Chapter 24
Live in the Moment
July 18 Last day of school before summer break. Not like Jujutsu Tech has those. One can ask for one at a cost to score on one's courses, so there's no way I'm doing that, I'm the class president! I should be a role model. And thus, I solemnly vow to be one against my better judgment.
Good news, I'm starting missions again starting next week! Bad news: it turns out I just had to repeat what I did against the Cultie head. That snapping. The redirection. That's what Kusakabe was trying to get me to look after all this time. And all that time spent trying to mold something inherently volatile?
I hated to admit it, but he still had a point. I could dispel my puppets without having them spontaneously explode on me now. That and apparently imbuing the property into my blows, even if they didn't feel that different (seriously what was that meant to mean?). This all in addition to… well, better cursed energy control, which he claimed was foundational to barrier techniques. He apparently also wanted me to try and use the force generated by the snaps to boost my blows or movement or something, but I didn't pay much attention. Not on purpose. It was an accident. I was too busy celebrating over being given the go on going back to abandoned houses to kick the shit out of ghosts.
It really did feel like a return to form. Like I was revisiting the past activities I took while out on the streets. This required celebrating.
Well, the fourth year was out, and Kirua and the others were going to return at night time once their mission was over. So that only left the first years. One was recovering in their room, and the other one was out on a mission too.
Apparently, Summer is quite the busy season for Shamans.
Well, I guess it's time to recruit Hoshi for one of the few situations that actually merited sharing my special soda reserve. Why not even buy some snacks off the vending machine too? I got a stipend from the school. I could afford it. Life is meant to be lived after all. Money is meant to stimulate the economy (or is it? All my knowledge of it is from videogames. Why haven't I been able to game the system yet?). I think while I rationally knew I could end in the street any second now, this was something that merited risking financial stability over.
Movie night! I haven't had one of those since I usually spend all my time (very legally) watching movies on my phone while not practicing, but there's got to be one I haven't watched yet. What about this one? Circuit. Released 2001. Seems interesting! I bet no one will be traumatized. After all, reality beats fiction whenever it comes to supernatural horror.
……………………………
Out of all the students in Jujutsu Tech, there's only three that stayed for summer. Me. Atsushi, and Hoshi. It's only natural that two weeks into the Summer Break,
August 11, we'd be just lazing around while trying to not die of a heat-stroke inside of one of the many empty classrooms that had air conditioners.
Just… laying on a table, wearing shorts and a shirt, trying to not look too closely at the skin that was too pale to be my original skin, before an idea strikes me for impressing Hoshi with how much of a superior Senior I was over the other dude.
"So! Hoshi," I start with a clap to murder the silence and stand above the ambiance of the air conditioner working facing in the direction where my junior was busy looking at their phone," between me and this other dude, who do you think is a more productive member of society?"
"I'm more surprised you're able to function as a human being at all." Atsushi rudely (and flatly) interrupts from his corner where he's resting on a throne made out of stacked chairs..
"Oh shut up."
"I'm serious," he clarifies with a tone that may be interpreted for almost concern, "even when you promise not to, you always return to have Miss Ieri patch you back together. You're way too unbothered by seeing your own insides become outsides. You're the person that ends up packaging their lost fingers with raw beef and pretending nothing is wrong."
Hoshi squirms in discomfort in the background. They wanna leave. I gotta salvage this somehow from the tyrannical usage of poor analogies.
"Mean." I stick out my tongue at him. Him and his bitter, bitter sense of humor. "Also totally a lie. I'm super cautious. You'll never see me being careless."
I stand up to get a glass of water and end up knocking the chair tucked under the desk. Oops. Well, it's not mine, so… it's not my problem. Just gotta check under the desk before I actually go to the water cooler in the corner of the room. No use in being careless with being thorough in making sure there's no ghosts underneath the desk waiting to eat me. Those two are whispering about me. No doubt relating to the totally fantastic movie I introduced to the pair a couple of weeks back. I'm all too eager to ask smugly about once I get back to the teacher's desk.
"So you always check under the desks?" Hoshi asks, actually leaning forwards from their corner in front of the closet.
