Chapter Text
Having already been through both puberty and high school once, the 2nd time around was less interesting. Today was Monday, which meant two blue pills, one of the large beige ones, and the ever-present small round white ones. His brain was disjointed; one thought drifting to the next meant he had to be careful. Had to count and recount the dosage. Easier to just take what MoMo handed him without asking questions, but Naoki was trying to be more proactive with his health, which meant he did it himself.
Momo always checked, Momo thought they helped. Momo was wrong.
She meant well.
Focus
Right.
Monday.
First day of high school in Naoki’s life as far as anyone else save MoMo knew. Not that Naoki thought she believed him, but she was kind enough to indulge him.
His doctor might have notes from the one time he tried telling a professional, but she had yet to mention it. He liked his current one, she filled the scripts and didn’t treat him like he was a research project, but they were fast approaching the two-year mark, and with it the limit of legal drug combinations. Naoki was fully expecting to be referred again to someone else soon when she ran out of things to try. He had been handed around from Doctor to Doctor when no combination of drugs got rid of his demons. Nothing but violence worked because drugs didn’t get rid of demons that wanted to eat your face. At least not these kinds
Naoki may be a bit crazy, but he knew that the demons were real. Convincing others was the hard part, even if they were about to be chewed on.
He wrestled his thoughts out of that spiral. Pay attention to the now Naoki.
He was down the driveway and a good bit around the corner. Just coming out of range of the cameras on the house. Uniform on, bag over the shoulder, freshly dyed hair burning red in the morning sun.
The uniform was new and freshly starched, white collar so tightly buttoned that it felt like a dull knife against his skin. Sleeves wrinkle-free and slacks so meticulously ironed that you use the crease as a ruler. He had his minder Momo to thank for it all, as usual. Mother would never lower herself to do laundry. She only cared enough that he was presentable as benefiting the ‘great Ryuugamine family’. Despite being a stain on their honour for his weakness and lack of mental fortitude, he was expected to still dress the part.
He hates formal western attire with all the spite left from a good decade of wearing suits to unimportant meetings that could have been an email. When the country closed down from the plague he had been so happy to lounge in his jocks and dress shirts at home. No talking to people in person, no subtle put downs at not having tailored suit jackets, and best of all, even after the ban lifted, no one went back into the office. He was left to do his accounting in peace. And then of course those idiot Americans set off world war three and things went to shit.
Starving to death while suffering nuclear winter had not been on his to-do list. And yet it happened anyway.
He still hated the cold.
Reaching his favorite bush, he opened his mouth and put two fingers down his throat.
Ugh.
Wipe his face with the handy handkerchief Momo always puts in his pockets. And back on track to his school route.
He suspected she knew he only took them when his mother was paying attention.
His shoe hit a rock along the sidewalk on the route to the school. Absentmindedly, he focused on pushing his chi to his foot and kicked the now glowing blue rock with some force at the small disgusting monster hanging out near an alleyway. It had enough force to take off its head, then disintegrate into dark purple blood and goop. Nasty thing. He did manage to one-shot it, and a hit is a hit. Saying a quick mental sorry towards Momo, Naoki rolled up his right sleeve and got out a pen from his bag. He uncapped the green marker and made a small tally mark on the inside of his arm.
There, not even seven, and he was already at work exercising demons. Yesterday, he had gotten up to 34 of the small ones and two of the bigger ones. A pretty big spike from the typical 10 to 14 that he usually saw this time of year. He was unsure what was causing the increase aside from slowly stopping his meds. Not that the demons ever vanished while he was on them. Not really. They were real, real, real. They were harder to spot during every new school year because it was much more difficult to pay attention to anything when his brain felt like it would drip out of his ears.
Naoki had been periodically weaning himself off of his medication since he had seen someone else be mangled by one of the big ones when he was 10. Surprisingly, they had seen it then too, and it had seen Naoki. He was not proud to say that after he got the spider monster's attention, he booked it. The years of running from his literal demons had taught him that as long as he found a place around people and focused his energy as small as possible, they went away.
Eventually.
This time, knowing that they were real, he avoided leading it to others and went the opposite route. Going towards the outskirts. He ducked into alleyways, jumped through yards, and parkored his way up to the rooftops. Pulling out all the tricks to try and escape, but nothing worked. Naoki had quickly run out roof before jumping onto the sturdy wall of an out-of-the-way small temple in an act of desperation to put as much room between him and it. After bleeding off his momentum, he had dared to look back only to see the monster claw ineffectively at an invisible barrier, howling its ire the entire time. It could not pass through the tori gates.
Naoki had been so fucking confused. He just had his worldview upended and then was introduced to a solution that, of all things, was religious in nature. He had stared so long at the demon that he had attracted the attention of the shrine maiden. He, of course, lied when asked what he was looking at, and then proceeded to grill her. Politely, of course. She was kind enough to go over the basics of Shinto before handing him a chi-infused good-luck charm that tingled when he touched it, before gently shoving him out the tori gate. The demon had vanished during their conversation.
