I long for perfection, Nanami x reader

6 The punishment

The next morning I was woken up by loud banging on the door. I groaned went for the door. I rubbed my eyes and saw Nanami there.

He had the same stoic expression with a hint of anger in his eyes.

On times like these, I was glad he didn't have his glasses because eyes were the only hint I got of his mood.

"Get up, right now." He commanded. And like a spell I got up and followed him in my pajamas. I don't know if I was that scared of his reaction or what, that I followed him immediately and without a word.

I followed him to the yard where Itadori was also in his pajamas, standing in a frozen position. I took a place next to him.

"So first of all, good early morning to all of you." Gojo announced. I didn't know what time it was but guessed around five in the morning. The sun was rising and it was chilly.

"Because of your misconduct, we were forced to take accurate measures. So here we are." Gojo beamed while stretching his arms. I don't know how he could be so energetic in the early morning.

"Your punishment is therefore running ten laps around the school grounds. And if you ran into some curses that is your problem to deal with." Gojo said with a smile.

I didn't mind the running, I was sure to do it with ease. But the cursed spirits part was what concerned me. Even though Nanami taught me yesterday few moves, I was still scared to fight them myself.

I should keep close to Itadori. He seemed confident to fight a spirit if he needed to.

We both yawned and slowly started moving. Itadori started with a quicker pace which he wouldn't be able to keep up if he wasn't trained like I was but I still ran with him. I didn't have another choice. I was too scared to fight a spirit on my own.

We ran six laps without any problem when Itadori started to lose his speed. His pace has slowed down and his steps were smaller. I adjusted to his speed even though I could run faster.

"I'm...dying..." he breathed out.

"Don't worry, just keep running. Take deep breaths." I encouraged him.

I could hear him trying to take deep breaths but he only slowed down even more.

"We can stop for a moment if you want." Right after I said that Itadori stopped and flopped down on the ground to regenerate.

I stopped as well and looked around for any curses.

He took deep breaths. "Thank...you...I...thought...I'd...die." He chuckled.

"No worries, it's a pretty bad punishment but I guess we deserved it." I chuckled. I heard shuffling from the bushes which alerted me.

"Itadori? I think we should get moving." I said taping his shoulder while keeping an eye on the bushes.

"Huh? Oh yeah, just give me a minute." He dismissed the concerned tone in my voice. I guess he didn't notice the shuffling.

I nodded and kept on watching the place. Itadori slowly got up. He dusted himself off and stretched.

"Itadori..." I gritted threw my teeth. I was getting more nervous the more time we spent not moving.

"Yeah, I'm just not that athletic so wait a bit." He waved me off.

Suddenly the bushes rustled again only louder this time and a hissing lizard-like curse jumped out. The moment it saw us it started running towards us, like we were its prey.

"Itadori! Watch out!" Before he could notice the curse jumped on him and started choking him.

"Ah! I- Uh, help!" He gasped for air. The panic started coming back again.

My head was frantically looking from place to place trying to find a solution to this without me actually fighting the spirit. An idea of calling for Nanami or Gojo came to my head but after little thinking I scrapped it.

They wouldn't probably hear me and if they did they wouldn't help anyway.

Shit. I'll have to do it myself don't I.

I looked back at Itadori whose face was at this point a sickly purple color.

I crouched down to him and smacked the spirit away. It instantly froze upon making contact with my hand and fell to the ground.

I quickly reached for the creature and held its limp body, focusing all of my freezing skill onto it. Its body was getting harder and harder as it froze under my touch until it crumbled in my hands like a piece of chalk.

When I realized what I have done, I couldn't move. My hands stayed in the same position like they were still holding onto that spirit which was now a pile of crumbs below my hands.

"Y/N? Y/N. You okay?" Itadori asked while picking himself up from the ground. He came to me and crouched. He observed the pile of crumbs.

"I...I...did it." I said quietly in disbelief of what I accomplished. I was happy that I was able to kill that spirit and save Itadori. Even if it was a Grade 4 curse, it was a good first step to not being scared of killing spirits.

I quickly stood up newly energized by my achievement.

"Let's go! We have still few laps!" I shouted at Itadori who was confused by my sudden change of mood. He followed few steps after me.