LADY AOKI || JUJUTSU KAISEN

三十七

If not for the colour of her blood, Yuta would've mistaken her for a curse.

She looked like one, with her long tangled hair curtaining her small face and her entire body covered in ash and dirt. Her uniform jacket, once a pearly white, lay in tatters on her thin shoulders, and the sheath of her katana dangled dangerously off her back. 

She walked like one too, limping aimlessly with no particular purpose while tears dripped down her front. 

He watched her for a while, warily mulling over his options. Yuji had fled the scene already, as did Geto, much to his frustration, but he didn't expect to run into her here. 

Rika suddenly manifested behind him, and he turned to her with a start. 

"Rika..." Yuta watched with curious eyes as the hulking curse left his side and retrieved a glimmering ash-stained katana, one so similar to his own, and then pointed to the empty sheath on Anzu's back. 

"It's her~" The curse breathed just as Anzu collapsed to the ground, a dark fluid seeping out around her midsection. 

It was red.

Yuta immediately leapt down from the ledge he perched on and rushed to her side, his cursed energy already gathering in his palms as he rolled her onto her back to see her face. 

Anzu was barely conscious, exhaustion finally overtaking her will, but she stared at him through hazy drunken tears. Her lips opened and closed like a fish out of water as she struggled to grasp her words. 

"Hey hey calm down for a moment, you're injured really badly." Yuta's hand hovered over her chest as he concentrated, casting his reverse cursed technique over her body. 

Warmth flooded her senses, her laboured breathing eased, but the hollow cavern-like sensation never left. 

"Inumaki." She whispered, and watched as Yuta's face instantly contorted into one of worry. "He- his arm- when Sukuna cast his domain-"

"Don't worry." He rested his hand on her feverish forehead and nodded. "He's alright. He made it back to the others. I'm sorry I can't stay for long, I have a mission to fulfill. Are you able to walk?"

Anzu nodded shakily. In truth, she wasn't injured at all, not physically at least. "Don't kill Yuji." She grabbed his hand before he could leave, and held it like a lifeline. "Don't kill him. He didn't do anything wrong, it wasn't his fault."

Yuta stared at her with veiled understanding. He didn't know her personally, yet she knew his familiars and even worried over them despite the fact that she was suffering alone in these ruins. Wordlessly, he slipped out of her grasp, laid her sword down beside her, and dashed away, the memory of Anzu tossing Kyoka's small body out of the way playing on repeat in his head. 

Now alone, Anzu grabbed her sword and used it as a crutch to force herself up, wincing as the point of the blade rubbed against the rough concrete ground. Enmei would've scolded her for that, even Gin would cringe a little. Fumihiro would've cringed a lot. 

But their concerns barely registered in her mind as she stumbled back to the rendezvous point and crumbled to the ground, surrounded by familiar voices and familiar hands. She blinked hazily, unable to register their faces, their kind words, she could only see the face of the one she lost.

"No more hiding." Lady said.  

For three days and three nights, the aftermath of the Shibuya Incident raged forth, and all the while, Anzu lay in total silence. 

She listened with a foggy conscience to the news swirling through the halls of Tokyo Jujutsu High, the names of their dead only serving to deepen her grief.