Knowing that those things were real and could hurt people gave him a bit of a moral crisis after he got back home. If he was the only one who could see them, did that mean he was obligated to hunt down and kill them all? It was enough to give him a panic attack at the thought of a future as some wandering demon hunter who lived under bridges, cause no one would pay real money to get rid of something they couldn't see. Unless you were a monk. This had set off a research binge so epic he didn't leave his room for almost a day (meaning MoMo had given him a day and then kicked him out of his room.)
The kicker was that even with proper proof that the monsters were real, Naoki probably still had something wrong with his brain. It may not be Schizophrenia, but it was at least synesthesia. So he had been testing his illness’s logic, and it followed enough of a pattern that overlapped with real phenomena, he was confident enough to enact a plan. It was a very short plan, but bullet points still count.
Step one was already completed. He had confirmed that demons were real years ago. Step two, figure out what the hell the auras were indicating. Humans and certain types of demons had dual-toned ones, sometimes they matched, and sometimes they clashed. Everything else had a single tone. Naoki’s were an uncommon blue, and the smell of bloody red-orange summer sunsets. MoMo’s was light pinky red, and the taste of bright yellow daffodils in fine spring weather. Purple seemed to be a colour almost solely possessed by demons, he had met one person ever with that hue, and the woman made his skin crawl purely from being in her presence. He had originally thought it a side effect, further misfiring of his brain’s wires. Now though.
He suspected it was something more spiritual.
That step was still ongoing, as he had to be subtle in gathering evidence. Asking someone directly was difficult when people thought you were either a nutter or very religious when inquiring about the topic. Thankfully, there was an entire body of pseudoscience called astrology he could fall back on. People may think he’s weird, but it's an acceptable weird to be asked your star sign and how closely you match it. It helped that he could tell when people were lying. Cut through a lot of false data when the pretty inner core would whisper falsehoods or lies to the person's less truthful answers. They spoke of other things too, very private and sometimes shameful things. Naoki knew way too much about anyone he came into contact with as a result. Thank the stars he wasn’t an actual little kid, no matter if his physical brain was getting in the way of his processing. Some of those things would have been scary without context.
He had a suspicion that if he was, in fact, psychic, one of the two tones humans had was souls. He knew he possessed something similar to a soul, as it had been his travel companion across the void between death and here.
Naoki shuddered at the memory of the silent, dark, endless expanse, pushing it to the side with practice.
It had been a horrible wake-up call to realize that the hateful voice he heard around his mother was her very soul rejecting him. That had been a bad day. He had broken into his food stash and stayed out till dawn, killing anything in his path. Crying in self-pity and anger, the entire time.
And last bullet point was how to combat the demons. He had decided when he was ten wasn’t going to not kill demons. Those things were in need of a good murder. Well, most of them. The average demon was just a ball of negative emotions and instincts. A dangerous, invisible animal to most people, some more cunning than others. Not malicious in and of themselves at that level, it was the smarter ones that were the problem. And the older a demon got, the smarter it grew. Better to kill them before they become like that demon crane, who had been picking people up from the sidewalks in Tokyo only to playfully drop them over and over again until letting them fall at the height of their fear. It, like most of the big ones, didn’t need to kill people, but delighted in it anyway. Those ones were worth risking his hide to get rid of.
So far, his best option had been religious iconography and its trappings. Naoki was unsure as to why the reality he had been reborn into had such obvious examples of good versus evil, with Shinto and Buddhist religion as a viable counter, but considering he remembered living and dying as a different person, it wasn’t the strangest thing that had happened to him. (Some days, he swore he had ended up in a Saturday morning cartoon as a background character.) Becoming a monk or priest so he could get paid for doing so was on his wish list, but he knew his family would never go for it. They would much rather he be an accountant or, better yet, disappear.
He’d been saving up in preparation. As soon as he graduated from high school, he was grabbing Ichiro and going to catch the first train to the countryside and beg a local temple to let him apprentice at a shrine. Of course not until he left ashes in his wake. Naoki was truly trying to be a better person, but he wasn't above revenge.
Both of his so-called parents deserved what was coming for them. The justice system was a joke in this country, a fact proven again and again through a string of nurses and domestic staff who tried and failed to do something for them all. Lives ruined, or in some cases ended. It was enough that he felt vindicated in tipping the scales on his own. All he needed was to put the results of five DNA paternity tests in clear view of that man. He would do the rest.
