Chapter 1

  It was over. Finally.

  And I was so, so tired.

  I could feel her, still in the back of my mind, plotting to take control over me. Nesting plots within plots. The Administrator, desperate to reach her puppet strings to everything.

  I heard Contessa drone on behind me as I sat, kneeling, staring up at the vast sky and all its stars. I ignored her words. I didn’t think they mattered.

  Just… get it over with. I’m tired.

  That was wrong. According to many. Right now, what she was doing, was ‘going gently’.

  Do not go gently into that good night.

  That was… the cliché, at least. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  I found it a ridiculous notion even as I considered it. I had no attachment to life, not anymore.

  No.

  I wouldn’t go gently, but that wouldn’t be because I was resisting.

  I wouldn’t go gently. I would go full throttle.

  “I despise everything I am,” I whispered, interrupting Contessa. “Every choice, every word, every action. Everything… cursed. Kill me.”

  I would not go gently into that good night. I didn’t deserve to.

  “Kill me!”

  Instead, I would spend my last moments cursing my entire existence, hoping that what awaited me was not an afterlife, but oblivion.

  “Kill m—”

  I heard a gunshot.

  Felt my body tilt.

  And then? That promised oblivion.

  000

  …Not quite.

  Whether due to some quirk of fortune, or the fact that I had cursed myself, I now existed in a truly accursed state of affairs.

  A birth through a tight canal, pressing my limbs close to my arms—I resisted, only to find that in doing so, I had killed a woman.

  And her last words…

  “すべてを呪いなさい、我が子よ。我が美しい帝良。帝良。”

  And the adults standing around me…

  “五つ子は不吉な兆しなので、ランダムに4人の子供を殺して何が起こるか見てみましょう。その人の名は帝良.”

  Barely able to see, foreign words filled my ears ad nauseum, rewriting my brain, my way of thinking.

  It took me hours until I recognized the cadence: Japanese.

  Radically different from anything I had ever known of before. Somehow even more eldritch than my past experiences. A mere language, and yet I feared it so.

  I spent months under these circumstances, feeling a bone-deep dread at the single-minded recitation of words in one foreign language. Months.

  My incandescent rage at my past life stopped mattering within days of this. After that, all I had left to me were fresh indignities, new and inventive tortures, haunting me day by day.

  Evacuating myself, and a stranger cleaning up after me.

  Subsisting via breastfeeding.

  Having to cry for attention.

  Throughout it all, the only way I kept myself sane was to remind myself of who I was, forcing myself to remember that very same life that I had cursed in my final moments.

  In the process, I found that… it hadn’t been all that bad. Terrible, yes, but… it could have been worse.

  It could have been this.

  I regretted, very much, the words I had spared for my past life. I wished that the circumstances would have been different, that my mentality hadn’t frayed to such an extent.

  One of the first things that I had noticed—adding to my growing well of grievances with this new life—was my living situation.

  I spent most of my hours either in a nursery filled with dozens upon dozens of cribs—I had counted thirty-seven filled ones out of fifty at some point—or an open-air grass field crawling with other babies, also crawling about.

  And all of us were naked. Mostly. We wore diapers, but that was pretty much it. And there were bugs in the grass. So many bugs.

  Some of the infants cried at how their skin reacted to the grass. I, thankfully, had a better dermis than them.

  At a certain point, I idly imagined, my eyes would deteriorate drastically and I would need to wear glasses once again.

  Though, that obviously presupposed that this life would be the same as the last one.

  And how could it be?

  This…

  I couldn’t keep hold of many memories. I counted that as a blessing: an antithesis to the curse that was this new life.

  The days spent frolicking in the fields, and confined to a crib, having to cry for attention every time I needed something, were mercifully brief. I couldn’t recall too many details, other than the constant misery I was under.

  I could walk at some point. Even then, as I was cared for by strangers that kept filling my ears with a language that I couldn’t help but internalize.

  I learned my name.

  Teira.

  Hibana Teira.

  My given name: emperor.

  Or… a version of it. It wasn’t clear. Nothing was.

  My last name, or my family name, Hibana, was my clan’s name. Sparkle, signifying the sparks of fireflies.

  As I aged, the more I could observe this theme: this insectile theme.