I nod enthusiastically, I can't help but admit to the world I've probably won her over already.. "Yeah! See? Not careless at all. I'm
super cautious."
"After your movie night you mean." He nonchalantly explains, rolling a hand around before he leaps off his mountain of chairs and lands with barely a sound. "You've checked to make sure there's no Vengeful Spirits you're not able to sense under your bed and–."
"S-SSHUT up." You… you… "That's not true! Slander! Lies!"
Hoshi giggles. Why? I mean, I guess it's good that they're smiling…
……………………………
Okay. So these were too weak to incarnate correctly. Which means I picked out the wrong ones. But alas… My memory isn't that good.
If the masses of poisoned-looking flesh and misshapen bone spurs were any indication, aren't on a pathway to death, I wonder what is, really- Limbs almost-emerging from the back or shoulders, fingers too babylike but too big to be practical. Only one is alive after twenty minutes of observation, and that's the one who has their entire right swollen to a point where pinkish red flesh oozes blood plasma and corrosive pus in equal measures.
I can safely call my curiosity and experiment resolved, even if it did not go the way I wanted.
Now… I dial a particular number. This phone is stolen and I'm thrashing it anyway. Nothing of value is being transmitted through the call anyway.
"Moshi mosh? Who is calling this number?"
"It's me. I know you hate revisiting old projects, but I think you may be interested in doing your own research on species resembling a Panda. I'm leaving my notes on site."
"And where is this place? A Panda you say? Oh my!"
"Oh, y'know, the sewers have a room close to the school. You know where. It's where you met up with friends, once or twice. You'll be pleased to know that there's no accident at all, when regarding th–"
She hangs up. I think that piqued her interest. It's a discarable in how I stole it. Crushing it barely hurts. Healing the hand of the girl without leaving residuals is a bit harder.
Oh, well, time will tell if she does something with the info. I have to write down notes on Abrupt Mutation Cursed Corpses. This body doesn't have long to live, anyway. Could be curious to see what the techniques of these three are, if they keep them through being a cursed corpse in the future.
……………………………
August 30
Two days before the end of summer break, Gojo comes and asks me if I'd be willing to help Megumi get some hands-on experience exorcizing a school. Clean the bad spirits and such. Apparently, Megumi had plenty of experience doing this sort of thing, but I have my suspicions as to why I'm being asked to lead this one time. He wants me! As a shining example, no less. Because after summer, there's a lot of curses, and shamans are in high demand or whatever.
Thus, I'm beating the tar out of grade four and grade three curses while two oppositely coloured dogs pick apart anything that's left. Black and white. I wonder if he's named them.
"So… those dogs got names? Divine dogs this, divine dogs that, but do they have names?"
"No." He answers too quickly to not have thought of an answer in advance.
"Hmm…" that leads to only one conclusion. There's two kinds of people who pre-prepare answers. The deviously prepared, and the "liars. I mean liar. Whatever."
A response isn't humored. Curses are thinning out, at least. Maybe it's a trap, but it's not like we can't handle it. Just sixteen (wow! I never believed I'd live this long!) and a sassy, borderline antisocial eleven year old going through the motions of… just. Crushing bugs. I mean there was a big one earlier but it kind of popped like a tick held over a matchstick once I started going wild on it.
Thank the heavens that curses evaporate. I would have had to take a bath otherwise.
"So! Clean the whole school. I think this is like… stuff only Jujutsu Tech students go on, right?"
He shrugs. "Not really."
"Whut. What?"
"Children with valuable techniques in big clans are taken to watch exorcisms from as young as they're five."
"What!?" "Who'd… you know, I don't wanna ask."
He hums in response. Hummm with a lot of 'm's because, well, it's a very long hum. Hummmmmmm. That's how long it was, I imagine, should I have to put pen to paper. It does little to dissuade this train of thought. Dogs tearing into curses and when I was this age I was sending off inflatable puppets to do the same thing, and for what? Finding a way to live I could be guilt free from?
I never even realized he was doing the same thing as I until right now. There's no need to conserve curse energy to blast apart the rabble that gets close. Just ejecting curse energy like a ball of choleric window-shattering because this conversation is more important, because… "Actually, this is just as fucked! You're what, eleven?"
