DUST ┄《 gojo s. x oc. 》

八.

TRIGGER WARNING ; Explicit descriptions of gore mentioned, marked by *. If you are easily unsettled, skip the parts between ***.

"Oi, old lady," Yin's eyes fitter open to lengthy legs eclipsing the sun behind them, providing a good block for her orbs to get used to the brightness again. But the legs seem to have less considerate thoughts, immediately taking on steps to the doors, "your stop is up."

Evidently, the wheels' grumble lessen in volume as the view outside begin to regain its stillness. Purple-knuckled fingers reach for her brows, shading her fragile sight from the burning sun, which felt brighter than it already was. Sluggish, the sorcerer found her head almost too heavy to be lifted off the glass, but the incoming announcement about their arrival yanked her up mercilessly.

Using the metro pole, the drowsy sorcerer pulled herself onto her feet, gravity taking its toll on her. After a drawn out yawn, she recalls the curt interaction she had before she napped, connecting it back to the voice waking her. Under her hand's roof, her lidded eyes searched to focus on the subject, fixating onto the ever-striking white locks glistening in aureate beams.

"Thanks māomī," absent-minded, she murmured in the midst of the doors shuffling open.

"Māomī?" Again, another name he has never been called before and he's certain it's not even Japanese, "what does that mean?"

As people begin to enter the train, the serpent peeped at the questioning prodigy, only to slip past his sight and out to the station. Shrugging her shoulders, the cogs in her head began to gradually turn, "I don't know, ask around."

Mildly irritated by her cold satire reply, Gojou merely rolled his cyanic hues with his lips curled into a snigger, "yeah, okay. What are—"

"Satoru." At her use of his given name, cerulean pupils dilated in mild surprise. For the countless time. However, his mouth responds faster than his brain does, "what?"

"Why are you here?" She asked as his sedate steps tap behind her, neither being able to view each other's facial guise. In honesty, he's glad she hadn't turned around, so he could observe her freely and imprint her nonexistent cursed energy bounded into the talismans in his mind.

"The fossils up there sent me." It's a fabricated reason, yes, but it's not like she had any way of knowing as far as his knowledge goes. For a new student, they would never have connections or communications with the 'century-old' higher-ups. The closest she could get to — if she bothered to — would be Yaga, and he's never seen them exchange more than five words. Plus, it was field-learning like he said. Just a little precautionary assistance from the strongest student to a grade 4 senior.

BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...

While the metro doors behind them slid shut, Yin stilled in her steps for a second or two, unresponsive to his answer. Hand peeling away from her forehead, she would stretch her arms forward, then above her own head, "I need to use the toilet." As her arms came back down, she pointed a finger towards the female washroom sign indicating it to be inside the station.

Following her finger, the prodigy's sunglasses slid off a bit, silently understanding her implications, "call me if you fall into the sink!"

By the time he blinked again, her figure had disappeared into the staircase. His urges to pry kicks in only seconds after, reminding him of the entire reason he tagged along on this little mission — to see the sorcerer in actual field action that isn't a training spar. And, maybe, because this would be more fun than whatever class his homeroom teacher had planned to lecture them on.

Upon being reminded, he was quick on his feet, sauntering in the same direction she had headed. The residual cursed energy was akin to a paint-covered child hands smacking everything they came across, providing a lovely trace for the sorcerers. It would've been almost too easy, except for the fact that its cursed energy reeked.

The more he treads on the heels of the curse's prints, the more the realisation creeps up on him. At first, its energy was scant, bearing such faint markings that it would be nothing but a 4th grade puny little curse. But, with every step closer to the girl's toilet, the trail grows more potent. It's certainly too abundant and overwhelming for a mere grade 4 sorcerer. When his uniform shoes was standing in the middle of a stretched, thick fog of cursed energy, does he realise.

This isn't a curse that should be assigned to someone in that rank.

While stares were beginning to accumulate on his suspicious stance outside the female bathroom, Gojou's intrigue was thickening by the second. Every passing moment he learned something new about her was a moment added to the fog shrouding her. Unravelling mysteries was such saccharine honey to him, and his sweet tooth only got worse through time. Right when his tooth had began to ache for sugary relief, the water ran in the background, picked up by his advanced sense of hearing. 'Hour-long' minutes passed, the water was still running and no one had stepped out.

He couldn't care less about how people weaker than him perceived him now; so, he peers into the bathroom.

It was grotesque.

Everything about it was gut-churning.

If cartoons were real, his glasses would've cracked into shards and fell off his face. Instead, nimble fingers quickly lifted them up and tucked it in his locks, rapidly blinking after to accustom to the objects being seen by its original form. What he saw through his glasses was no different from what he saw with his bare six eyes.

***

Illuminated by the light through a small, anti-peek window, were human organs adorning the dim toilet. Intestinal tracks hung from the stalls' walls, smudged against the lemony colour, gradually sliding off centimetre by centimetre.

On the drenched floor laid a girl clad in a disheveled, sage green coat, arms and legs torn from where it should've been. Several bones struck straight through the eye-like structures buried in messy black locks like arrows through hay. Where the bones came out was a disgusting blend of brain matter. Around her neck was burgundy... no, coal black hair loosely wrapped, exposing the chilling grin on her face cut from ear to ear. Said locks were shoved into her gaping mouth, functioning as a gag tied to the very bones impaling her brain.

Her legs and arms were reduced to nothing but flesh, having its bones ripped away and leaving behind a void. There were more internal organs mushed on the floor into pulps, and he's sure they were organs albeit the utter disfigurement. The floor was painted by vibrant, wet puddles of emerald liquid, to which he could only assume to be the curse's blood.

***

Any sorcerer would be able to recognise the high-grade curse's notorious grin -- Kuchisake-onna.

Gojou Satoru is someone whose seen their fair share of exorcisms even at such a youthful age, and yet he has never seen something of this degree. Something so ghastly that he knew if anyone else saw it, they would have to be administrated to a psychiatric ward. For the first time since he became a jujutsu student, he subconsciously checks for a barrier.

Swallowing back an urge to throw up, the prodigy was forced to fortify his mental walls for the first time in a long time. Neither his, Getou or anyone at Jujutsu High's techniques were this gory and unhinged, mostly reducing the curses into indistinguishable masses of blood. If it were hand-to-hand, perhaps they would simply have to bear the sight of a few broken bones before they go for something lethal. They never had to witness something as beastly as this.

Gojou never had a clear or completely righteous moral compass; but this violated even the bare minimum he had.

Finally, he collects himself from his physical and mental turmoil, suppressing both impulses to vomit his breakfast and his thoughts. His curiosity was somewhat satiated in being proven of her strength... but he doesn't know if his body wanted to dig further into someone who committed this.

Yet, it's the same pair of feet his brain commands to walk into the toilet and seek out the lone sorcerer. Each step was followed by an obscene squelch he once thought to be exaggerated in movies and cinemas. Until his arctic eyes met her lowered ones, zoned out and hyperfixated onto nothing.

The water was still running, and it was pouring into bandaged hands with pruned fingertips.