Juchu Kaisen - 50

Chapter 50

Ito’s wound had been fatal… to anyone but her, apparently.

It turned out that Ito’s instincts for cursed energy manipulation were so sharp that she had managed to essentially quarantine all the brain bleeds from vital parts of her brain, allowing her to continue functioning in spite of the canyon going through her brain.

She had managed to buy Shoko enough time to essentially ‘stitch’ all her pieces back together—including the eye.

I used my Microbial Swarm to nip any infections at the bud, and when she was good enough to be moved, I flew us all to Tokyo Jujutsu High, leaving the clean-up to the assistant managers.

No one had died today. The hospital was already empty by the time Suguru and Ito had arrived, and the curse user hadn’t harmed any of the managers, thankfully. With Ito’s possible recovery, I counted today as a good day. Even if she never recovered, it would still be a good day.

Shoko was in the infirmary with Ito, helping seal up the last of the damage, and reconnect severed nerves in order to at least return Ito’s range of facial expressions. I had my doubts that she would remain entirely unscarred, however. Shoko’s Reverse Cursed Technique had a habit of leaving those on the skin—wide discolorations and blemishes, although not canyons and wrinkles of poorly-healed skin.

Suguru was on another bed, getting stitched up by the school’s medical staff. He’d gotten off pretty lightly, except for an axe head in his back.

I was waiting outside, in the hallway, for a lack of better things to do. Shoko needed to concentrate, and there was nothing I could do for Suguru that the nurses and the doctor couldn’t do.

Suzuki and Takahashi turned the corner of the hall and ran up to me. “Ito!” Suzuki roared. “Is she…?!”

“Alive,” I said. “But…”

“Is it bad?” Takahashi asked.

There was a limit to how much Shoko could do at this stage. I was working in tandem with her to remove all the blood from parts of her brain that had been… affected by the blade in her skull. Even with all that and Shoko’s best efforts, brain damage was an absolute guarantee.

“It’s bad,” I said. “She might never recover.”

Suzuki gasped. Takahashi covered her eyes to sob.

“She made a good showing of herself,” I said, as if that would help. It never did.

I wisely spared them the gorier details, and the unnecessary ‘you should see the other guy’ comment. When did those things… ever help?

Ito was fourteen years old. A large portion of the class was.

They were children.

Was it right to emphasize the warrior-aspect of our lives over our humanity? Was that how we won this war?

And was Ito the first sacrifice in a long line of them, all meant to spur the survivors on to greater heights?

“Is it dead?” Suzuki asked, fists clenched.

“It was a curse user,” I said. Suzuki’s eyes widened in surprise. “And yes. Very much so. Ito made sure of that.”

Suzuki closed her eyes and nodded. The tension released from her fists.

Takahashi dried her eyes and nodded as well. “That’s… good.”

Good, huh.

Like how good it felt for me to break Sosuke’s bones. And that hadn’t brought Michiko back.

“Something was lost today,” I said. “We’ll figure out what in time. But until then… let’s not dishonor her sacrifice. She knew what she had gotten herself into. All of you did. When you next see her, ask yourselves once again: is this life really worth it? There are no wrong answers to this question—only a wrong amount of resolve to stick with it.”

They both nodded.

The door to the infirmary opened, and Shoko stepped out. She was almost completely out of cursed energy. “I’ve done everything I can,” she said.

“Your… cursed technique?” Suzuki asked.

Shoko just shrugged. “She’ll be asleep for a while. The doctor wants to examine her after she wakes up, but you can look at her, at least.”

“And Suguru?” Takahashi asked.

“He got off almost entirely scot-free,” Shoko snorted. “But… give him space. Or something. He’s not doing too hot, either.”

“He blames himself,” I said. “When he should be grateful for getting off lightly. Try to be kind.”

They nodded.

Shoko and I left for a secluded place. A balcony on one of the many empty buildings on campus.

