(Yotsuya Miko's POV)
The morning air in the park was crisp and clean, a stark contrast to the usual oppressive, invisible weight that had once defined Miko's world.
She stretched, the material of her tracksuit rustling softly.
Beside her, Sakurajima Mai moved with a lazy, innate grace that made even simple calisthenics look like a practiced dance.
"You know," Mai said, her voice a familiar, slightly teasing monotone, "For a first year, you've got a surprisingly nice figure. Good proportions. You'd do well as a model. Better than some of the airheads they stick in magazines"
Miko's face flushed a brilliant scarlet. "M-Mai-san! Don't say things like that! I'm not… I'm not made for that sort of business at all!" She flapped her hands in front of her face, as if trying to shoo away the compliment itself. The idea of being in the spotlight, of people's eyes actually seeing her intentionally, was a special kind of nightmare.
It was still a miracle, she thought, that she could even have this conversation.
The world had… softened.
The constant, grating noise of existence that had once threatened to crush her had been dialled down to a manageable hum.
She remembered walking with Hana just the other day, actually able to focus on her friend's laughter instead of fighting back tears from the spiritual pressure.
The glasses Yoshioka-sensei had given her were more than a gift; they were a shield, a godsend that allowed her to finally breathe.
"How… how about you, Mai-san?" Miko asked, eager to shift the focus. "Has it gotten easier? Your… condition?"
Mai finished a stretch, her expression unreadable for a moment before a wry smile touched her lips. "It's less of a pain. I'll give it that. I went to the convenience store yesterday. Actually handed the money to the cashier. Didn't have to just leave it on the counter and hope they didn't think it was abandoned or call the police" Her tone was light, but the underlying relief was profound "Used to have my full cart put back on the shelves all the time because the staff would find it 'unattended.' Nobody ever saw me there to begin with." She held up her wrist, where the simple silver bracelet he'd given her gleamed. "This thing's a pain in its own way, though. Now I have to actually deal with people. Sometimes it's easier to just…" She deftly unclasped it, and in the blink of an eye, her body was covered in a layer of cursed energy. She turned back into a faded figure in the background, becoming background noise, a peripheral blur. She clasped it back on. "...take a break from it all."
Before Miko could respond, a voice, calm and definitive, cut through the morning quiet.
"Good. You are both here on time."
They turned in unison. Yoshioka Akira stood there, as if he had simply materialized from the shadows of the trees. He wore simple training clothes, but on him, they looked like a uniform. His crimson eyes swept over them, missing nothing.
"Follow me" He commanded, not waiting for a reply before turning and walking towards a more secluded clearing deeper in the park.
Exchanging a brief, confused glance, Miko and Mai fell in step behind him. There was an aura of absolute purpose about him that brooked no questions.
In the centre of the clearing, he stopped and turned to face them. "Run the perimeter of this clearing for ten minutes. A light jog. Consider it your warm-up."
The instruction was so bizarre and mundane that for a moment, they both just stared. They had expected… something else.
Something more mystical. But the look in his eyes was serious. Swallowing her confusion, Miko started first, with Mai following suit with a slight shrug.
--------------------------------
For ten minutes, the only sounds were their feet on the grass and their own breathing. It was… normal. Deceptively so.
When they finished, slightly flushed, he was waiting exactly where they had left him. In his hands was a simple backpack.
From it, he produced two objects: smooth, dark orbs, each about the size of a baby's head.
"Take these" He said, handing one to each of them. The orbs were cool and surprisingly light.
"What are these?" Mai asked, turning hers over in her hands.
"Theory first," he stated, his voice taking on the patient, measured tone of a lecturer. "Every living thing has cursed energy, even in small amounts. You, Miko, have always been acutely aware of this energy, even if differently manifested. You, Mai, used your own energy in a field that bent perception of others of you, a passive, constant emission you had no control over"
He focused his crimson gaze on them. "What you both lacked was conscious control. You were reactors, not conduits. You will now learn to be conduits. The cursed energy you have always had, can be harnessed. Channelled."
He pointed to the orbs. "These are training tools. They are designed to absorb and measure that energy. Channel a steady, low stream into it."
Miko held her orb, feeling utterly lost. "H-how? How do I channel it?"