Until then, he had to fend for himself. Demons seemed to follow closely enough with folklore on similar occurrences. Momo had previously taught him about chi and meditation, so it wasn’t that difficult to jump from that into occultism in search of anything that could work. Some things did, and others were completely useless. During summer breaks when everyone but Momo and he went to Malaysia, he experimented on making imbued weapons (kinda worked), creating a barrier on the house (sort of useless due to lack of permanence and it freaking out Momo), Making healing items (completely useless), Making spirit animals (It kinda worked. His cat could now kill curses, he swore it’s tail was splitting. The koi, on the other hand, were now very…odd) blatantly hunting demons, and found that If he had an omamori the small ones avoided him. But it lasted maybe a few days before he had to get a new one (unsustainable long-term and mostly useless). He hadn’t quite figured out how to make his own.
Not that the little guys were that much trouble, just disturbing to look at. And the smell, ugh. Like day-old fish that had been left in the sun. The taste was just as bad, but they were filling, and on days he had been denied food, it was worth it to push past the gag reflex. The big ones were a little harder, but he had killed a few of them every month by ambush and use of his environment. Testing out theories in the process. It got substantially easier when he discovered how to radiate positive chi. He had figured it out by pure chance during a bad reaction to a drug combination that they could not abide chi infused with happy emotions.
Large parts of that day were missing, but he distinctly recalled giggling through several fights, high as a loon watching the demons disintegrate when he touched them. After he became more coherent, there was not a single scratch on him despite missing chunks of his clothing. Whatever else it did, it unlocked a healing ability. Too bad it didn't work on scars or clothing. MoMo helped him fix his elementary school uniform. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.
The third type was harder to classify. They looked very close to people, had odd-looking souls, and he had only met two. One had been content to ignore him, going about its day pretending to be a fortune teller at a local hole in the wall. He had watched it for several days, and the worst thing it did was trick people out of their money for phony good-luck charms and very accurate palm readings. He wasn’t sure how no one else saw the thousands of tiny bird eyes that covered her arms, but he also wasn’t sure how anyone could even see her in the first place.
Tomoe was a complete k K-drama fan girl when he finally got the nerve up to talk to her. She charged him by the question too. Taking all his pocket money each time. From her, he learned that she preferred to eat old grief and went to have picnics in the local cemetery. That others like her could do the same, and didn't. And that the old folklore was real enough that anyone with enough motivation could turn into a demon. She laughed at him when he called her that. Said he had the wrong word but wouldn't tell him what it was, even when he came back the next week. She also stopped asking for money and demanded a favor instead. Naoki was not stupid enough to say yes to that and stopped visiting her.
The other was Kuzunoha-obachan.
She had shown up in the garden the night of his thirteenth birthday, dressed impeccably in a golden twelve-layer robe all nine white tails waving behind her, and had turned up every full moon since. Didn’t matter where he went, like clockwork, she would find him. At first, he thought she was trying to trick him into something, but over the months of polite and very formal conversation, he learned that she was simply interested in someone she considered a very distant relative. After that, he took more interest in the family history his Mother was always boasting about and started paying attention to his more formal etiquette lessons. The day he had managed to pull off an informal tea ceremony for her, she had looked so proud.
Kuzunoha-obachan never helped with demon hunting or answering any questions pertaining to them. Instead, she taught him how to write poetry, conduct tea ceremonies for people of different stations, the language of flowers, art appreciation, calligraphy, playing the shamisen, and other traditional arts. Everything a young noble lady would need to know to be successful, Naoki suspected she threw in some shrine maiden-related skills as well. By the end of middle school, if Naoki wished it, he could fight with a fan, a staff, or a bow in a full four-layer kimono. The only explanation he had was that she thought it was funny to give him useful information disguised as etiquette lessons. If he did well and she was in a good mood, she'd share stories about her adopted son Abe no Seimei.
According to her, his hundred times great-grandfather was an adorable troublemaker who made it other people's problem when he got bored. The way she described him, words full of pride and hidden sorrow, made him wish he could meet his ancestor. But the one thing positive energy couldn't do was bring back the dead. He did his best to bring her joy instead. No one should have to suffer alone through the grief of the death of a child.
She remained one of his favorite relatives. Her midnight blue on bloodied blue steel was always a comfort.
-------‐-------------
In the last week of break, Naoki spent a good portion of time searching for a cheap class on traditional blacksmithing. His attempts at imbuing the kitchen knives lasted a few hours at most. Undoubtedly he was missing something and Naoki’s subconscious was a dramatic bitch. He was convinced it needed the pomp and circumstance to work properly. Though it may also be the material he had to work with. With the laws here being as they were, a traditional sword for show was easier to get hold of than a good, decent-sized knife. He also could not be seen or caught carrying such a large weapon, not with his …background.
In the name of being prepared, he memorized a few Shinto chants that were supposed to drive away evil spirits along with a map of the local shrines. Not that he was eager to try them out. He had enough scars, thank you very much, and his strategy of compressing his Chi to assassinate them worked most of the time.
So Naoki kicked rocks at his demons, getting up to eight by the time he reached the school gate. Occasionally, passing by small groups of students heading in the same direction. A few had demons preached on their persons, which he noted to kill later. It wasn’t currently worth the interaction to get rid of most of them until he had a decent excuse for throwing rocks or hands at people. His mind attempted to stroll down memory lane, but he wrestled it back. No time for bitter thoughts on broken relationships today.
