"Yuri, from her father's name meaning lily. Ko from my own, meaning child." Every word is effort. The air is fighting her lungs on its way down. "This little girl right here? She's all the light from her father, and only the very best parts of myself. I never knew I could love anyone so intensely."
Water sprays from the busted sink. Glass detonates as fractures of brittle silica decorate the tiled flooring. Everything is metal or appears metallic at a glance. The dying light scatters in partially polarised beams, illuminating potholes, broken furnishing and a table, recently sawn in twain.
One might be forgiven for thinking there are only two people in the room: a mother, who in a shaky reverse-grip holding a knife of the same sheen as the environment, and the babbling baby resting in the crook of her neck. But 'forgiven' does not erase the mistake. There are three. The third is clutching her head. The third is writhing on the floor in silent agony. The third is an intruder.
Make no mistake she is a person too, in the loosest sense of the word. A mother, even.
Hatsuko's breath fogs as her mood drops with her gaze.
"And you thought you could take her from me?"
Tick, tick. Hatsuko's vision swims.
"To be fair..." the scarred intruder snarks when she is allowed to feel anything but pain. "I was here for you."
***
You: The thermometer shed?
Idiot(2): Yeah. Crazy, right?
You: It would be, but...who told your bosses it was there?
Idiot(2): Eh, the higher-ups cast an information network almost as wide as the country. And they're paranoid old bastards, so even being who I am, they don't tell me everything.
You: Well, it's not really my business, but I think you should track them down.
Idiot(2): Hm?
You: That shed's been empty for months.
***
Yuriko shrugged, as the bell clamoured throughout the building. She stuffed her phone into her bag, stood, then waved to Yuji. It was time to go. For her specifically. The day wasn't over—hell, the first period had just ended but by now the school, and especially her teachers were used to her scheduled absences. What were they supposed to do? Expel her? Hah! Her grades made the school look too good for that. Call her father in? And have him come in to explain she'd been out of the house for months, without adult supervision? Hah, hah!
Mayuri had taken to waiting for her outside the building, after school. He never approached, never spoke to her; he just...hovered. Like a spectre in the corner of her vision. She'd noticed him some time around mid-February, just watching from a distance. The man had been leaving work so consistently early that it had to be hurting his career.
The thought made her smile. But was it schadenfreude, or plain old regular freude? Before yesterday, such a line of thought would have made her feel like crap. But yesterday had been a good day, a very good day. Yuriko was happy. And for once she was content with being happy.
Yuriko reached the landing leading to the ground floor smiling. That was when she felt hands press against her back. Two sets of palms.
Suddenly, she was accelerating. At a greater pace than her body was prepared for—she would miss the next step, and nosedive down the staircase. She was familiar with the concept; she'd had face-first experience.
This time the hands were small, only marginally larger than her own, and that eased a little tension out of her budding indignation. In middle school, it had been a single palm, almost as broad as her had back that had sent her a-tumble. An adult's palm. In middle school she hadn't had the tools to defy classical physics and had broken her arm somewhere between the shock, pain and the ground.
This time, she just let her body drink in her mild irritation as she rolled off one step into a bounce. What should have been pain simply downgraded to a soft, almost comfortable pressure as she landed on her soles with a click.
"Oh, my gaw, she's so clumsy."
Yuriko raised her head to see... Player-One and Player-Two?Microbe and Tall. She sighed. Prime examples of why the school needed students like her to even out the average.
A crowd was forming; sadistic curiosity encircled the circumstance. She was ready this time. She was happy this time. Nothing they could do or say would stop the verbal evisceration she knew she could deliver.
Reflection asserted itself, once again turning the pair into a silent mummery that Yuriko was watching with a shit-eating grin. Once Microbe was red in the face, and out of breath, Yuriko allowed the last sputtered words to reach her.
"Do I have to use this hammer again?" said—wait a minute...
Yuriko blinked, her witticism half-formed in her head. Where did she know that voice from? There was a spark, the barest flicker of cursed energy and then she saw the hands spring forth from behind them. They weren't much larger than her own, but apparently they were large enough to grab both Tall and Microbe at the base of their skulls, and—
THWACK.
Oh... blunt force trauma. Head-to-head contact. The two besties, now closer than ever, crumpled to their knees and began their own little adventure down the stairs. That was when she saw her. Chestnut hair, brown eyes that were almost orange—an easy smile stretched her lips.
"Yo!" said the girl, as she clipped the hammer back on her waist. "What the hell have you done to your hair?"
"No—Nobara?" Yuriko stammered.
The One Who Wields the power of God, blinked, stood, and then she ran.
***
"Never in all my years have I seen such buffoonery; such disregard!" Mr Stupid was apoplectic as he spoke. "Two girls rushed to the hospital one hour in? What do you all have to say for yourselves?"