"Think of the sensation you feel when a spirit is near" He instructed, his voice calm and impossibly focused. "That pressure, that coldness, that 'noise.' That is raw, unfiltered energy. Now, instead of letting it wash over you, imagine drawing upon that same feeling from within yourself. Find the current inside you and will it to flow into the orb"
Miko closed her eyes, trying to remember the feeling, to reverse it.
She focused, thinking of the energy she usually felt from the outside, and tried to push something similar out from her core.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a faint, warm tingling started in her chest, traveling down her arm. The orb in her hands began to glow with a soft, ethereal white light.
"It's working!" she gasped, her eyes flying open.
The light grew brighter, pulsing with her excitement. The tingling became a rush. The glow intensified to a blinding gleam—
ZZZAP!
A sharp, painful jolt, like static electricity magnified a hundred times, shot from the orb into her hands. Miko yelped and nearly dropped it, her hands stinging.
Across from her, Mai's orb glowed with a faint, flickering silver light before she too flinched back with a hissed "Tch!" as a shock hit her.
"An excess of power, poorly controlled," Akira stated, utterly unmoved by their pain. "The shock is a feedback mechanism. It teaches your body to recognize a threshold. The goal is not brute force. It is precision. Stability"
He looked between the two of them, his expression stern.
"That is the exercise. You will continue. You will find the current within you. You will learn to control its flow. You will keep a steady, constant stream of energy flowing into the orb, enough to make it shine, but not enough to trigger the feedback. You will do this until you can maintain that steady state for thirty consecutive minutes without a single shock."
Miko looked down at the now-dormant orb in her stinging hands, then at Mai's similarly shocked expression. The simplicity of the task was deceptive. It wasn't about strength, it was about an impossible, delicate balance. It was about controlling a part of herself she had only ever been a victim of.
The real training had finally begun.
-----------------------------------------
(Sakurajima Mai's POV)
Hours bled away in that secluded clearing, marked only by the slow arc of the sun and the sharp, painful jolts that shot up their arms.
Mai's vision had narrowed to the dark orb in her hands, the faint, flickering silver light it emitted, and the searing feedback that punished the slightest lapse in control.
Her hands were a mess of red, stinging skin. Each shock was a fresh insult, a reminder of how a part of her own body was a foreign, hostile country she had no map to navigate. Beside her, Miko yelped and hissed with every failure, her own orb flaring white before cutting out with a vicious zzzt.
And through it all, he stood there. A statue of silent observation. His corrections were sparse, precise, and devastatingly accurate.
"Your breathing is erratic. It disrupts the flow. Inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four. Your energy follows your breath."
"You are trying to push the energy. You are a pipe, not a pump. Let it flow."
"The fear of the shock is causing you to underfeed it. You must find the balance point. It is a feeling, not a calculation."
It was infuriating. And it was working.
Slowly, painfully, the shocks became less frequent. The flickering of her orb began to steady. She found a rhythm with her breathing, a point in her core where something warm and potent hummed, and she learned to tap it like a valve, opening it just enough. Not a deluge, but a stream.
She didn't even realize she'd done it at first. She was just breathing, focusing, her entire being cantered on that delicate, internal valve.
She opened her eyes and saw the orb glowing with a steady, unwavering silver light. No pulses. No flickers. Just a constant, soft luminescence.
A glance to her side showed Miko achieving the same, a look of stunned concentration on her face as her orb shone with a pure white light.
They held it. For a minute. Then two. The strain was immense, a mental fatigue deeper than any physical exhaustion she'd ever known. But they held it.
"Good"
His voice cut through the silence they hadn't realized had fallen. He didn't sound pleased. He sounded like a scientist noting a successful phase of an experiment.
"You may stop."
The moment he gave permission, the flow cut off. The orbs went dark. Both Mai and Miko sagged, gasping for air as if they'd just run a marathon. Mai's hands trembled, the skin raw and angry.
Wordlessly, Akira approached. He produced a roll of clean, white bandages and two small jars of a pale green salve that smelled of mint and something earthy. He handed one set to each of them.
"For your hands. Apply the salve first. It will accelerate the healing."
His tone was matter-of-fact, as if handing out medical supplies to girls with electrically burned hands was a perfectly normal Tuesday activity. Mai took hers without a word, slathering the cool, soothing gel on her stinging palms before wrapping them with a practiced efficiency that came from a lifetime of handling things herself.