He found his assigned locker and mechanically put his outside shoes away. Mentally preparing himself for a day of introductions and homework.
Time passed.
--------------------------------------
By the end of the day, he had discreetly killed 14 more demons and signed himself up for the English conversation club. The Nurse had also publicly pulled him aside to go over his medication and health needs. Naoki had managed to fend her off by quoting his schedule at her, and she had repaid him by loudly listing the side effects if he didn’t adhere to it, which he knew by heart. It didn’t take long for one of the smarter students to put the clues together, and even less time for the news to spread.
Great.
This again.
Naoki had hoped he could stay in a club for at least a month before getting kicked out. Long enough for his parents to lose interest in his doings. He then would pretend that the practice would run late and use his time to get more acquainted with the occult.
The human-shaped roadblock he was currently glaring at put a damper on those plans.
“ -not a good fit for the team.” The boy's voice remained friendly as Naoki tuned back into a conversation he had been through far too many times. The boy's sleeves were rolled up and his tie hung loose around his neck completing the look of nonchalant jock.
Naoki knew the expected response and felt his mouth say the words “ Of course, I understand completely.” He tugged his lips up in an approximation of a smile that he knew didn't reach his eyes. He could see the boy's shoulders untense. “ Take care senpai san.” There, completely cordial, no cause for alarm. He turned, intending to go back to the sign-up board.
“ You should try the going home club, I'm sure they'd love to have you,” it was said with malicious glee, followed by titters from the surrounding students.
Naoki paused, then turned back towards the jock. Smile still plastered on his face, eyes hard. He tilted his head and stepped forward into the other boy's space. “I am so glad to have such considerate and kind upperclassmen to advise me”
The jock whose name he had forgotten glanced around at his friends before meeting his eyes. “ I'm not sure what you mean, just trying to be helpful.” his grin slipped a bit when Naoki took another slow step forward. Now close enough to bump the tips of the other boy's shoes with his.
“ I appreciate your help, senpai san.” Naoki loomed as best he could with his 4’3 frame. Which is to say not at all. The boy leaned back anyway. He could count the jock's eyelashes and this close there was no ignoring the way his aura pulsed around his skin. A double pink, his soul smelled like the color of dark pink peonies. He had never liked the smell of pink in auras. It always followed the insecure.
Naoki could see the exact moment the jock decided to do something to save face. “You arrogant shit. Are you trying to get your ass beat in?” he said, straightening.
Naoki immediately took a step back and then another out of easy arm's reach. “Not at all, senpai. Have a good day.” Grin still stuck on his face, he turned, walking as quickly as he dared towards the signup sheet. ‘You don't want to be homeschooled, ‘he chanted to himself as a reminder. He was not going to get in a fight at this place. His mother had already warned him that this was his last stop before permanent homeschooling. Additionally, Momo would be so disappointed in him.
‘Stupid teenager brain, develop the frontal cortex already.’
Whispers and louder boasts erupted behind him. ‘Great going Naoki, you just had to let your temper do the talking,’ he berated himself. ‘Guess I won’t have any friends this year, too. ’ He miserably contemplated the short list of clubs on the announcement board. He then shook his head ‘Don’t go to extremes just because you had an upset idiot’ His eyes trailed down the list, automatically skipping over the sports section. ‘You could still make friends with someone.’ His eyes landed on the history and culture club. ‘Room 4-c on Tuesdays. Easy enough.’
He headed to the booth to sign up, the girl there eepped at him, but let him put his name down. The familiar bubble of social isolation was already forming around him. He pulled at his red hair, lying to himself that it was because they thought he was a delinquent and not because he was crazy ( he didn't believe it either), and left.
Naoki planned, plotted, and schemed his way to the nearest shrine. A few other students had the same idea. Though for different reasons. He went around the back of the small building, found an out-of-the-way spot of sunlight, and let his chi out.
It felt like being able to stretch after hours of being stuck in a small space. His energy was typically coiled around him like he was the burrito filling, and his chi the tortilla. Tight and compressed into the smallest space possible. He sighed and leaned back. Basking in the sunshine. Watching the nice blue energy fill a good foot around him in swaying seaweed-like fronds.
He couldn’t do this at home. Relaxing meant the demons could find him anywhere. Like the one time he was left with cousin number four, who had gone out with her friends instead of watching him. His parents called home to a partially destroyed house and a panicked 6-year-old.
He told them what happened. However, they thought the broken glass and knives in the floor were from him having a psychotic episode. They couldn't see the slowly disappearing blood, but they did see the cuts on his hands and leg from being thrown through a window. It had been a painful learning experience and the start of his long road to diagnosis. On the plus side, he got MoMo out of it.
