Chapter 10

  Contrary to the threat I had made, it didn’t make sense at all to just rip parts of Sosuke apart like he was a bug.

  “One-hundred and… ninety-four.”

  Despite my most ardent of wishes, the simple fact remained that he was a human with a complicated vascular system, and that humans were not adapted to being able to survive dismemberment without medical intervention.

  “One-hundred and ninety-five.”

  Sosuke gasped softly.

  Maybe if I had fire available to me, I could cauterize his wounds as I sequentially made my way through his body, cutting him apart inch by inch.

  “One-hundred and ninety-six.”

  Sosuke whined.

  The idea had merit, because I enjoyed the poetic parallels, but it just couldn’t work on a large animal.

  “One-hundred and ninety-seven.”

  Sosuke gasped softly.

  I pinched one of his few whole hand-bones left until it shattered. “One-hundred and ninety-eight.”

  I spent more time around his hands and feet than I did the entire rest of his body, owing to the fact that over half of all of human bones were just there. It was truly amazing, mother nature. And given the world that we had created around us, it made quite a bit of sense that our hands were some of the most mechanically complicated parts of our body.

  “One-hundred and ninety-nine.”

  After I had finished with his spine, he hadn’t really been able to cry out as much anymore. It was all he could do to breathe, really, the poor devil.

  “Two-hundred. Only six left, Sosuke-sama. Please be patient.”

  Sosuke wept blood.

  I heard claps in the dark forest and turned around in shock. An intruder. How had he gotten so close? Had I been that engrossed in my revenge?

  It was dark, but I could see him clear as day with my antennae. Mori Tachi, wearing an immaculate suit, his hair slicked back. He wore shades in spite of the darkness, and his entire skull was stitched up, like some monster had sliced the cap of his skull opened to get at his brain.

  “What do you want?” I asked quietly.

  “I came here as fast as I could!” he said. “I did not expect to still find you here, but I did!”

  My first batch of Juchū had already hatched, magnifying my stores to eighty-nine thousand. That was after inserting one-hundred Juchū, including a ‘mother bug’, into a corpse. Apparently, the mother bug fertilized all the other bugs, and without much conscious direction of my own, coordinated the nourishing process. Cursed energy and flesh, leaving behind nothing but bones.

  The ones still alive had nourished a few later batches even more. A hundred turning into six-hundred thousand egg sacs almost.

  I supposed that would be Sosuke’s fate, then.

  “Congratulations, Teira-chan, congratulations! You’ve done it! You’ve freed yourself! The world is at your disposal now!”

  “Why are you here?”

  Mori Tachi chuckled. “Standoffish as ever. I like that about you. Yes, Teira-chan. Always look for the hidden costs of things. But I suspect you will find me to be nothing but a beneficial influence.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “Don’t be alarmed, but as a member of the Mori clan, I do possess the ability to ascertain whether the clients within our barriers—“

  “You bugged us,” I said. “You saw me here. That’s why you’re surprised I’m still here.”

  “Yes, my family does bug all our barriers. As a Juchū expert, I assumed that you would understand.”

  Understand? “I expected nothing less from the likes of you.”

  Tachi tilted his head. “And what is that?”

  “A curse user,” I said.

  He grinned. “How sanctimonious of you. And what makes you any different? You’ve been torturing this poor man for half an hour.”

  I looked down at Sosuke. “Cursed energy has had a negative effect on my psyche. Negative energy breeds negative action. And I’ve simply been… provoked. This isn’t me.”

  “…would you mind terribly, explaining that last statement? This isn’t you?”

  “It’s a moment of volatility. A sudden crest in negative energy. A crime of passion.”

  He snorted. “Okay. Sure. A crime of passion. But let me ask you one thing, Teira: are you cruel and vengeful because of your cursed energy, or is your curse use powerful because you are inherently cruel and vengeful?”

  My eyes widened in shock. “That’s not—“

  “Don’t answer. You don’t owe me an answer to this question. It’s just for you to reflect on.”

  No, no, no, that’s not… that couldn’t be—

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “Are you asking about my experience? To be strong is to know how to curse others and bless yourself. Which is why you are such an interesting case. You curse all equally. Including yourself. And yet, you are strong. This instability of yours is fascinating to me.”

