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The first year he was scouted for his abilities was where it all went downhill, or perhaps the path of a sorcerer never actually went up; one after another, the people Nanami knew and cared for just disappeared, gone where he couldn’t and wouldn’t go. It was as if that mission in that distant mountain village was actually a portal to another world because when he came back, nothing was the same.
His upperclassmen had changed, fundamentally so, because the once tight knit Strongest Duo traded ideals and took separate paths. The campus, which had always been rather empty, became deathly silent, the number of students dwindled down to half in the span of a few weeks. The trees were haunted with memories of what was, and loneliness became the ghost that hung around at every corner.
The classroom became the loneliest of all—four corners, one desk. It was like a curse.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there were no new students the next year or the year after that. Having unlocked Purple, Gojō became Gojō, and without her friends, Ieiri moved on.
Nanami was the only one left, but there was nothing he hadn’t already learned.
For two years, he moved through the world of jujutsu automatically, abiding by the rules and expectations, and all alone, he grew, gaining height and skills. He grew quite well, advancing to the semi-first grade by graduation.
People had great hopes for him because they had a need for someone like him, but he was done with their world. He didn’t belong; he hadn’t belonged in a long time, and he was tired of pretending. He didn’t want to watch people die, and nor did he want to see them accept their fate.
So he ran away. The only thing that mattered was himself, and that meant making money. Spend his twenties and maybe his thirties to work, work, work and save, save, save—then retire to a country with a low cost of living. When money was all on his mind, he could live life half-heartedly and die aimlessly. It was better not to have something worth doing or a purpose in life. Anything but be a burden.
He didn’t wish to inflict that on anyone.
That was four years ago, and Nanami is tired. Worn down. Lonely. He is constantly surrounded by people, but he feels like he’s on a boat in an open, endless sea with no land in sight. He’s drifted so far away that he doesn’t know which direction is home, whatever that may be. Only twenty-two, and he has nothing to live for . . .
“Hey, wait! Wait! Thank you! Please come again!”
Thank you.
“I am Ino Takuma, newly minted Grade 2 jujutsu sorcerer! It is an honor to meet you, Nanami-san!”
The salaryma— The former salaryman holds back a sigh, looking at the young man standing before him with bright, anticipating eyes and a stiff but forward stance. Ino Takuma, nineteen, too optimistic for the world, ready to prove his worth. Nanami dislikes how those eyes spark old memories, but he keeps it to himself.
He hasn’t spoken about his friend in years, and he isn’t planning on doing so now, especially not to someone who has yet to face every terrible faucet of curses and sorcery. Ino is lucky, and Nanami hopes he stays that way, wishful thinking though that may be.
Nanami simply pushes his glasses up his nose. “Your enthusiasm might impress others, but your introduction shouldn’t be so loud,” he notes, tone blank. This is the first time he's been assigned to supervise someone below his grade; if he’s a little nervous, he refuses to let it show.
The young man pauses, blinking once. “S-Sorry,” Ino replies, losing his bravo. He bows rigidly. “I’m Ino Takuma,” he repeats, keeping his head down. “I’m in your care, Nanami-san.”
Well, he’s got manners, but it’s expected to have etiquette and professionalism; they’re supposed to be colleagues after all.
Nanami nods in acknowledgement, and he returns Ino’s gesture. “I am Nanami Kentō,” he introduces himself. “I look forward to working with you.” Then he looks to the abandoned construction site they’d been assigned to, which they both should have read up on before meeting here. “Shall we, Ino-kun?”
Ino visibly does a double take. “Yes . . .”
“Then let’s review what we know.”
“Eh?”
Abandoned years ago due to a lack of funding, the construction site had finally begun to rust and fall apart from negligence, exposed for nearly a decade to the elements. It was supposed to be a new shopping mall, but now, it sits at the edge of a commercial district as a constant reminder of wasted resources and space. Rumor has it that the contractor that headed the project entered it one night and hasn’t been seen since. These days, it’s visited by runaways, troublemakers, and wanders. Typical story, even the part of it being reported for ghost sightings and unexplained accidents. Very typical.
“You take care of the upper level,” Nanami says, “and I will take care of the bottom. Is that alright?”
And the younger man just nods, shoulders a little hunched. Ino is new to the wider field of exorcism; he doesn’t know many sorcerers in the field, and Nanami has made no effort to be exactly friendly. It’s for both their sakes, or so Nanami tells himself.
“Shout if there’s trouble,” Nanami continues, pulling out his knife.
“I’m a Grade 2 now,” Ino bravely says, puffing up his chest, and he heads up the elevator. “I got this, you can trust me.”