  The Hibana clan were all about bugs, apparently.

  And I could sense none of them.

  I could do nothing except be cared for, and as each day passed, I understood more and more that… it wasn’t practical for me to try and understand my surroundings beyond passive observations. Infantile amnesia, according to the memories I had of my past life—the clearest memories that I possessed. My brain simply wasn’t mature enough to record new memories. Thus, all I had were glimpses of my days since birth, and a mocking tapestry of my time as Taylor Hebert.

  Hibana Teira, now. Another mockery of my past. Another curse meant to cause me pain and misery.

  I wouldn’t let it. I let these days pass me by. I suckled when I had to. I shat and pissed into my diapers without shame. I didn’t lift a finger to try and understand my environs.

  Not until finally, at the tender age of four, something changed. Something drastic, yet comfortable.

  The infantile amnesia disappeared.

  I could remember now. So much easier than before. With each day that passed, I felt my new life finally filling in the blanks of who I was.

  And once again, I remembered my name: Hibana Teira.

  I remembered the names of my deceased parents: Hibana Seiji and Hibana Himeko. My mother had died in childbirth after giving birth to quintuplets.

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  All four of my siblings had been murdered.

  Hibana Seiji had died… at work, or something. That was what my caretakers had told me.

  That told me some few important things: I now lived in a world where it was permissible to murder infants post-birth, and that our chosen line of work was apparently lethal.

  I inquired upon the latter nugget of information, rather than trying to dwell on the former.

  “Our job is… quite dangerous, Teira-chan,” she said. There was a suffix affixed to my name, as usual. ‘Chan’, apparently. A cutesy version of the more normal ‘San’. “When we get paid to gather information on our client’s rivals, it isn’t always that we escape with our lives. After all, those Jujutsu witches and warlocks would want nothing else but for us to die!”

  My caretaker, Hanako, and I were seated on a bench overlooking a meadow downhill with a thin river separating us from the opposite mountain.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “They want control. They want to stop us from exercising our rights, as per the ancient agreement. Teira-chan, always remember: we were the original Jujutsu Sorcerers. The ones that had established this so-called ‘society’ are nothing but usurpers. No matter what they tell you, always remember: we are of a noble blood. We are the Hibana clan. Whether or not you awaken a Cursed Technique, always remember that. Though, in any case,” she chuckled, “as a girl, you should still always remember to bow before your male superiors.”

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that I could already spy several power-lines down the meadow, not to mention having seen a few TV sets and telephones while inside the main compound, I would have assumed that this was an entirely different era.

  Fortunately, it likely wasn’t.

  Still, this would be my reality for the time being. At least until I found a way to escape, and live on my own terms.

  “Why did they kill my siblings?”

  “Don’t talk about them,” Hanako hugged me tightly. “Forget they ever existed.”

  Her words sent a chill down my spine.

  “They cursed you. From birth.”

  Superstition?

  It tracked. This… family of mine, well. They believed in curses. Malevolent entities seeking to destroy humanity by any means necessary.

  And to combat them, they fought fire with fire by using… their own curses. Cursed Techniques. Insects, apparently. Hanako had taken me to an exhibit fight between two users of said ‘Cursed Technique’ and…

  …I had simply watched as two men within a traditionally Japanese room, floored with Tatami mats, and surrounded by thin rice-paper walls, stood across from one another and glared at each other intently, for the entire twenty minutes.

  Nothing else had happened.

  After that, a winner had been declared. The loser had walked away, head and shoulders slumped forwards in shame.

  According to Hanako, I hadn’t seen anything because I hadn’t been old enough.

  That was then, but now… I suspected that things would change.

  “Hanako-san,” I said. “Can you bring me to another duel?”

  Hanako rubbed my head fondly. “Of course, little one. I will bring you to the next Juchū battle.”

  000

  The next Juchū battle?

  Truly a spectacle.

  Hanako hugged around my body while we sat on our knees on pillows, many people sitting similarly and surrounding a ‘battlegrounds’ that was one wide tatami-matted floor. On each side stood two figures, clad in more ornate kimonos than the rest of us. While ours were mostly black and white, with some gray in it, theirs were patterned with butterflies and moths.

