TO LOVE A MONSTER ❪ jujutsu kaisen ❫

xxv: love is the greatest curse of them all.

TOKYO JUJUTSU HIGH, 22ND DECEMBER 2016.

Yuuta staggers forward towards her, looking over her injuries with shaking hands. "Yuuta-kun," she whispers out, the action causing more blood to drip past her lips. Her snow white hair is stained with crimson from where her head brutally collided against the wall and she grips onto him tightly with one hand. "Run," she pleads but he seems to be stuck in a daze, scanning her over and over again as if he wants to commit the carnage to his memory.

"How touching," Geto comments when Yuuta's cursed energy flares around him like a siren, encompassing and so sobering that it causes hair on the back of her neck to rise. "To care so much for another one of your colleagues," the wording is done deliberately and Kaori thinks that the man is far more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

"Colleague?" Yuuta snarls, expression twisted with hate as he glowers at Geto. "Kaori is my everything," he emphasizes and Kaori can feel the phantom jolt of Rika's eyes on her as Yuuta presses a gentle kiss against Kaori's cheek and calls his Curse forth with a guttural shout. Everything goes hazy as she concentrates on her breathing to stop herself from passing out, one hand weakly holding her side where the gash is weeping blood. She can feel the moment Geto raises a familiar mangled bell, her body rising forward against her wishes as he calls her to stand next to him. Yuuta is fighting fiercely against Curses, Rika's bone white body visible among the throng of hissing green goblins and Kaori swallows as her eyes settle on the Fujiwara bell.

"You students just leave things lying around everywhere," he chuckles and Kaori growls at him. "It's such a shame that Fujiwara of all people found you. You would have been much better off with me," he says proudly and Kaori gathers enough energy to spit at his feet.

"I'd rather have died," she hisses. Geto stares at her, still looking amused. Kaori knows she must be quite the sight. Blood clings to every part of her and her shirt has ripped away in several places, revealing the dark blue and violet bruises forming on her pale skin. Her petal pink lips are stained with swashes of crimson and her vibrant eyes are full of hate.

"What would you do if I have you kill him?" he whispers into her ear.

"I would never-"

"You don't have a choice in the matter," he smiles cheerfully, as if he's enjoying this and rings the bell again. Kaori regrets her moment of passionate weeping during that day because the ice that floods through her body and forces her to approach Yuuta is disgusting. It reminds her of every day Fujiwara forced her to kill person after person during the days after Haku's death, of the way she felt like she was drowning in a plunging ocean made up of the blood of her victims. Yuuta lights up when he sees her on her feet but the way Kaori sways and grits her teeth is enough to make his eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. Rika is the reason he dodges the hit she aims at him, her long white arm grabbing Yuuta and dragging him out of the way. The Curse snarls at her and lunges forward to fight against her despite Yuuta's protests. Kaori is glad for it. Rika is as strong as her title states, the Queen of Curses relishing the way her talons scratch against Kaori's arm when she manages to hurt her. Kaori hisses at the stinging sensation before flipping back and facing the duo. Yuuta looks broken and then wrathful when Geto rings the bell mockingly. It's like he's trying to piss the boy off and it's definitely working. No longer is he the shy and timid boy who hunched over himself when they first met. The bashful expression is replaced with one of destestment and his eyes are longing as they stare at Kaori. She knows that she will not last for long. Her earlier fight with Geto and the days she has spent without practice have made her body lax, especially with the addition of the cursed energy stealing seals.

"Poor little Juliet," Yuuta flinches and even Geto looks surprised as Khaos unwinds itself from her shadow, settling over her shoulder and wrapping a black tendril around her face. "Still not strong enough to protect your friends?" it asks sweetly, crimson eyes gleaming in the black that flickers like static on an old television. It clouds around her like dark mist on a rainy day, its hold on her possessive and mocking. "Aren't you willing to do anything to protect your friends? To protect your Romeo?" she knows what it is asking from her and hesitates. Khaos is a creature that ripped apart sorcerer after sorcerer as they attempted to seal him and it was only its arrogance that allowed Kaori's forefathers to seal it tightly. To make a deal with it means getting rid of her last bits of mortality but Kaori thinks about her friends. She thinks about how they accepted her back into their close knit circle when they had every right to leave her alone after her betrayal, how they showered her with their own forms of love and took her to finally live life. She fears Khaos but she is sure that she wants her death to be meaningful if it happens. She nods, slashing at her arm with her sharp nails and letting the creature sniff the blood that pours forth from the wound. Khaos's drool drips onto her forearm, its tongue curling around the pale skin as it laps hungrily at the blood that stains it. It bites into the skin, the contact sending Kaori's body arching as its power floods through her.

"All this for a little bout of puppy love?" Geto questions, sighing like he's disappointed. Kaori has to take a moment to register his words. Every inch of her body burns from the intensity of the cursed energy coursing through her, energy that had been locked away for years and now crackles like lightning. Geto is not unaffected, the energy whipping around his body and sending him crashing into a wall. Blood drips past his lips but he continues to smile even as Kaori's hazardous cursed energy flickers around, destroying the school with its mere power. Even Yuuta is injured, flinching as power unwinds from Kaori's body like a hurricane, Rika cupping him in her hulking arms to protect him. It's too much, Kaori realizes. The amount of power in her will end up killing everyone at this rate, something Khaos has wanted from the start. A curved blade of cursed energy forms in her slim hands and she holds it precariously before she looks at Geto and the bell he continues to clutch between his bruised fingers. She hates being controlled, is sick and tired of being an all-too willing puppet to sick bastards with their own agendas and it is this hate that helps make her mind.

"Puppy love?" she repeats the man's words before she glances back at Yuuta, smiling lightly as she shakes her head. "How insulting. What I feel for Yuuta is true love," she declares before she plunges the blade into her seal-covered heart. She sees the horror in Yuuta's eyes, the way he sprints forward to catch her falling body. He clutches her close to his chest, tears in his eyes as he says something to her that she can't quite make out. Kaori despises herself for doing this to him, for making him see another death happen in front of his eyes but she is selfish because she doesn't back away from him. Instead, she uses her little strength to nestle close to him and presses her lips against his in a lingering kiss. She fights to keep her eyes open, to stare at Yuuta for as long as possible but she has always been a follower not a leader, and she easily submits to the darkness that drags it back into its greedy grasp.