A Curse Upon Thee 2-29A

ASHEN SLUMBER - GRADE 1
Diseased Cursed Spirit [Hex-Born]

A Grade 1.

The bold black text dripped red like blood, hovering in the air for all of one agonizing heartbeat before dissolving into falling embers.

A Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.

Finn swallowed hard, the dry heat of the burning ballroom turning saliva to sandpaper as he breathed in hot pennies and charcoal. Through the roaring inferno that filled the ballroom, his biggest nightmare stepped forward and Finn’s heart could only hammer louder; its steps a slow weightless glide.

The Curse continued its gliding path, the light of the flames around it allowing Finn to see more of the thing. It was humanoid, if only loosely — the blackened charred coal-colored crust of a skeletal torso forming a cage around a bright ember-core, holding together a body that was more swirling ash than solid. Its face was a red opera mask, cracked with black, over burning yellow eyes; hair a burning bright updo trailing ash and smoke. Thin arms, elongated and spindly, ended in hooked claws, and from the waist down, the rest of its body was concealed in a slow cyclone of cinders.

Ashen Slumber took one final gliding step before it finally came to a stop in the center of the ballroom. Finn swallowed as clawed charcoal fingers gathered the drifting layers of soot that hung around its hips, pinching the edges of the cinder-skirt before dropping gracefully into a flawless courtly curtsy.

His heart beat loud enough to drown out the flames in his ears. Why.

It wasn’t a question as much as he wanted it to be.

It was his own curse against the world for being so unfair. A simple fucking fairy-tale curse from a fairy-tale witch on a princess who liked naps — and because of that he was going to fucking die for it.

Why.

Its cursed energy was steady.

Too steady.

That was another terrifying part of the whole nightmare. Low-grade curses were a mess, sloppy in shape and function as they leaked hate and malice everywhere, vomiting their presence into the air. 

You could read them. 

You could track them.

You could brace against them.

This thing held itself together, almost no leakage of cursed energy in the air; all that malice contained and compressed into something dense and worthy of a Grade One. 

"Oh..." 

A voice drifted across the flames and Finn felt his heart freeze as his ears tracked two different tones, one a high, princess-voice that could have come from the girl right behind him — an exact echo of Aurora. Beneath it, though, was a second voice; low, smoky, and almost purring somehow.

"Where is she..." the curse hummed aloud as it raised a clawed finger to its mask-face. "Poor thing. Let us not pretend. You cannot wake."

Talking.

It was talking.

The damn thing was talking. 

‘The closer they are to human…’ An instructor’s voice echoed from the dusty halls of Kyoto Jujutsu High. ‘The stronger they usually are.’

Finn’s mouth opened, eye twitching in place of the words he couldn’t speak. Fuck me with a rusty hammer, man.

"What... what manner of demon is this?" Aurora scrambled back from the Curse as she screamed, the girl huddling behind a shattered dining table to his right, the dark wood overturned like a shield. Pale hands clutched at silk as her voice shook. "Finn! Do not let it near me!"

"Y-yeah, just stay behind the table, Princess!" Finn kept his attention focused forward, the furry crossguard of Slaughter Demon held close and tight to his chest. “Just keep your head down and out of the fight! I got this!”

He didn’t have this.

There was no world where he had this.

I need… Finn pulled in a sharp breath, thoughts flitting through all his jujutsu knowledge as quickly as he could. I need more output.

And he needed it right now.

“My Innate Technique is Kaijin no Honō! Flame Among Ashes!" Finn took a half-step forward as he screamed at the top of his lungs, fighting his absolute hardest to be heard over the roar of the ballroom fire. "I convert my cursed energy into flame!”

“What…” Aurora stared up at him, tear-streaked face twisting into confusion. “What are you doing?!”

“It feeds on my conviction, not oxygen!” Finn screamed even louder, blue eyes locked onto the floating cyclone of cinders. “It doesn't just explode, it burns up on contact! The harder I want to cave your fucking face in, the hotter it gets!"

Revealing One’s Hand. 

The Binding Vow took effect as soon as the last word left him, the exchange instantaneous as the universe accepted the risk. Cursed Energy roiled hard around him, surging a furious red over his skin. The heat of his own technique spiked hard, pushing back against the oppressive temperature around him as the air around his hands and feet rippled.

The curse tilted its featureless cracked-mask face, a small breathy laugh clicking through the embers of its throat. "How brave of you."

