Chapter Text
MARCH, 2011
Satoru can sense the disturbance long before Ijichi’s sleek black car rolls up next to him.
It takes only a moment, a slight tilt of his head. Frosted blue eyes flicker beyond dark lenses. He fastens his seatbelt and now knows that something is wrong.
“Mr. Gojo,” Ijichi begins once they begin cruising comfortably. His voice is tinged with a particular nervousness. Seventeen minutes in the car and Satoru has yet to utter a word. Could this be a world record? The achievement that surpasses all achievements? “About the mission–”
Satoru’s interruption is immediate, expected. “Ijichi, is this a joke? What the hell is going on?”
“You were the only option. The higher-ups don’t know how to deal with this.”
Ijichi’s dress shirt sticks to his back. His hand ghosts over the dashboard, twirling the dial for the AC and messing with the vents. Cold air blows across his face, but his skin still runs hot.
“Clearly,” scoffs Satoru, his gaze all points and angles. “These signatures are insane. How come I couldn’t sense it sooner?
It’s Ijichi’s turn to be silent now, lips pursed as he mulls over his next words. The steering wheel is damp beneath his sweaty palms. “That’s . . . well, that’s the issue. It must have been concealing itself as it grew in power, but it’s recent at best. Gestational period is estimated to be less than forty eight hours. It’s veiled, though, probably since it first appeared, and the sorcerer we sent in yesterday to scout has yet to return.”
A dappled light flutters through the windows. By all accounts, it is a beautiful day. And while Satoru will undoubtedly find time to torture Megumi with a visit to the park, he is, at his core, a creature of habit. Sundays were his days of rest – an agreement forged not only with the higher-ups, but with himself. They’re days Satoru had to fight for, especially once Megumi and Tsumiki came into the picture. Because Satoru is an active creature. From the moment his alarm rings (crack of dawn, because he rises with the world) to the moment his head thuds against his pillow (four in the morning, just as the most dedicated salarymen begin lining the streets), Satoru does not stop moving. His regular schedule is a hefty thing, and even the world’s finest cannot add more hours to the day in order to find time to relax.
Which is why it was no surprise that his plans for this Sunday were glaringly simple. Wake up at two in the afternoon, buy new school supplies for the kids, visit the new French patisserie in Ginza, and, if the cafe puts him in a good mood, meet his mom for dinner.
Except now he’s sitting here. Awake at eight thirty, miserable, and undeniably fiending for some type of pastry.
He battles his mounting irritation. Truly, it is no fault of Ijichi that this is how he is spending his morning. He’ll just have to add this to his growing list of reasons to slaughter the higher-ups.
Clouds float listlessly outside his window. Maybe, if he makes this quick, he’ll still have a chance to be on schedule.
“A residential area, you say?"
Satoru has never seen a curtain like this in his life.
He’s used to the typical kind: shimmery black things that cascade around their targets like oil spills. They’re clean, efficient. Yet the one he’s faced with right now is disgustingly its opposite. Thick, runny ribbons of cursed energy stretch and drip onto each other like half-mixed batter. The green-ish gray hue reminds him of phlegm. And the stench is ungodly – something in between the scent of burnt hair and dried urine.
His eyelids flutter shut and he tries to parse it again with his Six Eyes. His technique fails to belie what he had sensed earlier; a tight-knit ball of cursed energy so immense that it could probably power a nuclear plant. Last he heard, there were only fourteen Special Grade curses in Japan. Could it truly be that, beyond this veil, there lay a newly born fifteenth?
“Yo–You see why they were so concerned now, right?”
Satoru knows Ijichi can’t help it, but the meekness in his voice was really starting to piss him off.
“I’ve seen worse.” No, no he hasn’t. But it’s nothing he can’t handle.
He reaches out, fingers skimming along the edge of the curtain. His Infinity provides a well-appreciated barrier between his skin and the muck of the surface, but he can still tell how it resists like clay under pressure. Strange.
“Well, Ijichi,” he starts, rolling up his sleeves. “Guess I’ll see ya’ in half an hour.”