"I'm turning twelve in December…" he mumbles, as if it made that big of a difference that he's twelve rather than eleven. Wow. Such an amazing difference. It's rather impressive.
"That doesn't make it better, you know!" The curses around us lose importance, I really gotta make Megumi understand this before we get to the futsal field. That's the end of the school, after all. No more curses left to exorcise when we get to that point. "I realize
my upbringing is fucked because I did a good third of it, but you shouldn't…"
What. Shouldn't what? Shouldn't there not be this sort of current giving me chills when I open the doors to the futsal field? Wouldn't it be better if I had bait when I see what's cocooned in the center, folded upon layers upon layers of discarded skin and paper and who knows what else? It emerged from the ground recently. Dirt clinging to it still as it had just ejected itself from the center of the field, leaving a perfectly sized hole for a would be buried Hitobashira, though it could have never been practiced in this location and certainly not in a futsal field of a middling school, but that's the image conjured to mind anyway.
Shouldn't Megumi
not have to see this?
"Oh shit." It's my voice. It escapes the confines of my mouth as something barely above a whisper.
It's dormant, at least. I have that to be thankful of. I grimace as I think back to having possibly used Megumi as bait. He's looking at me, expectantly. That same look plastered onto his face. A perfect poker player he would be if he was into gambling and maybe not eleven turning twelve in December.
I'm the senpai, no? The upperclasswoman. Or will be. He's studying Jujutsu tech, right? I'd be a graduate of one year by then. Gotta be a good example.
Appear aloof, unbothered. That's what upperclasspeople are good for. I put on a brave face, and do my best at trying to explain this in a way only a kid should understand.
"I'm sorry, Fushiguro. I guess here's where we both die if Gojo doesn't arrive." Rule number one of being a shaman: is to know when to fold your cards. Megumi ought to learn that rather than furrowing his brow at everything. He'll have forehead lines before he's twenty like that. "Let's just leave it before it dares wake up and cordon the field off."
He furrows his brow even further, deeper in thought. He seems discontent with
this assessment. I would be too, if I had learnt I was going to die before I even reached puberty for being too loud and full of energy. I gotta explain myself further, I think.
"That cursed womb is at
least Semi-Grade 1. At
least. But… I don't know if it'll hatch. Chances are Gojo knew about it and wanted us to clear it rabble so he could focus on the big curse without annoyances. Now let's leave very carefully before it hatches and…"
Ca-
crack. Spiderwebs made out of cracks from all over the cocoon. I have no need of knowing what is inside of that thing to know it's bad. Really bad.
Yup. I spoke too soon. Grabbing Megumi's hand, I do my best to bolt it out of this place. Maybe I cleaned up too quickly. If Fushiguro was alone, maybe he'd have taken close to two hours cleaning up the rabble and mooks and the…
He pulls free just before I slam the door behind us… not like it would have done much. I can spot less ominous curses slowly crowding up the hallway. I mean, I guess we could fight through them but…
Fushiguro is thinking of something. He's carefully deliberating. The kid is too much. He
thinks too much. Self-sacrifices at a moment's instant if it'll make his angel of a sister happier. It's bad for him. He's going to refuse to go unless I force him to. I can't let him throw his life away even if Gojo has claimed this should be easy for us.
Section: Left Forearm (Four Different Times)
Two pieces of skin. One's the payload, one's the grabby. Squeeze them together between my palms after ripping them off, and shoot at the suicidal eleven year old to pull him back. With a massive clap as cursed energy collapses outwards, the tatters of an almost-person shoot out, wrapping around the pre-teen (and associated dogs) before I heft them through the doorway.
Pretty sure the way he rolls to a halt while wrapped around skin and bouncing once off the tiled floor qualifies me for the abuse of my senior privileges. I don't care. Whatever he was planning, I won't see it or let him carry it out or even speak to me about it. He's already tearing himself free. I guess that makes sense. I didn't make that one to last.
