One Month Later
"This doesn't seem safe," I directed the words more towards myself than anything, but a reassuring hand is placed on my shoulder nonetheless. Well, not so much reassuring as just... heavy.
"Don't worry," the white haired man behind me says loudly. "Anything goes wrong I'm right outside." Fushiguro snorts, muttering something along the lines of a yeah right, though I can't hear too much of his quiet words over the rushing of blood in my ears.
"Do you have it?" Gojo whispers, sticking his head between my head and Fushiguro's to my right. "Will you let me go home if I say no?" I ask hopefully. The man replies with a chuckle, clapping his hands down where they were placed on our backs, causing us both to lurch forward slightly, a shocked grunt leaving the boy next to me. "Absolutely not. So I hope for your sake you were kidding."
I sigh, having received just about the same answer as I had expected from my teacher. If I could even call him that. I draw my hand down to my side to the wooden bat balanced against my thigh. "Yeah... yeah I've got it." Gojo smiles widely, "Great! Good luck then, be back soon!" I turn around to see him treading off quickly with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "I thought you said you'd be right outside!" His pace quickened and he barely turned his head back to shout, "I'm not going far, I'll hear if you yell!" I roll my eyes. Honestly I should have known better than to trust him to stay, but it doesn't make it any less terrifying that he's gone.
"What the hell kind of negative emotions even come from a church anyway? I thought it was meant to be some kind of safe place." Fushiguro tilts his head at the tall building across the empty street, not in thought, he was examining it, probably has been since we arrived. "Plenty of things," he replies. "Funerals, religious oppression, annoying kids during service." I turn to fully look at him for the first time since we arrived, resisting the tug I feel at the corners of my mouth. "You a big church goer then, Fushiguro?" He turns to look at me, brow furrowed, "What- no I was just answering-" The smile pulls a little wider on my face as he flushes with the realization that I was only joking.
"Lets just get this over with."
He strides across the pavement, but halfway across the empty road, freezes. Reaching back and swinging his arm blindly until he finds my wrist. "What-" "Shh!" I try to follow his gaze, but the angle I stand at behind him and the near pitch black of the night make it impossible. I draw my gaze around frantically until I see it, there, in the thin, towering window of the church. Something big, moving. Something alive. Of course, it's the reason we came, but that doesn't make it any less petrifying to see one of these things. After a month I was almost able to convince myself that it had felt like a bad dream, but here it was again.
Fushiguro clapped his hands together, a shadow appearing in the dim light cast by the street lamp. A strange shape formed from the shadow and split off into two, before compacting and shaping themselves into creatures, a low, haunting howl filling the cold, stale air of the night. His demon dogs. I haven't seen them in a month either.
Any training I'd been allowed to do with Fushiguro was close combat, with restricted use of any form of cursed energy, a rule stemmed from us all learning the hard way after many trials that I had no idea how to use cursed energy. At all. Not even a little. So for the past month I've waited, and studied, and taken one too many fists to the jaw, while Fushiguro and Gojo went out and did all the real stuff without me. And while a part of me was grateful for the safety it offered me, a luxury that they didn't have, I had been getting antsy. Even so, this felt like we were going too fast.
From the information I'd been given this cursed spirit is only a fourth grade, which according to Fushiguro would be fairly simple to exercise with a weapon like the one I'm holding. I also find solace in the fact that if worse comes to worse, this curse is far below Fushiguro's skill level, and he could exercise it without stumbling once.
But based on the way he's been treating me since the day enrolled at his school, I doubt he'll let me off too easily.
The tall door groans as Fushiguro pulls it open slowly, cringing at the echo that follows it. He stands with his back against the door, allowing the two dogs to walk in before us, the white one's nose to the ground, and the black one's head whipping around, searching the room for any immediate danger. The taller boy nods at me and I step in a quietly as possible, scanning the room, he follows behind me, palm flat against the door to make sure it falls shut slowly and doesn't slam, or trigger any kind of alarm system. There may be a murderous curse in here, but we're still definitely trespassing.
The church is much larger than I would have expected from seeing the outside. The main room looked at least fifty meters long, two doors at the back of the room, one on each side. the one on the right was labeled "Basement." Fushiguro followed the white dog in that direction. Fuck. Why is it always the basement. The shikigami reaches the door and sits patiently next to it. Fushiguro opens it just wide enough for the dog to fit in, the other off exploring the left door that presumably lead to the restroom. He opens the door a few more inches and looks at me expectantly.
"Ladies first." I look down just in time to see the fluffy tale of demon dog white disappearing around a corner at the bottom of the dark stairs.
(I had asked him once, during training if he'd ever considered giving the dogs more creative names, two which he just replied but staring at me with a confused expression, which I opted to take as a no and leave the topic be.)
"Funny." I say, turning back to him. "I wasn't kidding, it's important for beginners to learn this way. In case you hadn't noticed, Gojo-Sensei teaches by experience. It's how I learned." I stare down the dark staircase, urging my feet to move, but I feel frozen. Every single bulb in my body has gone dark, circuit boards switched off. I no longer have control.
Why am I so afraid?
A light tap on my shoulder lights me back up and I flinch, Fushiguro taking his hand away quickly. "Look... is it really that scary when you already know what's down there?"
Maybe it's even more.
"Think about it logically, you've got a strong weapon in your hands, plus me behind you if anything goes wrong, you already know what's down there, and how to beat it. So what reason do you have to be afraid?" I blink a couple of times, trying to process the fact that he's just said something so encouraging to me. Every one of our interactions outside of training has been in passing, and even when we had conversations he always answered shortly, and ended the interaction as quickly as possible. He hates me, I don't know why but I can tell that much, so hearing something like this from him is confusing. I'm not even sure if I've ever heard that many words leave his mouth at once while he's speaking to me, let along words that are brimming on kind.
"I guess... nothing. I know what's down there. I know how to beat it."
I'm in control. I am safe.
I take the first step down onto the creaky wood staircase. A step down, but a step forward.
1353 Words
A/N
Woah Chaos actually wrote a good chapter for once? Yeah I'm actually pretty proud of this one I thought of it in the shower lol. Anyway I don't have too much to say other than thank you for reading and if ANYBODY says some bs like "hEs AlReAdY In LoVe wItH h-" *gunshots*
no.
I am telling you now as a warning before we continue: he is not avoiding her because he likes her, or thinks she's cute or for any of those reasons. I know I said there will be clichés but I am working to change that and also I don't even wanna LOOK down the love at first sight road.
But I'm not saying he don't think ur cute bc of course Megumi thinks you're cute look at yourself bestie how could he not ;)
OKAY THATS ALL THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING BESTIES I LOVE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY MWAH MWAH
-Chaos (Damn I wrote my real name like twice before I wrote Chaos I'm tired asf)
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Human Adjacent - Megumi Fushiguro x READER
Fanfiction"'Are you even human, Fushiguro?" He smiled softly, a hand rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. "Human... adjacent. I guess.'" Their worlds weren't meant to collide. It was his job to protect people like her from a distance, but after a terrif...