The curtsy became a blur.

And, just like that, the fight was in motion before Finn could process the shift.

His boots scraped sparks from marble, dust kicking up in rings as he rushed forward to meet the charge of the Curse. Finn burst in, body low as he lunged towards the Curse in a move both suicidal and sincere. Free hand batting a wave of soot from his face before it could blind him, he held his blade ready — “Forge Brand!” — as his own flames burst to life across it. Ashen Slumber darted to the side in a bloom of ash, speed easing into a sleepy gliding arc even as one of its spindly arms snapped out in a burst of ember-light.

Not— He darted back, slipping past the strike; those long hooked claws striking nothing but empty marble. —Today!

Slaughter Demon flashed out.

The heavy meat cleaver sheared through the curse’s hanging sleeve, severed ash exploding into a cloud. Finn didn’t stop, the redhead already pivoting hard on his left foot. "Spark Strike!"

A tight right hook, brutal and burning, kissed the coal-crusted torso; cursed flame exploding out loud enough to drown his roar with another. For a moment, as his fist forced fire through the soot-shell, a crack forced open in its body, the blinding ember core blinked back at him.

It didn’t last.

Finn grunted as ash whipped up into his face in a thick mass, a blinding veil over his eyes. At the same moment, something grabbed him from below; tugging hard at his ankle with an iron grip. Ash torn from his face, the redhead snapped his gaze down, eyes wide as he spotted a solid chain of cinder and soot lashed tight to his ankle. “What th-”

Finn jerked his leg, but the snare held tight against his own strength. The sorcerer glanced up to the masked Curse, mouth wide open with another curse.

He didn’t get a chance as Ashen Slumber waved its hand.

"Who—!"

A thick arm of cinders whipped out from beneath the curse’s skirt, five blackened fingers forming a fist to catch Finn square in the chest.

He barely saw the impact, but his body didn’t care; it felt the force.

It felt the force again from behind, something hot and hard breaking apart as his spine crashed through it. The sound of cracking wood filled his ears the same moment as pain flashed white behind his closed eyes, splinters flying all around him like shrapnel. “FU-!” Those eyes barely peeked open as he hit the marble floor, rolling violently through soot and body-first through a wall of flame. “Fuuuuu-!”

The heat was hell; Cursed Energy doing what it could but his technique only seemed to make his hands and feet immune. His back, shoulders, and face had to…

Well…

“...fuck.” Finn coughed as he finally slid to a stop, blood and ash falling from his lips. 

"Finn!" Aurora’s scream forced his attention as the flames in the hall shifted again, forcing her from her hiding spot. “Sir Sorcerer!” She bolted from behind her table, silk gown dragging through the embers as she ran towards a pillar of marble.

“What?!”

"You promised you could fight this!"

"I'm working on it, ahright?!" Griitng his teeth against the burns, he sprung back to his feet in a low crouch; the leather of his jacket smoking and scorched in places with skin underneath blistering along his shoulder and ribs. “Just keep moving!”

The advice hurt to give as much as it was all he had. The simple fact was that Aurora staying in one place made this fight so much easier. The more she moved, the more the angles he had to work with changed and the less he could keep an eye on her. He already had to keep himself between her and the threat in the room. Yeah, just make my job harder.

"Where is he going?" The Curse’s purr was somehow loud enough to be heard over the flames without a yell, the thing floating calmly at the center of it all. "There is no exit, little spark. You belong to the fire."

"Yeah, nah...” One hand wiped a veil of soot from his face, the words spat out with a mouthful of blood. “Shut the fuck up!

Finn roared the words, closing the distance again as he burst forward. 

The Grade One was no idiot, though; not that Finn expected it to be. Something burst free of the mound of ash between them, a lump of soot that condensed into a dog-thing, eyes glowing like the flames as it stood atop the marble on too many legs. Another one joined it, just as deformed and already growling his way.

The first ash-hound charged in — still half-formed and dripping embers — to meet him and Finn didn’t hesitate. “Kindle Kata!”

Finn dropped his weight, all his momentum delivered into a reinforced foot; a heavy flame-wrapped stomp tore directly through the ash-beast’s spine before it could fully form, the thing shattered before it could condense enough to scare him. A second kick burst through its friend, head crushed with an explosion of cursed fire before those burning teeth could be put to work.

