or like he did before being expelled from Jujutsu Tech?

    The line doesn't cut her. It misses, just barely. The soles of her shoes and her socks loose their bottom just in time for the sole that would have normally protected a person from a loose nail suddenly doesn't, and a small mistake in the construction of the stage digs in between her toes and runds down her finger into a long gash that causes her to wince and would have likely made her recoil in pain if she was doing anything else. But this… this pointless fight, built entirely on a mere nebulous idea of an idea, means everything to her at the current moment. The injury barely registers above an annoyance.

    Arms break out from the bottom of the stage where the priest stood. It's a pleasant surprise, he thinks to himself. A swarm of silver-black centipedes devours the hands off in time to step away from the jabs launched by the kid who is merely three heads shorter than him. He allows it to continue, for a while, dodging every strike in the last second possible. The curse in his hand dissolves back into inky blackness.

    Azami believes that she can find out why she was abandoned. She can prove she exists. That she is a real person. She just has to win this fight.

    Suguru thinks this is a fun way to spend the time, and when the girl tires herself out, a potential new member of his family. He knows there's no way in hell he's losing this fight.

    "Not bad! Not bad at all." He says when he finally retaliates. Years of training, several black belts in four different disciplines, and plenty of experience made sure that Wada barely had a chance to register what was going on when her punch was yanked. Momentary off balance, in a fight like this, could mean life or death.

    Fortune happens to be kind enough to have this fight be nothing more than a diversion for Getō. He pulls every punch, but it's more than enough to send the kid rolling back down onto the crowd with bruises littering her upper body and face. Her developing breasts, in particular, may hurt for quite some time.

    She stands up again, faster than before, steeling herself against nausea and the desire to vomit last night's dinner onto the floor of or the praying masses. Instead, she raises her hands, as if to wave with both of them at the same time, and turns them around.

    The skin around all of her knuckles is missing. Blood pours freely down her arms as she utters a single word: "Dispel."

    The realization of the missed punches actually hits Getō as the floor under him explodes into clouds of dust. She had made tiny little people who had crawled under the floorboards. It didn't hurt him, of course. Barely even ruffled, he had leapt upwards in time for the boosted effect of the revealed technique to not even graze his sandals.

    He knows that's not part of her technique, but he can't help thinking about the technique itself. What a cruel technique she has. Others had to sacrifice hair, memories, time, or even just suffer eternal displeasure such as Getō himself. But Azami's Technique ate away at her body every time she used it. And no doubt her sanity too, given she had sloughed off a piece of the skin close to her neck to use as ammunition against him.

    A lone, twelve meter long caterpillar shoots out of a shadow in between his fingers, burrowing itself within Wada's abdomen. Its poison, he found, was useful for restraining rowdy Jujutsu Tech sorcerers. It's a mild Paralytic, not meant to kill, just immobilize. He lands at the edge of the stage gracefully, without cratering the floor like his opponent often did when her cursed energy reacted with itself.

    But the kid doesn't get paralyzed, and a misshapen, massive hand shoots out of her abdomen before the arm growing out of the floor reveals she sacrificed the entirety of the afflicted area to prevent getting poisoned. The cursed spirit is dispelled before the still growing puppet has a chance to crush its head between its arms. Its a veritable giant, made of more shed skin than was required. But it's clear the girl doesn't care. It charges all the same only to be devoured by a swarm of moths that avoid Wada entirely.

    The girl retaliates to this loss nearly instantly. The extra sloughed off skin forms four sheets, and she uses them all at once. A long, lanky figure shoots at him, curving towards him in a delayed fashion when he dodges before its growth is suddenly interrupted by a lack of material. It falls, limp and without oxygen, just as its face explodes. That was another sheet used, Getō considers.

    The remaining two have been turned into a rain of flaky paper-people. He would have found that rather cute if he did not have to focus on dodging the raging child's blows. They're speeding up. So much contained misery fueling the already wasteful cursed energy of the child making it go the extra mile in trying, and failing, to keep up with him.

    He tries another method of retraining as he exchanges a particularly strong blow to her head. Curses travel from the cracks. Bone-like, mummified hands trying to hold onto the sloughing skin of the girl as she once again rushes towards Getō, seeming to pay little mind to the fact she had left the skin of her feet, as well as the remains of her shoes behind as they try to grow to sizes comparable to giants only to be devoured by the swarm of curses they were created in.

    Hopelessly outclassed in both strength and skill. She's only dealt with only one of those at a time. She knew she was inadequately trained, skilled, or powerful enough to take down opponents of this caliber. She thinks she'll die.

    Truth is, she stands little chance of dying unless it's provoked by self inflicted causes. Getō Suguru has no interest in killing sorcerers for fun nor for profit. He is a man with a dream. And dreams, unlike the half ideas swimming with the despairing rage within Wada, give a reason to his actions. Magnitue and longitude to every movement and action.

    He tires of this game. Finally, he unleashes a curse with a technique. It's shaped like a broken-necked fetus, covered in a white blanket filled with patches. The resemblance to a rain doll is uncanny. It hovers above the auditorium for a brief instance, and the energy put into her punch finds her redirected towards the middle of the crowd.

    As if the movement in between those two points was even possible logically.

    It vanishes. As Wada tries to reorient herself, having suddenly found herself facing the doors away from the priest.

    "Acupuncture can temporarily paralyze someone." He raises his hand. He didn't have any curses inspired by needles. But he had several based off mosquitoes. This one, part of a larger swarm, was one he knew could do the job. "Did you know that, miss…?"

    She twists around in time to see the needle-like proboscis of a comically misshapen curse try and hit her.

    No time to dodge. She just closes her eyes and…

    Her cursed energy lashes out. The reinforcement collapses just in time to find the curse deflected to one of the many members of the crowd, sticking through his eye. He lays there, immobile. 'Probably dead,' Wada thinks, 'considering that no matter how fast it was heading for her, it would have at best been a small poke.' She knows he was pulling his punches with that one.

    She probably killed a person. Did that count as manslaughter considering she didn't mean it, or murder considering it was what she views as poor control of her cursed energy the one that caused such a violent deflection? It's not like anyone else in the crowd cares, they all continue reciting those stupid prayers of theirs and Azami swears she's going crazy.

    First she giggles. Then she laughs. It's a nervous breakdown being kept away by a mixture of sobs, pain, and laughter.

    Getō can't help but be concerned by this, despite the fact that he too, tends to laugh maniacally in the middle of fights. Just not the ones where he was losing by such a large margin.

    "You're aware you're bottoming out, right?" Getō helpfully points out, or as helpful as he's feeling, is going to quickly become a lesson on how to restrain a fellow sorcerer without them killing themselves. "On your cursed energy reserves."

    "I… I'll…" the giggling goes on as her hands reach for her neck, finding it barren of skin before drifting to her face. She claws at it, and a cheek comes loose, breathing quicker now, she holds the piece of skin as it slowly burns away. An extension technique is born as it burns away efficiently into cursed energy, and Getō feels her reserves slowly grow back to a more acceptable level. "I'll fucking kill you."

    "At this rate, I feel like you'll end up dead before you even manage to scratch me." He wonders if he could do the same with Uzumaki. Processing a curse for its cursed energy to fill out his own reserves before he bottoms out. Not that it's close to happening here, far from that. But if he is to make the world he envisions, this knowledge may be required… later.

    The girl breaks out into a slippery sprint as her feet leave smeared red marks on the floor of the auditorium as she charges towards him. The wasted puppet from before slithers closer to him before blowing up into a cloud of dust. He uses a blobfish-like curse to absorb the concussive force of the explosion before storing it away.

    He does not want to know if the girl can shed muscles just as easily as she can shed skin. Most of her arms, her hands, her feet. Even her abdomen and her face…

    He allows one of her blows to hit him, to allow enough room for the property of her cursed energy to collapse within itself within two oncoming blows.

    But each time, the reinforcement comes up faster and faster. His fists don't even hit her. She seems to have figured out how to replicate what happened with the mosquito curse with less success. His blows become mere graces, and the way of knocking out someone by overloading their nervous system with cursed energy suddenly became a non-option.

    Another piece of her abdomen comes loose as her blows are suddenly complimented by a stretched out thing wrapping itself across her back, supplying her with two extra, clumsier arms.

    It's enough to make a difference. Every third blow hits. Not hard, but each red, metallic smear is a failure on his part for not taking this fight seriously on the young shaman. He could wait for blood loss to set in, but the sole medical technique amongst his family could not help with that. He needed an alternative.

    And just as a clubbed fist smacks him across the face: it hits him. He hated using his followers. Especially for a task like this. He likened it to some South Americans eating their pet guinea-pigs or horses. Not a necessity, but a way to fill a craving that rarely appeared. But he had a curse that could potentially take care of knocking out the girl. It just needed a sacrifice to charge its technique. He's not sure the corpse already present amongst the crowd was enough. Thus, the sacrifice. The craving? The cause Stopping what he thinks may be a fifteen or sixteen year old human from bleeding out from self-inflicted blood loss. Well worth the cost of a mere ape.

    He calls for it, and a bandaged monolith emerges from a non-existent darkness amongst the crowd. A long appendage shoots out from a toothy mouth on one end, impaling the dead and lifting it close. Chew, chew, chew. It eats an arm of the body, and to no one's surprise, the crowd is unphased. Then the body burns in a black, noxious flame as it releases copious amounts of smoke everywhere, but it doesn't last long. It becomes one with the environment quickly, and the small cloud shrinks. Several more bodies drop, are picked up, digested, and burnt to fuel the growing miasma as Wada lands her first good blow onto Getō's abdomen. Her cursed energy bursts around the location of impact to finally give the priest a blow he would feel for far more than a couple of seconds. Perhaps a minute or so.

    He calls for the redirecting curse, and it hangs from the roof of the auditorium. It doesn't need to touch Wada, but it's her movement that causes her to be redirected until she finds herself in the middle of the smoke cloud. Its intensity wasn't enough to harm a sorcerer. Getō knew that. He sees the Girl's thought process as she is forced back onto the same spot she had left. Her cursed energy beats back the smoke with every contact, and he sighs as he feels it bottom out faster than the first time.

    Then it raises back up. A green flame came from the young shaman as she burnt away her back and legs for a few more seconds of batting away the cursed cloud. It's a hopeless battle for her. He knows that. She knows that. And she doesn't seem to care. Rushing through the living, the dying, and the dead, Suguru casts a veritable swarm that follows him into the noxious cloud. He is about to command them to distract her just as he sees Wada turn to him and smile in a way that couldn't be very comfortable, especially with part of her face missing.

