Chapter Text
Previously…
Between one moment and the next, the warehouse blurs out of sight and the ground falls out from under Maki’s feet. The loss of balance is unexpected but unsurprising. It wouldn’t be the first time, not with how Gojo tends to randomly teleport them around with the excuse of training. The change in surroundings is something she’s more prepared for. Still, the foggy, foreign sky isn’t something she’s glad to see.
It’s gut instinct and years of staring up at the azure heavens that immediately tells her that no, this is not Tokyo’s sky.
Maki clenches her polearm tighter, even as the wind rushes past her ears and billows her hair like some sort of veil over her face. The minor cuts had not yet healed from yesterday’s spar with Panda stings, and her chest heaves with the pain of breathing against air pressure. She’s pretty sure she’s going to go splat. Now that would be a seriously ridiculous way to go. Not even a proper fight. How annoying.
At the last minute, her surroundings twist again and deposits her roughly, but much more safely, onto the ground of some random ass alley. Maki coughs, spitting out some blood from accidentally biting her lip, sprawling undignified on the ground. Her body aches, sore from all the falling, and she’s pretty sure she’ll be black and blue come morning, Heavenly Restriction or not. Spitting out some of the hair that got into her mouth, she lets herself rest for a few more seconds before pushing herself up.
Maki has no time to be weak and lie around like some sort of invalid. She’s a Sorcerer, damn it, she’ll act like one. Even if it kills her.
Standing, she hisses in pain when her ankle throbs. Looks like she landed a bit wrong on her left leg. It’s not broken, but it’s definitely twisted, and stepping on it fucking hurts. A light touch confirms the start of some swelling, which is a bad sign. She can’t afford to be injured in a foreign place.
Maki grips her polearm to the side, warily studying the place she’s landed in. A dark, moonlit alley with a trashcan to the side and a dead end to the other. The smell is not the worst she’s experienced before, but it’s certainly not much better than sniffing shit. She wrinkles her nose and desperately hopes nothing too bad touched her hair. On the brighter side, there’s a small opening to what she assumes is the outside street, which she immediately hobbles to. Anywhere would be better than here.
Slipping out and carefully maneuvering her naginata through the opening, Maki is glad to see she was right in her deduction. The wind blows away the rank scent and brings with it the chill of night, a few flickering street lights illuminating the rest of the worn-down road. It’s definitely not a high-end area, not with the run-down sidewalks and shops, the flickering light bulbs, and the general moldy feel to it. Nobody’s around, though, which Maki counts as a win.
She might be able to take on anything lesser than a third-grade, but she doubts she’d be able to go against anything stronger without either mortally wounding herself or just straight-up dying. Good thing her glasses didn’t shatter, although if they did she’d have to have a go at the one who made them. A cursory glance doesn’t reveal any Curses, so she should be safe for the time being.
Doesn’t mean her guard isn’t down.
Navigating the streets, Maki soon finds herself staring at a divide in the road. It’s like those incredibly cliche scenes in B-rated movies—choose the right path or the left one? It’s like she’s in a game with only two choices available. Well fuck you universe, Maki is nothing if not adaptable. She glances to the side, and sure enough, spots another alley off to the vague left. Hah!
Shoving a middle finger at the roads, she leaves the main path to limp toward the alley. It’s larger than the one she previously fell into, and doesn’t seem to lead to a dead-end, which is great. There’s no trash can either, which is a bonus.
…There’s a mugging, though.
Rolling her eyes, she slinks through the shadows, the alley wide enough to let her observe the scene with morbid curiosity while evading notice from both mugger and victim. The two are non-Asian, with one sporting dirty blonde hair and an obviously American—or European? Maki’s never bothered to learn how to differentiate—and the woman has normal brown hair although she’s not Japanese either. Baffling. Had the Curse User just…transported her off to a random foreign nation for shits and giggles? She’s knocked out of her internal musings when the man stabs the woman. Hey now, that’s enough disrespecting the superior gender. Yes, Maki is a staunch feminist. She might be injured, but taking down this kind of weak, useless scum is as easy as blinking. She won’t even have to bloody her weapon.