The first time he realized he could just relax without consequences it took a good hour to let go enough of his death grip hold. Years of fucking around with things he did not comprehend had shredded his once normal-looking aura into many separate sections. He thought it looked like a forest of kelp. When described to her, Momo called them his hentai tentacles and convinced the chef to serve octopus-based meals for an entire week. He still occasionally got octopus-themed lunches and suspected the man thought they were his favorite seafood. It was nice of him, even if he was wrong. Naoki wasn't going to correct it.
Naoki let his freak flag fly, dug out his homework, and started on it. His chi gently swirling around him to invisible waves. Summer cicadas trilled in the background, interrupted by the occasional ringing of the shrine bell. He wished moments like this could last forever.
-----------------------
Over a month after the summer break, Naoki had surprisingly not been kicked out of the club. He hadn’t quite made a friend yet, but had people he could share lunch with who didn’t run him off. Sakomoto, who was interested in Heien fashion, was even making his way from a casual acquaintance up to a friend. Naoki was learning how to read archaic Japanese, which was handy for his extracurricular activities, and His parents were back to ignoring him after his eldest sister announced her engagement to her wealthy CEO (praise all the little saints).
Karin seemed to like the admittedly handsome stuffed shirt fine, and Naoki did his own vibe check into his soon to be brother in law at the announcement party. The guy passed. (Very nice red with some adorably fluffy blue at the center. Smelled like fresh laundry and sunshine) One benefit of his abilities was that he was dead on for detecting the negatives in people. Naoki privately thought he was obscenely good at cold reading, but his mind translated it into synesthesia. He was iffy about accepting the possibility of being able to see and hear souls for obvious reasons.
Being told you're incurably crazy from the age of six left a mark.
Today, Naoki was heading to his club meeting when the screaming started from the hallway behind him. He turned in confusion as a pale blue human ran towards him, twisting souls it touched.
‘That's not a person.’ Naoki had a bare moment of time to try and react before it reached him.
Too bad he chose his fist and not the bookbag.
Excruciating agony rippled through his body as he felt his flesh crack and squelch around him. In baffled horror, Naoki watched the thing that grabbed him pull at his soul like warm taffy and it noticed him looking. It laughed in delight at his screams, slowing down its process of mangling Naoki so he was aware of every terrible change the demon made. He heard an all-consuming whisper say, “You don’t like spiders, sorcerer kun?
To0 mAny LeGs/armS
Naoki reached out with the new sharp edges of his soul and bit down. A chunk of purple malice ripped from the demon, dripping blight in the unreal space between them. He swallowed and felt petty satisfaction at the pained yelp.
The demon reached in and twisted.
And Naoki knew down to his soul that it wanted him to live as long as possible in eternal torment. And he was dying anyway.
I cAn sEe EverYTHing
Make it STOP
Joyous laughter as it dropped him on a groaning pile of distorted limbs. “Eat up little spider”
And he couldn’t stop himself from biting down on flesh and soul alike.
Naoki, faced with unimaginable pain, and an unruly mind trying to go the opposite of his body did what MoMo had so carefully taught him, and immediately focused inwards. He dragged his ragged consciousness down to his stomach with all the spite and vitriol he had. Distantly feeling the crunch of bone and the hot blood running down his throat, the lovely burn of the soul's futile struggle to escape on its way to his gullet. Step by bloody step until he reached his compressed inner pool of energy and fell inwards.
At the center of his being Naoki could smell/see the RED RED RED of his soul. It was twisted/bent/ cracked and bleeding. He reached out with his hands/mind and tried to move it back into shape. It cracked more, bleeding embers that vanished into the air around them. His hands/eyes started to fray into multiples and he began to forget himself. Naoki gritted his mouths in determination. He remembered the place between dying and being reborn. Spending what felt like centuries floating in the empty blackness that was the void. His only recourse from madness in tracing the shape of his soul over, and over again. He didn’t know how he survived the first trip and knew he would not withstand another.
Pain is temporary, death is vast endless emptiness.
Naoki found his strength return in a second wind. He wreathed his mind in toxic purple and grabbed the broken crystalline edges. Doing his best to pull it back. The jagged sharpness cut into his palms, ripping him open to bleed his humanity into the void. In his pain and fury, he did not notice that in his attempt to heal himself something other than human was pulled in too. Filling the cracks with malevolent violet and another colour unseen.
He remembered he had only two legs,
Cracking bones
ten toes,
Tearing sinew
Lungs, stomach, heart
It BURNS
Two? Four? Six? Arms.
It hurts, hurts, HURTS.
Naoki lost his grip and felt a wave of positive chi flood his body. He tried to reach back out to his soul but was swept away. His attempt to swim against the growing current was futile, as wave after wave of energy slammed him back towards his outermost edge. He could still see at the center engulfed in a whirlpool of color was the faded red of his core. Still not quite the right shape. Not bleeding, but absorbing the surrounding energy. Chi and soul alike. Turning from the smell of red summer sunsets to the taste of the last gasp of twilight. Deep maroon streaked through with purple, pink, yellow, and orange. Until the last crack healed and the now elongated crystal was once again whole. It rose above the gently lapping ocean, illuminating the cresting waves in all the splendor of a dying sun.
