Temporal Paradox - Suguru Geto x OC

Chapter 6

With an ear-splitting crash, the window shattered into a hundred glistening fragments. Torako's head, which had just collided with the windowpane, throbbed and pulsed in agony as she let herself be dragged into the apartment.

It felt as if all of it happened within a second; in one breath her head was getting clawed at, and in the other she was lying in a small pool of her own blood. Waves of dizziness and nausea washed over her, leaving her disoriented and gasping for breath.

"Oh, that really hurts!" Torako yelped, rolling over onto her side to clutch her leaking head. If she hadn't forgotten to enhance her body with cursed energy, then perhaps her head wouldn't be bleeding like a broken faucet right now.

"Agh... you might as well just jump out of my chest already if you're gonna beat this fast..." She hissed at her heart exasperatedly. It was pounding with such an intensity that Torako thought she had an engine inside her chest.

But this was no time to fight with your own organ.

Torako sighed tiredly, despite the fact that she hadn't done anything.

"Let me take a three seconds break real quick."

'One cursed spirit... two cursed spirits... three cursed spirits...'

And right as she finished counting, just like a jack-in-the-box, Torako's torso immediately sprung up from the floor, ready to engage in battle.

"Ok, let's see where we are first..."

After the dizziness subsided and her senses cleared up a little, she began to realise that the room was abnormally dark. There was an unsettling stillness in the air that made her feel as though she was in the abandoned basement of an unhappy household. With each passing moment, the room drowned further and further in a cavernous darkness, and Torako's chest tightened with an ominous premonition.

This was a domain.

But worse than that, the foul odour that permeated the air was so pungent that Torako could swear it had a tangible presence of its own. This was the kind of smell that clawed its way into one's nostrils and settled in the pit of their stomach as a noxious blend of rotting decay and putridity.

Torako swallowed a gag.

And it was easy to tell what it was from the distinct iron-like stench.

"At least, I don't have to see all those dead bodies lying around," Torako choked, grateful for the amount of darkness that rendered her vision quite useless.

Her skin tingled as she felt a heavy current of cursed energy flowing her way. She quickly sat up.

"Face..."

A ghostly presence materialised before her eyes. The lady's voice, a haunting whisper, filled her ears and scratched at her brain. It was eerie, a spectral murmur that seemed to echo a painful memory.

"... Ugly... husband... don't want..."

A brow was raised at the slouching lady.

"Need... new face..."

The vengeful spirit of Aoi Nakamura cracked its fingers and tilted its head to a degree that was humanly impossible.

Torako cringed at the sound of its neck fracturing.

"Uh... hi..." She tried giving it a cordial wave.

"Your face... good..."

"Uh." Confused eyes blinked up at the curse. "That's a first! Thanks, Ms Nakamura."

"..."

The lackluster response made Torako swallow awkwardly, leaning against the wall behind her.

"Anyways, as much as I enjoyed our talk, I might die of blood loss if I don't cut it short soon." Torako exhaled deeply as she began to roll up her right sleeve, revealing an arm that was wrapped firmly in strips of thin white fabric.