  “Cursed energy has an emotional effect!” I shouted. “It can’t just not—that’s not how any of this works!”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Mori Tachi laughed. “Truth be told, I cannot say for sure. Though I can say, conclusively, that misfortune does surround curse users and sorcerers. Whether you hurt from it or not is immaterial to that. I’ve found that those that can draw pleasure from the misfortune of others are the most suited to mastering this art.”

  It had to be true. I wasn’t a monster.

  I was angry. Spiteful. I was—

  And what the fuck was he here for anyhow?!

  “What do you want?!” I screamed.

  “What do you want?!” he shouted back. “Teira-chan! What… do you want?!”

  I’m not a bad person. I’m not a bad person. I’m not—

  “I want to… I want to save the Hibana clan. Fix them. Bring them to justice. Submit our criminals to Jujutsu Society and join them such that we can protect people from curses.”

  Mori Tachi blinked. “You’re… you’re joking, right?”

  He sounded shaken.

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  “You want to save people?!” he shouted. His expression was one of wide-eyed incredulity. “Look at yourself! Who will you save?”

  I stomped.

  Black Flash.

  I shot towards him.

  He grinned as I arrived towards him with a straight punch. Black Fl—

  He was not an object to my senses. No, he was far too separate from the world. Almost too separate, like the world and him were entirely divorced.

  Due to that, my Black Flash did not land.

  His fist hurtled against my mid-section. I enforced it with cursed energy, reacting reflexively to—

  PAIN.

  That… that wasn’t a Black Flash. That was just—

  I was flying.

  Positive energy.

  My antennae gave me an immediate overview of the damage—visceral organs pulped, ribs and spine shattered. I drew energy from my Parasitizing Juchū to fuel my Reverse Cursed Technique.

  Before I landed harshly on the ground, I was thankfully whole.

  What the fuck—

  Mori Tachi clicked his tongue. “Now why did you go and do that?”

  Mori Tachi was not an object.

  He was not the world, nor of this world.

  Even Sosuke hadn’t…

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “A bit older. A tad stronger. Eeeh, you shouldn’t worry too much. I’m a bit of a special case. While I do so love lying to young children—it’s so funny how they carry those lies for decades and decades, letting it inform so much of their world view—ah, where was I? Yes, lying to children. That’s fun, I find that fun! Petty? Yes. Still absolutely hilarious. Anyhow, don’t worry about the wider world. Those other sorcerers are not like me.”

  “Dragon-grade,” I said.

  He snorted. “Really? I’m flattered. The truth is… no. I’m a first-grade sorcerer. Curse user. Whatever name you want to use. And Dragon-grade, special grade as the civilized world knows it, is not a matter of skill in fundamentals. It’s a matter of world-shaking potential.”

  Gojo Satoru.

  White hair. Blue eyes. World-shaking potential.

  A monster. A human Endbringer.

  “For example: if I were to face off against Gojo Satoru in ten years as I currently am, I would be murdered in an instant.”

  Then he groaned, scratching the back of his head. “Ugh. Why am I telling you all this? You’re a lost cause, anyhow. You have the world at your fingertips, and you want to return to those bottom-feeding scum suckers you call your family—most of whom you already murdered, the fighters at least!”

  “I’m not evil!” I roared. “This wasn’t my fault. I didn’t—I didn’t want this! They did this! He did this!” I pointed at Sosuke’s rapidly degrading body. “I never wanted this! I never wanted this!” I screamed. Then, I didn’t even say words.

  I just screamed.

  I never wanted this.

  I never wanted this.

  I never asked for this.

  This wasn’t my fault.

  All they had to do was just not…!

  I was sobbing.

  I never wanted this.

  “Ugh, shut up,” Mori Tachi grimaced. “Fine. Whatever. I’m out of here. Enjoy life, Teira. You’ll never see me again. This is pathetic.”

  He actually did leave.

  And I kept sobbing.

  I never wanted this.

  000

  Iemon was getting patched up inside the clan head’s quarters by some woman. I walked up to him while he laid on the floor stomach first as he was undergoing what looked like emergency surgery. The woman’s Juchū hovered over her as she dug into the wounds and I crouched before Iemon’s head.

