𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐃𝐆𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖 || 𝐉𝐔𝐉𝐔𝐓𝐒𝐔 𝐊𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐍

Chapter 18: The Pawn's Revenge

"Junpei's mother is dead?"

They had just arrived back at the training compound when Ijichi had broken the news to them. Apparently, they had found one of Sukuna's fingers at the house, and a curse who had been attracted to its power had killed her.

The lower half of her body was missing. It was assumed that the curse had consumed it.

Someone had definitely waited until we had left to place it there.

The only question is, who?

Mina has a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the patchwork curse she had previously encountered.

His appearance as an unknown special grade couldn't be a coincidence.

Not for the first time, Mina felt like she had accidentally stumbled into something much larger than herself. Someone was planning something behind the scenes, and it seems like the dominoes had already begun to fall into place.

But where did Junpei fit into all of this?

"Nanami, do you think this might be the work of the patchwork curse?" she glanced towards the sorcerer leaning against the wall opposite her and Yuuji. Yuuji looked pale.

It looked like he was still trying to process the fact that the woman they had dinner with only yesterday was now lying on a cold slab in a morgue somewhere.

"It's likely. But I want both of you to go find Junpei and leave the curse to me."

"Nanami... You are injured. I can smell the blood on you."

Frowning, she pushed herself off from the wall she had been leaning against.

"How can you expect to take him on alone."

"I will be fine."

Faint tremors reverberated through the corridor as Nanami finally looked at Mina.

The expression on her face was dark.

He realised her calm voice had disguised her anger, her volatile emotions undoubtedly the cause of the tremors. Nanami looked up as dust fell from the ceiling.

"Calm down. Right now we need to make sure Junpei is not a threat, and neutralise the curse."

Mina took a deep breath, trying to reign in her anger. The hall stopped shaking as she nodded curtly before leaving Yuuji to talk to Nanami.

** ** **

"You told me to think of my mother. MY MOTHER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU TWO!" Junpei screamed, tears running down his face. He was standing on the stage in the auditorium, a boy lying at his feet. She could see the faint movement of his chest, so Junpei hadn't killed him.

Yet.

"Junpei, listen. You are being manipulated. Whatever that person told you is a lie!" This was speculation on her part, but she was hardly ever wrong.

"How can I trust you?" he snarled bitterly, his eyes red-rimmed and overflowing with anger.

He was hurting. Lashing out placing the blame on someone who hated him. But to think he believed this to be the work of a mere high-schooler?

"Do you really believe your mother's death is the work of some snot-nosed brat?" she threw her hands up, frustrated.

"We can help you find the real killer, so please don't do anything stupid."

However, Junpei was beyond reason. The high-schooler was hoisted into the air, Junpei's Jellyfish shikigami wrapping its tentacles around him. Already, dark purple lacerations had formed on the boy's arm and face, pulsating and expanding across once unblemished skin.

Yuuji tried to reason with him desperately, but Junpei didn't budge, his face cold.

His next words were even colder.

"Stay out of this, Jujutsu Sorcerer."

The shikigami's tentacles lashed out towards them, with Mina barely managing to put up a barrier just in time. She winced as the tentacles bounced off the invisible force field, as despite it being able to prevent attacks of a certain degree, she could still feel the sharp sting of power from the blow. The toxin from the jellyfish would undoubtedly be painful once coming into contact with skin. Yuuji had managed to dodge the blow and sprinted toward Junpei, engaging in a heated conversation while Mina fell back, leaving it to the other boy to try to make him see reason.

The hair on the back of her arms rose, causing her to shiver. She looked out of the window, and upwards. A barrier had just finished forming over them and the rest of the school, sealing them in.

There was no leaving now.

This had been planned, and Mina had a sneaking suspicion she knew who was behind it.

*** *** ***

It all happened too fast.

Just when Yuuji had managed to talk Junpei down and he'd begun to realise murder wouldn't bring his mother back.

He died.

His grotesquely deformed body crumpled to the ground, a heaving, coalescing mass of disfigured flesh with Mahito standing above him, smiling with childish amusement.

She was taught from a young age that anger and other strong emotions were dangerous and foolish. That they should be controlled and best suppressed. And that's what she was used to doing, her feelings muted and usually felt through a thick layer of cotton wool.

Anger.

Did that explain the burning heat in her chest which tinged her vision red?

Yuuji's anger almost surpassed her own as he attacked Mahito in a fury. Mina's vision however was focused on the disfigured form which was all that remained of Junpei. She hadn't realised she'd grown so attached to him until she crouched down next to his deformed body, her chest throbbing dully.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"He-lp me" Junpei croaked, but Mina knew there was nothing that could be done to save him.

Reaching out towards what remained of his consciousness, Mina could tell that he was in unbearable pain. Wrapping a tendril of her power around his consciousness, she swiftly broke his mind, severing the tether keeping his soul in his body, killing him instantly.

It was the least she could do to end his suffering.

"If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I hope you have a better life," she whispered.

Mina felt the pain in her chest again and frowned at its intensity.

Is this grief?

Her eyes dulled a flat grey as she recognised it for what it really was.

A weakness.

Closing her eyes, Mina concentrated on blocking off these inconvenient emotions, just like she had been taught. Just like she had always known how to, suffocating them until she felt it flicker into nothingness before opening her now gleaming silver eyes.

Junpei, I will avenge your death.