    The cloud of pulverized puppets suddenly becomes dispelled as Getō finds himself in the center of an explosion. He didn't expect them to head towards him, but now, at least, she could focus on more than just…

    She finds herself in the middle of the displaced cloud again. She fights back an insect, then another. She slips up, and a mouthful of the cloud is swallowed in a panicked gasp. She spits out the skin covering the roof of her mouth and tongue, hoping that would do something although in truth… it doesn't do much.

    The curses and the techniques fall away to nothingness. Partially burnt and digested bodies fall down, no longer being held up by anything.. She stumbles around in a daze. Her limbs feel heavy. Un responsive, unresponsive was the word. It became… it's very hard to think. She knows she wanted to kill someone. But she didn't remember who. She swings, and her arm carries her to stumble and slip on her own blood.

    "Are you done?" The priest asks, brushing the dirt and wood chips off his robes. "Did you get it out of your system? Are you done throwing a tantrum?"

    She recognizes the sound. Stands up, stumbles around, trying to face it and… falls backwards into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.


    .....................................................​



    I woke up in a panic.

    Everything hurts. My feet, my head, my legs. I feel as if I fought a speeding truck, lost, and got caught in its tires from the trip to Okinawa and back. Including the boat trip.

    This feels… like an office. I woke up in an empty office room. On a couch. With a shirtless, blonde man with heart-shaped pasties over his nipples just sleeping while leaning on the wall. He's built like a brick. Chiseled muscles, and just wears a set of drab blue pants. No shoes, no shirt, no service? Apparently not. I try standing up. My feet feel like they're on fire and being stabbed with needles… I look down, and find my skin all there. It's… like a skin graft. It's paler where I remember it being missing. My feet and fingernails are missing too. Although I don't pay much mind. I don't think I'm dead. It wouldn't hurt this much.
    "Where is he? What time is it?"

    The man wakes up without much fanfare. He just opens his eyes, blinks twice, and stops leaning on the wall. He walks over, barefoot, getting in the way of me limping towards the door.
    "Whoa there. Rest a moment. Let Flavor Surprise do its work."

    "Flavor Surprise?" I rasp back. It's like a cold has met up with a lighter to make me feel agony every time I dared breathe.

    "My technique," He says with a nod, Kneeling down to be closer to eye level, he rubs his hand over the wall and pulls out a solid strip of what looks like paint. "Flavor Surprise. It's imitating your skin."

    "Stupid name." I try to push him back, but all I do is manage to fall on my ass.

    It hurts like hell.

    "Are you alright?" He asks, with way too much concern for my comfort. He reaches his hand over, as if to help pull me up. He seems to pay no mind to the insult to his technique.

    "No. I have an appointment. Let me go." I slap it away, wince, then stand up under my own power. My knees feel as if I've driven nails into them. Walking back to the Fushiguro household may not be an option. Is there a bus that heads close to their house?

    "Getō-sama has requested to not let you go until he finishes his daily meetings." The man states, still blocking the doorway. I feel too exhausted to put up much resistance, and they don't seem to be actively harming me at the given moment… so I guess I can hold back on finding healthy skin to sacrifice. "Furthermore, you need rest. Your body is using the scaffolding provided by my technique to heal itself, but it'll take some time."

    The memories of my own laughter in the auditorium echo back from the recent past. I didn't know I could use my cursed energy burst like that to deflect blows. Shame on the…

    Shit. And he wasn't the only one.

    "His daily meetings." I just want to leave this place now. I've lived content without knowing what happened to her until now. I just came here on a whim. This sucks. I'll survive not knowing why she left, anyway. I could use a crepe to wash the blood off my mouth anyway. I still don't know what time it is anyhow. "When will they end??"

    The man opens his mouth to respond but the door swings open and inside comes-! "Now."

    "You!" I point a finger at the priest. His clothes are still stained with blood. My blood, back from when I was busy shredding my fingers to land a blow or from when I rent up my vocal lining just for a cheap shot at him. A little torn up at places. The man backs off to the wall again, giving plenty of free space for this… meeting. "Where is the bandaged man?"

    "Didn't we already go through this?" He asks, scratching his head, unphased. "Why do you want him?"

    "Why do you care?"

    "Because he's a part of my family, and a friend of mine. I know for a fact you're not here on behalf of jujutsu tech, Wada Azami." He pulls out my student card out of a curse that emerges above his shoulder. A long, wormlike spirit slides my phone and card out of its insides through its mouth, as if spitting them back up. He wipes them both on his clothes, then he points it towards me, with my student card layered on top of my phone, as if offering me a gift…

    What!? When did he-?

    "Sorry, I couldn't stop the girls from taking a look at your personal belongings." I snatched my card and phone back. I check the wallet first, and sigh when I realize all of my money is still in there. My ID too, so I don't have to get another one anytime soon. My phone survived, somehow. "So to make it up to you, I had Larue patch you up. Can we speak like civilized human beings, now? What did you want to find out with Toshihisa-san?"

    So that's his name. I limp back to the couch before collapsing onto it. I check my phone quickly before anything. It turns on and the time shown is… 10:24 AM. A couple of cracks on the screen protector. Pieces of the case have fallen off, but the wallet is… safe. Poor Kirby is missing an eye now too, though. An eye and a leg. I really hope that isn't me. "I want to find out where my mother is."

    "And when…" he stops, as if measuring his words, when he speaks again, it's as if he decided to go back on even saying when, "or if you find her?"

    I shrug. "I'd probably kill her."

    No one looks shocked. Not the blonde shirtless man who seems far more interested in examining his fingernails than caring about me saying something like that. Neither does the guy who spit out curses as if they were nothing. He even seems pleased. I don't like his smile.

    It makes me realize how bad that sounds. His smile is slimy, disgusting almost. It's only an exaggeration anyway. I wouldn't want to get physical. I just want to know why. Why did she leave me behind? That's… that's all.

    "Or shout at her. I don't know." I shrug, "I never thought I'd get this far."

    "Then wouldn't you be pleased to know that she died on the 13th of December of 2010!" He announces with a large smile, expecting this news to uplift my spirits. "I didn't do it, by the way. A wild curse got her first. Tangle of wires and teeth. Nasty thing. Tasted awful too."

    Most words just elude me.

    My spirits shatter.

    It doesn't make me feel better. It doesn't make me feel better at all? Why doesn't it make me feel better?

    Isn't that the day where she didn't come back? Winter?

    I remember the soft blanket of snow that covered Tokyo when… when I devoured Matsumura's lunch. The cold eating at my fingertips. My throat hurt with each breath as the frigid breath scared me over and over. Wearing my skin as gloves as a buffer against the cold...

    A half muffled choke escapes my lips. I wipe my eyes.

    I didn't… I didn't arrive at the conclusion that she had abandoned me for several months. Even then, I didn't want to believe it. And I did it all on my own. I "figured" out the motivation, pinned the blame on her name and made it my mission to find her one day, berate her for not coming back.

    For running off and abandoning her only child.

    And to… to think she actually died. By completely unrelated causes.

    …she actually did want to come back.

    I deluded myself into… I don't want to think about it. But I deluded myself into hating her. For no reason at all.

    I don't think I can stop resenting her. I've spent so long just…

    …this feels miserable. I feel miserable. I want to cease to exist. This sucks. This sucks! Why do I have to live the soap opera life? It could have happened to anyone! Why did it happen to me? Didn't the gods know I wouldn't have believed in them even if I had a good life? Was it a punishment for not visiting shrines often enough? Sticking out too much? This stinks! I hate this! I…

    Technically, I won. I found out what I came to find out.

    Lost the battle, won the war and all that. Got beaten to a pulp and back.

    The Hag didn't even show up.

    That's a cause for celebration itself.

    I should be celebrating.

    Hooray. Tad-ah. Congratulations.

    There, I celebrated.

    I feel like shit.

    "I have to go eat crepes with some friends." I announce, standing up while the pain still seems distant and heading for the door now that no one is blocking the door.

    "If you ever need anywhere to go, if you decide Jujutsu tech isn't for…"

    "Shut up." I'm used to speaking back at authority. This person, no matter how nice he appears, had no issue with poisoning his followers and burning them with that obelisk in order to simply subdue me despite clearly being able to kill me. I have a suspicion why he did that. But I'd rather have it not be true. He's no doubt the leader of this little operation or whatever the hell they're doing here. I've known people like this, that pretend to be good people when they're not. They can be genuinely nice, but deep down, they're rotten, necrotic... "Preach to your friend over there. I'm leaving now."

    "As you are dressed right now?" The man asks, concern seeping into his voice as he gets in the way, this time in the hallway.

    I look down onto my clothes. Covered in grime and dried blood. Torn to shreds on both top and bottom. No shoes. Looking as if my skin patched together with strips out of someone else's skin because they are way too pale to look alive. I shrug yet again. I've looked dirtier, this should be presentable enough. "I don't see why not."

    "Larue," He shakes his head and proceeds to turn it towards the room I just left, "tell Mimiko and Nanako to search for donated clothing with Manami-san, will you?"

    "Right away, Getō-sama." The man suddenly stands up, bows, and walks off to who knows where.

    "Uh-huh. Cool." Yeah, I could see why someone would willingly obey this person at knifepoint. Cursepoint. Whatever. "You have a servant."

    "He's an equal." He tries to correct, as if they were even in similar leagues. If I'm a bicycle, that guy is a small three-wheeled car, and this man is a military truck. "A shaman, just like you."

    "Riiiight." A shaman, just like me. Right, right. Could've fooled me. Totally. With how eccentric he looks, and how much he feels of his own technique? No way! That's a normal person… not. "Personally, I see it more like you're domineering these people into sticking by your side."

    "I'm not!" He sounds genuinely offended by that. "They're here by their own free will, doing something they truly believe in."

    "I bet that has something to do with all the people haunted by curses waiting outside of the auditorium? Or with the cult people that you killed to fuel that obelisk?"

    His eye twitches, "They willingly gave themselves up for that. Only the most…"

    Words come and fly around. Not physically, but it's clear the man, this Getō, was carefully weighing what he could and could not say.

    "Devoted followers are willing to allow themselves to be used like that."

    Brilliantly cult-like. I didn't need to be a genius to know that when they started chanting out, they did so out of fear. He's using regular people to cultivate and harvest curses for him. That's his technique. Curse control or something.