With a smooth movement, she twirls and raises her polearm and brings it down with speed and accuracy. The man’s shoulder, the one holding the knife, gets hit hard with the non-bladed edge of the pole. The bone cracks, audible despite the man’s screaming and the woman’s shrieking. Maki calmly pulls her weapon back only to sweep it low and disrupt the man’s balance, pushing his ankles in a righteous vengeance and making him fall with a yelp via gravity. He hits the ground with a satisfying thunk, and the knife slips out of his grasp. It skids across and bounces off Maki’s shoes. She leans down to pick it up, unminding the blood staining her footwear.
The woman whimpers. Maki pauses. What to do? It’s not like she’s been trained to heal. Well, first-aid should be easy enough.
Stalking forward, she makes a shushing noise at the trembling victim and eyes the wound. Missed most of the important bits, she guesses, used to bloodshed but not to figure out how to treat an injury. She’ll need bandages to stop the bleeding, obviously, but what else? Something about cleaning the wound?
Not like she has water. Messy bandages will do.
Right before the figure plops down behind her, Maki shifts her stance and readies her naginata. The moment feet steady with a soft swish, she levels the tip of the blade at where the throat would be. She’s taking no chances.
“...I was gonna ask if you need help, but I see it’s not very appreciated,” The purple-clad, masked, and hooded girl says. In English. Shit.
At first, Maki did not know what to think when she heard the foreign language. Her instincts told her to flee, to not attract attention to herself nor reveal her abilities as a Sorceress.
She gave a quick run-over of the newcomer in purple skin-tight gear who had their arms up in surrender. Their face was covered, so she could only read their eyes. She could see a few strands of blonde hair under the hood though, thanks to her sharp eyesight. Quite practical, she would think.
Within a blink of an eye, she switched her grip onto the side of her polearm with the blade on it, attempting to subdue the stranger using the blunt side so she could quickly escape.
The stranger, however, ducked instinctively, just in the nick of time as Maki swung her naginata to what was supposed to be their neck.
Fwoosh.
It all happened so fast. Maki then used the blunt side of her polearm again, hoping to knock the stranger in the head. The stranger proceeded to block the attack with their left arm, their other arm guarded with a clenched fist.
"Chillax, girl! I'm not here to hurt you," their, quite feminine, voice sounded.
Maki only narrowed her eyes, staring right into the soul of the stranger. A few seconds passed until Maki almost forgot there was a wounded woman right there with them.
With a scoff, she lowered her weapon and rushed out of that alley with her polearm on the side, using her enhanced speed.
"Wait, where are you going!" the stranger yelled out, but was not going to chase her because of the injured woman on the ground.
Maki was not going to get into a full-blown fight right after she landed in this foreign country. It was not wise to risk it, knowing that this foreign country might not have a structured Jujutsu community that she can ask for help from.
She ran through the barely-lit streets of the city, observing her surroundings. She was hoping to find perhaps a public transport system where she can find a map or a library.
Gojo-sensei better get me back sooner or later.
She cursed her egotistic teacher in her head. She was sure that she heard the briefing correctly, that the curse she "encountered" in the warehouse was a low-grade curse, at most a third-grade. Something that she could handle easily.
With a frustrated sigh, she ran her hand over her face. It was time to think like a Jujutsu Sorcerer.
When Stephanie heard the distressed scream of the woman, she didn't expect to find an Asian (perhaps Japanese?) woman handling the situation. She looked very young, probably in her late teens with her tall, athletic figure. She had her long dark green hair tied into a short ponytail and unusual gold eyes framed by her pair of glasses. You could say that she was impressed by how she subdued the man in a second. However, that gave her an extra reason to remain on guard after knowing how the teen was obviously experienced in handling her… is that a polearm?!
Never in her life, she saw a polearm being someone's choice of combat weapon. That gave her a little more admiration for the teen.
After a moment of gawking, she jumped down from the ledge she leaned on to do her job.
Right as her feet landed, her face was greeted by a sharp blade and out of instinct, she held up her hands, showing that she meant no harm.
Next thing she knew, she was defending herself against a very fast attack and unintentionally letting the green-haired teenager run away.
Well, that went as planned.
She debated if she should report to the others of this "runaway" teen carrying a cool real-life polearm. Her instincts told her that the girl was no threat though. Perhaps it's best not to tell anyone because if Bats knew, he would be hysterical at the fact that she just let her go like that.
Just then, her comms sounded with the voice of her colleague, Oracle.
"Spoiler, what's your status?"