A pulse
His chi bloomed around him. Enveloping him in warmth. Pushing him outwards until suddenly he was out of his mind space.
Naoki breathed, and it felt like his first. Raw, unfamiliar new lungs prickling with oxygen, and the chi-laced air around him. He bent over, sobbing at the pain. Every breath a stab, agony echoing in time with his pounding heartbeats. He could feel his Chi withering around him, seeking something, anything to make it stop. Its tendrils curled around him and over each other, reaching up to the ceiling and over the many other moaning figures around him. Like a pit full of agitated snakes. He bowed his head, curling in on himself.
Naoki felt like he had been stretched out of shape and then abruptly snapped back. Like a rubber band at its breaking point. Every muscle was sore. He could feel his unhappy bones creak. Attempting to snap back into a different shape. One with more legs, eyes, and teeth. He needed something, anything to help focus on something else.
“HI FU MI YO I MU NA YA KO TO MO CHI RO RA NE” It came out shaky and cracked in the middle. Naoki’s tears fell on his torn slacks, the shreds of which were barely covering his stripped boxers. “SHI KI RU YU I TSU WA NU SO O TA HA KU ME KA” It hurt to speak, it hurt to think. His arms wrapped around his middle, one pair over the other, over the other. Was he supposed to have so many? “U O E NI SA RI HE TE NO MA SU A SE E HO RE KE” He repeated the chant over and over for how long he did not know. The other energy signatures around him winked out one by one. He could feel them dying. Screaming their pain into the eternity. He had reached out and tried to help, but the souls had run from him, from the monster that had been feasting on them. All he had accomplished was making it go faster. ‘Focus on something else Naoki’ “HI FU MI YO I MU NA YA KO TO MO CHI RO RA NE” another run through the simple prayer. The consistency helped him stay present instead of drifting off. Instead of focusing on the dead and dying around him. Instead of the delicious taste of blood in his mouth. He needed to stay conscious. He needed to leave the school. He needed to….
He could hear footsteps coming towards him and an intake of air. “HI FU MI YO I MU NA YA KO TO MO CHI RO RA NE” Another repeat, another rope to bind his mind back to his body.
A presence entered his space. Cool contained blue, warm green smell of rain on hot steel, calm voice edged with something “Can you understand me?” Naoki raised his aching head, feeling as if red hot needles had been cruelly stabbed into his neck.
“Yes.” he rasped. The man in front of him was on one knee and Naoki realized he was partially leaning on the wall, ass on the cold floor of the hallway. His jittery eyes tried to focus on the blond man in front of him, raising his head further to move his chin out of his view. The light blue-green of the well-dressed man’s chi bristled in alarm. ‘Oh, bad sign’ Naoki licked his blood-covered lips, trying to not relish in the taste. “ Not good huh?” He felt his mouths grin in grim humour “Can I…Can I be fixed?” his voice broke, already guessing the answer. Eyes holding the man through his odd glasses.
A pause. “No. You can not be changed back.” To his credit, he did not look away. “Would you like me to kill you?” he continued just as steadily, his aura betraying his true emotions. Naoki, distracted by the swirling colours and a very blunt question, took a moment longer to answer. Creating the illusion of hesitation when he had no such emotion.
“No,” he said firmly as he could. Distantly, he heard a far-off voice calling “Nanamin,” “I think.” He stumbled over his words, struggling to get them out. “I think the pain is temporary.” He drew in a burning breath, “I think I could be ok given” His lungs spasmed in his chest. “Time,” the syllables landed with difficulty. Jagged.
The man nodded solemnly. “Then I will do my best to give you that time.” Another call of ‘Nanamin’, this time closer. Probably Nanamin did not waver in his attention, “Can you be touched?” Naoki nodded, noticing that though his head moved, his perspective did not. He was mid-contemplation on this disconnect between memory and reality when he felt an arm slowly tuck itself under his knees and another snake around his spine. His gorgon's nest of black chi snakes abruptly stilled their withering at the unexpected contact. Then carefully wrapped themselves around Nanami’s energy as he was lifted with a grunt, flaring gold at the contact. Naoki could feel it slowly healing the man as he was situated in his arms against the other's chest. In reflex, he grabbed onto the man’s blue button-down with two of his left hands, the third grasping at his white suit jacket. “I am Kento Nanami, grade one sorcerer.” ‘a what now?’ That terminology sounded familiar. Was it something he had read? Footsteps from behind and an overwhelming smell of sunshine heralded this new person. “Nanamin! Did you find the other cur-Oh”
Nanami had turned towards the voice enough for Naoki to get a good look at the speaker. Out of habit, he tried to turn his head to shift his perspective, soon realizing that this did nothing. Thankfully, he could see well enough. Though turning his head that quickly was a mistake. He felt the skin on his neck tighten around his eyes in pain.