    It was a mixture of the cursed womb forming above the building and the faintest residuals which even led me to this place. They're quite literally visible.

    The school should have sent someone by now. Perhaps they had, and they died or didn't do anything. Because I highly doubt this man would allow them to do anything with the miasma forming above this building.

    "Gross." I play along for now. "I can't believe people would want to throw their lives away like that."

    His face twitches at people. At the word people. He obviously doesn't see them as that. He reads like the sort of kid who builds himself up for months to enter a competition or worse- a maid cafe. Like a sort of personal brainwashing of sorts.

    See Megumi? I could play the people-reading game too. Although I think it's clear this entire conversation has gone both ways.

    "Well, I think it's best to-"

    "Getō-Sama!" A shrill voice shouts out from outside one of the Shoji screens which line the hallway interrupts the man. One of the many doors slide open, and a stout, small businessman, no taller than I am, scrambles inside. Tracking mud and humidity all over the floor. "I-I paid you today Getō-Sama! Exorcise my curse!"

    He's not cursed. Not even residuals. "You're being scammed. You're not cursed."

    The man palens at that, then grows furious… at me. Oh I know that look. "What does a street rat like you know about curses!?"

    I can't help but snicker at that. I've been called worse. This guy definitely has no experience other than playing the victim for most of his life.

    "Calm down Kanemori-san! Calm down!" Getō says, going into an act so wafer thin I don't think he'd be able to fool anyone, "She's an apprentice of mine. Of course she can't see the curse placed on you! It's too strong."

    I scoff at that.

    Then I freeze when I see what is burrowing under the businessman's skin. It reeks of the priest's technique. Millions of tiny, needle like-legs, sinking deep into his spine.

    His eyes go vacant, and he seems at a forced peace. He stumbles out, as if in a daze, and seemingly disappears.

    "Bleh." He sprays alcohol on the hand he used to infuse a curse onto the man's body and sprays the alcohol around anywhere close to where the businessman was for good measure. "Disgusting."

    Oh. I see.

    He hates normal people. Non-sorcerers. That explains it. Don't get me wrong. I hate humanity too. But to give up on society like that… it's kind of childish, isn't it?

    Something must have happened to make him this way, no doubt. Academia is my guess. I heard studying for a doctorate drives you mad. He looks young for that, though.

    "Getō-Sama!" A young voice that I recognize from the giggles on-stage makes itself known alongside another set of footsteps. It's the girls I saw on-stage. One blonde, one black haired. The blonde girl is dressed in similarly coloured clothing. The dark one seems to be initiated into the path of becoming a goth, she even has a macabre hanged doll with her! They seem to have roughly the same age, and they couldn't be older than ten or eleven years of age. Still, they're tall for someone so young. Almost as tall as me.

    How did they end up tangled with this man? If they did so willingly I hope their growth spurt costs them their future height.

    "Getō-Sama." The leading girl says "We got the clothes!"

    "Wait." I say, pointing at both of them despite the pain of stretching the artificial skin on my hand too much. "Are you the girls that took my stuff?"

    Both of them look like deer in front of headlights. The blonde one, who seems more social, definitely more so than the other one. Stitedly, they pace over to me, and basically push the clothes and pair of sneakers onto me.

    It hurts like hell, but I hold onto them.

    "Nanako? Mimiko?What do we say when you do something bad to someone?" I had the feeling the man only refers to 'someone' as being a shaman. There's not a chance in hell these two see it differently.

    "I-We're sorry for taking your belongings Wada-san!" There goes my name again. I don't doubt they'll share it around, smear it with bread and rumors and what not. Both of the girls deeply bow as the blonde one apologizes on behalf of them both. "We thought you were a corpse when you got brought in!"

    "I doubt I really looked that bad." I realize I don't know where to change.

    "You really did." The black haired girl says. "Nanako took a picture."

    Alright, so the black-haired girl must be Mimiko, then. Almost as if invited to do so, the girl fiddles around with her phone, kept around in a neon green case with bunny ears sticking out. I think I figured out who the hoodie used to belong to.

    "Macabre. What are you, ten? You shouldn't be…" She shows me her phone screen. "Oh."

    I looked bad. Are those my neck muscles? Looks nasty. And are those my feet? Looks nasty-er. And my face too... As if I were flayed alive.

    "Can you please delete that picture?"

    Nanako looks to Getō for guidance. I regret to know he agrees with me, he nods, almost like an order, and a few taps away I feel a tension be released from my body that I wasn't aware was there in the first place.

    "Oh, one last thing." I say, suddenly remembering something.

    "Yes?" All three ask at once.

    Uncanny.

    "Do you happen to know where I could get changed?"

    They all point towards a door helpfully labeled "bathroom".

    I feel blind.






    The bathroom tiles are cold and feel rough, but they are clean. The cold stings like needles onto the soles of my feet. Kind of like if someone had somehow find a way to both freeze and burn someone at the same time.

    I fiddle with the lock for some time before I manage to close it.

    It's dumb. My entire body feels so numb yet it hurts so much.

    Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to kill the man so badly. I feel like I crippled myself.

    It takes another moment of fumbling to turn on the light of the bathroom. My knuckles are killing me by the end of it.

    It's like pressing against a recently bandaged scar. It still hurts.

    I begin the process of peeling my bloodied clothes off my body. My shirt goes first. It's almost as if it's been glued to my body. It's a gross task. And it hurts when I peel it anywhere close to the fake skin grafts.

    I wonder if it's like most Jujutsu and it's invisible to normal people. Tsumiki would scream.

    It's only then I notice the mirror going from one end of the room to the other above the sink.

    I remember the mirror I found… the grandson curse in and shiver a little inside.

    My hand raises up instinctively to where the door hinge had burrowed into my neck. The scar he left is gone. Covered under a patch of deadly pale skin which forms an uneven split of pigmentation across one half to the other. One cheek is slightly rosy, the other is just blank. Pale. Lifeless.

    I examine my body.

    I look like shit. Blood and grime everywhere. I allowed my hair to grow ever since I became a jujutsu student, but it's being prevented from reaching it's full length by a mixture of dried blood and dirt.

    It's like patchwork. My abdomen is separated into two sections: the larger, bloodied one, and the smaller, pristine one from when I sacrificed skin to not get bitten by that caterpillar. My belly button is a mere dimple now, covered in plastic-looking skin.

    Patterns of impossibly white skin go all over. From bands around my fingers and hands stretching out to squares in my arms and forming spirals where I was haphazardly burning skin for cursed energy, reaching under my bra.

    Did he…

    I don't want to think about it. I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to store it away in a little mental cabinet and throw it into the mental sea the Hag always is in.

    Breathe in, breathe out. I don't know how his technique works. My clothes were stuck together with my blood, there's no way. Yeah, there's no way he could have reached inside.

    I find solace in that.

    Just to find another piece of peace of mind, I use my phone to use as a mirror real quick. The artificial skin from his technique is showing up there. Photos, unless they used a cursed technique, did not show curses or techniques.

    I won't look around like a mangled corpse out in the street. That's… that's reassuring to a degree.

    I examine the gifted clothing, and I immediately realize there must have been some sort of outfit planning behind my back. There's a yellow long-sleeved hoodie with bunny ears on the hood itself. A large rainbow tee which will no doubt stick out of the end of the hoodie. There's some underwar that seems scarily measured to my size. No pants, but a rather long skirt that reminds me of my prior school uniform since it's black save for a single stripe of white going down on the very end. Sneakers and… long black socks. No pockets on anything but the hoodie, and that's not… exactly a safe place to carry things, but I'll make it work. I only have my keys and my phone-wallet to carry about, but I still ruminate on it for way too long.

    There's a dry spot beside the sink, I put the clothes there as I give my hair a quick hose-down on the sink.

    No shampoo, but blood and mud roll down the drain regardless. There's… still balls of material stuck in several places.

    I may need to cut them off. Later. I'm on a time limit.

    I toss my old, bloodied one in the bin after peeling it it off and I don't think about how the new bra fits so well.

    The shirt is soft. I recognize cotton as the texture, and considering how sensitive my back is at the moment, I am thankful for the lack of any kind of tag. The hoodie is a little rougher, but no tags either. I put them both on without much deliberation.

    I hesitate to put on the skirt. My pants are ruined and by far expose more skin in their current state, but I had poor memories of skirts in particular.

    I wear it after peeling my track pants piece by piece off my legs.

    There's no need to swap panties so I just pocket the free underwear., but in the process of self examination I take a closer look at my legs. It's odd how my legs seem so much smoother after the grafts stuck on. Not a single hair where the skin becomes numb and insensitive, not a single bump, welt, or mole.

    And no fingernails either. Just dimples where they should be. That hurts more than it has any right to do so. I wiggle my toes just to prove to myself the injury is real and the burning is more than proof enough. Wearing socks may prove unpleasant. Wearing shoes without socks may prove even more so.

    I don the socks. Then the skirt. Then the shoes.

    If my hair was less messy, and my legs less bloodied, it would almost look like nothing had happened at all.





    The bus ride to the Fushiguro Household is… faster than expected. Of course it's not all the way back, but nothing interesting happened. My keys didn't fall out, My phone didn't disappear, and there only was a minimal number of curses all around.

    It's nice, all things considered.

    I take a stop near one of the many bridges that crosses a river, and hop right off.

    There's a crepe food cart near that street corner. I memorize the spot before I make my way to the Fushiguro household.

    Each step feels like I'm walking on a bed of burning nails, with stakes digging through my knees and carrying weight on hooks placed on my back and neck.

    I arrive, and take a look at the tattered remains of my jacket.

    I did pass out, didn't I? I hate my life more and more every second.

    When I unlock the door, I do so with little fanfare, tossing it open.

    Tsumiki, who was watching some animated series, was the first one to notice my arrival. She turns around quickly to face me rather than the rerun of The Tale of The Princess Kaguya.
    "Wada-San! You're back! Are we going to eat Crepes now?"

    I nod. She runs upstairs after turning off the TV.

    "Megumi!" I hear her say. "We're going to go eat crepes."

    Silence answers as she descends at a hurried pace, going over to the couch and retrieving a small purse with various characters from Hello Kitty plastered all over it. Was she waiting for me this entire time? Her cardigan has been picked to match with that wavy shirt she's wearing, and that skirt she's wearing looks real pretty on her.

    I want to go to sleep. But I made a promise, and I don't intend to break that promise.