There, she smoked a cigarette. “All the waste matter is gone,” Shoko said. “The blood is gone. I blasted as many of the damaged cells as possible to get them as whole as possible, but it reached a certain point, you know. Perfectly healthy, but worse than before. Like scar tissue, but for… brain cells.” She winced and slammed the wooden railing hard. “Fuck!” she screamed. “The words are hard. I sound like an idiot. I don’t know anything about anything and it’s driving me insane.”

I offered her a bottle of sake, normal strength. She shook her head. I took a sip from it instead. It went down like water.

“Only one thing to do, then,” I said.

“I thought I’d have more time,” Shoko whispered. Tears welled up in her eyes. “We’re not even five weeks into this new semester, and already, someone almost died!”

“You can’t blame a lack of hard work for your efforts today,” I said. “I made sure of that, didn’t I?”

Shoko chuckled tonelessly. “What, you want a medal for that?”

“Maybe a hug and a pat on the shoulder,” I shrugged. “But… you know, this should teach you something important. It doesn’t matter how prepared you are. Life will just… find a way to punch you in both tits regardless.”

Shoko barked out a harsh laughter. “Idiot, don’t make me laugh!” she said as she tossed her almost spent cigarette at me.

I flicked it back to her, hitting her cherry-first on her forehead. “OUCH!” she screamed, swatting the cigarette away from her face. With the embers of her cursed energy, she generated positive energy and healed the burn on her forehead.  

I giggled.

“What… will happen?” Shoko asked. “To Ito?”

I shrugged. “I have no clue. I’m not a doctor. I have tried studying medicine, but that level of… mental rigor doesn’t… mesh well with my multi-tasking,” I said. “I can either choose to… be a sorcerer, or I can take it easier on the exorcisms in order to focus more of my mind on truly complicated tasks. I’ve never quite been able to justify that expenditure of mental power.”

Shoko furrowed her brows. “But what about school stuff?”

“A fair bit different from medicine,” I grinned mildly.

“But what if you want to study something difficult in university?” Shoko asked. “Or… are you just going to be a sorcerer for the rest of your life?”

For the rest of my life.

“Can you imagine that… I’ve never thought beyond just being a sorcerer?” I asked Shoko. “All my life, Shoko, all I’ve wanted to do, all I’ve ever dedicated myself to, is helping people. That’s my curse. I can’t do anything else but this. So if that means I can never learn engineering or medicine, or become a lawyer or a scientist…” I shrugged. “I know enough to continue saving lives. And besides—I’m not completely incapable of grasping complicated topics. It just takes more time for me. And… other things are much easier. I’m very much into history, for example. And literature.”

Perhaps that had to do with talent more than anything else. Natural affinity.

“Sounds like enough,” Shoko shrugged. “But… I need more knowledge. I need more knowledge.”

I smiled. “You’ll have it.”

Shoko’s eyes widened and she stiffened.

“Oh my god,” she said. “How is Kobayashi doing?”

Ah, him? “Dead, I’m afraid.”

“So he’s fine.”

Hmm… “Define ‘fine’.”

000

Kobayashi Jun hated spiders. He hated insects, he hated tiny animals, but spiders? Oh, he hated spiders.

The assistant manager had a car ready right outside the church as Jun walked out. The priest saw him, grinned, and then his grin fell as he looked down at the rest of Jun. “What—son, what in the world are you…?”

“Mission accomplished,” he simply said.

Jun walked by him, to the black SUV. The manager opened the back door, and grimaced for a fraction of a second as well. Jun threw in his briefcase before crawling into the car.

“Hibana and Ieiri are otherwise occupied,” Jun said as the manager crawled into the car as well, in the driver’s seat. “But the cursed spirits are exorcised.”

“And… your clothes?”

“Coated in poison,” Jun said. All but his underwear still remained. “I’d appreciate it if you could stop by a clothing store and do some quick shopping for me. I’ll tell you my sizes, so pay close attention.”

All the while as he did, he felt a growing amount of antipathy for Hibana and Ieiri for leaving him in the lurch, and for spiders in general for being so damn nasty!