Once they were done, he spoke again.
"Stand up. Get ready."
Miko looked up, bewildered. "Ready for what, sensei? More… orb practice?" Her voice was hopeful.
Akira's crimson eyes glinted in the afternoon light.
"No," he said, his voice flat and final. "The basic control exercises are done. Now, I am going to teach you how to fight."
Mai's head snapped up. Fight? Her? The girl who perfected the art of being unseen? The one who avoided conflict like it was a physical disease?
Before she could form a protest, he was already moving. He guided Miko over to a sturdy-looking tree.
"The body is a weapon. Every part of it. The goal is not to meet force with force, but to redirect it. To use your opponent's energy against them." He positioned Miko's stance, adjusting her feet and posture with impersonal touches. "You are small. Your strength will never be in power. It will be in precision. In striking where it is least expected. Watch."
He demonstrated a movement against the tree, not a punch, but a precise, open-palm strike that landed with a sharp thwack that seemed to travel deep into the trunk.
The entire tree shuddered. Miko's eyes were wide with a mixture of terror and awe.
Mai watched, her mind reeling, as he put Miko through basic drills. Blocks, parries, how to pivot on her feet to avoid a direct hit. He was relentless, his instructions crisp and devoid of any encouragement beyond "again" and "faster."
Then, his gaze landed on her.
"Sakurajima. Your turn."
He walked toward her. Mai instinctively wanted to step back, to unclasp her bracelet and fade away. But his eyes held her in place.
"Your ability is different," he stated. "It is not an offensive tool in itself. It is a tactical advantage. But a tactical advantage is useless if you cannot capitalize on it physically."
He didn't have her hit the tree. Instead, he focused on her footing, on her balance.
"If you are unseen, you can be anywhere. The element of surprise is absolute. But surprise lasts for a single moment. In that moment, you must be decisive." He guided her through a movement, a swift, disabling strike aimed at the side of a knee, the inside of an elbow. "You will not overpower anyone. You will incapacitate them. A joint lock. A precise strike to a nerve cluster. Efficiency. Maximum effect for minimum effort."
He moved behind her, his voice a low murmur by her ear. "Now. Make me not see you."
Her heart hammered. With a trembling hand, she unclasped the bracelet. The familiar sensation of fading, of becoming a background blur, washed over her.
She heard him take a step. "Good. Now. Try to tap my shoulder."
She moved, silent as a ghost, sliding around behind him. She reached out—
His hand snapped up, his fingers closing around her wrist an inch before she made contact. He hadn't even turned around.
"You are still there," he said, his voice calm. "Most cannot see you, but many will feel the air displace. Hear your breath. Hiding is not enough. You must be silent. You must be still. You must become nothing. Again"
He released her wrist.
Mai stumbled back, a cold dread mixing with a strange, fiery determination in her gut.
He was right. She'd spent her whole life hiding, but now, she will no longer hide, she will stand her ground
She took a deep breath, clasped the bracelet back on, and got into the stance he'd shown her.
"Again," she said, her voice quieter, steadier than before.
Akira gave a single, slight nod.
The lesson continued.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Yotsuba Miko's POV)
Sweat stung Miko's eyes, tracing clean lines through the dust on her cheeks.
Every muscle in her body screamed in protest, a symphony of agony conducted by the relentless orders of the man before them.
Her hands, wrapped in the clean bandages he'd provided, throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
She'd never been so utterly drained, not just physically, but mentally. Holding that steady stream of energy had felt like holding her very soul taut on a wire.
Just as her knees threatened to buckle, Yoshika-sensei reached into his seemingly bottomless bag. He produced two small, green plastic bottles, their contents shimmering with a faint, internal light.
He tossed one to her, the other to Mai.
"Drink," he commanded, his voice offering no room for debate. "All of it."
Miko fumbled with the cork, her tired fingers clumsy. She brought the bottle to her lips. It smelled surprisingly… sweet. Like crisp, fresh apples on an autumn day. She glanced at Mai, who gave a slight, weary shrug before downing her own bottle. Trusting him, or too exhausted to care, Miko did the same.
The liquid was cool and smooth, tasting exactly as it smelled. It slid down her throat, a pleasant sensation. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, it hit.