The teen in front of him was in an unfamiliar dark blue uniform, bearing slight damage. Rips and tears spelling out some altercation. The boy was relatively tall, well built, and had pink hair styled in an uppercut. There were two symmetrical scars under his eyes reminiscent of a crescent moon, and he smelled like sunshine on a winter day. Warmth amid snow. “You found a survivor? I thought Mahito killed everyone!” The last was said in a mildly accusatory manner. Naoki’s mind swam with the overstimulation of not one but two people who had the most amount of chi he had ever seen. He saw and felt a cautious tendril reach for the boy. “Is he going to make it, Nanamin? Junpei” Pause the boy swallowed. “ The others died soon after transforming.” Naoki was being looked at in equal parts concern and wariness. Meanwhile, Naoki’s chi snake gently patted the pinkett’s head in what may have been sympathy. He could practically hear the ‘there, there’. It seemed to get a reaction as the boy went cross-eyed looking up at it. Two other people who can see Chi. He had separate confirmation at the cost of a boatload of pain.
Yay.
He knew that name.
“I am unsure,” Said Nanamin, who began walking down the hallway. “Logically, we could deduce it’s something inherent. He does have a large amount of cursed energy, and it is acting abnormally.” This close to the man, he felt the rumble of his voice vibrate his bones. Naoki winced and curled in on himself. He heard the shift of clothing and silence.
‘Oh,’ he thought in mild surprise, he then gently patted the man's chest with his middle hand. “I'm ok, you don't have to stop. I've had worse,” Nanamin hmmmed noncommittally, and Naoki could not stop himself from wincing.
The other person caught up quickly, peering curiously at Naoki. He remained quiet in his inspection, blatantly staring at his eyes and hands. Naoki was just as intrigued and under no such mental restriction. “Hello,” He rasped. “I’m Ryuugamine Naoki.” Pause for jagged inhale. “ Did you know your soul smells like yellow sunshine?” The boy seemed taken aback, and he could feel Nanami's head move slightly.
“Itadori Yuji, and um, no?” Naoki’s first thought was ‘That kid from JJK?’ his second was ‘Did he always have four eyes?’ followed closely by a drawn-out ‘fuck’ Itadori Yuji had pink hair, like the protagonist, was in the same outfit he wore for most of the manga and impossibly had a whole extra pair of eyes. ‘Am I hallucinating again?’ He did feel a bit out of it still, having reached a space where the pain was distant and he felt more floaty. Fuck it, if it was a hallucination he was rolling with it.
Guess all the protagonist needed was encouragement as the floodgates opened. “Is that a good thing? Oh, is that because of the snakes? And how can you taste a colour?”
Naoki took a moment. Breathing was still painful, and talking was a welcome distraction. “You can't see souls?”
Yuji shook his head, “Nope! It sounds like that would be pretty cool though! So I'm sunshiny?” Naoki filed that tally mark away on the big whiteboard in his head under ‘proof I'm nuts’.
“Yes, most people are a type of blue or red.” He coughed, lungs rattling in his chest. “With a different color at the center. Like Ito-teme, who is a nasty pink. I hate pink people, they’re always assholes.” This got a nervous laugh, and Itadori rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, oops.’ “But you’re not pink at all. You’re a really nice blue, then yellow. I’ve always liked yellow people.” Naoki said vehemently. Trying to impart that he did not think that Itadori was an asshole. “ And you have two souls! You complement each other,” Naoki smiled at him and then made the mistake of trying to swallow. Two of His eyes moved slightly up and down, causing a wave of dizzying vertigo at the lack of movement of the outer two. He closed all four tightly and winced.
“Two souls?” Came out in a squeak. The hands around him tightened. Naoki looked back at Itadori, who had gone pale and drawn at least on part of his face. The other boy, due to his additional set of eyes, had two contrasting facial expressions. The bottom set of eyes was slightly squinted while the top was wide. Naoki decided then and there that he would never play against Itadori for money.
“Yes?” Maybe he needed more reassurance. Sukuna was an ass but, he did just kinda insult Yuji's hair colour. Naoki looked closer at the other colour, it was a bit harder to see as it was inside but separated from the yellow. He felt his eyes squinting and his nose burning. The delicious scent of red cooking meat over coals, with an underlying taste of unappetizing ashes and blood, wafted from that portion. It looked painful. “ Don't worry, your brother’s not pink either, he’s more of a bright red burning into yellow.” Pause for rattling breath “like hot coals. It looks like he’s missing pieces, though.” His eyes started to ache a bit from looking at the intensity of the 2nd colour. He drew his focus back from the center of the other teen's chest and brought his gaze up once again to the eyes.