The ground beneath his feet squelches as he passes through. What used to be pavement has transformed into something spongy, permeated with a sweet rot. His nose crinkles and his nostrils burn. Thankfully, his Infinity does good to keep the worst of the scent from reaching him, but the miasma that’s radiating from the earth around him cannot be fully blocked out.
Charming , he thinks, trudging forward.
The building is quick to come into view. Satoru has never had any real reason to care about places like this. Civilian housing is more often than not boring and plain: white, studded with the odd balcony. And while he has never particularly invested in the mundane, that doesn’t mean he’s never thought about it. Someone at his station is always prone to delusions of a less grandeur life. Moments of him wondering what it’d be like to be normal were rare – thoughts that would only worm their way into his mind when the passing landscape outside his window began to bore him, or when the silence of his room became too crushing. But those thoughts would be banished as soon as they came; experiencing life as a low-level office yuppie living in what was essentially an ant farm was just too depressing (even if it wasn’t too dissimilar to what he was now).
He thinks he has a more proper reason to care now, though. The apartment complex is trashed. Walls that must have once been beige are now streaked with the same snot-like substance that made up the barrier. Most of the windows are shattered, fleshy tendrils of sinew climbing down the brick like vines. He notes, with no real joy, that the vines seem to be retreating as he gets closer to the building. It’s the only real movement he’s seen since he entered the veil. Though, now that he has a better look at it, the building itself seems to be slowly undulating in and out, like lungs in motion.
Yet still, the world around him remains silent. No birds, no wind. He expected more low-level curses to be guarding the place, more fodder. But there is only the inescapable black hole of dread radiating from within the building, the likes of which continues to pull the entire world closer to its center.
Satoru approaches the main entrance.
The doors are cracked, hanging off their hinges like broken bones. The cursed energy was stronger indoors, more concentrated. And as soon as he steps inside, he can tell why.
Strung from the ceiling, tendrils embedded in her skin, hangs a woman. Some of the strands have pried her eyelids open, revealing milky pearls that have long stopped seeing. Flies buzz around her. Her mouth, peeled open in a silent scream, is nothing but a tongue-less, scarlet cavity. Satoru lifts his blind fold. Were those teeth embedded in her necrosed gums, or maggots?
He swallows back bile as he steps closer. She must have died recently, if the lack of oxidized blood meant anything. His approach causes the tendrils, engorged and pulsating with cursed energy, to tear out of the woman with a hiss. She thuds onto the floor and Satoru can sense the rapidly retreating energy funneling to the upper floors.
Satoru is used to the depravity of curses. As a sorcerer, he must be equipped to face the darkest dredges humanity can conjure. As the strongest, he must learn to look that darkness in the eyes. But he is unused to seeing true malicious intent in curses. For most below Special Grade, casualties are the effect of mindless killing. This . . . is different. He is faced with a torture that is intentional. A life desecrated for no obvious reason. He looks away as another wave of nausea rolls through him.
Glass crunches beneath his sneakers as he searches for a way up. There’s one shitty looking elevator, but there’s something metallic-scented seeping through its cracks, and Satoru knows better than to investigate. Mindless wandering leads him to some stairs. They shudder beneath his weight, but he ascends nonetheless.
The cursed energy becomes heavier, more oppressive as he travels up. Twice he makes the mistake of exploring these floors; twice he regrets it.
First, when he hears the groaning of a man on the second floor. The prospect of finding even one survivor in this hellhole excites him, has him careening through the hall with the excitement of a dog. He stops dead in his tracks upon locating the source of the voice.
A man – the sorcerer Ijichi was mentioning earlier, if the above average levels of cursed energy leaking from him meant anything – skinned like a deer. Filmy layers of fat and muscle glimmer against the dim fluorescent lighting. Veins branch out over planes of striated pink, braided in intricate patterns on top gristle. Satoru flinches as the man's eyes shoot over to his own. Surrounding him like a nest is a denser network of those tendrils from earlier. From his blistering mouth escapes a wet gasp, his shaky hand reaching out in Satoru’s direction. A plea, Satoru ascertains.
In a moment of mercy, he flicks his wrist and the man is gone.