Is a question one should never ask a group of indignant school children. After all, the perpetrator had chased Suzushina Yuriko off campus. That had been a few hours ago. They were probably still running even now. The classroom erupted with 'I-didn't-do-its', and 'they-deserved-its' and the occasion laugh as the space became a cacophony of mumbles.
Mr. Stupid nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. When the noise wasn't dying down, he walked back to his desk and flourished his hand over its contents.
In seconds, erasers found their marks, striking silence into every student who'd been speaking—except Setsuko who was able to catch it with her curse-enhanced reflexes.
"Enough!" he said. "I've personally reviewed the CCTV, so I know who did it. I'm asking why you all just crowded instead of stopping him."
"Him?"
Mr. Stupid stomped and pointed a finger across the classroom. The accusation landed on, "Itadori Yuji! Stay behind after school today."
"Me?" said 'The Tiger of West Junior High' looking very much like a puppy moonlighting as a football. The non-American kind.
From where she was sitting, Setsuko could see the boy pointing at his chest, and she had to agree. Him? Itadori Yuji? Really? She had never even seen him in a fight, unless she wanted to count that one time when he had to save Yuriko from a cat—and they'd both lost. Beyond that, the act was just far and away too cruel, however warranted it might have been, to have been performed by Itadori. Besides...
"Uhm." Setsuko raised her hand. "Respectfully sir, but he wasn't there."
The rumour mill had churned out an approximation of when the incident had occurred, and she remembered where Itadori had been at the time: walking to the next class with her.
"Oh! Oh, so you can see better than our security system?"
He's lying, she thought, but why?
Setsuko had always considered herself to be observant, and the last view months had only reaffirmed for her that she was. After all, she had been right about the supernatural, even when she couldn't outright perceive it. Even her most recent theory about the rugby team's subpar performance had rung true, after she'd used her shaky grasp over her cursed technique to confirm it. Dead body under the field? Wicked.
The point was, when it came to detective work, everything seemed to come up Setsuko. And now that she had her technique, details came to her easier even without active use of it. Her eyesight had sharpened, as had her sense of taste and hearing. She used cosmetic glasses nowadays.
So, when Mr. Stupid's hand trembled, however slightly that it did, Setsuko noticed. Odd. He was biting his lips, so hard they could bleed. Setsuko gave the eraser in her hand a little squeeze, as a stream of unclear images and sounds came to life in her mind. The last flash she saw was a grotesque looking digit, before Iguchi's voice brought her back to the present.
"Sir, the cameras in that area don't work."
They knew of course, because of Yuriko. Mr Stupid clearly wasn't privy to that fact. A spattering of sweat ran along his brow like a condensation on a cold window, in a boiler room. The man was stressed; transparently so.
"What I'm hearing," he said. "Is that you want to join him for detention then?"
Mr Stupid's fist clenched and unclenched by his sides. Iguchi for his part look flustered. The gentle giant was always the most timid of their quartet. Itadori was outgoing. Sasaki was audacious and Yuriko was... Even so, he didn't back down.
"Yes, sir."
Mr Stupid let out a shaky sigh as the timid boy sealed his fate.
***
It was high noon, and the sun was bearing down on them as they ran. The forecast had predicted rain, but it hadn't predicted the mood of the teenage girl who was tearing through the streets of Sendai. Yuriko crossed roads through incoming traffic, hopped over fences. Her shoes pounded the ground as she pumped cursed energy into her legs.
"Why are... you still... chasing...me?!"
"Because... you're still running!"
Dammit. Circular logic! Typical of the Kugisakis. A quick scan of her memories reminded her that the matriarch had been equally obstinate. But Yuriko couldn't exactly stop to explain the gaps in Nobara's reasoning. She could scarcely explain why she was running in the first place, but she'd had plenty of time to decide that for the past forty minutes.
Kugisaki Nobara presented an unexpected risk, with an incalculable consequence: she knew.
'You can't swim; you'll drown.'
'Nah,' says a tiny white-haired girl. All the world can fit in her smile. 'I'd float.'
Two minutes later, the girl is glugging 'save me! Save me!' as the current sweeps her away. On the bank, cushioned by grass, squats a chestnut-haired girl with a camera and a juvenile face that somehow has lifetimes of smugness packed behind it.
Kugisaki Nobara knew too damn much.
She had been there when Yuriko was a few teeth short of a smile, when she still cared about unimportant shit like what she looked like, or what other people thought about what she looked like. Before she even knew what it meant to be a nail that stuck out in a world of hammers all looking to drop. She was there when Yuriko had cried because the village kids were calling her names and throwing stones.
She is there at the funeral.
An elderly woman stares in mute fury at a man whose flask is staring into him.