Section: Right Forearm (Three Different Times)
Fun fact: I learnt a thing or two about biology class, which is a miracle given I generally struggle to pay attention to those pre-recorded classes. If I wrap the skin sheets I just took out, I can have them focus on different roles while making a single entity. One for the muscles, push and pull and all that. One for the flesh, since skin isn't dense enough for bones, and one as a protective layer. In other words, skin made out of skin reinforced with cursed energy. Something I've taken to calling
Imperfect Almost-Human Projection. It's almost as fast and agile as I am, even if it lasts one third of the time as a regular puppet. Five minutes or so. Should be enough to get him out of here.
"Make sure he doesn't come back to the Futsal field. I don't want Tsumiki to get pissed at me for letting her brother die."
Now, that terrible curse will likely chase after both of us if someone doesn't stay to stall, and as much as I'm proud of my newly minted abominations, I doubt they'll be able to do much of anything against this thing, whatever it is. Fushiguro will likely come back unless I clog the path somehow, thus…
Section: Right Shoulder (Two Different Times)
Section: Left Shoulder (Two Different Times)
The fleshly bubbled and humid mangle of stretched out almost-people clogging up with way should be enough to stop him from taking the fastest available route. They're filled mostly with air, but their limbs are well braided together and all holding the door shut… and he has those other curses to deal with, alongside the
Imperfect Almost-Human Projection trying to drag him outside the curtain.
Now then… time to die in sty-
Wait. No. I can't die. I promised Hoshi I'd back them up whenever they decided to exit the…. and Tsumiki, Kirua, and Shigure would be sad. Especially after how lame my birthday gifts were… I don't want to be remembered as the lame gift-giver…
Ugh, what an annoyance.
Hag, you got my back?
I'd rather, but you know how it is.
Good talk.
Now… this cocoon… after the initial cracking, it really hasn't done much. Perfectly froz- wait.
Clouds are meant to move when it's this windy. A quick tilt of my entire body reveals that, yes, this entire thing is some sort of… frozen snapshot? Frozen picture?
Oh fuc-!
It's instinctual to deflect the feeler when it shoots out, by now. Class upon class of staring at sticks and it flies next to my face, and I don't even feel it carving into the side of my head.
The floor holds the top of my right earlobe and warmth and twitching and pain run down with it.
That part of the ear isn't necessary to hear, right? Right!?
I could grow it back for you.
I'd rather keep you as far away from Fushiguro as I can, I'm sure you'd understand.
Same with your other injuries.
Fuck off.
Do as you please.
A chitinous hand grasps onto my face and I keep it away just in time to receive a double palm strike to the abdomen. Everything spins. Crash through a wall, onto an office desk, and roll out of the way as the month-person-thing tries to follow up with a curb-stop.
I got distracted. Talking to the hag.
Four arms and they all try to beat me to the tar at the same time. Block one and three more come to the exposed areas. Jaw, chest, boob, abdomen, leg. One failure after another aches through my flesh and blood from my exposed skin and each one makes the nausea grow further and further and–
Four arms? I can do that, too.
Section: Lower back(Two Different Times)
Folded into themselves, the auxiliary limbs don't do much in the way of actually stopping the blows which come one after another and force me out of the ruined office onto the school hallways to the back. Deflection is crucial, keeping my body aware and auxiliary limbs at the ready and popping my reinforcement just as things hit will ensure my survival. I always gotta keep my distance. No way of knowing if the feeler can shoot out again but I'm entirely willing to bet it can. I only have to hold out for… what. Twenty minutes? That's good, right?
Only eighteen minutes to go then!
I should have noticed something was wrong when it stopped moving. This thing the height of the hallway and with wings the size of me on a good day and built like a steel beam into muscles that shouldn't exist because neither chitin nor bugs work like that and they specially shouldn't when the head of the thing is perfectly identical to a moth's, rising above a sea of fluff that hurt to touch because I had tried going for the neck a bit earlier.
By the time I realize this, I'm already flying from a punch to the face into a classroom and having glass and broken up desks dig into my back as I skid to a halt next to a wall. The otherside of the wall. Outside the school. Because concrete sure isn't enough to stop me.
Oh. Hey. Gojo is there. Did he enter through the hole I left in the wall? That was considerate of me. Just gotta stand up. Twitchy pained legs. Everything looks red. Hearing is weird. Stumble and flop and look around fine.