    Then, finally, footsteps as he makes his way down. His hair's a mess. He's wearing a plain black sweater on jeans and sneakers. His face seems plastered with suspicion of me. He doesn't say any more than that.

    Is it because I managed to confuse his dogs

    "Em… Wada-san, why do you look… like that?" That catches me by surprise.

    "Sudden-onset vitiligo." I lied.

    "And why are you wearing different clothes?" Megumi asks, playing onto the question his sister asked but a few seconds ago.

    "Clothing metamorphosis." It's not like I'm tricking Megumi anyways.

    I can hear the whispers of 'so cool' from Tsumiki to Megumi as he contains his better instincts to simply shut down any conversation about that not being how jujutsu worked.

    I keep snickering about it. When Tsumiki keeps asking questions that he keeps dodging the entire way to the food truck I saw.

    It takes a gentle nudge, a quick reassurance that I'll pay for anything they choose and off they go to.

    It happens in a haze, but soon I find myself sitting on a bench beside the two kids, eating a vanilla ice-cream and strawberry crepe.

    I did order. Huh. Yeah. I'm just so tired. Is it the blood loss? Probably.

    My first bite…tastes awful. Tastes like pain. And my mouth feels like it's burning.

    I grab the sugar canister from the counter and sprinkle generously, giving the vanilla ice-cream a rough, brown layer before I put it back to appease the shocked attendant as I sit back on the bench.

    I take another bite. Crunching the grains with my teeth, the harsh texture of the crepe only feels one hundred times worse and each bite is more bitter than the last.

    Then I remember I spat out the skin of my mouth earlier that day.

    Huh. That explains a lot.

    Maybe all of my pain is self inflicted after all.
    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms for Abandonment would make a good band name. Why is it not a band name? It should be one. Someone made it a band.

    I've unclogged my brain. Now my words flow freely, like sewer water. Enjoy.

    Los
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • At chapter 5 Early Plum Rains did her partner die and why did he chase her afterwards? Did he get hurt after she abanddoned him for a meal or did he get hurt by that Cursed Spirit? What grade is that not!grade 2 from that chapter?

    I had very hard to know where we was on a timeline. I don't know the anime/manga. I have only wiki walked a bit. However at chapter 7-9 I discovered that we were quite a few years before canon.

    It's pretty depressing. We young child who does self harm and mutilation on a daily basis, a self-insert/grandma-in-a-bottle in her head as a teacher but the mc has an antagonistic relationship with her, and the protagonist is quite lacking in niceness and basic human decency.

    I'm beginning to tire for the mc to be this hostile to people. Then again often, as far as I know, we are having her in arguments. Shouldn't her loneliness make her so that she begins to like to be with people even if she doesn't understand it herself? Then again she did manage to apologize on her own way to that girly in her first class first lection when she first got introduced to her class on her own way.

    I feel that this is quite dark. I would want something to look forward to. Not just diary #33 "today I watched birds, argued with people, used sarcasm so much that it took shape of an pink elephant in the room and escaped studying yet another day."

    Either something good or exciting to look forward to. Something that is good for mc, resolving a character flaw or maybe she to recongize a character flaw before she can even resolve to fix it. Maybe something fun of out of context, maybe she can discover a depth to her curse technique she didn't before. Just something that makes me want to see the bright side of the day. So I don't have to look at the dark dirty depressing side.

    Watched.
     
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    Some answers
  • Informational
    • PinkShadowReader said:
    At chapter 5 Early Plum Rains did her partner die and why did he chase her afterwards? Did he get hurt after she abanddoned him for a meal or did he get hurt by that Cursed Spirit? What grade is that not!grade 2 from that chapter?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    No death. She just ran off because she was bored and wanted to get home early before Dinner time, which ironically Azami managed to delay her next meal substantially (since she passed out and had to get taken care off by Shoko Ieiri.

    PinkShadowReader said:
    I had very hard to know where we was on a timeline. I don't know the anime/manga. I have only wiki walked a bit. However at chapter 7-9 I discovered that we were quite a few years before canon.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Four years before canon. Long enough to get to young adulthood, but just enough time changing any of the machinations set into place before any of the cast's birth have any possibility of getting changed.
    PinkShadowReader said:
    It's pretty depressing. We young child who does self harm and mutilation on a daily basis, a self-insert/grandma-in-a-bottle in her head as a teacher but the mc has an antagonistic relationship with her, and the protagonist is quite lacking in niceness and basic human decency.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    More than curses and battles, the first part of the story has to do more with personal growth rather than anything else. Hurt people hurt people. And Wada... she's been hurt a lot. And it's not like the Hag is free of sin. She's... much worse than I've been letting on.

    PinkShadowReader said:
    I'm beginning to tire for the mc to be this hostile to people. Then again often, as far as I know, we are having her in arguments. Shouldn't her loneliness make her so that she begins to like to be with people even if she doesn't understand it herself? Then again she did manage to apologize on her own way to that girly in her first class first lection when she first got introduced to her class on her own way.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Azami feels like the best way to prevent feeling any form of abandonment is leaving people before she has any chance to be attached or any chance to abandon her first. More on today's chapter (may be posted slightly late).

    PinkShadowReader said:
    I feel that this is quite dark. I would want something to look forward to. Not just diary #33 "today I watched birds, argued with people, used sarcasm so much that it took shape of an pink elephant in the room and escaped studying yet another day."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thanks for pointing this out! I'll some sprinkling some more comedy in the following chapters.

    After the next one. I promise.
    PinkShadowReader said:
    Either something good or exciting to look forward to. Something that is good for mc, resolving a character flaw or maybe she to recongize a character flaw before she can even resolve to fix it. Maybe something fun of out of context, maybe she can discover a depth to her curse technique she didn't before. Just something that makes me want to see the bright side of the day. So I don't have to look at the dark dirty depressing side.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    A couple of character's birthdays are pretty soon-ish in story. Azami's is on the 13th of May, and Kiruas own birthday is on the 19th of May. In terms of the story? I'd say 3-4 chapters, if not less.

    PinkShadowReader said:
    Watched.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Thank you!
     
  • Informational
    • Chapter 13 || Intervention
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 13​
    Intervention

    Don't mess with Special Grades. That should be a sign somewhere. It probably is. What it doesn't contain is their faces. I could do with some facial recognition. It would have saved me a lot of trouble yesterday. And skin, and physical wellbeing, and the roof of my mouth…

    But when I asked Atsushi about the Time Vessel association, the first thing he responded to on the morning of the Twenty-second of April, he responded by saying "oh, that place led by the special grade curse user Getō Suguru?"

    I knew I had heard that name somewhere before.

    It's afternoon now. And I've spent most of yesterday and all of today avoiding Gojo.

    Because if there's one thing I value more than eating and cash, it's staying alive. He's going to no doubt be pissed about my actions of yesterday. Those eyes of his can probably see the past or something. Thankfully, he hasn't caught up to me yet. I think he is far too busy to just… take the time required to find me. But he has made an effort to do so, or so Tsumiki says.

    Someone, or something, told Gojo about my little expedition yesterday.

    Personally? I think it was Megumi. He's just finding reasons to try and distrust me at this point. I'm not going to eat your sister, I'm not going to suffocate you with a pillow while you sleep, so please, let me be! Haven't you heard that snitches get stitches? I won't shank you, but you'll slip up, Megumi, and I'll squeeze an entire tube of Wasabi paste inside of your drink.

    Unfortunately, I have yet to find a good excuse to 'talk' to him about it.

    The sky is cloudy today. Up here, sitting on top of a rooftop before I get chased off, I wait for the rain to fall.

    I know I can't keep running from this forever.

    Eventually, Gojo will catch up to me.

    And I'll get chewed out on being a short sighted moron, a skilless goof, or worse, expelled.

    Because as part of the deal I had with the higher ups, was that my execution was going to be paused as long as I studied in Jujutsu Tech.

    And if I got expelled, that was no longer the case.

    There's a knot forming itself in my insides. My body aches, and my insides feel like they're being tensed up over, and over and over to the point of exploding.

    I don't want to die.

    Sure, I don't… I don't act like I don't want to die. I tend to rush stupidly into situations I don't understand. I threaten to murderize anyone who pisses me off. I avoided talking to people and I ran away from my problems until the whiplash from them catching up to me left me feeling broken.

    But I don't… death is just an inky blackness. I've been close to it several times. Death, I mean. The feeling is… it isn't familiar. But I've acquainted myself with it.

    There's nothing. Forever.

    And I dread it terribly.

    I slept at a Hotel yesterday. Packed enough clothes to last me for several days and just scampered off as far into Kita as soon as I could.

    I called Tsumiki to tell her I may be out of the house for a couple of days and would be incapable of helping her with her homework. I've been so disconnected from schoolwork and such to remember that Jujutsu Tech Starts back up in a few days. Fifth of may. Late because of some renovations having to do with something "top secret" and such.

    I can't help but feel the school itself is a curse of sorts. I… I know ever since I've started studying again I've only been good at one thing, and one thing only. And that is… exorcizing curses. I know it's bad. I know it's terrible! Who, what, what kind of ill mind sends children off to battle monsters on a semi-daily basis? What kind of demented idiot comes up with that instead of sending the elderly first?

    I suck at math, barely pass literature, fail the sham course history, and…somehow, mess up home economics. I'm… a black hole for skills. Time goes in, nothing of value comes out. That art club I joined back at school? Wasted time. My drawings are just as awful as they were back then. Joining the track team? I dropped out of that due to academic mediocrity. And I didn't do anything after I joined jujutsu tech. The only skills that stuck with me from when I was homeless was finding a good spot to sleep, picking locks with a screwdriver and a hairpin, and beating the shit out of things. And that's the only skill I actually managed to make flourish in Jujutsu Tech.

    And after the fight with Getō? I didn't even have looks going for me. Who'd love a mutilated psycho who tore off her skin in front of a crowd?

    I wipe my face with the sleeve of my newest hoodie. It got wet somehow. I don't know why. It isn't raining yet.

    Megumi was right. I'm worthless. The only thing I'm good at I probably won't do for-

    "Yo." Gojo says from somewhere behind me.

    I nearly fell off the slanted roof in shock. When? How? How did he…

    "Relax, I'm just here to talk." He says, raising his hands in a sort of defensive manner before tossing a paper bag onto besides where he collapses a sitting position. Kandagawa Bakery, it reads. I've seen it, it's supposedly high class or something.

    I freeze up and curl up into my best imitation of a ball.

    He isn't smiling.