Judging by Itadori's reaction, this statement did not in fact help. Trying to come up with something to make his rescuer’s student feel better, he blurted out, “ I'm sure the missing bits will grow back.” Itadori winced, and the lower set of eyes was glaring at him. He could hear its angry growling from here. All fire and rage with the aftertaste of ash. Soul speak wasn’t exact, but he knew cursing when he heard it. Despite the alarm bells going off in his head, Naoki’s mouth kept moving “Ooof, loud. Sorry, sorry, stop yelling, please.” He brought a pair of hands up over his ears it didn't help. “If you don’t want help to grow them back, you don’t have to be so rude about it furnace-san. It just looks painful…” The last bit trailed off into awkward silence. He could feel Nanami's attention on him, the soul's rain increasing in tempo in concern for him. He patted the man's chest again. “It’s ok, Kento-san, I've met grumpy souls before. A few rude words won't hurt.” The rain stilled in surprise and then increased in volume. Noaki sent a wave of positive energy his way in response.
This did not help. ‘Guess he's a worrywart.’
Itadori looked contemplative and then winced again. Naoki could practically see what he was thinking; it didn't look like he was enjoying it. ‘Quick brain, different subject. “Where are we going?” Itadori looked upwards at Nanami, other set of eyes still focused on Naoki.
“We are going to Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College to see a specialist.” He said quietly. Not as painfully loud, and Naoki was prepared for it. Meaning no wincing this time.’Go me.’
Itadori nodded along, “Oh, are we taking him to see Shoko sensei?” His focus shifted back to Naoki. “She's really good at healing people, and I bet she can move your eyes back! And maybe change your arms too!” Naoki blinked with all of his eyes and felt his eyebrows furl.
“Itadori kun.” said Nanami. Naoki reached up to his face and felt around the closed lips. ‘Back? Aren't they supposed to be lower down?’ He was so confused, and his head was starting to hurt. “Mahito transmogrified him by changing his soul.” The flesh parted, and he could feel the wet heat of a breath in time with his other mouth. “Shoko-sensei may be a genius, but even she has limits.” He opened all of his mouths, feeling two small tongues go along the ridges of his teeth on both the left and right sides.
He caught Itadori's queasy expression and quickly closed them. “He's stuck like that forever?” Naoki’s eyes darted away. All of his mouths frowned. Was he supposed to have eyes there like Itadori and Nanami? It felt like he wasn't. He reached back into his memory, head twinging in pain. This morning, walking to school, he needed to turn and look instead of being able to see almost 300 degrees. His muscle memory trying to move his head earlier when he met Nanami, and again when seeing Itadori.
Growing dread built in his stomach. “I put myself back together wrong?” he whispered to himself. His hand still raised to the upper mouth, tracing under the lips, feeling the even teeth underneath the skin. He raised his volume, and his voice took on a pleading quality. “ I'm supposed to have eyes here, not mouths?” Itadori stared at him and then nodded. Naoki felt his stomach drop. He glanced at his arms. Six to the other two, ten fingers on each ending in thick white pointed nails. He liked having more than just two and didn’t want to change those. They come in handy heh, but more eyes could be useful. Why not give in to peer pressure if they were supposed to be there anyway?
Naoki looked downwards into his soul. He may be able to change it so he has eyes back up top? He reached for the slowly spinning crystal and told it more eyes, like this. Picturing Itadori's face.
It burned, and he felt the crunch of bone echo the breaking of soul stuff. He almost whited out with the sharp jab of pain. Naoki knew then he could not replace the mouths, they were too ingrained. Instead, he focused on adding another set of eyes below them. More cracking, he felt something splinter deep inside, but it was nothing compared to before. He blinked, and suddenly his perspective lengthened. There was too much light, and he involuntarily slammed them closed at the pain. He heard Itadori gasp and felt him reach out to run a finger under the new delicate skin. Tickling the eyelashes. “Itadori-kun, be careful with him,” came a soft reprimand.
Though said quietly, the vibrations hurt. “But Nanamin, Ryuugamine-kun just made himself grow eyes! I think it hurt him more.” Naked concern shined through Itadori's face. “He put them in the wrong spot!”
Naoki tightened his grip on the blue shirt and noticed his hands trembling from pain. He didn't think he could change it again. Not without breaking his soul beyond salvaging.
Wait, if eyes were supposed to be there and in a singular pair, that meant the blue thing got Itadori too(a small voice ‘it's Sukuna’ yelled in the back of his head). He looked back at Itadori in concern, noticing his snakes taking on a gold gradient hue as they reached for the other boy. “ Are you supposed to have only one set of eyes like Nanamin? Did the demon get you too?” Itadori's face fell, then twisted into a frown. In his distraction, he allowed one of Naoki’s snakes to gently bop him on the head, and Naoki felt a wave of exhaustion.
His consciousness faded, hearing the reply as if through water, “No Ryuugamine-kun, the curse didn’t get me.”