Chapter Text
She had always been aware of things. From the moment she drew her first breath, she could sense that something was different within her. A pulse beating other than her heart. An infant couldn’t understand what it was, but she figured that pulse was how she could see the little blobs of darkness lurking in the corner of the room. Looking. Staring at her, as if it was waiting for something.
Over time, her infant self began to understand that not everyone could see those dark globs, sometimes dark figures. She remembered one of those shadows standing in her cousin’s kitchen. She tried to tell her mother about it, but a four-year-old’s words are only gibberish to an adult’s ears. They told her that her imaginary friend would not harm her if she believed that it was harmful. She followed their instructions, whispering in her string of broken words for it to go away. Her imaginary friend remained for another four days, inching ever closer to her cousin. A step closer every day. Sometimes it looked at her with its gaping eyes and bleeding mouth, but its attention was always on her cousin.
A week after they left, her cousin fell to his death from the balcony of the house.
At first, she didn’t care. Her mother did, but accidents were commonplace for children, and the news passed by quietly. But she knew that her imaginary friend had been the culprit. Pushed her cousin to the death. They were imaginary friends to her no more. No imaginary friend would kill her cousin. No imaginary friend would look at her with bloodthirst.
After that incident, she became more aware of the black blobs around her. And the shadows. There were more of them, and they began to inch closer to her each day. She would scream, call for her mother’s protection. But she couldn’t see them and she would try to calm her down in a midst of confusion and worry of her own child. She could tell what her mother was thinking.
Is something wrong with my child?
Time didn’t give her long to answer, as strange occurrences began to happen around her. Car accidents, fallen trees, inexplicable deaths. Her mother couldn’t see them, but there were black blobs and shadows every time they happened. She would scream and plead for her mother to save her. Her mother took too long to realise that this matter was beyond her, that she needed help.
Rain poured that morning, splattering against the roof tiles like a taunt to her mother. Her mother was calling one of the temples as thunder cracked just beyond the window. The temple told her to come very next day, and once the call was done, her mother immediately rushed to her crying daughter.
Shadows were surrounding her. Hundreds of blobs squeezing with each other.
Her mother tried to calm her down with a simple lullaby, but she only cried louder. Wishing to warn her mother of the fangs above her.
Dark fangs which sunk into her neck like it was nothing but wool, and ripped her body apart like it was frail fabric. Red splattered across the room, towards her, everywhere. Her mother’s lullaby stopped.
The fangs loomed over her. She could feel its thirst for her, and this time it was real.
All she could think of at that time was the fact that she didn’t want to die.
And then there was a bright light.
oOo
“Did you sense that, Yaga?
Twenty-five-year-old Masamichi Yaga managed a snort as he chased after his partner of the day, Yamamoto Sakura, who was running daintily on top of the roofs of Hiroshima. Sakura was three years his senior, with angry pink eyes and sharp jagged hair kept together in a messy ponytail. She had originally been stationed in Sapporo, but a shortage in manpower compelled the School to send them to investigate strange occurrences in Hiroshima.
“Even a student Sorcerer can sense that,” Yaga replied. “I would have been a dead body if I couldn’t sense Cursed Energy that strong.”
“Right. I keep forgetting that you’re not that small child anymore,” chuckled Sakura, quickening her pace.
A blink was all she needed to almost disappear from his eyes. Yaga huffed and tried to catch up. Unlike him, who had decided that teaching was his calling after graduating Jujutsu High, Sakura had always been an active Jujutsu Sorcerer. Years of honed experience guaranteed her a superior speed, strength and agility compared to Yaga. But that didn’t justify her constantly trying to leave him behind, or anyone that she’s been working with.
“You know, I think this is all a sham. Strange occurrences and that. It’s just the season, that’s all. They shouldn’t need 2 sorcerers like us,” Sakura remarked.
Her reputation of being annoying precedes her, thought Yaga, but he couldn’t disagree with her. Typically, stress levels peaked in May, when students rush for their final exams and new employees realise that they were entering the adult world, where school couldn’t protect them anymore.
However, no level of student stress of employer mistreatment could explain the five, at least Grade 2 Curses surrounding a small apartment complex. Nor could it explain the surge of Cursed Energy radiating from a specific unit. Sakura stopped on her tracks, eyes wildly observing the occurrence. The smile on her face faded as quickly as they had arrived.
Something is wrong, Yaga realised as he joined her. At first glance, nothing was wrong about the energy from the room. Human energy. A powerful Sorcerer. But upon closer scrutiny, he noticed a disturbance in it. A darkness swelling with every breath the person takes. A darkness that could only be associated with a Curse.
“A Cursed Offering,” Yaga declared. “And a powerful one at that. But I cannot tell if they are in the process of turning or not.”
“Yes, the Cursed Energy seems to be a mix of both human and a Curse,” Sakura added. “Nostalgic. The last time we saw a Cursed Offering, it was ten years ago.”
“We should inform the higher-ups.”
“No. They’ll kill them straight. Let’s clear the area first,” Sakura said calmly. Yaga stared at her behind his sunglasses.
“You do remember what happens the last time a Cursed Offering transformed, right?” he demanded.
Sakura scoffed as she took steps closer to the apartment complex. None of the Curses noticed her with her expert concealment technique. “Three dead, I know. I was there,” Sakura retorted.
Yaga sighed, taking mental note of the number of Curses and how to best approach them. “What made you think this is the best course of action?” he asked.
Sakura shrugged nonchalantly. “Just a hunch. Let’s finish this before the higher-ups notice.”