    I open my mouth, as if to speak, then close it slowly. He probably doesn't want to hear me explain myself.

    I take a deep breath, taking in all of the details of the pre-rain petrichor.

    This is it, this is where- "I used to be a troublesome kid too."

    I stop thinking about that, just looking at my teacher upon saying that. His face is flat, and it's hard to believe he said anything at all.

    "And I also lost a parent," He adds, casually as if it were such a light event to speak of, "so I know what it feels like to try and find closure."

    I… I wasn't aware. Of that. I wasn't aware of that at all.

    "But you ought to find better ways of dealing with it, you know?" He complains loudly as the sky darkens still. Partially because of the fading sunlight, but mostly because of…

    Droplets begin falling around us. Not on me. Just… around. As if they met up with an invisible barrier that decided it'd be easier for the rain to be rerouted sideways rather than vertically.

    "There's video games, and anime, and gambling, and drawing, and dozens of other things you could have done!" He shouts in a shout that is less of a shout and more of a very loud speaking tone, looking more miffed than annoyed, more annoyed than angry.

    I look off to the bright spot where the sun is hiding behind the clouds.

    "So why did you decide it was a good idea to fight that man?" The tone is… not a complaint. I just realized that. More like a disappointed rant, really.

    I shrug.

    "Did you at least find what you were looking for?"

    I nod. I wipe away a droplet that somehow got through whatever's keeping me dry, running down my cheek.

    Rain keeps falling around. I hear Gojo's phone vibrating before being unceremoniously muted with his off-hand.

    He takes a deep breath in. I mimic that and take a deep breath in too.

    "...it actually made a dent in my bank account to remove all of the recordings of your fight with him off the web." He confesses flatly, "You know that?"

    Here comes the actual beratement. I bury my face between my legs and pretend not to hear as I shake my head.

    "Still, it's not like I didn't end up costing the school more in the long term…" He states nonchalantly, "But I can't keep bailing you out like this."

    I lift my head up as I glance at the white haired man, confused. Again? Why is he not calling me out at all?

    "The higher ups may be old-fasioned, but they're not stupid." He mentions them with disdain as he sits perfectly still, almost as if he wasn't breathing at all. "If you keep acting like this, they're going to want your head, and unless I'm willing to offer up mine, there's nothing that's going to dissuade them from that."

    Oh. I… I didn't consider Gojo would be willing to cover for me. Again. I feel like shit at owing so much to a single person.

    "So I'm just going to warn you: Don't interact with Getō Suguru." He states, as if he lacked the words to express his exact thoughts and feelings on the subject.

    No answer comes from my end. My silence counts as one, I guess.

    "Don't do it. Do not consider it. Don't even think about it. It's not a good idea." I agree with that, even if he is explaining it like a dunce. "Maybe it was a long time ago, but now he's nothing more than a living omen. Got it?"

    I nod.

    The rain pours around us with indifference, the sun peeking through the clouds but the precipitation pays it no mind.

    "Why didn't you go to the Fushiguro household yesterday?" He asks suddenly.

    I freeze up at that. It's like a hole formed itself at the bottom of my chest, sinking deeper and deeper still. "Can we talk about something else?"

    Gojo hums. "As long as you answer my question eventually."

    I nod. The feeling fades, just barely.

    Some birds on a tree decide to fly off mid-rain. Black dots in the sky, flying further and further away into the countryside.

    I think of the sequence of events that happened on the thirteenth of December, five years back."What's the opposite of a miracle, Gojo-Sensei?"

    "The opposite of a miracle?" He asks, tilting his head off to the side. "As in the traditional sense of something unexpected or the other kind of miracle?"

    I shrug, "Both I guess."

    He hums as he leans back on his arms. "Tough question. Does it have something to do with why you went to that man?"

    "I don't know. Perhaps. Maybe."

    He waits for me to speak again, as if trying to nudge me with his thoughts alone.

    I chuckle. Not out of happiness or finding something humorous. It's something I just do sometimes. It helps relieve stress or whatnot. "I-Well, the uh… When my…"

    He's just sitting there. Waiting for me to listen. I was expected to be metaphorically executed at this point not…

    I take a long, deep, breaky sigh. "The day I thought I was abandoned my mother got killed by a curse."

    "I'm sorry you had to find that out through him."

    "And you know what?" I cry out. "He smiled. He fucking smiled and told me he hoped the news brightened my day."

    Gojo just listens.

    "Who does that!? Who does that?" My breathing speeds up, "I dont- I don't understand it. I don't understand him. Shit. Fuck. Piss. I don't- I don't understand a lot of things!"

    I know he raises an eyebrow behind his bandages. I don't care.

    "Who does this, who does that. Why should I know? Why should I care!?" I barely even notice my hands pointing at myself, "Why is it that the young blood is always sent to exorcise curses before the old raisins up top? Why are there even curses in the first place?"

    He nods at that, unamused.

    "Behave this way! Dress this way, Do this thing! Don't do that! Do you have a boyfriend? Answer these questions. Are you possessed? Are you reincarnated? Why aren't you listening to me!? Fucking shit! I don't–"

    It's like there's no one there at all.

    "I just want to exist! I just want to exist and be able to live with myself! Why is the god-damn universe so intent on trying to push me towards hating myself even more!? Can't it see I have more than enough reasons to loathe existing?"

    A puddle of water forms behind me, against gravity and whatever laws of the universe which work for it to even form such a thing.

    I sob with the rain now. "I'm already a futureless rat. Why can't I just eat a crepe with two kids without my mouth burning up due to my short-sightedness?"

    Gojo is blurry when I wipe my eyes, and he becomes blurry again with little delay.

    "Why couldn't I be normal back when I had my mother with me?" I weep. "Why do I blame myself for being abandoned when she planned to come back anyway!?"

    Gojo stares.

    My breath becomes caught up in something that doesn't exist.

    The rain isn't soothing anymore.

    "The only thing I can do is be a Shaman at this point." My confession is heavy, although it doesn't linger for long. "And… and I'm not even that good at it."

    The puddles on the rooftop, just like the ones on the distant ground, are gray, just like the sky.

    Down below on the streets, life goes on.

    "That's not true."

    I shake my head.

    "You have great potential, as a sorcerer." He tries reaching over, trying to bridge the space between us. "But you're more than just a Shaman."

    "Oh yeah!?" I slap his hand at the cost of my new skin opening up, cracking like the wings of a butterfly. "Like what? A liability?"

    "Your classmates say you're a good friend."

    "Well, they're wrong." I'm a terrible friend. Selfish, aloof, forgetful. "I'm awful. I don't– I'm selfish. I'm a prick. I'm awful, terrible. I'm… All I'm good for is for laughing at… Why do they even stick by me?"

    "Tsumiki says you wanted to help her with her homework today."

    I don't have an answer for that.

    "Megumi says that despite how he feels towards you, he can't say you're a bad person."

    I don't have an answer for that one either.

    "You even tried to get him to cook something other than meatballs, for once."

    "I'm as rotten as it gets." I sputter out. "Why do— why does everyone at the school keep returning for me? Why!?"

    "The difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, is as simple as the difference between helping and harming."

    …

    "Everything else is just details."

    …

    "You, Wada Azami. You're not Evil. You're not rotten."

    I'm not crying. I'm…

    "And you never stopped trying to become a better person since I've met you."

    The dam breaks.


    ………………………………​


    Gojo knew holding an execution over someone's head was taxing. A knife of Damocles waiting for those under it for the line to be let loose, and the dagger to fall. He's always been able to ignore the knife. Even if he were branded as Curse User, the only thing he could ever consider happening is achieving his goal through education would become exponentially more difficult. He'd still do it anyway, he's stubborn, and spiteful.

    It's often that he forgets that not everyone has that luxury. Not everyone is as untouchable as he is.

    His first two years as a Teacher, well, he didn't exactly know what to do other than just training people to become sorcerers. Even today, he struggled to not return to old habits and repeat the mistakes that his own teacher made when encouraging his growth. It had been three, in his year, after two years of no students whatsoever.

    Himself, Ieri Shoko, and Getō Suguru.

    It's partially the system's fault, partially his, partially everyone else's, that his best friend snapped.

    He wonders if he would still be working at the school if he had taken that job for him. But they hadn't spoken for months. Years, even.

    Not even he was strong enough to survive the social pressures placed upon by Jujutsu Society.

    So he finds it no large surprise that Wada is breaking down by the possibility of dying over her own ignorance again.

    He's not good at consoling people. Of all of his contemporaries, the only ones who could be seen crying were Iori Utahime and Haibara Yū. And one he typically was the cause of said crying and the other was dead.

    He had some practice consoling the Fourth Year, Ino Takuma. But even then, he admits he had his work cut out for him. Nanamin had gotten to him first. Just like Ieri san before him.

    But here's something he did learn from that, at the very least.

    Extend an open hand. Don't hold it out as if you are going to smack a curse, he reminds himself, almost loose, but not droopy. More akin to waving at someone who is far away.

    Gently, gently now, place it on the crying person's back. Not hard enough to push, gently enough to know there's someone else.

    Pat a couple of times, then rub counter-clockwise.

    He heard from a youtube video that it helped to hum a lullaby too. But that video specialized on babies! He's never going to do another mission where he has to scramble around youtube searching for links on how to calm a newborn while carrying the mother. Never again!

    Back on topic…

    Regardless. He doesn't think this strategy would work on a teenager. He thinks back to his school years, and thinks to himself how patronizing that would feel. So he doesn't do it. He just retains the motion continuously over and over again.

    What did Nanamin liken it to?

    Ah, that's right. To undo a dam made of wooden logs.

    And gently, just like that.

    The tears eventually stop flowing.

    ………………………………​


    "Would you like some chocolate champagne bread?"

    Mhm. "Thanks."

    "Are you feeling any better?"

    I nod.

    "Are you ready to answer my question?"

    I nod.

    He pauses.

    This bread tastes nice.

    I don't even know what champagne bread is. It's a little bit sour, but it's been given a honey frosting.

    The frosting dissolves in the mouth, and the chocolate isn't strong enough to overpower anything.

    It tastes really good.

    "I… I didn't want you to expel me. I mean… I was expecting it, but I didn't want it to happen in front of…"

    "Alright. I understand."

    The rain stops. And bit by bit, the sun comes out.

    I didn't realize how pretty the sunset looks from up here. Probably because I've never been here before but…

    I should make some time to watch some sunsets.

    Maybe I could even ask Shigure to teach me to draw them.

