Corpse Flowers [Jujutsu Kaisen]

🥀 Chapter Ten 🥀

It was completely silent in the dark room, the only source of light being the silver rays of the moonlight as it flowed in through the dark open Shoji window. This very moonlight shrouded completely the girl that Satoru was kneeled in front of. Seiran was facing away from him, her face alit by the crescent moon hanging in the inky sky. Her words hung heavily in the still, cold air –

"Do not take my dislike for the establishment as my refusal to serve humankind,"

"I simply... dislike the establishment, not what it protects,"

Those words had struck Satoru so deeply that he could do nothing but stare at Seiran with a sense of broken shock. He had not expected those words to flow out of her lips – he knew she had not one bone of hate in her body but to hear something of this nature so explicitly from her was whiplash. Satoru knew that Seiran was resistant to her position, but he had not taken her emotions into account.

Of course, how could Seiran ever hate human beings for what they were not.
Where Suguru had gone out of his way to want to murder them.

Satoru felt absolutely terrible that he had essentially accused Seiran for something that she could not have done. He was at a loss for what had led Suguru down this path and he had accused Seiran of somehow influencing him into doing this. He grabbed his head, feeling exhausted from the strain. He stilled when he felt Seiran reach out for his hand.

But before anything could be said between them any further, there was a sound reminiscent of a silky curtain flying in the wind – running right through the doors to the room was a ghostly apparition of a cat. It was coloured in the hues of pinkish-orange dawn and the cat swayed its fluffy dual-tails as it came bounding right over to Seiran.

It was Momotaro, a cat that Seiran had loved since the day she had born and who had now turned into a Nekomata upon his death. Satoru had spent many evenings being jealous of that very pet. He watched as Seiran took her cat into her lap, stroking his head and letting go of Satoru and the conversation.

"You were looking for me, Momotaro-Chan?" Seiran whispered, gently scratching the back of his ears. "You must have been missing me, no? I missed you as well... I missed you so much..."

Somehow, it felt less like Seiran was talking to the cat and more of that she was talking to someone else. Satoru knew very well who was in her mind. But this time, he did not mention it out loud. Instead, he turned to look toward the door to the room as it was slid open by animated Cursed Energy as yet another figure rushed inside.

This time, it was a young girl of about three or four, dressed in a lilac Kimono decorated with violets and asters. With long indigo hair cut into hime-style and large featureless lilac-white eyes, it was none other than Seiran's niece, Kageyama Shion. She was giggling as she came running in after Momotaro.

"Seiran-Oba!" called out Shion excitedly as she directed herself straight for the older girl, slamming rather hard against her legs in order to hug her but it appeared that she was not concerned by it in her eagerness to see her. "Seiran-Oba!"

"Shion-Chan, were you chasing Momotaro-Chan again?" Seiran inquired but she did not stop the girl from climbing into her lap either while her cat jumped onto her shoulders weightlessly. "Now, now... there is someone else here, Shion-Chan,"

Upon these words, Shion turned her head backward upside down to look at the man kneeling in front of her aunt. She stared at him in confusion until she corrected her posture and looked at him upright.

"Hello," Shion greeted, bowing her head at the teenaged male but appearing shy. Her chubby cheeks were round like mochi. "Nice to meet you, my name is Kageyama Shion, and I am four!"