Another thing about Yamamoto Sakura was that, 90% of the time, she worked on her instincts in the battlefield rather than pure logic. Other Sorcerers were often unnerved by this working style, but Yaga had worked with her long enough to trust her senses.
Yaga summoned his Cursed Corpses, all appearing as cute plush toys for children which transformed into monstrous beasts upon the detection of Curses in front of them. As the Cursed Corpses darted towards their prey, Sakura knelt and touched the concrete ground. “Cursed Technique: Roots of Hell,” she chanted.
Red tendrils sprouted from the ground, dragging the Curses towards them. Yaga’s Cursed Corpses ripped the Curses into pieces, so easily that in the span of minutes all of them were disintegrating into dust.
Sakura narrowed her eyes and scowled. “That’s too easy.”
“I sure hope that your instinct with this Cursed Offering is right,” Yaga whispered as they made their way to the apartment. “And please, Yamamoto-san, once your thirst is quenched—”
“I’ll exorcise the Cursed Offering if needed,” Sakura assured Yaga.
Yaga had learnt to trust Sakura over the years, but her obsession with the Cursed Offering had run so deep that that trust was simply a manner of him respecting his senior, not her capabilities. Not many Sorcerer encountered a Cursed Offering and survived to live the tale. Perhaps the encounter had messed with her brains.
Before they entered the room, Sakura stopped and looked at Yaga. “I do hope that this is your first and last time seeing a Cursed Offering,” she whispered.
Yaga shuddered at the remark, but the door was open first before he could question. Yaga’s Cursed Corpses spilled into the room, ready to engage the Cursed Offering, and Sakura’s palms were on the wall. But they stopped moving when they saw the Cursed Offering—no, the person who was supposed to be a transformed Cursed Offering.
In the centre of the room was none other than a four-year-old girl, sitting in front of a mangled corpse of a woman whose head was torn off from her torso. Blood drenched over her small figure, the same colour as her eyes. Another corpse was right behind the woman—a disintegrating lump of Curse flesh. The child was staring blankly at the woman, tears drying from her small face.
“The Cursed Offering… Is a little girl,” Yaga muttered. Sakura crouched next to the girl without worry, while Yaga took a step back. “But that is impossible. All previously recorded Cursed Offering only manifest themselves when they’re at least 15 years old. Unless—”
Sakura wiped the blood from the child’s face. “She is unlike other Cursed Offerings,” whispered Sakura, before her lips curved into a grin. “She is a Jujutsu Sorcerer, unlike the other Cursed Offerings. A powerful one. An anomaly.”
“Gods… She was the one who killed the Curse, wasn’t she?” Yaga asked, but the scene answered his question. “So… Should we kill her or not?”
Jujutsu Sorcerers were given a standard protocol when encountering a Cursed Offering: kill it, before or after it has transformed. No human being can withstand the Corruption consuming them, and they would transform into a Curse in the end.
The girl suddenly grabbed Sakura’s wrist. “Are there more of them out there? Those monsters that killed mom?” she whispered.
Sakura didn’t answer and instead locked her gaze with the girl’s. A long moment passed between them, a silent conversation.
“This girl, she is slowing down her own Corruption,” Sakura declared. Another grin pulled at her lips. “An anomaly. She is our opportunity.”
“You don’t want to kill her,” chuckled Yaga. “Yamamoto-san. This might get ourselves killed.”
“The fact that you’re saying ‘we’, means that you’re agreeable.”
Yaga didn’t respond. For all its worth, an anomaly was more important than continuously fighting the Cursed Offerings blindly. An anomaly could give them clues on the inner workings of this Curse, and perhaps finally defeat the source of all of it: the Shadow Eater.
Yaga pulled Sakura away from the girl. “They are not going to agree with this. It’s too risky. What if the girl turns along the way?” he hissed.
“We’re giving them both someone to study and a powerful Jujutsu Sorcerer,” Sakura argued, her grin never leaving her face. “If we can train her, she might prove useful to track down the Shadow Eater.”
“We don’t know if she has a family or not.”
“Don’t be silly. No family would want a bad luck charm,” she said blatantly. Yaga wanted to protest further, convince himself that this was a thoroughly bad idea, but Sakura had scooted back to the child.
“Say, kid, I am giving you a choice. I can either kill you and end your misery here…” Sakura glanced at Yaga. “Or you can come with me. Become strong and kill those monsters that killed your mom. It’s not going to be a painless journey, but your mom won’t die in vain.”
That’s not how a person should talk to a kid! Yaga thought. A kid who had lost her mother no less!
Then he heard it. A determination hinted in her voice as she said, “I don’t want to die.” A breath she took, before she continued, “And I don’t want the others to die too.”
No kid sane enough would choose any of the option. She should have cried, should have punched Sakura away, should have asked for her to make the choice for her. But there she was, calmly deciding her fate given by a woman she had just met. Aware of the choice that she was making, of the path she was carving by her childish voice.
This child was born to be an insane Jujutsu Sorcerer.
“Then you have my support, little girl,” Sakura said. “And Yaga’s too, right?”
“Wait, don’t drag me to this—” Yaga stopped and swallowed. He wasn’t deluded in capturing the Shadow Eater, the source of the Cursed Offerings, like Sakura did. But something about this child told him that she would, in her own way, make a mark on the modern Jujutsu world. “You know what, Yamamoto-san. I think I will let this pass. But don’t drag me when they sentence you to death.”
“Nah, that won’t happen,” Sakura lightly said. She turned to the child at hand, never wavering. “So, kid. What’s your name?”
The girl looked at her red palm and curled her fingers into a fist.
“Akatsuki Kana.”