000

“Damn,” Gojo said, in response to hearing Suguru’s story.

It was dusk as Gojo had finally returned from his own mission which he had completed without a hitch. All four of us met in a gazebo in the woods. Shoko smoked.

She had all but finished up with Suguru’s back wound, too. The stitches were gone, too, but a scar remained. On the back, too. A swordsman’s greatest shame.

Suguru hadn’t found that joke funny when I told him.

“Yeah,” Suguru said.

Gojo then beamed. “But! Don’t think I didn’t come back with some gifts! To you, Suguru! Check this out!” He pulled a paper tag out from his jacket pocket and slapped it on the table. He then made a gesture above it. The paper tag burned, and out from it, a ball of cursed energy emerged.

It was Blue. The color and Gojo’s technique.

Yet, it wasn’t attracting any of us.

“Ta-da!” Gojo gestured towards it. “This is… Kuchisake-onna! Inside a ball of Blue! You see, I swore a Binding Vow to make this particular Blue only attract cursed spirits, which made it compact enough to be carried around!”

He snapped his finger, releasing the technique. On the table, it landed.

A white-robed, black-haired ghost.

“Looks like Teira’s big sister,” Gojo laughed.

“Don’t ever mention my sisters again, Gojo,” I said carefully. “I’m very sensitive about that.”

“Uh—okay. Sorry. Anyway.”

Suguru bonelessly raised his hand to compress the cursed spirit into a ball, which he then shoved into his mouth, swallowed, and retched a few times.

“Thanks,” Suguru whispered. “But… I’m not… really in the mood to talk.”

Gojo turned to me and smiled. “Drunken karaoke?”

I smiled back. “I like the way you think.”

It had only been a week since we had first gone out to do that.

“Screw it,” Shoko said. “I need to blow off some steam, too. Suguru, you in?”

He snorted. “You people are entirely pitiless.”

“Who likes pity parties anyway?” Gojo asked. “All that matters is you did your best, right?”

“I made some decisions, Satoru,” he replied. “Decisions that favored me over Ito.”

“That’s just an issue of strength,” I said. “Not… morality. Or ethics. That’s what you’re thinking, right? You should have picked her over you?”

“I knew you’d say that,” Suguru said. “That I’m not heartless enough to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer.”

Gojo wrapped an arm around Suguru. “Come on, don’t say that! Besides, if you really regret not being strong enough to choose both you and Ito, just get stronger so you won’t have to choose!”

“I chose wrong the first time,” Suguru said. He pushed Gojo’s arm off his neck. “And I’m meeting with the higher-ups later. They want me to report personally on what happened.”

“Please,” Shoko said. “You want to do that over drunken karaoke?”

“Suguru,” I said. “I’m sorry. For being insensitive. Survivor’s guilt is not a simple thing. I didn’t mean to trivialize your difficulties. But I won’t let you wallow in self-pity. That won’t help you, either. So let’s go out into the city and do… something, alright?”

Suguru winced, but nodded. “Fine. I understand. Can we just do normal karaoke instead?”

000

Normal karaoke became drunken karaoke when Gojo demanded some booze in order to continue training the Reverse Cursed Technique.

This time, he wanted to remain sober throughout the night. I didn’t stop him.

Suguru still declined, and I respected that.

“Why do you always pick American songs, Teira?” Gojo asked as he gestured his glass of lemon soda and sake on the big screen on the wall. “And how come you pronounce it all so perfectly?”

I was just about to pick my song then as I stood up and took the microphone.

“Because, Gojo,” I cleared my throat. “I’m practicing to defeat our sworn enemy—the most dangerous Jujutsu Sorcerer in our school. Nakamura Daiki.”

The instrumental began. And I began rapping. “Clap your hands, everybody. And everybody just clap your hands. Fine girls clap your hands. Fly guys, clap your hands. And if you’re feelin’ alright and you think you on. Somebody let me know!”