  Kill him.

  I could.

  I should.

  But no. That would be a waste.

  “Nice to see you—“

  “Paralyzed from the waist down, I see,” I said. “And you only have one Juchū. What happened?”

  “Sacrificed them all. Imbued that sacrifice into a cursed anti-venom I kept in my inner robe. Saved my life.”

  “Good job,” I said. “Sosuke’s dead.”

  His surgeon stiffened.

  I took a closer ‘look’ at her with my antennae. She was Iemon’s wife.

  “The curse experts—the ones still stationed in the compound at least—are all dead,” I said. “And I plan to kill every single adult male as well. Including you. So do give me a good reason to spare you.”

  “Why?”

  Why?

  The question would have been offensive to me if it hadn’t been coated in such a tone of innocence. “Because I’ve been made to develop nothing but intense hatred for this clan since the very day I was born, Iemon. Since that very day. Helpless to your ministrations, crippled and having to endure inside the body of an infant.” I winced as I remembered snippets of those days. “That was an understandable agony, however. One that I could have gotten over—aside from the infanticide, of course. No, what condemned you to death was not my first six years. It was my following two. Michiko is dead. And she was innocent in this. So let me ask you a simple question: why not?”

  “There’s a lot of you in this argument, Teira-chan. What about my wife?”

  I looked up at the woman who—

  She sniffled, drying away her tears with the back of her forearm. And she refused to meet my gaze.

  I didn’t want this.

  “You already killed our curse experts, Teira-chan,” Iemon said. “And you were right to do so. They attacked you with the intent of killing you. What else could you have done to protect yourself? But this?! Our custodians, our laborers, the very backbone of this clan. This… will break us. And perhaps we deserve to be broken. Perhaps we were made in such a sufficiently broken image that we deserve nothing but punishment for our transgressions. Lying here right now, stabbed in the back by the very man that I swore fealty to, whom I never once betrayed… I understand that better than ever. We are cursed, Teira-chan. Not just you. I, as well, am cursed. But it’s up to you now, Teira-chan. What will you do? Continue letting the curse’s violent conflagration swallow us up? Or will you… forgive us?”

  I tried to muster anger, but it broke instantly, and I felt a sob bubbling up in my gut. I held it back for dear life. “I never wanted it to come to this.” My voice broke as I spoke. “This wasn’t my fault, it was just—“

  “I know, child. I know.”

  “I’m not a child,” I bit out. He grinned a little at that.

  “I understand.”

  I summoned fifty Juchū from my hand, and placed them in front of his face. “Take them. They’re yours. I’m… going to… see Michiko.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Teira-chan. I’m sorry.”

  I looked back at his prone form with such hatred—and it immediately fizzled into nothing at the memory of what I had lost.

  000

  It was so silly. So stupid.

  I hadn’t even gotten to know this woman. She and I weren’t friends. She was my carer. She filled my baths, washed and pressed my clothes, and got me food. She listened to my every word and never offered any commentary.

  In front of me, she never even so much as entertained the notion that she was a person. And it hurt.

  It reminded me of my connection to my passenger, how it would have seen Michiko as the ideal human. Was that bleed-through perhaps the reason why I hadn’t raised an issue with our arrangement sooner? It wasn’t like I strictly needed her. She was useful for minimizing contact with hostile clansmen.

  But she never expected anything from me. Never made demands of me. Never made me feel weak or like a child. The only person in this clan that hadn’t wronged me.

  There was a purity to her, I imagined. Or perhaps a brokenness. An inability. A disability.

  And it made me feel like a monster. The very fact that I cherished her so was due to her inability to express herself in a way that bothered me. And yet, she had still meant the world to me for that reason alone.

  In a world where everyone conspired to hurt me, she had spared the rod.

  And now she was dead.

  Sosuke…

  …was currently a pile of bones in the woods, myriad egg-sacs taking up what was once flesh. Once those egg-sacs hatched, he would be a perfectly-scoured skeleton.

  And Michiko would remain a cursed womb, floating inside the wrecked remains of my room.

  And I needed to come to a decision.

  As I looked up at the cursed womb, I understood that I had already arrived at one.