But the soot didn't stay dead as grasping ash-hands surged out; each one reaching for him from the heat-cracked marble. Foot still wreathed in flame, Finn danced his way through; each kick stomping them into powder. He threw another kick out, instinct and training screaming at him as the air shifted at his back, and his boot ripped apart the knee of a false body rising from the smoke.

His heart spiked in his chest and Finn dove forward as the ash shifted, slipping inside the curse’s sweeping reach as he barely managed to drop under the rush of a decapitating claw.

Finn breathed heavily, one hand clutching his own head as Ashen Slumber raised that same claw-hand to its face, a fan formed from embers and ashes appearing for it to hide its face. “Are we to dance, my lord?”

“...” There wasn’t much to say to that, Finn already aware the thing was playing with him. Even still… “I’m gonna make you into a candle!”

He fought ugly. He fought tight.

He did his best not to leave any openings.

He made it his job to punish any he saw; a knee aimed at its hips, a twisting elbow to shatter a grasping ash-claw, a quick vicious slash of a flaming Slaughter Demon across its throat.

I’m not winning this. His breath came in gasps, the heat punishing him from the inside as much as it did the outside. Every dodge pushed him back against flaming debris, ribs already throbbing from bursts of ember exploding against them and his cheek… Finn could feel it peeling from a bad burn already. I’m not.

Ashen Slumber’s constructs were a nightmare; each one fragile enough to shatter under his strikes, flaming or not, but that was the honest trap. A spear burst into smoke, blinding him for long enough for hounds to shift into floor-hands that grabbed at his boots, and those shattered arms would merge into a set of flying knives aimed at his eyes. Everything, each successful defense, just left the Curse with more loose ash to shape the next moment.

That much was true, but he knew he was still landing hits. It just meant he had to land enough of them at the right time. “Come on!”

The grand ballroom raged as they fought within it, the fires brightening enough to push back the shadow and show off the sprawling space they were using as a battlefield. Ash drifted in, each layer a suffocation of black snow, while broken and burning furniture littered the marble; Finn’s boots leaving black trails behind him every time he burst into motion, desperate steps tearing jagged lines through soot and marble.

But everything he did was desperate.

Desperate and ugly.

He had no other choice.

Ash burnt off his palms with a flare of his technique, Finn rushed in hard again with Slaughter Demon at the ready; a cinder-chain slashed apart before it could lock in around his throat. His body went sideways, Finn throwing his weight hard into a flaming kick to tear apart an oversized ash-hand blooming off the wall before it could pin him against a burning pillar. “That all you got?!”

It was not the best question to ask.

The curse dismissed its fan, choosing instead to raise its arms.

Finn stared up, eyes wide as a towering curtain of thick soot fell from the ceiling to divide the ballroom into half of what it was before. Fuck.

Finn landed on his feet, his chest heaving, his blue eyes darting across the smoke as false bodies rose from it, each one perfect copies of the Curse all outlined in ash. They danced in between each other, gliding across marble with ghost-partners before they turned to Finn as if waiting for him. 

Blue eyes traced across the three, Finn trying to find the real one in the fog of ash… Fuck it! 

He lunged at the first before it could move for him, a slash taking it apart at the waist. By the time it burst into useless smoke, he was already spinning; a roundhouse aimed at the chest of the second. 

Dust met dust and Finn lunged at the last, the one standing just a bit behind the other two. Got yo-

Pain tore through his shoulder, three stripes of pain digging deep into flesh, as a shadow blindsided him from behind. He dove forward and those three stripes dug deeper, tearing past his skin.

Even still, he didn’t slow down. 

He couldn’t risk it. 

By the time he came to a stop, the Curse laughed as Finn stood across from it again, blood pouring down his chest and jacket torn open. 

Tri-fingered hands covering the thing’s face, it tilted its head back his way. 

…alright. Cursed Energy flared as Finn routed it down his gut; hips, legs, and feet flooded with roaring flame. 

“Kindle Kyaku!”

He kicked off the ground in a raw burst of speed faster than he could hope to pull off even when reinforced. Hips spinning, he lashed out with a single flame-wreathed kick right into Ashen Slumber’s exposed chest.

The impact was thunderous, concentrated heat enough to flare like a small sun.

Its body folded around Finn’s boot as a jagged and entirely un-aristocratic howl of pure pain ripped from its hidden mouth. Got you! Charcoal armor cracked and shattered, a chunk of it flying free as a shockwave of heat rippled through the ballroom.

Finn spun in mid-air, fist already lit up with a Spark Strike to do more dama— “Huh?”

