mamoritai | f. megumi

十二

Further walking inside the detention center, there was undeniable a foul odor in the air that made Momoka scrunch her nose in disgust, covering it with the back of her hand. It smelled like someone or something was left rotting but upon seeing a sight, they immediately knew what was the source of the foul odor. There lay two mangled corpses - one all bones and organs and the other missing the lower half of their body.

"How terrible..." Nobara comments, a hand clutching onto the sleeve of Momoka's polo and suit.

"I guess it's safe to say that there are three people." Megumi says.

As Momoka watched Yuji squat down and held the dead person's shoulder, Momoka took a peak behind his back. "What are you thinking of, Itadori kun?"

"I'm taking this body back." Yuji spoke.

"What?" Nobara questions

"This is that woman's son." Yuji says, "His face is still recognizable. Telling her that he's dead without proof is just...of course, his mother won't accept that."

Megumi's eyebrows quirked, walking up to Yuji to grab his hoodie from behind. "We have to confirm the status of the remaining two people, so leave that body there."

"You're kidding!" Yuji rebuts. "The path we came from disappeared! There's no chance of coming back later!"

As the two bickered to themselves, Momoka sighed and took a hold of her deck of cards.

"I didn't know your technique is like that!" Nobara beams, looking at the cards in her hands.

"It's a bit tedious" Momoka says, sighing softly before raising a card up to her forehead. "Pisces"

Two fishes suddenly appeared from thin air; one in light blue color and the other light green, both swimming in a circular direction facing each others' tail.

"Please look out this body for me. We'll return it after finding the curse." Momoka instructs. The two fishes nodded their head before swimming towards the recognizable corpse of Tadashi, swimming around his body in circular motion.

Both Megumi and Yuji held onto each other's collar, Momoka sighed and looked at Nobara. "Are we going to stop them?" Nobara irked before stomping her feet on the ground.

"Stop it already! Jeez! What are you two doing? You fools!" Nobara went on. Momoka was left in their spot, her eyes roaming around the place they are in until she felt herself being dragged down.

"Where...am I?" Momoka asks, landing on her feet as she stared at nothing but darkness. Soon, a small circular opening appeared and Nobara landed besides her.

"Goodness. Where are we?" Nobara asks. Momoka's eyebrows furrowed together, merging her katana's into one while her other hand held onto a taurus revolver.

"The curse...mutated" Momoka says, checking on the bullet holes before looking up, eyes trained on the many face masks and eye ball curses floating in the air, laughing at the two of them.

"There's too many of them" Momoka says, their backs pressing together.

"What do we do, Momoka?" Nobara asks, three nails situated between her fingers.

"Focus on the face masks, I'll deal with the eye balls" With that, Momoka began to run forward before leaping on her feet from the ground. While in mid air, she raised her right arm over her chest to shoot at the farthest eye ball curse from her; falling down on the ground on her feet while watching the bullet hit, pierce, and shoot the rest of the eye balls.

"Damn it." Momoka mutters to herself, hearing the clacking sound of the bullet fall down on the ground. "Five bullets isn't enough to finish them all. And Megumi has my bag." she adds.

"Momoka" Nobara calls to her, turning her head to look at the brown haired girl who held up one nail in her hand. "This is my last one" she says, shooting her an apologetic look.

"This is a cursed spirit were facing after all" Momoka says, lightly shrugging her shoulders. "I'll max myself out" Momoka mumbles before running and leaping through the air once more, shooting the remaining five bullets, curving them before slicing the face masks with her katana.

As Momoka was about to land down on the ground, a thin hand with four fingers held her by her legs upside down. Caught off guard causing her cards to slip out of her pocket.

"Put me down!" Momoka shouts, holding onto the base of her katana before throwing it onto the head of the curse, only for the curse to open its mouth and swallow it.

"Why would you do that?!" Momoka shrieks.

"I will curse all of you!" Nobara taunted.

Gritting her teeth in annoyance, she slips her hand inside her coat, pulling out knives situated between her fingers, flinging them against targets before wriggling out of it's hold, falling back down on the floor with a thud.

"That hurts..." She mumbles, slowly sitting up and then standing back up on her feet, one hand holding onto a dagger and the other having knives placed in between her fingers once again.

"Let's dance." She grins, eyeing each and every remaining curse, maxing herself out as she promises.

. . . . . . . . . . ♡

As Megumi rushes out to enter into the room where Momoka and Nobara are located, the enlarged frog named Gama hops behind him. Turning his head both left and right, indeed the detention center had too many rooms, having used to house about a hundred people from before it came to go down like this.

Taking a turn to the right, Megumi continues to search each and every room until he caught glimpse of something light inside, suddenly halting in his tracks, he takes three steps back and there he found inside Momoka sitting in the middle of the room, picking up fallen knives from the ground.

"How did you find us here?" She asks, casting her head back down to continue what she is doing.

Instead of responding to her question at first, Megumi's eyes turns to look at each curse that lay on the floor, mentally counting them one by one.

"Didn't you run out of bullets?" He asks, bending his back down to help her pick up her knives. "Where did you get these too?"

"I had them stuck inside the pockets of my suit, of course." Momoka replies, straightening her back before pocketing the ones she has in her hands. "My father did told me that in the case I lose my bag, I should have plan b. And the knives are my plan b."

As Megumi turns to give her the remaining knives he has in his hands, only then did he realize that, despite being her former middle school classmate and seatmate, he didn't really know much about her. Sure they did spend a few months in one classroom and he learned a little to few things about her given that they talk in campus as well...

...but the fact to say that he knew her very well...he couldn't say. He didn't even know her much in a deeper level. He didn't know her father is a sorcerer as well, didn't know that she was secretly receiving training while he was looking around for her, didn't know that the reason why she was fascinated by the galaxies so much is because it is her technique.

And for some reason, it didn't sit right with him.

"Are you okay?" Momoka suddenly asks, bringing him back to reality. "You looked like you were deep in thinking. A penny for your thoughts?"

Megumi makes a face, looking somewhere distant before shaking his head slowly. "Nothing." He replies, pulling his phone out from the pocket of his uniform. "I'll call Ijichi san to come pick us up."

Momoka nods her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "Where's Itadori by the way?"

That question alone he couldn't say, he narrows his eyes as he presses his phone against his ear. "Somewhere there" is what he responded to her.

edited: 121322