It was like a wave of pure, clean energy washing through her veins. The deep, bone-weary fatigue vanished, erased in an instant. The ache in her muscles melted away, replaced by a feeling of supple readiness. The throbbing in her bandaged hands faded to a distant memory.
She felt… refreshed.
More than refreshed. She felt like she'd just woken from a full night's perfect sleep after a month of rest
Her eyes wide, she looked at Mai.
The older girl was staring at her own hands, flexing her fingers, a look of pure, unvarnished shock on her face. It had happened to both of them. This wasn't a sports drink.
This was… something else
"Your bodies have recovered?" Yoshioka-sensei's voice cut through their stunned silence.
Miko could only nod mutely, her mind reeling from the impossible sensation. Mai gave a slow, cautious nod, her guard visibly going up even as her body hummed with new energy.
"Good."
The word was a death sentence.
In a movement too fast for Miko's eyes to fully track, his leg snapped out.
It wasn't a wild kick; it was a piston-driven strike of brutal efficiency, aimed directly at Mai's stomach.
THUMP.
The sound was sickening, a hollow impact of force meeting flesh. Mai's eyes bulged, all the air in her lungs forced out in a silent, agonized gasp. She was lifted off her feet and thrown backward, skidding across the grass for a good two meters before coming to a crumpled, wheezing stop.
Miko's head whipped around, her mouth opening to scream a protest, to ask what he was doing—
His fist was already moving.
It drove into her solar plexus like a freight train.
The world exploded into white, painless static. For a terrifying second, there was nothing—no sound, no sight, no air. Her body forgot how to breathe.
She crumpled to her knees, then onto her side, curling into a foetal position as her diaphragm spasmed violently, fighting a losing battle to pull in a breath that wouldn't come. She gagged silently, her vision spotting at the edges.
Through the roaring in her ears, she heard his voice.
It was calm. Flat. The same tone he'd used to explain a class.
"Curses won't have mercy" He wasn't shouting. He was stating a fact. "They won't care if you are two teenage girls that just barely entered puberty. They will only see two sources of energy that can kill them. And they will reply in kind. With the intent to shred your souls"
Miko managed a ragged, whistling inhale, the pain finally registering as a fiery knot in her chest. She saw Mai struggling to push herself up, her face pale, one arm wrapped around her stomach.
Yoshioka-sensei stood over them, looking down at their wounded forms with no more emotion than if he were examining insects.
"The best teacher" He said, his crimson eyes cold and absolute, "Will always be experience. Theory is meaningless without practical application."
He cracked the knuckles of one hand, the sound unnaturally loud in the stunned silence of the clearing.
"This is the next part of your training."
He took a single step forward, his shadow falling over them.
"Fight" He said, his voice dropping into a final, terrifying ultimatum. "Or die."
----------------------------------------
(Sakurajima Mai's POV)
Agony was a new baseline.
Every breath Mai drew was a sharp, stabbing reminder of the kick that had stolen the air from her lungs.
Her stomach was a constellation of blossoming pain, and she knew without looking that her side was a mess of bruises.
A glance at Miko confirmed the same; the younger girl moved with a stiff, pained hesitation, her face pale under the sweat and dirt.
They were getting decimated.
That was the only word for it.
He was a whirlwind of controlled, precise violence. A flick of his wrist became a strike that numbed her arm.
A shift of his weight became a sweep that sent her crashing to the grass. He was teaching them how to fight by using them as living punching bags.
But then, something shifted.
It wasn't a conscious thought. It was pure, desperate survival. The basic movements he'd drilled into them, the stances, the blocks, the pivots, stopped being theoretical shapes and started becoming reflexes.
Her body, screaming in protest, began to move on its own.
A fist aimed at her face. An hour ago, she would have frozen. Now, her forearm came up, deflecting the blow at an angle. The impact still hurt, sending a jolt up her arm, but it wasn't a direct hit. She wasn't on the ground.
She saw Miko do the same, a clumsy but effective block against a kick that would have sent her flying again. They were learning. The lessons were being carved into their bones with every bruise.
The frustration built, a boiling pot inside her.
The pain, the exhaustion, the sheer unfairness of it all mixed with the dregs of that strange apple-drink energy.
During a lull, as he effortlessly evaded her combination of strikes, that frustration peaked.
With a wordless shout of pure effort, she threw a punch. But it wasn't just a punch.