    That'd be nice.
    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    I was talking to my editor about this chapter and he kept complaining it was too emotional.

    When I told him he was wrong I remembered I had no editor, and I had been speaking to my cat all along. It was incredibly painful to know no one heard my rebuttal.

    Los
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Gojo is actually doing pretty good at least for Gojo. But yeah that was rough for the MC she had to have a breakdown to process things but I do hope she heals from everything.
     
    ArcanaVitae said:
    Gojo is actually doing pretty good at least for Gojo. But yeah that was rough for the MC she had to have a breakdown to process things but I do hope she heals from everything.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    He's doing his best. But he's not good at emotional comforting, so his best happens to be mildly above average.

    It happens to be enough. Next chapter contains slices of life, I promise.
     
    Good character arc. It's hard to capture the way some people lash out irrationally sympathetically without diminishing the idiocy of it from a first person perspective.

    Props to you.
     
    Chapter 14 || Petrichor
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 14​
    Petrichor
    It's… hard to say just how I feel, after yesterday.

    Twenty Third of April. Twelve days until class starts back up.

    I guess a way to describe it would be that I feel… calm, relieved too. I'm not going to die! That's cool.

    Drained too. No fight left in me.

    I promised Tsumiki to help her with her homework today, didn't I?

    And I had to cook too…

    Ugh.

    But I don't feel like doing anything… Especially not this early.

    The blankets are nice and welcoming. 'Azami', I hear them say to me, 'don't leave us. Come rest with us Azami!'

    "But I got things to do." I say back to them. "Can't this wait until later?"

    'No,' they reply, 'ever since the evil machinations of the higher ups, the only comfort we've known is…'

    I blink when I realize I'm talking to blankets. Then I blink again.

    I stand up, against my better instincts. My entire body still hurts, but substantially less so. Cooking comes first. It's still morning, I can just burn the rest of the day by collapsing in bed and falling asleep until I'm needed again.

    Later.

    My knees pop loudly as I stand up amongst all of the cleaning products I demanded be kept in my room.

    I smile at that. It makes me feel rich as I lumber towards the second floor guest bathroom, even if my entire body is still creaking.

    When I flick the lights on, I realize I look like garbage. The hoodie served me well for two days hiding the tufts of my hair that ended up as balls of gunk and whatever else was on the floor of the auditorium that day. It's been better ever since I washed it, but I didn't bathe yesterday out of fear of being caught in the bathroom so… today's as good a chance as any.

    I splash some water on my face. The cold bites where my skin seams over to being deathly pale, but I pay it no mind. The pain helps me wake up a little more.

    I retrieve a set of towels from my room and plop them on the toilet before doing the same to a set of clothes. A set of long shorts with this patch of a cat sleeping on the right leg, a white tee with a print of a forest, and jacket junior. Long-sleeved, green stripes running down the zipper on the center, a hoodie for rain, and that irremovable pin of Saturn. I love this jacket.

    Fortunately for my sanity, I have spares of the jacket I really liked. So the one that died yesterday was quickly replaced after a small and quick burial that only I and a gifted package of pastries attended to. Thank the heavens I bought three identical ones. My foresight keeps paying off. I have truly been gifted the gift of prophecy.

    Nothing extraordinary happens in the shower itself. It's a quick one, with lukewarm water not to worsen the grafts. It still stings, but it feels refreshing to not smell of iron and sweat.

    It may be considered wasteful, but I dry my sandals too as I head downstairs. I forgot to bring slippers to change to, so… even after changing, I had to rely on these old things.

    I check the pantry. Of course there's the dried rice, there's flour. Some Enoki mushrooms. Radish. Miso bouillon packets, as well as some dry noodles. No pancake mix, which is a shame. I know there's some ice-cream in the fridge, so it would have been nice to have some waffles with ice-cream. The freezer has a brand new tub of vanilla ice cream, as well as fish, myeongnan, and… I don't recognize that last thing in the back. The fridge proper has tofu, butter, an unopened bag of aburaage, lime, avocados, and eggs. Some strawberries, which makes me feel even more irritated over there being no pancake mix. Whipped cream and chocolate fudge too!

    Why! Why is it that I keep running out of pancake mix! It's absurd! I can't go through them that fast, right?

    I do the math in my head and realize that, yes, I could. Waffles for dinner beat eating the cheap rice and eggs done in a hurry before 12 am.

    I sigh. I could work with this.

    This house has everything I wish every kitchen I've cooked in had. Pots and pans for every purpose! Some are even covered in literal ceramic. Aren't those super expensive?

    Guess Gojo really can afford everything. I retrieve two pans. One rectangular and long, with the edges being kind of tall. The other is a more circular one that I've taken a liking to these last few days. Two cooking pots too, one big, for soup, one small, for boiled eggs to add to the broth. I fill them both with tap water and dump a single miso bouillon packet into the large one, turning the stove down to low heat. I left the water filling the rice pan, and I dumped a little water back into the drain before putting it on the cooker and pouring some rice generously. I add a tiny stream of sesame oil and some crushed garlic from the fridge before turning the thing on.

    I've always been able to do it by eye. Mom said it was because I had good eyes.

    I don't linger on her for long.

    I cut the enoki shortly thereafter, as well as some radish and a couple of slices of tofu, and dump them all into the soup followed by the noodles themselves. Chopsticks are handy for retrieving the bouillon packet without wasting too much broth. I learnt that at home, re-learnt it at home economy class two years later. I take this opportunity to add two eggs to the smaller cooking pot to try and reduce the time I spend washing my hands.

    My grandma apparently died of Salmonella. I never met her, but the story must be true. My grandpa told me so and instilled the importance of always washing your hands after handling eggshells.

    And I do just that, even if it's wasting some time since I have to touch eggs again soon.

    Spray some oil on the rectangular pan after retrieving two more eggs from the fridge alongside the myeongnan. It's not salted, which is a shame, so I'll have to just fry it and hope the salt added during it makes it bearable.

    I look at the clock. It's 6:59. I still have time, but I can't spend time marinating so I go with my plan regardless.

    I set the roe on a plate and put it in the microwave for thirty seconds before getting to cracking both eggs on the long pan. Fire on medium, I toss the eggshells as the small pot begins steaming loudly. It takes some care and some scrambling, but while this isn't the best folded omelet I've cooked, it'll make due. I forgot to crack the eggs in a pot first, but it's no big deal, it's still edible.

    I retrieve the hard-boiled eggs on a plate to cool them for a little while. I can touch these without washing my hands, but unless I want the soup to be extra rich in calcium and to have a crunchy surprise, I still take care peeing the eggshells and the skin off before cutting them in half and dumping them in the broth.

    The microwave beeps loudly. I know, I know. I'll get to you soon don't you worry.

    I know Kirua doesn't like it when people do that since the yolk dissolves, but I like the taste of it and Tsumiki hasn't complained. Megumi has but I've left him half an egg on the plate so I really doubt he'll find an issue with the soup today. Plus, I've even remembered to clean the plate of the eggshells this time so there's no issue of presentation either.

    7:12, I still have time. Their school is… is relatively far, I admit. They should be down in six or seven minutes. 7:30 is the deadline. No matter what, I'm not going to be done before that.

    I turn the ramen off, then start to fry the roe. Rice got done a few minutes ago, so I prepared the Inari sushi with that. No time to properly prepare the rice for something different, so I just mix it with some sesame seeds I picked off the counter. I fry them at the same time. Maybe the flavor will pass over? Make things a little less bland…

    7:14 The shower turns on. That's Tsumiki. Megumi showers every odd day. I've still got time. The plan to make strawberry juice just went up in smoke. Do they sell juice boxes in their school? I sure hope so. I'm using some of the cash Gojo gave me for that. 'Use generously' and what not. It wasn't meant to be hoarded anyhow.

    I turn off the broth. It boiled a little. But it's not like the taste is going to be ruined. The inari is done, the rice is done, everything is done. All that's left is to serve and prepare their bento boxes.

    This is tiring. No, exhausting. I wonder how people put up with this…

    I retrieve three rice-bowls, three soup bowls, and one long plate. Soup bowls for miso, with two egg halves for Tsumiki because she likes them more than the grouch next door. Rice bowls to be topped by the recently fried roe. The long plate is for the pair to share the omelet. I didn't have time to cut it. Could some ham helped along with that? I reckon so, but there was no ham.

    "Morning Wada-san."
    7:22. Megumi shows up already dressed in uniform. His sister is down not two minutes after that. I still need to prepare the Bento Boxes.
    "Good morning Megumi."
    He mutters something about not liking being called that and I curse myself internally for forgetting that again.

    "Good morning Wada-san!"
    Music to my ears. No deadpans, just regularly speaking. You could stand to learn a bunch from that Me- I mean Fushiguro-kun.
    "Good morning Tsumiki."

    The pair begin eating without prompting, leaving me to puzzle out the Bento boxes. Alright, so rice… avocados? Does that… match? No, it doesn't. It's perfectly edible and I don't have time to do it over so they're going to deal with it. I left stips of omelet on the stove, so that's packet number two. Section two of packet number one… the Inari will do. Package number three?

    Uhh… Strawberries? Yeah, that works. Wash, cut, pack and tadah! Soup goes similarly, although since I ran out of eggs I put extra cubes of Tofu to compensate within the thermos. No time to tie it in a bow. Just put it off to the side besides their seats, and… slip one-thousand yen bills under each of the boxes. "I'm leaving money in case any of you want a sandwich or something."

    I leave out the part where I would have added that they could do so if they detested me or my cooking. I'm trying really hard here to say shit like that anymore.

    "Thank you Wada-San." Both of the kids say. Megu- I mean Fushiguro-kun barely audibly, but he says it nonetheless. Is he upset over…
    Ah, the broth. I shouldn't have cut the eggs. He probably would have enjoyed it more that way. Still, he's still finishing his bowl.

    I check the time.
    7:30. I got done in time. HAHA! I WIN! I'd start dancing if I wasn't so hungry. They're finishing up too which means they get to wash their dishes while I, queen of this household, get to enjoy my hard-earned meal as the kids pack away their lunches and head for the door.

    "Bye Wada-san." Tsumiki is the only one that says it. Fushiguro-kun (yes! I got it right), merely waves. I have come back, currently eating a bunch of needles very, very carefully.

    Hmm…

    Yeah, it could have used less egg yolk.

    …………………………………​



    I regret to inform the two homeowners that shortly after having lunch, I collapsed in my bed and didn't wake back up until they had returned from their class, and even then, when I woke up I felt like a corpse.