The Curse vanished in a burst of ash, flaming fist aimed for empty air. Oh no…

“Finn!” Aurora’s voice only sent another spike of fear through him. “Above you!”

A grunt spilled from his lips, the sound made from pain and surprise, as something landed on him from the shadowed ceiling. No!

A clawed hand seized his face, the back of his skull slammed down into cracked marble; the hard surface giving way to dust as he was used like a hammer. With a giggle that sounded too much like the princess, the Curse set him free across the ballroom; Finn forced to know flight until he finally came to a stop.

Spine-first into a towering pillar of burning marble.

Breath failed him as his lungs burned, empty of air; a sickening crunch in his ribs louder than the fire. He dropped to the ground in a heap, gasping uselessly and head almost limp. He tried to push himself up, lungs burning and eyes refusing to focus as ash settled across his body; limbs suddenly more tired than in pain. Wh-what the…

He shook his head, grip still tight around Slaughter Demon as he forced himself up. This isn’t… isn’t…

A grunt spilled out of him, thoughts coming slow and stuttered as he tried to understand what was happening to him. Conc-concussio… 

No, this wasn’t a headache. Then why do I feel sleep-

His thoughts came slower and slower as he tried to push himself up, burned arm already giving out as his hand slipped on a slick patch of soot and blood. The drowsiness settled deep into his bones as more ash fell over him like snow. I’m… I’m gonna die here.

"No…!” A scream rang out loud across the hall, a familiar voice stabbing into his ear. “Please! Finn! Sir Finn! Save me!" 

“We will all dream, good girl!”

Aurora… One eye fluttered open to see the princess, her back against the wall and a grand piano the only boundary between her and the Curse gliding towards her. No, you’re… you’re fighting me! 

He tried to stand again even as his legs refused to carry his simple weight. C’mon! He grunted through gritted teeth, the taste of blood and burns deep in his throat. Why am I so tir-

Blue eyes snapped open wide as they’d ever been. Sleeping Curse!

Cursed Energy flared bright around him, his aura a burning red as he tried to circulate it as quickly as he could; trying his best to power through what this thing was doing to him. He roared loud, the sound ripping from his bleeding throat as he tasted iron and forced his body up anyway.

One foot.

Two feet.

Finn stood and screamed at the top of his lungs again.

Fists held up, he slammed them together in front of his chest as the flame roared to life.

They didn’t gather this time, not as he forced it between his palms; Cursed Energy compressed wrong and more unstable than not. The red fought against itself and him, but he didn’t care as he crushed the roaring fire inward until it took the angry shape of a flaming fist.

Finn McHale pulled an arm back, ignoring the agony in his ribs, and punched the empty air directly toward the Curse. “ANGRY EMBER!” 

The scream was all instinct, as much as the technique was, but it felt right.

The world stuttered for a heartbeat.

Finn didn’t look up, but he was somehow completely aware of the oversized burning text in black-and-red that appeared over his head.

EXTENSION TECHNIQUE: ANGRY EMBER

延長術式・怒火

He felt the heat against his face as the blast went flying.

A fist of compressed fire erupted from his own, tearing through the air directly in front of it; it cleared a path straight through drifting ash and soot, scattering it out into massive rings. It crossed all the space between them in a heartbeat to strike Ashen Slumber square in the center of its back.

The explosion of kinetic force and cursed heat launched the Grade One across the ballroom as easily as it had Finn, burning furniture shattered into shrapnel around it as the ground cracked under the impact. Thick ash-veils around it torn apart like wet tissue, the ember-core flashed bright through that charcoal cage.

Ashen Slumber slammed into the far wall, cratering the masonry with a deafening crash and the curse howled, no poisoned purr or princess cry leaving its mask. 

The room paused for exactly one breath.

Aurora was unharmed, coughing on her hands and knees behind the piano. Finn was barely standing, swaying on his feet, blood from his torn shoulder dripping onto scorched marble. The curse was hurt; burning and broken maybe, but not finished. 

The loose ash in the air had already begun to gather again.

Finn spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor and wiped the rest of it from his mouth, eyes burning as bright as his hands. "Come on!" His roar echoed off the oversized ceilings, cursed energy flaring stronger as it fed off his stubborn, stupid conviction. 

Bounding off his back foot, he snatched Slaughter Demon off the floor and jumped back in with a red-stained grin wide on his face. “Let’s die!”