wasteland, baby! [fushiguro megumi]

23: the cursed ingenue

october 2018

third person pov

"june in morioka, kanada taichi. august in yokohama, shimada osamu. september in nagoya, yamato hiroshi. their cause of death is the same, they were killed by a cursed spirit at their apartment entrance. and they complained about the same thing to their management weeks before their deaths. 'the auto-lock door is not functioning.' but the other residents didn't have the same problem."

back in the school issued black sedan, this time driven by auxiliary manager nitta akari, the first years were yet again dispatched on another mission. with keiko riding shotgun, she handed the white device to megumi who was again squeezed in the middle seat as kugisaki and itadori leaned over to check out the victims' details.

"but all the dates and locations are different, did they really get killed by the same cursed spirit?" megumi voiced out before itadori began questioning the correlation between the cursed spirit and the auto-door sensors. even after nitta's layman explanation, it didn't seem like he fully understood what she said.

"we can't determine if the incidents were done by the same cursed spirit based on the residuals since the incidents all happened a while back. so, i looked for similarities that connect the three cases. they all attended the same junior high for two years."

"that means they were cursed back then," kugisaki pondered as keiko was quick to complete her theory. "and it took all these years to manifest?"

shortly after nitta had confirmed that their suspicions were on the right track, itadori couldn't help but beam at his classmates' ingenuity.

"oh wow! kugisaki, mizuki, you guys are amazing!" and the two girls simply shot finger guns at each other while soaking in the praise.

keiko originally wasn't supposed to join her friends on this mission since she had been doing nothing but experiments with gojo and shoko for the past week to try and recreate the mizuki immunity ruby.

after the events in yokohama and having heard megumi and keiko's report about the ruby that keiko's mother had around her neck, the adults have been drawing vials of the poor girl's blood, manipulating it with cursed energy and attempting to forge it with keiko's own flames to be left with nothing but futile efforts. keiko could be labelled as anaemic after all the blood she had to give up and she was told to take at least a week off. but keiko being keiko, she couldn't stay away from the action even if she tried.

before they could arrive at the victims' junior high, the group were interrupted upon seeing a funeral being held for the victims' common acquaintance. nitta sighed as she instructed the first years to get back into the car, pensive as their only lead for information had too died the same way the other victims did.

soon enough, the group made their way into the junior high, keiko catching a quick glance at the huge sign that said "saitama urami east junior high" as she cut back her pace and leaned towards megumi who was trailing at the back of the group.

"isn't this your junior high?" she whispered.

"don't remind me, and you're not even supposed to be here." he replied flatly and she simply giggled.

nitta heaved another huge groan, conflicted as she wrecked her brain for another solution to get more leads.

"don't worry! there's gotta be something in this school!" itadori tried to reassure her, before kugisaki started prancing towards a pair of delinquents smoking by the corridor.

"we got some punks over here, let's beat them up to reform them!"

the delinquents had their heads perked up at her sudden outburst, suspicious gaze darting around the group before their eyes widened in fear as they lowered their heads in a sharp bow. "good day to you! sorry for not greeting you properly!"