Second, when he locates the source of the curse. It’s the last floor before the rooftop, the fourth floor. The aura on this floor is the most stifling, the weight of the energy damp and heavy like summer air. And while he has no doubt in his mind that he’ll be able to exorcize the curse without breaking a sweat, the sheer death he’s witnessed today has shaken him. Mentally, he crosses off attending dinner with his mother. Satoru doesn’t think he can stomach any kind of raw meat after what he saw today. Especially not the kind associated with the high-fly sashimi restaurant his mother likes.
He soldiers through the floor, to the source of it all. The tendrils here are thicker, darker. Distended and turgid, they coil and bunch up against each other. Room 49, that’s where they disappear into. He passes by another room near the radix of the cursed energy and does a double take.
The door is ajar, flickering light peeking into the dimmed hallway. His approach is tentative, a fawn approaching a bear trap. From the crack he can make out one thing: a small foot, clad in a hot pink shoe. Seconds melt into minutes. Satoru shuts the door.
Surely what awaits him in Room 49 cannot be as terrible as the rest of the building. Surely he will be lucky enough to be faced with a growling, rabid beast. Something with too many eyes, too many mouths, too little humanity. Something he can end instantly. Something he can blame.
He realizes (though, not for the first time) that fate has never been kind to him.
Like some kind of growth, it’s held up against the wall. Dark, coiling filaments hold it in place. Fluid, watery and tinted yellow, drips onto his Infinity from the tendrils lining the ceiling. There is enough cursed energy to give him a headache. And the smell is something else – a mixture of every bodily fluid Satoru has ever had the displeasure of detecting. It’s greasy and it coats him like frying oil. He’s seriously about to puke up last night’s dinner when it moves.
It’s a sac, he realizes. Gestational. His brain begins to work again and he puts words to what he’s seeing. A womb, and within it, a woman.
The amniotic sac (or, what he thinks is an amniotic sac – Satoru never did pass anatomy) quivers once more as the tendrils burst away from it, just as they did from the woman in the lobby. One by one they explode away like out-of-control hoses. The pale yellow liquid from earlier transforms into something viscous and dark (he’s definitely going to have to take a shower after this), and he can only watch as the pouch, without the support of the filaments, crashes to the ground.
Like a water balloon, it bursts. Liquid squirts out of the sac like seawater from a whale’s blow hole. The thin membrane collapses like wet newspaper and the tendrils immediately desiccate and turn to dust.
Out of the womb, a woman tumbles. Naked, hair stuck to her face.
Instantly, the veil drops, and Satoru realizes the source of the curse.
When you first awoke, you were forced to face three hard truths.
First, that you were in a room you had never before seen in your life. It was dark, lit yellow only by the flickering of paper lanterns. Hundreds upon hundreds of aged parchment slips were tacked to the walls around you, though you couldn’t really make out the text scrawled onto them without your glasses. The cloying scent of incense had baked itself into every surface in the room, something that reminded you of your landlady.
Second, that you were tied down. Thick bands of braided rope bound both your wrists and your ankles to the very wooden chair you were currently seated in. A thinner, crasser piece was tied across your mouth, effectively gagging you. Your skin is rubbed raw and your jaw ached dully from the forced intrusion. Vaguely, you make out the sensation of drying drool streaking down your neck.
Third, and worst of all, that you have survived. You toy with the idea that perhaps you have actually passed. That this small room was actually just purgatory. But your pains are a little too real for such an idealistic take. There’s also the chance that you’ve woken up in a psych ward. That beyond these dark walls are two-way mirrors, doctors obsessively taking notes behind them. But you dismiss that theory. No self-respecting hospital would do this to their patient; a situation like that couldn’t be spun in any direction beyond abuse of the mentally ill.
You shift uncomfortably for the umpteenth time. Gosh, your back was really starting to hurt.
“Oh, you’re awake,” rings a voice. It’s playful, disarming in nature, though you can’t help the way you flinch at it. “Here I was thinking you died! Though, if you want me to be honest, it would’ve been better for both of us if you did.”
Scratch that. This is no insane asylum. You are in hell, and the white-haired man in front of you is the devil.