"Oh hyeeey…" I try to smile. I think a front tooth fell out as I did that. It hurts too much to tell.
"You don't look too good." Hey may have commented or maybe I just imagined that because his lips moved but sure as hell no sound came out.
"Naaah… nonsseenese…" I flap my arm about awkwardly, splattering blood that stops mid air as my dismissal causes my entire left side to ache. Everything hurts. Breathing hurts. It's less painful than being broken by the river thing or being skinned alive or whatever… It's good, really. "Hee's' yiour po-prooblem naow, suckerrr."
Two more steps and the world goes dark.
……………………………
August 31
I only spent one day in the infirmary today. Apparently, I arrived with my injuries already healed. This did not, in fact, heal me from my sudden onset vitiligo. Scars are forever, I guess. My ear is back! And so is my nose. Shame about my hair. It looks like I shaved an entire side of my head. It's… bad. I look like one of those delinquents they're always showing in the news… The entire left side of my head apparently got sheared off and healed back. And hair does not heal, even when the hag does things.
To sigh and wait outside a long, drawn out summer day… at least someone is visiting today. Not me, mind you. But I can still hang out. I asked and they said so. Through the group chat. Because apparently, Atsushi doesn't mind it that much…? I mean, Gojo did say he viewed me as a friend…
"Hey Shigure."
"Azami! Did you fight a truck again? You just came out of the infirmary." He rushes up the stairs, like some sort of eager puppy, sketchbook in hand. I swear he never leaves that thing behind. I should ask him what he's drawing nowadays. Maybe I can coax him into getting another painting from him… later.
"Nah…" Not that I'd ever admit to fighting Geto. That was an embarrassing showing. If I could have that fight scrubbed from the internet again I'd do it. "just a semi-grade one curse."
"Did you win?" Hope flashes across his eyes. He's a semi-grade one shaman, right? That curse is supposedly at a level he could have exorcized…
I gotta save face. Look alike. Pretend shaving the side of your head was intentional rather than having it scraped against a fist. "Totally."
"Are you getting paid for it?" He plops right next to me on the stone bench as he follows the direction my eyes are pointing at to admire a bird climbing up the side of a tree with tiny little hops. "That'd be great. I heard grade one shamans get paid a whole lot. As in they get triple what a service worker makes per curse of their grade exorcized, or something. Not that I'd now. They only ever pay students a stipend. The fund is for when they graduate."
"Naaah." I wave my hand around, not splattering my blood and loose muscles around since they're nice and contained. "Sure wish though. That's a lot of money. I could afford another movie night with everyone."
His interest is deeply philosophical. Almost incomprehensibly profound. Words do not exist to describe the "ooo" sound he makes other than, perhaps, it sounds like a seal. "Any interesting picks? Can I suggest something?"
"Yeah. But we're totally watching
all of Sailor Moon, if I'm given the choice. I made a mistake picking a horror movie to begin with."
……………………………
September 8.
Today is the day where I think I will die. I don't think anyone else has noticed, but there's a group of shamans entering the school ground, and there's no alarm bells ringing. I'm the only one who seems to have noticed this, too. Gojo is off doing… whatever, the others are stuck watching those pre-recorded classes, and I… I'm here, frozen mid-break, by noting whoever these fools are. Wearing student uniforms mid-school season, talking amongst each other like good friends… do they really think it's enough to fool me? Pretending to be an entire student delegation at a school supposed to be secret?
They won't know what hit them.
Chapter End
Post-Chapter Notes:
Kill your darlings is probably the best writing tip I've ever heard. I scraped the prior version of this chapter and suddenly the words started flowing once I took the story in a different direction. Also I'm totally going to have to go back to edit who healed Azami after the Geto fight… ah. Who's not had their technique revealed in the Geto group yet? Manami Suda? She seems like an asshole… damn. Welp, serves me right, trying to guess the technique of someone whom I totally didn't know wasn't going to reappear again.
Next chapter is something I've been looking forward to since I started the fic. Well, not
the scene, but one of them. Azami's first exchange event.