  Not for the first time in this life did I question the fact that all this seemed… far too on the nose.

  A new life, in a family that concerned itself with powers relating to insects? Cursed insects?

  I was still too young to make my own formal investigations, besides getting the cliff-notes of my situation: born 1989, in the Aramata Gorge, in the Ishikawa Prefecture, to the Hibana clan.

  A clan of curse experts.

  Not curse users. Hanako had told me that that was what they would refer to me as. The ever-present them. The evil villains, the Satans of our modern age: the so-called ‘Jujutsu Society’.

  The ‘so-called’ part was a necessary prefix. The one time I hadn’t repeated the full litany of phrases that included the prefix, Hanako had hit me.

  She hit me a lot, in fact. Not enough to bruise, but enough to truly irritate me. Still, I submitted to her corporal punishment. After all, despite the injustice of it, she was still my most valuable font of information regarding my situation.

  I had been reluctant to believe any of her stories, really: especially regarding the notion of hereditary powers, cursed spirits, cursed techniques, the whole works.

  I had been convinced, for too long, that powers weren’t just… natural. And yet, from everything Hanako had told me, cursed energy had been a reality of Japan for millennia. And I was reluctant to doubt that fact at this point.

  Given that I had somehow reincarnated into a new world, going against all conventional wisdom, it still remained a difficult thing for me to process: that this was not a world like Earth Bet. Not a world akin to what Scion had afflicted it with.

  This was something else, surely.

  Something worse.

  The two men standing across from one another glared at each other like they were fated enemies.

  Then, they gaped, eyes wide and fists balled, as though—

  Were they about to projectile vomit at each other?

  In fact, yes.

  Though it wasn’t chewed-up food or bile that they vomited.

  Instead, it was insects. Around thirty of them, all in all, each the size of a thumb nail.

  Flies, with dark insectile bodies and shimmering blue wings, flew towards each other in swarms. Both people had slightly differing shades of wings on their vomited-up flies. And both made no other moves than to… manipulate their flies against one another.

  Their flies fought in the air between themselves, trying to get one up over the other.

  This reminded me of the last battle that I had sat witness to. In that one, I hadn’t seen the insects. Just their masters standing across from one another, gaping and glaring.

  “I can see them,” I whispered to Hanako.

  Hanako grinned. It was…

  Hanako was a pretty woman, in my opinion. She kept her face constantly in a layer of make-up, and she had a manner to her that made her rather ‘attractive’ in my opinion—in the obvious way. She tried to look good constantly, which spoke volumes about her values, and the values of the other women in this clan. They valued a pretty woman. Hanako wasn’t precisely that, but she certainly tried in any way possible.

  I tried to ignore my concerns that this was my future. After all, I had no desire to stay in this ‘Hibana’ clan for as long as strictly necessary.

  Until then? I would simply have to play ball.

  Hanako hugged me tighter, and I hated that contact. Something about it felt… violating. Not that she was anywhere near to touching me, in that sense—simply the fact that she could if she wanted to? That was scary. And I didn’t trust Hanako nearly enough to think that she wouldn’t. Even despite our years together. Something was just off with her. “Excellent, young one. Excellent. Soon, your own juchū will awaken as well.”

  Juchū. Cursed insect.

  It never escaped me, how this life seeked to mock my former one. Hibana Teira. In Western convention, I would be Teira Hibana. Teira was the Romanization of Taylor, but this Teira was something else. It actually meant something in this culture: emperor, apparently. In my mother’s last, feeble moments, she had apparently assigned a child of hers with this masculine name, not thinking that I, the sole female infant, would survive the brutal culling that had occurred subsequently to her own death.

  At my hands, no doubt: the last-born.

  “Because I’m a superhero?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of what, exactly, it meant to be a ‘curse expert’ in this place.

  “You are better: you are a curse expert.”

  Wow, Hanako. Thank you.

  “What’s a curse expert?”

  Hanako gasped, and I looked at the fight. One was getting the upper hand as his bugs ate the other bugs faster. And with each bug that the winner ate, he would apparently create more of his own, magnifying his advantage over the other. Ten to twenty now.

  With that, the advantage magnified. Five to twenty-five, and then zero to thirty.

  And the winner was announced.