Nanami makes no comment, though his eyes narrow behind his glasses carefully. He better not be reckless. He quickly begins to follow some leftover residue he’d spotted a few meters away, faint footsteps the size of a small dog heading towards the more dilapidated parts of the site.
The path is quiet until it isn’t—a buzzing sound fills his ears, feeling like static in the air. Time is frozen when he steps into a large area—probably meant to be a department store—and a chill creeps up his spine. He shivers, squinting in the dim lighting as he continues. He follows the footsteps into a space that shifts around him, like slipping through a broken frame of a door that is slowly creaking shut behind.
But it doesn’t shut completely before Nanami finally finds the end of the trail; what he finds is not a curse spirit written in the reports but a small pile of bodies that hang on the walls in pieces. Arms, legs, and torsos are separated almost neatly, and in the center, like an execution table, is a display of heads—three confirmed victims.
There is no smell of decay, flesh still fresh with blood and tears. The thin slits of their eyes open, and they’re looking at him. Two heads close their eyes, and one moves her lips. Nanami cannot hear her over the buzzing in his ear, but he can see her desperation.
Help me.
The reports got it wrong. The curse spirit that haunts this place is no Grade 2—it’s something even more powerful and intelligent, and Nanami had let Ino go by himself.
“I’ll come back for you,” Nanami promises, and he turns away, slipping out of this place stuck in time. He doesn’t look back because he knows there is no fixing what has been done.
“Ino!” he shouts, his voice carrying throughout the whole building, and he hears noth—
BANG!
The cursed spirit that’d claimed this hunting ground comes barging through the display windows upstairs, spraying glass over the vicinity like rain. It resembles a chameleon with large, bulging eyes looking at every direction, its feet like webbed prongs. Its mouth stretched wide to reveal two rows of clean, white teeth, playing with the new prey it caught with its long, yellow tongue.
“Ino!” Nanami calls out, already running up the broken elevator as he reaches for his short sword, and he launches himself into the air, slicing at the long tongue right at the seven-tenth marker.
Blood spews out onto the dirty floor like a broken water fountain, and the cursed spirit lets out a hollow wail that does not echo; its agony seeps into the walls and the bones of the abandoned mall. It’s as unsettling as the dying corpses one floor below.
But that is not on Nanami’s mind; bruised and bleeding from his head and torso, Ino has survived the ambush, but he’s in dire need of medical attention. Nanami has no time to think about the cold lurch in his stomach, and he ignores the flash of a memory he could never bury.
“Stay here,” Nanami orders. “I’ll get you to Ieiri-san soon.”
“N-No,” Ino says, weakly shaking his head, and he attempts to move. He ends up coughing up a bit of blood.
Nanami ignores him, taking off his jacket to use a compress against Ino’s head.
“The reports were mistaken. It’s obviously much stronger and above your paygrade, Ino-kun.”
“Can’t let you do it alone . . .”
“I will be fine. Let me show you what it means to be a Grade 1 sorcerer.”
“Wait, Nanami-san!”
Nanami turns back to the cursed spirit, sword in hand. He is not afraid, nor is he hesitant; even with his cursed energy restricted he knows what to do, and there is no room for failure.
Cutting off its wail abruptly, the cursed spirit gazes on his approaching figure, its once bulging eyes pointing in different directions now honed onto its newest prey, stronger and much more delicious. It begins to crawl over, mashing its teeth together. Click, click, click!
It’s speeding up in anticipation, and with a sigh, Nanami runs to meet it halfway. There is no thinking—no thoughts besides getting everyone back alive—because it is just one single objective and Nanami pours his heart and soul into it. What it creates is black. A flash of energy that is more powerful than Nanami has ever produced in his entire jujutsu career. He’s only heard of this technique and how impossible it is to use. (Later, he will call it a fluke, a stroke of luck.)
At precisely seven-tenths of its entire length, Nanami cleaves through the cursed spirit, dismembering its body into two, and it flies across the mall, blood and guts splattered onto its path. In a blink of an eye, it smashes into the wall on the other side, and lays still.
It all happened so fast that the cursed spirit couldn’t make a single sound before its ultimate demise.
Nanami inhales slowly, and he flings off the gore on his sword before putting it back in its harness. “Ino,” he says, draping the younger man’s arm over his shoulders with ease. “Are you still with me?”
He is met with a pair of bright, sparkling eyes. They look at him with awe despite being half-lidded.
“Please teach me your ways, master!” Ino replies, gripping Nanami’s shirt. He’s awfully excited for being halfway dead.
Nanami thins his lips. “I’m not your master.”
“Ouch. Can I at least treat you to dinner? For saving my life? Please? I’ll buy you all the beer you want.”
“. . . You may.”
Ino’s cheer rings loudly, bouncing off the walls. It’s a victory for both of them.