Without thinking, without planning, she pulled on that current of energy she'd learned to control in the orb.
She felt it surge from her core, down her arm, and into her fist. Her knuckles didn't just move through the air; they seemed to tear through it, leaving a faint, shimmering trail of silver energy.
THWUMP.
The sound was different. Duller, heavier.
Yoshira-sensei's hand snapped up, his palm meeting her fist. He didn't just block it; he stopped it dead. The impact didn't reverberate up her arm. The energy… dissipated against his palm, absorbed. His fingers didn't even tremble.
But he stopped moving. Those crimson eyes looked from her fist to her face.
"Good," he said, and for the first time, there was a flicker of something that wasn't neutrality in his voice. It was approval. "You are getting it. Don't forget that feeling. The flow, the intent. Now keep fighting."
With a simple, effortless push of his palm, he sent her stumbling back several steps. Her heart was hammering, not from fear, but from shock. She'd done something. Something more.
"That," he stated, his voice returning to its lecturing tone even as his eyes tracked both of them, "was Cursed Energy Reinforcement. You are channelling the energy not into an external object, but into your own body. Reinforcing your durability, your strength. Offense and defence."
As he spoke, a visible aura of deep, crimson energy flickered around his own forearms, clinging to him like ethereal flame. "Again."
He came at them again, but the game had changed. The stakes were higher. Now, his blocks weren't just precise; they were solid in a way that defied physics.
When he parried her strike, it felt like hitting a steel beam. When he threw a punch, the air itself seemed to warp around his crimson-coated fist.
It was terrifying.
And it was the clearest instruction he could have given.
Mai focused, gritting her teeth against the pain. She pulled on that current again, imagining it flooding her arms, coating her bones and muscles in that same protective silver energy. The next time she blocked his strike, the impact was still brutal, but it didn't feel like her arm would break.
Across from her, she saw a flash of white. Miko, her face a mask of determination, had managed it too. Her movements became slightly faster, her blocks slightly more solid. She was reinforcing herself.
They fell into a new, brutal rhythm. The sounds of the fight were no longer just the thud of impacts on flesh, but the sharper crack of energy-enhanced limbs meeting. They were still losing. Badly. Every exchange ended with one of them on the ground or gasping for air.
But they were fighting back. They were using the lessons. They were channelling the energy.
They were no longer just victims; they were students.
And their teacher was a merciless, impossible force of nature who was, against all odds, forcing them into something that could survive
-----------------------------
(Yotsuya Miko's POV)
Time had lost all meaning.
The sun had climbed, peaked, and now bled orange into the late afternoon sky, but Miko's world was measured in gasping breaths, stinging impacts, and the occasional, miraculous cool wave of the green apple drink that brought her screaming muscles back from the brink.
Each time her body gave out, trembling and spent, he would wordlessly produce another bottle.
Each time, the revival was instant, a cruel reset that launched them back into the storm of his instruction.
But with each cycle, something was changing.
The movements he'd burned into them were becoming less thought and more instinct.
Her blocks were faster, her pivots sharper.
She could feel her own body growing stronger, more responsive, the cursed energy flowing into her limbs with less conscious effort, making her hits land with a solid thwack that would have shocked her hours ago.
They were learning.
They were adapting.
They were, against all odds, surviving.
It was in the middle of this brutal rhythm that their teacher decided to change the pace.
Mai launched a hook, her fist trailing a familiar, determined silver light.
It was a good strike, fast and reinforced, the product of their hours of hellish training.
Yoshioka-sensei didn't block it.
His hand shot out, faster than a snake strike, and caught her fist. His fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her dead. Mai's eyes widened in shock, her momentum utterly stolen.
And then, Miko felt it. Thanks to her senses, honed to a razor's edge by the constant feel of spirits she has seen and evaded
It wasn't a glow, not like their energy.
It was a distortion, a convergence of something immense and terrible.
The space around his clenched fist seemed to collapse in on itself, sucking in the light and sound, condensing into a point of absolute nothingness. A void of pure, concentrated power that made her soul whimper.
Her breath hitched.
A silent scream built in her throat. Stop!
Then, her teacher spoke. One word, flat and calm, a stark contrast to the cataclysm he was about to unleash.
"Kokusen."
Black Flash.
His fist moved.
It wasn't a punch. It was an event.
It connected with Mai's midsection.