“Ugh, get that look off your face. Here,” he disappears behind you, and suddenly, the rope gagging you falls. “That’s better!”
You cough, gagging on the sudden dryness in your mouth. The man waits patiently as you work through your episode, and you barely even notice when he drags another chair and a bottle of water over.
“Drink,” he commands.
Instantly, you comply. While he was gracious enough to relieve you of your coarse fibered gag, he has not yet made an effort to untie your arms. It’s a loss of autonomy you have pointedly noticed, especially as his large hands cup your jaw, tilting your face to meet the bottle.
But you don’t feel his touch. No warmth. No coldness. Just empty space.
“Now,” he begins, once you pull away from the bottle. “Do you know where you are?”
Your voice sounds wispy, even to your own ears. “. . . No?”
“Do you know who you are?”
Is this some kind of test? Your brows furrow as you provide him with your name.
The man tries it out. Cages the syllables between his blisteringly white teeth and bites through the letters. He sits down in the chair in front of you and waits until you nod to confirm it.
“Are you aware of what you did?”
What you did . Of course you were aware of what you did. People don’t typically hang themselves in a fugue state. Very clearly could you recall purchasing the rope and stool from the hardware store earlier that morning. The cashier’s heavy stare blanketed over you at that moment, and you bought your last pack of cigarettes soon after to console yourself. Or maybe to congratulate yourself. You were about to put yourself out of your misery, after all.
So you answer simply. “I killed myself.”
The man cocks his head, the corners of his lips rising. At that moment, you realize that you really, really don’t like this guy. You grimace at the sight of his bared teeth; you have seen serial killers smile more convincingly than him.
“No. You killed eighty-seven people.”
You blink at him. “Excuse me?”
He lowers his sunglasses, revealing unnaturally blue eyes. He’s handsome in the way the blade of a guillotine gleams after a successful beheading. “You killed eighty-seven people.”
The silence is interrupted only by the crackling of the lanterns. Eighty-seven. Eighty-seven.
“I don’t . . .” You swallow, your voice sounding more fragile than you’d like it to be. “That’s not possible.”
“Mm, no, it is,” the man murmurs, his smile melting from predatory to placid. “An entire apartment complex was desecrated. Your apartment complex. Countless lives, gone. And for some reason, you’re the only thing left alive.”
You shake your head. Words spill out of you like ants. “No. No . No, you don’t get it. I–I didn’t do– I didn’t–”
“You didn’t mean to, right?” He finishes your sentence for you. “No, of course, you didn’t mean to kill them. But they still died. That’s the problem.”
Your head feels like a jammed up tape recorder. The same thoughts keep looping around in your head. The man has to be lying . You could still envision the moment you kicked the bucket, albeit in short, panicked bursts. Fear, your nails clawing wildly at your neck, and then finally, like a flame being snuffed, darkness. No, you reason. You didn’t kill anyone. Your biggest crime was just wanting to die.
The man’s voice cuts through your thoughts. “It’s not your fault. The curse attached to you is ancient. Powerful. It reacted when you, y’know, ended things.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Curses,” he begins, tone annoyingly patronizing. “Are what happens when humans leak out this thing called cursed energy. They’re amalgamations that are born out of every negative thought, every shitty day, and every terrible event. Depression, getting fired, having your house burn down – all these things create creatures that continue feeding off this despair until they become corporeal enough to perpetuate even more suffering.”
“The curse attached to you, or, I guess, the curse you exist as a vessel for, is one that’s probably even older than Japan. But I was under the impression that the Brotherhood was long gone, so I dunno why you’re even, y'know, here.”
You stare at him, unblinking.
He clears his throat. “You probably don’t really understand what I’m talking about. That makes sense. You wouldn’t. Not really. All you need to know is that it’s been with you for a long time. Probably your whole life.”
“I think I would know if I had been possessed for the past twenty years.”
“Would you?” His pale brow is raised even in spite of the rest of his expression being painfully earnest.
The silence between the two of you stretches out, thick and suffocating. You can’t stand this. You have to go. No, you need to go. But you can’t. You’re trapped in this creepy fucking room with a strange man when you were supposed to be dearly departed hours ago !
