HAVEN || SATORU GOJO

XXI

AS TWILIGHT FELL, the city's lights emerged, casting a shimmering glow upon the tireless metropolis. The tempo of activity persisted, unabated, as workers streamed out of buildings, weaving their way through the maze of commuters.

Taxi drivers, weary but relentless, maneuvered through traffic with a blend of urgency and experience, their passengers eagerly inching closer to their destinations.

And as night settled in, casting a blanket of stillness over the city, it would only be a matter of time before the dawn broke again, and the bustling of busyness would resume.

All of those taxing jobs .. those occupations .. all occurring without a single realization of the incident that was to come soon.

The potential slaughter it would bring.

They went about peacefully with their lives, self indulging in their human activities ..

And just like that .. December ninth had passed .. and Satoru Gojo forgot about his birthday.

Everyone did .. except for one person.

She waited at home all night and he had never showed.

She wasn't angry, or upset. Merely sad.

The woman hadn't brought the topic up either.

They were just in a time where seemingly feeble things like birthdays didn't matter. In fact, she didn't see anyone often either.

They were back to their routine where he was training the first, second and third years altogether, whilst she returned to her full time job of being a sorcerer.

"You really are amazing, Rieka." The boy was finally comfortable enough to drop the honorifics from the woman's name. She had come to the campus to drop off another report statement to make the auxiliary managers lives easier.

She had taken on three missions in a day, although they were just grade one missions.

Maki sat next to him on the bench where they both had finished another match, drinking water together. Inumaki had gone with the upperclassmen and Panda had disappeared with principal Yaga, leaving just the two of them.

They were wearing the scarves that she knitted for them. For Yuta, it was a cyan blue and for maki, an emerald green. Each of the first years had received one, along with Megumi, Gojo and a few other of the upperclassmen .. although they weren't as fond of her gift to them.

"It's nothing special, I'm just carrying my weight. This is what I do. These last few years, because of Suguru's presence in devouring many of the curses .. Satoru and I have actually had fewer jobs to do. But I suppose the redistribution of curses is being balanced once again without his interference."

They had calculated the inclining average of the amount of curses that were supposed to appear within the last few years .. but didn't. With that, they had rounded a rough estimate to how many curses Suguru might've had.

Five thousand to four thousand.

Rieka had been working to contact the alumni of not just the Tokyo school but the Kyoto one as well, she had even called back previous old sorcerers like Nanami.

It was to be considered that the woman was one of the most influential sorcerers in the current present day time, doing favors for both schools and organizations and philanthropic work to get onto their good sides.

School had been out of session for two weeks now, and it was going to be once again for another two weeks as the original break would merge into the holiday one.