There was no sound of impact.
There was only a terrifying, vacuum-like silence for a fraction of a second, followed by an explosion of pure, spatial distortion.
Black, negative lightning, a light that was the absence of light, erupted from the point of contact, crackling over Mai's body with a sound like reality itself tearing.
Mai didn't cry out.
The air was simply blasted from her lungs in a voiceless, agonized rush.
Her eyes, wide with shock a moment before, instantly glazed over, swimming with tears of pure, uncomprehending agony.
Her reinforced energy flickered and died instantly, snuffed out.
She dropped.
She didn't crumple or fall.
She just dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, hitting the grass with a sickening, limp thud. She lay curled on her side, her body shuddering, making awful, wheezing, choked sounds as she fought to remember how to breathe, how to exist after being touched by that absolute nothingness.
The black lightning faded, leaving behind the scent of ozone and a silence more profound than any that had come before.
Miko stood frozen, her own fists still raised, her heart a trapped bird beating itself to death against her ribs. She stared at Mai's trembling form, then at their teacher, who stood over Mai, his hand returning to his side as if he had just done nothing more remarkable than swat a fly.
The lesson was over. A new, more terrifying understanding had been carved into them both.
The silence after the event was heavier than any blow.
The only sound was Mai's ragged, wet attempts to draw breath, each one a tiny agony.
Miko stood frozen, her body screaming at her to run, to help, to do something, but held in place by the sheer, terrifying finality of what she had just witnessed.
Yoshioka-sensei looked down at Mai's shuddering form, his expression unchanged.
He might as well have been examining an interesting rock.
"That" He stated, his voice cutting through the horrific silence "Was the Black Flash."
Miko could only stare, her mind refusing to process anything.
"It is a distortion in space that occurs when cursed energy is applied within a trillionth of a second of a physical hit" he explained, his tone as dry as a textbook "It is not a technique that can be performed at will. It is a phenomenon. A critical hit that amplifies the power of the strike by two and a half times to the power of… well, the math is irrelevant. The point is, it is a product of supreme focus, a perfect synchronicity of mind, body, and energy. You will not be attempting it. It is simply a demonstration of the potential ceiling of cursed energy application"
He finally moved, kneeling beside Mai. She flinched away from him, a weak, involuntary spasm of pure terror
"Do not move" He instructed, his voice losing none of its command. He placed his hand over the spot where the Black Flash had landed. A new, different energy began to emanate from his palm. This one wasn't the violent, crimson aura of his attacks. It was a soft, warm, golden light. It felt… peaceful. Miko's heightened senses, still ringing from the distortion, latched onto this new sensation. It was like the first warm day of spring after a long winter.
Mai's choked gasps began to ease. The violent trembling in her limbs subsided. The stark, ashen pallor of her face returned to a more normal, if exhausted, colour.
The terrible knot of distorted energy and trauma that the Black Flash had left in her body was being gently, meticulously unravelled.
"This" He said, his eyes flicking to Miko, ensuring she was watching, "Is Reverse Cursed Technique. The pinnacle of jujutsu. The ability to use positive energy, generated by multiplying cursed energy against itself, to heal. It is exponentially more difficult than reinforcement. Only a tiny fraction of sorcerers can ever achieve it"
Within moments, Mai was breathing normally, though her eyes were still wide with shell-shocked horror.
He then turned to Miko, placing his other hand on her own collection of bruises and aches. The same warm, golden flood washed through her, erasing the pain, mending the micro-tears in her muscles, leaving behind only a memory of the agony and a profound sense of physical completeness.
He stood up, leaving them both on the grass, healed but utterly shattered in spirit.
"Your bodies have been pushed to their current limits and then some. Your minds have been exposed to concepts far beyond your level" He looked at the darkening sky "You will rest for the remainder of the day. Do not attempt to train. Your minds need to process what you have learned and witnessed"
He began to walk away, toward the edge of the clearing where they had first met hours ago.
He paused without turning around.
"I will contact you," He said, his voice flat and final. "On another date. Be ready."
This time, the word held a new, infinitely heavier meaning.
"For a true fight."
And then he was gone, swallowed by the shadows of the trees, leaving the two girls alone in the twilight with the echoes of impossible power and the chilling promise of what was to come.