  “Hibana Aki gets the fifteen Juchū wagered!”

  Ah.

  That was the game, then. People wagered their cursed insects in battles. Winner takes all—at least, what was wagered. I assumed they held back a certain amount.

  “What were you saying, Teira-chan?”

  I considered asking again, but I thought against it.

  Ignorance was bliss.

  And it didn’t matter any longer. I had seen my path to independence already: absorbing as many Juchū as possible before defecting. Before then? I would act natural.

  000

  I had ten Juchū.

  As I aged, I learned more about the Hibana clan. The sole reason why I had gained a caretaker compared to my vast amount of cousins in the nursery?

  I had detectable cursed energy from a young age.

  Most of those cousins had been ‘exiled’ from the clan, or been groomed into servants or wives. Either gender would serve until they had reached the age of minority, after which the useless ones would be ‘spent’. The girls? Wives. The boys…

  They never told me what would happen with the boys. The ones without Juchū, at least.

  All I could observe was that the ones without the Cursed Technique had simply disappeared.

  And in the far horizon of my six-year-old perspective, I could make out the sides clearly: the ‘evil’ so-called Jujutsu Society, and us. The ‘virtuous’ curse experts.

  It was obvious, where we stood.

  Hanako gripped my shoulders painfully as she led me through the hallways of our main clan house, still wearing that insidious grin of hers. “Remember what you are to do, Teira.”

  “And what’s that?”

  She slapped my head. Softly, but annoyingly.

  “Don’t fight. Let the clan heir take your Juchū.”

  “Right.”

  She led me through some paper-covered sliding doors, into a wide, expansive floor surrounded by other clansmen. My opponent? A ten-year-old boy looking at me in naked anticipation.

  The brat wanted my Juchū.

  According to Hanako, I was to simply give them to him. That was my lot as a girl with a cursed technique. Then, due to my blessing as a curse expert, I could gain the privilege of being wedded to him.

  Right.

  The boy’s name was Hibana Sadakuno.

  His kimono was black, white, gray and patterned with spiders. Mine was black, white, gray and entirely unpatterned.

  I was too young for patterns.

  Hanako pushed me into the floor, and I stood still, as Sadakuno grinned at me. The boy was already five feet tall. Tall for his age, certainly. I was barely cresting four feet. Three feet and eleven inches, in fact.

  With ten Juchū to my name.

  “Hark, opponent! I have fifteen Juchū to my name! How many do you have?!”

  “Ten,” I muttered.

  “How many will you wager?”

  “Ten.”

  “Hah. Then I will wager fifteen, if you accept. If not, I can wager ten.”

  According to Hanako, I was supposed to accept this handicap to make it easier for Sadakuno to win.

  “Wager all fifteen,” I said. “I’ll take every single one from you.”

  The room was silent.

  Of course, they were.

  I had gone off-script.

  Sadakuno grew red on his face as he glared at me. “How… how…?! Fine! All fifteen against your measly ten!”

  He gaped at me. His Juchū crawled out from his mouth.

  Mine slipped out from my skin.

  It was simple, controlling each of them, having them burrow out through me. They were ethereal, untouchable to physical matter, and yet it tickled as they moved out from me. They didn’t make holes or anything. Rather, it felt like they slid out of me.

  And all ten of them floated around me in an aura of bugs. Sadakuni looked at me wide-eyed. His mouth opened once more, not to release more Juchū, but to simply roar at me. “Attack!”

  His Juchū swarmed towards me. Mine attacked them each, two against one. My bugs bit his over the head and thorax. In mere moments, he had lost five.

  Once I had subsumed his, I had them in my thrall. Now, I had fifteen Juchū.

  I sent all fifteen towards his remaining ten. Two to five, and one to his remaining five. The two-on-one fights were trivial, but the one-on-ones took longer than I was expecting.

  With my swarm on the two-on-one scrimmage, I won, once again, within two to three seconds. I had twenty now.

  Rather than swarm them to his remaining five, I had them, circle about, waiting to see the outcome in our fairer one-on-one.

  He lost four. Won one.

  I won his two moments later.

  Twenty-five.

  This clan had far more than just twenty-five.

  Soon, before leaving, I would take every single one of them.

  Then, I would decide my own fate.