Shoko and Gojo were laughing uncontrollably, while Suguru just chuckled.

Gojo began to clap along to the beat, urging Suguru to join them. Before we knew it, everyone was clapping.

Five minutes into the song, the clapping had died down.

“I met this girl, and I said ‘you a honey’. If you wanna be my baby, you gotta give me money!”

“When is this damn song over?!” Gojo shouted. He took the remote to check the timestamp. His eyes boggled. “Twelve minutes! Teira, are you insane?!”

I didn’t stop until all twelve minutes of Eighth Wonder were done. Only then did I do a bow and accept my accolades—Shoko clapping lazily and Gojo booing at the top of his lungs.

Suguru was just chuckling at our antics, and I felt a little happy to see his lips curling upwards for once.

000

The girls of Tachibana dorm building were all seated on chairs, couches, tables, or the ground, except for Mukai Reiko and Ito Aoi, who stood next to her taller upperclassman, grinning proudly in the middle of the expansive common room.

A scar ran down the left side of her face, starting at her cheek, crossing her eye, and disappearing above her hairline. Shoko had made it so that the scar hadn’t interrupted Ito’s hair as well, which was a small mercy, considering her deformity.

I saw nothing wrong with it, but I had been worried about how Ito might take it. She, however, was all smiles.

“A round of applause, everyone!” Mukai-senpai said. “For Ito-kun. A survivor!”

We all put our hands together for her, and Suzuki cheered from where she, herself sat, atop a table.

Mukai put a hand on Ito’s shoulder. “You fought well, kid. I’m friggin’ proud of you!”

Ito blushed at that, looking down and grinning, her fingers curling together.

“Alright,” Mukai said to everyone. “That’s it for registration. You’re all dismissed!”

Ito walked up to us, the group of first years, and gave us a small wave as she did.

“There you are!” Suzuki grabbed the smaller girl and pulled her atop the table to sit on her lap as she rocked Ito.

“Oh my god!” Shoko grabbed Suzuki and separated the two. “Be careful, hair-for-brains!”

The redhead sputtered at the insult, but did obey her as she scooted to the side to give Ito room to sit on the table.

Mukai Reiko appeared next to us, then, and was grinning at Shoko. “So you have the Reverse Cursed Technique. And not only that, you can output it, too!”

Shoko nodded. “Yep.”

“I’m sure Teira has already told you about the implications of that,” she said. “Anyway, you need help fending off grabby clanners and whatnot, you know where to find me.”

She then walked off.

Shoko focused on Ito, then. “So… how are you feeling?”

Ito was still smiling. “I feel alright,” she said. “I don’t even have a headache. As for what the doctor found… I, uh…” she giggled to herself. “I have suffered from irreparable brain damage.”

Suzuki gasped.

“My cursed energy manipulation is fine,” Ito continued. “I don’t feel a difference in that regard. I’m totally fine to continue working as a sorcerer.”

“Wait, back up,” Suzuki said. “You said… brain damage?”

Ito rubbed the back of her head. “So I… can’t really read anymore.”

Shoko gaped. “What?”

“Nor can I write,” she said. “I can still do math. I don’t have any memory issues. We’ve yet to discover if my learning will be hampered in other ways. But, yes. No more reading for me.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

All of us were silent for a while.

“But…” she continued. “I like the scar. It looks cool. Kinda.”

I grinned. Shoko snorted.

Aomori spoke up. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ito. And… I’m also sorry. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t read or write.”

“How will that work?” Shoko asked Ito.

“I don’t know,” Ito said, still smiling. “I suppose it will just have to.”

“You still wish to be a sorcerer?” Takahashi asked.

“Of course! Even more so after this fight! When I was on the edge of death, I learned something important about myself.”

She was silent for several seconds.

“…what did you learn?” Suzuki asked.

“Hm?” Ito looked at her.

“About yourself? What did you learn?”

“That’s private, obviously.”