“What happened to you, when you tried to kill yourself . . .” The man speaks again. His voice is softer this time, coaxing. It’s as if he could sense your mounting panic. “. . . is that the curse sleeping inside of you woke up. It needed energy to keep you alive, so it harvested it. It tortured and sacrificed every single tenant in that damn building in order to accrue enough cursed energy to revive you.”
The blood drains from your face. “That’s not–”
“Dude, shut up. Yes, that’s how it works. Get over it.” He picks at his teeth with his pinky nail before taking his glasses off fully. “Anyway, the higher-ups are interested in you. So interested, in fact, that they want you dead! By the end of the week, too. Isn’t that exciting?”
You’re getting whiplash from listening to him. Just last week things had been normal. Grim and depressing, but normal. So how could this be real? Your brain cannot process anything.
“Execution?” You prod, voice shaky. “You want to kill the suicidal lady? A-Am I supposed to be upset about that?”
His eyes darken a smidgeon. “Is the lack of agency not a concern for you?”
You bite your lip, carefully considering your response. But the growing silence is enough of an answer for him.
The man rises from his seat, his expression shifting immediately from playful to indescribable. You're reminded of the initial serial-killer impression you had of him. “Do you always just roll over and take it, or has death just mellowed you out? You’re stupid if you think things’ll be that easy. Those old coots don’t have a single working braincell between them. Don’t you understand what’s gonna happen if they try to execute you? You will keep. Coming. Back. Over and over again, and more and more people will die because of it.”
“So what they might do instead is cut you up. Maybe they’ll take your fingers, or maybe they’ll take your toes. Maybe even both! They’ll imbue fragments of your soul into each part they take from you, and you will be evenly dispersed over Japan like ash. The rest of your physical body will rot away. But your spirit will, for as long as those fragments exist, live on. The serenity of death will never reach you. Or, or maybe they’ll seal you in a prison realm. Permanent isolation. That's arguably worse – 'cause you’ll actually be stuck with your thoughts in a place like that. Your body'll wither away and you'll lose your mind with hunger, but you won't die. Or maybe . . . maybe they’ll just keep you alive. Obviously that'll be worse than being dead. Tethered with a binding vow, you’ll live out the rest of your life as a puppet to some conservative geezers that would much rather fuck you over before they even consider doing anything of relative difficulty themselves.”
He steps closer to you. There’s a wall of energy so charged around this man that you can physically feel it pressing against you. “But you don’t have to be the victim, not again. You don’t need to let them use you. Fight this. Use this ability to do something good .”
You flinch at his words. You can’t exactly parse much of what he said (the words "prison realm" honestly sound like something out of a sci-fi novel). But that doesn't stop the reality of it all from sinking into you, cold and unrelenting. Dying, you realize, won’t help anyone. Not anymore, at least. So what other choice could you possibly have? The thought that the man might not be revealing the entire truth dances over your numb mind. But you're just so, so tired.
“You can make up for what happened,” his voice is soft now, all the rough edges from his previous rant smoothed over like silk. He’s crouched, brilliant blue eyes drilling into you. “You can save people. You can turn this around. But you have to want it.”
It’s then that you realize that you have been crying. Tears slip out from your eyes as you pathetically wipe your nose with your shoulder. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” his voice is low, persuasive. “Align with me. Higher-ups can only do shit to people who are weak. And while you are anything but, you have no standing. I can protect you, but you need to trust me.”
His gaze is so intense that you feel you have just bared a festering wound to him. Unsurprisingly, his words hang heavy. You’re not stupid – you know he’s manipulating you. An expression so schooled and manufactured is everything but genuine. Yet the guilt wraps around you, constricting you like an anaconda. How fair was it, really, for you to take the easy way out?
“Do I really have a choice?” Your voice is barely audible.
His smile sharpens. You think his eyes flicker with something approving. “There’s always a choice. But I'll be honest. This is the best one.”
You take a deep breath. Your heart is pounding so hard that you can feel your pulse in your toes.
“Okay,” you sigh. “Okay. I’ll support you.”
He rises at that moment, his hand cupping your shoulder. For the first time, you feel warmth.
“Good.”