---------------------------
(Sakurajima Mai's POV)
Silence hung between them in the wake of his departure, thick and heavy as the evening fog beginning to creep into the clearing.
The only evidence of the hours of brutal training was the torn-up grass, their dirty, sweat-soaked clothes, and the phantom aches that the Reverse Cursed Technique had erased but their souls remembered.
Miko stood shivering slightly, her eyes still wide with a mixture of terror and awe. Mai pushed herself to her feet, her body feeling strangely light, humming with a new kind of potential energy that was at odds with her utter exhaustion.
She let out a long, slow breath she felt like she'd been holding since the word Kokusen left his lips.
"Rude bastard," she muttered, the words lacking any real heat. It was just a fact. He was the most infuriating, terrifying, incomprehensibly effective rude bastard on the planet.
Miko jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, then nodded weakly in agreement.
Mai looked at the younger girl, really looked at her. They'd just been to hell and back together. That created a bond, whether they wanted it or not. "Hey. Don't… don't think about it too much tonight. Just… sleep."
Miko nodded again, swallowing hard. "Y-yeah."
"We should… hang out sometime. Y'know. When we're not getting used as human punching bags" The offer was gruff, awkward, but genuine
A small, wobbly smile touched Miko's lips. "I'd… I'd like that, Mai-san"
With a final nod, Mai turned and started the long walk home. The familiar streets felt different. The sounds of the city were muted, distant. Her body moved on autopilot, every step a reminder of the fluid motions he'd drilled into her.
Finally, she pushed open the door to her apartment, the silence within a welcome relief.
The first thing she did was peel off the disgusting tracksuit. It was caked in dirt, grass stains, and sweat. It smelled of effort and fear. She dropped it in a heap by the door, intending to burn it later.
Standing there in just her sports bra and underwear, she padded towards the bathroom, intent on washing the entire day down the drain
She flicked on the bright bathroom light and caught her reflection in the mirror.
And stopped dead.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She leaned closer, her eyes widening.
"When…" She whispered to her reflection, her voice barely audible.
When did she gain this muscle?
It wasn't bulky. It wasn't the bodybuilder physique she has seen on TV women.
This was something else entirely. It was a lean, defined topography of sinew and power she'd never seen on herself before. The lines of her abdomen, once soft, were now starting to show a defined six-pack etched into her core. Her arms, always slender, now starting showing the clear, elegant delineation of triceps and biceps. Her shoulders had a new, sharp shape to them. Even her legs, peeking out from her shorts, looked toned and powerful
She turned slightly, watching the muscles in her back and shoulders shift and flex with the movement. It was a body built for what she had just been doing. A body built for efficiency, for speed, for impact.
Her butt even looked more perkier.....
The hours of relentless drills, the constant reinforcement of cursed energy, the miraculous healing that had repaired and rebuilt her body after each failure… it hadn't just trained her. It had remade her.
She stared for a long moment, a strange, foreign feeling stirring in her chest. It wasn't vanity. It was… shock.
And a flicker of something like pride.
Stepping into the shower, she let the hot water wash over her, sluicing away the dirt and grime.
As the steam rose, her mind drifted back to him. To the impossible calm in those crimson eyes, the effortless power, the brutal, unforgiving lessons.
And the strangest thing was... she wasn't angry. Not even a little.
He had beaten her to the point of tears.
He had shown her a pain so profound it felt like her soul had been scoured. And yet, all she felt was a dizzying sense of… gratitude?
He hadn't just opened a door for her; he had kicked it off its hinges and dragged her through it, kicking and screaming.
He had given her the tools to solve the problem that had defined her entire existence.
He had looked at her pathetic, fading life and decided to forge it into something stronger.
He saw her. Not the invisible girl, but the potential she never knew she had. And he had, in his own merciless way, nurtured it.
She finished her shower and sat on the edge of the bathtub.
The apartment was silent. She hugged her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them.
An image flashed in her mind: his sharp profile against the setting sun, his platinum hair almost glowing, the utter certainty in his stance.
A warmth that had nothing to do with the shower spread through her chest and crept up her neck.
She buried her face in her knees, her damp hair falling around her like a curtain.
"Baka," she murmured into her knees, her voice soft and thick with an emotion she couldn't name.
The word was meant to be an insult. A dismissal. But coming from her lips, in the quiet of her bathroom, it sounded like something else entirely.