“Ah, sorry—“

“But if you must know,” Ito continued. “I learned that dying isn’t so scary. You don’t get much room to think about regrets when you’re in the moment. As long as there’s a task at hand, of course. Though,” she looked up in thought, “I suppose I should make good on some regrets of mine first before I die. I should talk to my parents, for one. Then,” she blushed, and started poking her index fingers together. “I should ask out a boy that I like.”

“Wait, who do you like?!” Takahashi grabbed Ito’s hands in her own. Her eyes sparkled.

“I don’t… know,” she said.

She then blinked, and gasped. “Geto-san said something really nice to me. Before the axe went into my skull.” Her blush redoubled. “I think I like him.”

Both Shoko and I pinched our chins in thought as we stared at Ito. Then, our own eyes met, and we gave each other a nod of mutual understanding.

“We can arrange that,” Shoko said.

000

Side by side, Suguru and Ito were headed to a particular building in campus as the last of the season’s cherry blossoms fell around them. It was right after breakfast. He had kept the higher-ups waiting for too long, and Ito-san was already cleared for duty.

Suguru couldn’t deny the awkward air after that mission. He truly did not know what to say, or how he could make things right. Or whether it was right to think that he had to make things right. Girls were such confusing people. He had no desire to appear patronizing.

“How are you feeling?” he simply settled on that.

“Good! Thank you for asking. How are you feeling?” she asked him. She was smiling brilliantly. The scar on her face twisted his gut a little. It wasn’t grotesque as far as such things went. Indeed, she had gotten off rather lightly in that department, considering the sheer magnitude of the wound it had resulted from. Rather, it was a reminder of his own failure and weakness.

And more to his own disgust, a cruel reminder of what could have happened to him. He wondered if he would have had the fortitude necessary to survive such a thing.

He doubted it.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Do you… remember much at all?”

She nodded. “I remember everything, actually. I also remember killing the curse user.” Her brows furrowed a little as she stuck her index finger on her chin. “I killed a person.”

“I’m… sorry,” Suguru said. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

Ito’s eyes bore into Suguru’s own as she asked him, “when you told me that I was among my own people, and that I shouldn’t feel like I’m strange… did you mean it?”

“Of course I did!”

“Ah,” she nodded. “Well. In all honesty, all I feel is satisfaction that I won. Try as I might, I can’t consider that curse user to be a human at all.”

Huh?!

“At least… you’re coping well,” Suguru said. “That’s good.”

“What about you?”

“I’m doing as good as I can,” Suguru said.

“No, I mean—can you consider that curse user to be a human?”

Suguru looked at the ground in thought. “At the time, I couldn’t,” he said. “I would have killed him, too. If you hadn’t done it first. But I don’t know how well I would have carried it.”

He then remembered the sight of Ito’s face, an axe-head buried almost to its blunt end.

He frowned. “I imagine I wouldn’t have mourned his loss at all. And that it’s fine that you aren’t affected by it.”

“Doesn’t that make me evil?” Ito asked, matter-of-factly.

“You’re only evil if you wish to hurt innocents,” Suguru said.

“Ah. Then, I guess there’s nothing to be worried about, is there?” she smiled. The expression was absent of any emotions that weren’t positive. She seemed… entirely fine with what had happened. Either that, or she was just hiding it well. Either way, she didn’t deserve to be haunted by such experiences, anyway.

“There isn’t,” Suguru said. “But… I’ll understand it if you never want to work with me again. I failed you…”

“Not at all!” she smiled. “I took a hit for you. And you managed to exorcise the strong cursed spirit, which means that you saved us both!”

Was that how she thought about it?

“I’m happy I could be of help,” she said. “Really. And I would of course like to keep working with you.”

Suguru smiled. “Even if you hate my innate technique?”

Ito giggled. “Sure. I can overlook that.”

She bumped her shoulder against his arm. Suguru bumped her back.

She then sent a thumbs up to some nearby bushes.

Suguru looked. “Huh?”

There was nothing there.

“Ah!” Ito squeaked. “Just being silly, heheh!”