'She wanted to be buried.'
He shrugs when there is no more poison left to drink.
'Funerals are for the living, and the living have bills to pay.'
'She wanted. To. Be. Buried.'
In this memory, her lips press tight, hiding teeth and gaps from the world. There is no smile to be found. There is no warmth. There is no curiosity. There is no sadness. There is no joy. She bears a countenance that can only be described by absence.
A hand perches on Yuriko's shoulder, and Kugisaki Nobara watches her, as she watches the warmest person she has ever known become particulates in the wind.
Yuriko stopped running, and they collided.
***
"These terms...are you sure?"
"I... don't have much time either way"
"Not to put myself at a disadvantage here, but what if I just—"
"Listen. I don't know who you are, and I barely know what you want. But I'm telling you now. No matter what you do. It won't be enough. You can plan around her like she's Gojo Satoru and you'd be underestimating her. Just agree to terms, leave her the hell alone, and we both get to walk away for now."
White. White. White. This would be a bad place to die. The hospital room was its own kind of hell. It reminded him of the metal living room. How effortless Suzushina Hatsuko had dominated the space around them and stained it her colour. So much power; so much potential, gone. He wondered if she had also died in a room as just as dull as the one he was in. And for what?
"Actually, if I squint, I think I almost understand."
For all the bravado in his voice, in Kaori's voice, it was all he could do to fight the impulse to rush to the school and call the whole thing off.
A chortle responded from the bed.
"Silly father-in-law." Kenjaku stroked the man's hair. "I wasn't talking to you."
A hyoid fracture of all things. Who could have predicted such a thing. The twin brother of Ryoumen Sukuna would die choking this time. It was almost regrettable. But Kenjaku knew if he didn't do this, then he would incarnate weaker than originally planned.
And speaking of 'weak,' Itadori Wasuke thrashed with dimishing frenzy as the remainder of his energy was spent. His face, which had been red only minutes ago grew pallid as his life faded and his arms fell morosely to his sides. It was enough to make an ancient sorcerer cry...
Hah.
Kenjaku set down the flowers he had brought and rose from the bedside seat. He wondered if he would have killed the man in a less painful way had he seen more positive results in the MRI he had had today.
There was no feeling the impossibly small grain of metal in his brain. Not the physical pressure it exerted, not the cursed energy it exuded but he knew it had to be somewhere in there. The scan revealed nothing. So, it was likely that there wasn't an instrument on earth that had the surgical precision to detect, let alone dislodge it.
"Maybe a modified electron microscope?"
The hospital fell away, as he tucked his cursed energy away in a little ball, and began his walk to the station.
"Or 'One-Way Road', as it turns out..."
The ticket barrier closed behind him.
He briefly wondered why she called her technique as such, but that was irrelevant. The girl had noted that his cursed energy was 'elevated,' behind his scar. Which didn't surprise him. Any competent sorcerer could tell at that range, and it was normal to at least subconsciously maintain an 'elevated' level of cursed energy around such a vital organ, especially since it housed techniques.
What he surprised him was that she had called it 'distinct.'
Kenjaku's cursed technique—his actual technique—allowed him to switch bodies with a person and replace them completely. Their memories became his. Their technique became his. Their cursed energy became his. There was no 'distinct.'
No Six-Eyes user had ever been able to identify him from the person he'd replaced in the past.
The daughter could remove the grain.
He recalled the embarrassing, but educational defeat.
Suzushina Yuriko, and his own progeny. Their adorable, but painfully obvious play at ignorance. He had indulged it, but he had killed too many Six-Eyes users to not know when he had been spotted.
It shouldn't have mattered.
His domain amplification had been flawless, but as he threw the punch, it happened again. That 'familiar' excruciating pain. Death, or worse, was guaranteed if that punch had landed. Instead, the girl was 'able' to 'deflect' it 'coincidentally' saving his own life.
Kenjaku pouted. "You probably thought you won, huh?"
Binding vows were all about give and take. The mother couldn't demand something unreasonable from Kenjaku like leaving her daughter unharmed, without giving him a little something in return. Hatsuko had been the one to break her vow first.
"At least, to me."
There was nothing in their agreement preventing him from harming Suzushina Yuriko, after her mother had so selfishly refused to uphold her end. He had even tested it before. He could see it now. What he hadn't accounted for was a binding vow the woman must have taken with herself. On her own technique, and from that perspective, everything made a little more sense.
It seemed like it was either that Hatsuko's technique worked post-mortem, maybe facilitated by a death vow, or that she was back. That thought gave him pause. First there was that thing he had no intention of being anywhere near, and now...
The pout on Kenjaku's face became a predatory smile. "Oh Suguru-kun, how I wish they would just kill you now."