Chapter Text
The next few days of school had been much less interesting, in Yuuji’s opinion. They’d stayed on campus and had mostly focused on sparring and technique as opposed to in-class learning. It was different from Yuuji’s previous school, but it wasn’t bad either.
Currently, Yuuji was sitting next to Kugisaki near the vending machines as they took a break from training together. Gojo was currently out of the country, leaving the three students to try and take care of training themselves.
Fushiguro stood behind them, purchasing from the vending machine.
Three figures approached the first years.
There was a very short boy with white hair, a girl holding some sort of staff, and-
“Hey! Are you guys the first years?” A giant Panda asked them. Yuuji nodded dumbfoundedly. “Great!”
Fushiguro joined the others at this point.
“Hey Megumi! How’ve you been?” The Panda asked.
“You know these guys Fushiguro?” Yuuji asked.
“They’re the second years,” Fushiguro replied. “That boy is Inumaki Toge. He uses cursed speech,”
Fushiguro pointed to the short white-haired boy, who raised his hand in a greeting.
“Kelp,” the boy said. Yuuji nodded, pretending he understood the situation.
“He can only speak in onigiri ingredients, for everyone's safety,” Fushiguro continued. He gestured to the girl wielding the staff. “That's Maki Zen’in. She uses cursed tools.”
“Just Maki,” the girl said.
“And that's Panda,” Fushiguro said, pointing to the panda. He did not elaborate. “There’s another second year, but he’s out of the country right now,”
“But that’s not important,” Maki interrupted. “What's important is that the sister school exchange event is coming up, and we’ve got to kick Kyoto’s asses.”
“Us?” Yuuji asked. “Aren’t there- older students?”
“Since the third years went and got themselves suspended, it has to be you guys,” Maki replied. She grinned. “C’mon newbies. Show us what you’ve got.”
Since the day he started his career, Nanami Kento had known that being a sorcerer was shit. Since the day he left this career, he’d known it was shit. And every moment since he returned, he knew it was shit.
But this, this current situation takes the cake.
A set of three mutilated corpses found in a movie theater marred beyond recognition in a way only a curse could do.
That would be one thing. He could find the curse, exorcise it, and prevent any further harm.
But then he encountered the still-alive transfigure humans.
They weren’t curses. They left behind corpses, could be seen in photographs, despite how visibly inhuman they were.
(They forced him to think back to the mission that made him leave.)
He could tell, based on the handiwork, that it was the same curse responsible for the deaths in the theater doing this.
This investigation led to him finding himself standing in a sewer, following reports of strange creatures living in it.
It was far, far worse than they’d thought.
An entity- almost human-looking- stood across the water from him. It threw some sort of small rock towards Nanami, and then-
Those things were human too.
He didn’t know how the curse created them, which meant he had to keep it from touching him at all costs.
“I’d love to see what happens if I try to reshape a sorcerer,” the curse said. It had been saying a lot of things since Nanami arrived, not that Nanami had been paying attention.
The creature jumped with an unnatural grace and was suddenly directly behind him. Nanami followed suit, jumping across the water to where the creature once stood.
“Hmph, not gonna say anything?” The creature asked. “You’re soooo boring,”
“I do not particularly care how you view me,” Nanami replied in a deadpan tone.
“So you can speak!” the creature replied, with an unsettling childish glee in its voice. “Tell me, Jujutsu Sorcerer. Are you a body controlled by a soul, or a soul simply occupying a body?”
Chicken and egg, Nanami thought. He didn’t want to know how this was relevant, but the talking seemed to keep the curse at least partially distracted.
“A body-” he said, panting slightly, “a body before a soul,”
“Nope!” The curse giggled. “It’s the soul that dictates the body! Your body is just a pile of flesh and bones, but the soul can be so much more.”
The creature had crossed over the water again and was now standing in front of Nanami.
“My technique,” Nanami began, gripping his weapon tighter, “Allows me to divide a target into ten equal parts.”
“Ooooh, you’re telling me about your technique? How forward of you, Mr. Sorcerer,”
Nanami ignored the curses- flirting? He wasn’t sure what it was trying to do.
“Using these divides, I can cause incredible damage by striking at the weak point created at a ratio of 7 to 3,”
Nanami then slammed his cleaver into the arm the curse had been holding in front of itself, causing it to separate and fall from the curse's body.
“These divisions can be created on portions of the body, not just the entire target,”
The curse looked down at its arm in shock, before the shape of its arm morphed back into an intact arm.
Taking advantage of the time the curse was distracted, Nanami jumped across the water again.
“Since you’ve been so forthcoming about yourself, Mr. Sorcerer,” the curse said, seemingly purring the last part. “Allow me to tell you about my technique,
“As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted me, was that the soul dictates the body. The body changes to fit the shape of the soul within it.
“So, if I change the shape of a person's soul, their body follows suit! But I’m not very good at it yet. It's hard to keep my subjects alive. That’s where you come in, Mr Sorcerer. I’d like to see if cursed energy makes it easier for you to survive! Isn’t that fun!”
“You and I seem to have different definitions of fun,”
The curse stuck its tongue out, before releasing a strange shaped human (former human?) into the water between them.
Its color was fleshy and textured like the bark of a tree. Its face was something out of a fantasy book- and agonized.
“ Help,” it wheezed.
Standing on the creation's face, watching it beg for death, all he could think about was-
Haibara, cried out in pain as his arm seemed to dissolve. As his heart rotted away inside his chest until all that was left was an empty hole.
They never recovered his body.
“Nanami, you’ve got this,” he wheezed, using the last of his strength to give a weak smile. His arm beneath him gave out, causing him to roll off the road into the trees below.
That was the last time he ever saw Haibara.
Whatever Nanami was facing, he would kill it. No matter what it took.
Nanami took a deep breath in, and prepared to attack,
“I started work at 8 this morning. It’s now 4:03,”
The curse tilted his head to the side in confusion, like a dog.
“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to go into overtime,”
And suddenly, he was stronger, faster, better in every way. He was outpacing the curse, landing blow after blow.
He jumped, attempting to attack the curse head from below, until-
The curse had jumped back- flown back. Its arms had shifted into wings, which it was using to fly itself back.
“It’s not just other people's souls I can reshape,” the curse said. “I know my own soul as better than anything in the world,”
The fight was brutal on both sides. Debris cut into Nanami’s body, as he continuously sliced at the multiple arms being used to guard the main body.
An arm extended to punch Nanami in the stomach, causing him to be slammed back into the wall. Nanami struggled to his feet.
“Ten years ago,” Nanami began, wrapping his tie around his hand.
“Huh?”
“Ten years ago, there were a pair of curses made from human bodies. Where you behind those too?”
“Oh, you mean the death paintings?” The curse replied. “I’m like a baby. I wasn’t alive yet.”
“Then-”
“C’mon-” the curse whined. “I don’t have time to chat! I’ve still got to check on that Itadori kid the boss is so obsessed with- and I’ve got my own friends to spend time with. Just hurry up and bleed out already!”
While the curse was distracted with its complaining, Nanami jumped and attacked the wall behind the curse. Debris crashed down from the roof and other supports, completely burying the curse in it.
When Nanami didn’t see any movement under the rubble, he began to hobble back to the surface.
As he waited for Ijichi to arrive, Nanami tried to make sense of what the curse had told him.
Death paintings. Someone else behind them.
Working for a greater cause.
Itadori.
What business could these curses have with a random first year- one who didn’t even have any family connections to sorcery?
What is it I’m not being told?