LADY AOKI || JUJUTSU KAISEN

九

tw: this chapter contains graphic descriptions of death, implied sexual assault, and violence. 

She was chained and shackled to the wall, a threadbare and soiled yukata barely covered her emaciated frame. Her face was gaunt and sunken as though she hadn't had a proper meal for months, and her belly swelled with a grotesque pregnancy. 

But her eyes remained the same, the same large, brown eyes who had once viewed the world with such kindness, now blank and lifeless as a porcelain doll.

"Mother?" Anzu squeaked, her hands dropping to her side as she started forward.

The woman remained unresponsive, her gaze blank and her cracked lips muttering incomprehensible words. She had little to no breathing room in her cell, thick iron bars forced her legs to stay folded to the point where the skin on her knees were rotten and scarred from kneeling on the rough stone floor.

The low ceiling offered little light as Anzu crept through their dank surroundings, the distinct smell of mildew pungent in the air. Her eyes raked over neatly stacked piles of research notes, and paused on a shelf lined with six sinister-looking containers. She could sense cursed energy rolling off of them, a vileness belonging to a living being not crafted by the gentle hands of their gods.

Anzu approached the largest one, an obvious undeveloped fetus, and she squinted her eyes at the name tag, tracing it with her finger as she read.

"Choso."

"Eso."

"Kechizu."

The other three didn't have names, merely dates indicating the night conceived and the time of birth. Anzu's heart dropped into her roiling stomach as she slowly turned to look at her mother, tears streaming down her cheeks and she crumpled to her knees, staring at her trembling hands.

The half-curse children had been born consecutively, year after year, without even a week of rest.

How her mother must have suffered.

"You look...so beautiful."

Anzu looked up to see her mother gazing at her with wide tearful eyes, her shackles clattered as she reached out with fleshless hands, such warmth in her smile despite her blue lips.

"Anzu." She croaked. "My child."

Despite everything, the rusted, bloodstained tools, the ominous cursed wombs, the eerie third presence, Anzu dropped everything and rushed towards her mother, weeping as she rejoiced in quiet dread. Their embrace was frail but warm, bringing memories of cold winter nights when she would snuggle a young Anzu into her bed to keep each other cozy. Though joyous as she was at their reunion, her voice was urgent and laced with fear when she spoke. "You must leave, now."

"Not without you." Anzu said stubbornly, her hands tugged at the iron chains, but her mother shoved her off quickly.

"No Anzu, he will catch you." She begged. "He will hurt you, kill you. For my sake please, leave and run as far as you can. I don't know how you found this place but your brother—"

"Was aware of your presence this entire time, Anzu. Really, your shitty stealthiness will get you killed one day."

Slow, casual footsteps announced Fumihiro's lanky figure strolling into view, his hands tucked neatly behind his back as he gazed down at the two of them, unimpressed. He looked nothing like Anzu, who beheld their mother's beauty, and instead had taken after their father with a thin face and a permanent scowl on his lips.

"Little sister." He greeted flatly, he had a dagger at his waist. "What brings you here? Last I checked you were supposed to be with Akinori and the others, playing tag with curses?"