    Still, math is easy. Sixth grade. That's equations with sum and subtractions for you. Simple stuff. So… I didn't spend much time helping Tsumiki with it. She had the hang of it anyway. My pointers, I think, were mostly unneeded.

    So that's how I found myself eating reheated miso at night downstairs. Both of their rooms have desks for studying.. I had to eat something.

    But I don't feel like eating though. I just want to go back to bed.

    And it's not like the soup tastes bad either. It does taste a little too much of Yolk, but that's on me. The way I think I should have done it is one uncut egg, one cut egg. Maybe then the taste wouldn't have been as overwhelming…

    My phone rings, and in my haste to pick it up, one of my chopsticks falls to the floor. I frown at that, but I answer regardless.

    "Moshi Moshi? Hello?" I dump it in the sink alongside its partner. Might as well drink the bowl directly now anyhow.

    "Ah! Wada-San! How are you holding up?" That's Gojo's voice.

    Eating can wait.

    I take a long, drawn out sigh, leaning on the table. "I'm living."

    "Did you call your friends, like I told you to?" He questions, pointedly.

    … Right. Friends. Not classmates. They… they saw me as a friend, not an acquaintance. I should see them like that too. I really, really should. I'm trying. "I'm not telling them."

    "You don't have to." He clarifies. "You just have to call."

    … "Why?"

    "Because you spend too much time doing nothing!" He whines over the line as a brief lapse of air blares through the microphone before being abruptly silenced."Just call someone, arrange to meet up before classes, and I'll get off your case for a while. Got it?"

    "Alright."

    "..." Is he expecting me to say more?

    I… don't really know. "..."

    "..." I've been thinking about that table tennis show Fushiguro-kun was looking at the other day. It looks interesting, at the very least..

    "Bye." I say, tired and exasperated by the quiet.

    "Bye-bye Wada-sa–!" Gojo says that with a tone that reminds me of a child giggling, running through a field of flowers.

    I hung up.

    I look at my phone. I look at the soup.

    I… can handle the soup at a later date. Tomorrow, for breakfast. My own breakfast to be exact. I've got an image to maintain and serving stale soup helps no one.

    I browsed contacts for a while, after putting my plate of soup inside of the fridge.

    Friend-o… I remember naming Kabutoya Kirua that. I know she sees me as a friend now. But back then, I merely picked the name because it appeared in this american movie I watched with my mothe- mom. Nô kantorî, the English dub of it with subtitles. It's about this man who steals a suitcase from a mafia deal gone wrong and they send this creepy dude after him with a bob cut.

    Kirua used to remind me of that, a little. Save for the messier hair and the dyed stripes, her hair is identical. And how methodical she was too. She creeped me out. Still does, a little.

    I dial the number.

    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    Today I had an epiphany while I was eating popcorn.

    The real editor was inside of me all along.

    It was incredibly painful to dig her out.

    Los
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Good chapter, as usual.

    Still, now that Wanda's character arc has been resolved some, though I get it's still in progress, hopefully we can get to hag stuff. That's one of the big things I've been waiting for, along with more canon characters and wacky original techniques.
     
    Young Pyromancer said:
    Good chapter, as usual.

    Still, now that Wanda's character arc has been resolved some, though I get it's still in progress, hopefully we can get to hag stuff. That's one of the big things I've been waiting for, along with more canon characters and wacky original techniques.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The Hag may appear sooner rather than later.

    I will say this: she will show up before classes start back up. And it will be for a couple of chapters, too.
     
    Interlude 6 || Snippets of Lives
  • Threadmarks
    • Interlude 6​
    Snippets of Lives

    Bowling never was one of her favorite activities, but her friends seem to like it well enough. So she goes regardless, to the drab yellow of MWR Bowling Center. There's not much that catches her attention here. The burgers are good, though. That's something she's liked so far. They're kind of juicy but not too greasy and it kind of tastes like how she imagines Americans make burgers. After all, this was an American establishment…? Apparently, the only reason they even were allowed into the Navy base was because Eniko's parent's had their jobs be located entirely within the base, so here she was, eating what she assumes tastes like an authentic american-style burger within an american locale, surrounded by a myriad of voices both in japanese and a language she is almost entirely certain is english.

    "Oi, Kirua! You're up." A voice closer to the lane speaks, in undoubtedly not-english. Goro Eyuki is probably her second oldest friend. They go back all the way to grade school. Second grade. She remembers approaching them playing with blocks one recess and then

    "Oh, right. I'm up. Sorry. Nice Spare,'' She says flatly, snapping back to the present after losing herself on wondering if the smoothies here would really taste like smoothies actually made in the USA. She makes sure to put a pin on that thought and walk over to the bowling alley as the screen plays over Goro Eyuki's Spare for a solid minute before the ball they had all agreed on sharing rolls back on the belt. Pins are set.

    There's several things on her mind. None related to the number of curses flying around, or her resuming classes in a couple of weeks. More centered around her return home via the Yokusuka line later that day and wondering if she had left the ticket somewhere or if she would have to buy another one.

    The ball rolls.

    "Strike in one!" She says, as her small collection of childhood and old school friends clap politely despite her clearly mixed up language.

    …………………………………………….​



    She doesn't know what to think of the new houseguest. She's loud, sometimes rude, and very, very annoying even when it's clear she's trying to not to be. Despite this, she cleaned the house every day, told her off from doing the chores while she was around, and made Megumi pay more than fleeting attention to the Home Economics class. She's even told him off from fighting in school, although she isn't sure stopping fights by beating up both participants is a much better suggestion, but at least she hopes it won't get Megumi in trouble?

    This morning, he even managed to cook something that wasn't meatballs with rice. It was shocking, to say the least. His omurice and curry were not half bad. The opposite in fact, they were really good!

    Which led her to her current line of worries: the fact the girl had been missing since morning again. It's not like last time she had left she had done so without warning, but a part of her still erred on the side of weariness. Last time she had gone missing like this, they had returned with half of her skin an eerily oddly pale tone and feeling lightly of plastic.

    Was it so hard to communicate to someone else where they were planning to go and when they were planning to get back?

    …………………………………………….​


    He's swung a sword until his arms have wanted to fall off, been hit by blasts of cursed energy enough times until he wanted to collapse on the floor and pass out, and picked himself up from the floor enough to add a dozen more calluses onto his hands than the training sword. He'll go to bed beaten and bruised and he'll wake up again to do it again entirely willingly.

    Anything to make that kid, his cousin, have an easier life.

    Of course, these sorts of things, entering this sort of combat zen when everything makes sense. And he can see all the movements he could do to succeed in life never tend to last. Good times rarely do. And it's not like he can use his technique all the time to somehow see why he's been called to wait at the gate without a weapon. Pitifully low cursed energy reserves. Low enough to not see curses but barely high enough to have a technique.

    Two uses a day.

    And that's it. He doubts he'll improve it further. Everyone he knows is either telling him to drop the entire sorcery course or to become a Window.

    Foresight, as limited as it may be in his hands, could no doubt be useful in a non combatant role.

    But deep down, he knows he couldn't live with himself if he dropped out without managing to be a Grade Three sorcerer at least. Then… he'd at least be allowed to visit his cousin when he finally goes to school.

    Heaven knows the kid could use another friendly face. After what he did to his parents, everyone except Lady Someya looked at him weird. He's seen how the kid who may as well be mute pretends to not care, but it's getting to him. They don't even say anything that could be interpreted as slightly aggravating, they just… look at him all the time.

    It's not like he can control it. That's the Inumaki Family curse.

    Finally, he hears steps. He straightens up, swipes away some wrinkles off his kimono, and waits at the door for…

    "Principal Yaga!" He doesn't stop himself from exclaiming. Of all the people he expected to show up, Yaga wasn't one of them. Hell, he even expected that bore Azami would show up before him. It's not because he disliked him… it's simply because he's never seen Yaga out of the school at all. "Sir. I mean… Good evening Principal Yaga. How are you doing today?"

    "Hmmm," the man hums as an answer. He feels his hairs stand on end, keenly aware that he's painting his family as unprepared with his uncouthness all of the sudden. "Is Inukami-Sama present?"

    "Yessir." He answers with a slight nod. He's gone through life and death situations, lost his fear of Gojo, and he's still a babbling mess whenever Yaga shows up. He ought to be more composed, he thinks to himself. "Over in the living room. I mean the meeting room. Do you know the way?"

    "..." Silence was worse than an answer could ever be.

    "Right, I'll lead the way. No worries.``He quickly tries to amend this mistake by turning around and walking down the paved stone path, taking a few seconds every three or four steps to listen if the principal is following him. He is, but he still feels himself frayed just doing this.

    He doesn't know why, but he swears he hears the footsteps of a small, rotund thing behind Yaga. Soft steps, as if someone was wearing a pair of slippers or had fluffy feet. He doesn't turn around at this point, it's too late for that now.

    He's not the type to hallucinate, but he swears he saw a panda.


    …………………………………………….​


    "Hahaha! That costume rocks! I've always thought it looked rad in photos but up close it looks even better!" The exotic animal says, looking at his geto up and down before closing in to hold it against her fingers. He gently slaps the filthy hand that dares touch him and makes a mental note to wash the part that touched the oily skin later on with antibacterial soap. Probably take another bath after the one he already planned to take.

    "It's not a costume." He tries his best to not look resentful and puts on his best smile to at least pretend the slap was merely playful. "It's real silk. It stains easily."

    "Ah, right, sorry." The yellow-haired ape says, ducking behind the brand new curtains of his stage, and raises both of her hands before she completely disappears. "You're live in five."

    He has to stop himself from cursing the creature for such poor behavior. It's for the greater good, he reminds himself. If this message on this crummy American show about cults could reach a single foreign sorcerer, he'd call this a complete victory. Nevermind the fact his sect could barely be called a cult, nor the fact that he's going to be forced to disguise everything that he says in order to stop Jujutsu Tech from directly interfering with the broadcast.

    What a pain.

    No curses, no demonstrations. Just thinly veiled words that may or may not mean the same thing.

    His thoughts fade as the collected audience of well trained animals applaud within the confines of his recently repaired stadium as he hears the frankly mocking introduction and sneers in disgust.

    He could play the role of the dumb, gentle japanese man. What was how some monkeys described him? Like a buddha?

    Yes, he could play along quite well. "And here he is! Suguru Geto! Or Geto Suguru, should I say?"

    Some chuckles, go out in the audience, and he answers in between clenched teeth, "I go by Getō-Sama to my followers. But you can call me Getō-san."

    As if any of these creatures had gained the most minimal right to even consider themselves his equals.

    "Ah, alright, Getō-san. Has anybody told you your name sounds like Ghetto?" The so-called "host" says in a tone that may very well be mocking as the audience chuckles again.

    "Yes, yes. Now, this interview. To what do I owe the…" he parses the words in his mouth, tasting like a humid rag that's been used to swipe up sewage. "...pleasure?"

    "Of course, well, if you remember our mail, Mister Geto, " the man starts, but doesn't finish.

    "Get-ō," he corrects. This segment of this foreign culture show better get popular or he's going to regret not painting all of these faces across the pavement.

    "Getō, " he corrects. The interviewer brushes off his mistake with a practiced ease not many see.

    "All of this negativity in the world needs a solution!" Negativity stands in for curses. How poetic. How disgusting. "Lucky, I know of the perfect one."

    "Oh? Please tell."

    "I have decided…" He says, looking directly at the camera, begging for any sorcerer who may see this, "That I'll make a society of only the most talented and special people. This is the only way to prevent the release of misery onto the world."

    "Ooohhh that sounds interesting! But what about your other followers? We've seen them on the outside, just waiting passively. Are they part of your group too?" The man asks, leaning on the quickly furbished desk that was transported here

    "Oh, those people?" He's considering using bleach as a mouthwash right now, "they've accepted their role as the talentless. Those without sight see the negativity of the world, nor without the talent to make it better."
    "So the rank and file?" "And how do you know that someone sees the world like you do?"

    If he couldn't detect a fellow shaman, he'd hang himself. "I just do."

    Crowd shuffling uncomfortably, the interview continues for several more minutes. How controlling he is, what he requests of his "followers". What made up his "upper echelon" of his little cult.

    It goes on like that for several minutes, by the time it's over, he feels all too relieved to send an Assassin Curse after the crew and let it be dormant for several months as it works its way up the chain of command. He doesn't care if Jujutsu Tech exorcizes the spirit at this point. He knows that without Gojo, they won't risk a single direct move against him.
    ___…………………………………………___​

    Days later, a man named after his mother's favorite foreign author in the depths of Kenya sees the transmission in a small café while waiting for his sisters to come back from the market. The interview is nothing to write home about. To most, the interviewee sounded completely insane. He admits the man is most definitely someone unhinged. Completely insane? Perhaps too strong a word. And he decides…

    That this is a man who could reduce his family's indebtment to the world. No more curses, he understood that much. A world that didn't look down on his likes nor his family, for there would be no one looking down on them at all.

    For that, he ought to be king.

    …………………………………………….​


    If you keep doing this job, you'll die, you know?

    An errant thought strikes him as he sketches out a Sun Dog on a crisp white sheet. He thinks it looks well enough to burn. Then he pulls out a piece of white cardboard paper and begins sketching the thing in order to frame it. Perhaps he could use some watercolors on this one without coming across as too wasteful. He ought to not waste much.

    Nah, I don't think I plan on dying.

    The sketch is all kinds of fucked up. But it's just a sketch, so it's fine. He starts scribbling over it, coming a little more forceful without leaving marks that couldn't be erased off the paper. He ought to hurry before the sky changes. Or he goes blind. Looking at the sun like that can't be healthy, even with these cool glasses his mom got him. Apparently it was his dad's idea… but he was overseas, as he often is.

    Dying is not something you plan, mororn.

    Mororn? Is that a word? He isn't sure it is, but he humors himself in pretending it is. He starts labeling the colors to which he'll paint the thing. Just numbers. He's got his entire palette memorized forwards and backwards. Easier than the alphabet, he may say. He could probably recite his color palette faster than he could say all of the symbols in the hiragana or even romaji alphabets.

    Being a painter is a road that only leads to death by malnourishment. You'll die, I swear.

    He's used to this one. But he never planned on being a painter for anything other than a hobby. Although nevermind the fact he has no clue what else to do for a living. Electrician? Engineer? Something else? He knows from last summer working service isn't for him by merely observing his family. Do so. His older sister seemed positively miserable. Younger one too, even though she wasn't working yet. He felt an odd sadness at not being able to be the elder sibling Kazuko desired.

    There's no sorcerer who doesn't know another dead shaman. It's a road of corpses.

    Ah, anxiety, old friend, never change. It's like an old septic splinter at this point. Not like he knows what that is. It's the corpse road. Rainbow corpse road? Magical corpse road of death? He knows he's unlikely to grow old being a shaman, but as long as he's first, he doesn't mind. He's always deduced his life won't amount to much. Just bad jokes, drawings, and lame observations when he manages to see past the skin level of anything.

    He chuckles at that.

    He removes his sun-watching glasses and appreciates his completed product. More esoteric? Yeah, this works. He wonders if the other kids at the school would appreciate welcome back gifts. This definitely seems like a Kabutoya-San painting. Atsushi may simply enjoy an aurora, and he's the one least likely to judge, so he'll leave his referenceless painting last. Up next… something for Wada? Maybe? Yeah, a Moon Halo ought to do.


    …………………………………………….​


    Miu is dead.

    It's just something that he knows, but it's different from other things which he has known since his birth in Mount Aso all those years ago. It's less innate, more instinctual. Like a sneaking, creeping suspicion. It's still distasteful, like crawling through damp rain sewers.

    He tries convincing himself it's just a suspicion. After all, even when caught in a barrier, Miu was elusive enough to break away and slink off through a recently made hole. It's their entire philosophy. Humans can't catch or kill things which they don't suspect exist. Because despite the official number of registered special grade curses living across Japan, there are more than just eleven of them lurking about.

    He hates this damp air. But keeping himself warm would no doubt leave residuals. He settles for keeping the plugs on his head tight. Dirty water, blackened with dirt and grime that raises all the way up to his waist, was not something that he was repulsed with. Just something he merely disliked. And more because it was cold and water rather because it was dirty. He couldn't get sick. Nor poisoned. He'd have to scrub later but not much else.

    That's when any illusion of his feelings being suspicions are ground to dust and scattered off into the wind.

    Cursed Spirits don't leave bodies. The ones that do are called Cursed Corpses, and even they had a core which didn't leave a trace once it was destroyed.

    But this disgusting crib, built out materials repugnant even to him, out of discarded fat, diapers, food, and other hygienic products, had no doubt once belonged to his acquaintance.

    He isn't sure he'd call her a friend. But she was friendly enough with the others. Perhaps, he considers, he should have tried a little harder too.

    There is something within it, something kept hidden by the lingering remains of a dying technique. He remembers her telling him how this one thing that they had found in a home filled with smeared and painted corpses was something worth dying for. Something that would finally allow them all to live, for once. To live free of the fear of the schools, free from the humans, free from restraining their own nature.

    That's when the crying starts. It's surprisingly human-like. Like that of a newborn child screaming for air.

    He waddles over with haste. It feels curse-like. It should be safe.

    But when he lifts the cellophane veil of the crib… He finds a human infant.

    It looks human looking enough. Save for the stitches running all around its body. He lifts it up by a foot, dangles it about, this patchwork child. Its texture feels human enough. Smells like one, too. It just feels in this otherworldly sense like something else. Like a cursed womb of sorts, like the one that had told him to hurry here, or the other one Fujita had found in the aquarium eating away at a great white shark.

    He couldn't have dropped something quicker than when he feels it touch him beyond what feelings and words could describe. The head lands at an awkward angle of the crib, denting and deforming and somehow twisting back into shape as the patchwork child with mismatched eyes giggles in apparent amusement at being dropped in such a way a normal child would have instantly perished.

    He smiles back.

    This creature, this curse, this thing… is something utterly abominable.


    Chapter End​

    Post-Chapter Notes:
    Yes, there are dates where these events take place. No, they're not in chronological order. No, I'm not explicitly saying which character each segment is focusing on either. Will I answer questions on the order or the times or the characters? Or about what happens after any of these minor cliffhangers? No, I don't think I will.

    Feel free to discuss though. Perhaps bouncing ideas around will uncover a hint to what will happen next. Or what has already happened at the present time of the story.

    Chapter up soon. Maybe followed by an Omake focused on an outline for when I was planning this. Who knows?


    Los
     
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    • Thanks for the update.

    Also, for writing one of the fics that got me into Jujutsu Kaisen. I must say, reading your story before reading the manga was an extremely confusing experience, though still very enjoyable.

    So, as for the interlude, most of it is just day to day stuff and much needed characterisation for Megumis sister as well as Wadas classmates. Wadas shenanigans are fun to read, but she is terrible at giving much insight about the people she meets with, so interludes are necessary for understanding them better.

    The last POV is very likely to be Jogo, because he was born in Mount Aso which is a volcano, and he is a special grade curse with plugged in ears. Apparently, he finds Mahito in this interlude, because who else could a human-like curse with a patched up face with missmatched eyes, shapeshifting and the ability to touch someone beyond what feelings and words could describe be?

    The circumstances are weird though, especially this Miu, who apparently was an unregistered special grade curse acquaintanced with Jogo and "the others", presumably other sentient curses? Hanami, Dagon? Probably not the latter, he seemed to be the youngest of the Disaster Curses given he was still in his Cursed Womb during the Shibuya incident. Also, apparently someone called Fujita discovered a Cursed Womb in an aquarium, so if i were a betting man I'd say that one is Dagon. Hanami would also be weird, given that Jogo flipped out at her/him during their earliest appearance because he couldn't understand his/her way of talking. They did not seem like old acquaintances. Perhaps most of Jogos allies were killed during Getos "Night Parade of 1000 Demons", he had a few Special Grade curses under his control, like the one that fought Todo.

    Given that Miu died recently and in a place that was damp, cold, and full of human refuse, I assume she was the Special Grade Human-Snake hybrid Cursed Corpse that Azamis head-flatmate exorcised in Chapter 5 in Tokyos rain drainage system ? It's very strange that Miu would act as a nurse to the newborn Mahito, building him a crib and protecting him with a technique even after her death.

    Aloss said:
    He remembers her telling him how this one thing that they had found in a home filled with smeared and painted corpses was something worth dying for.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    That quote in particular is very curious. Painted Corpses... Are you implying that this Mahito is a human/curse hybrid like the Death Paintings? Pretty sure he is a fully fledged curse in canon... Though his blood in the anime is red instead of violet...
     
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