For You, My Life.

The Day He Died

Air wasn't coming easily for Suguru. Every breath was pained, almost exasperated- likely due to a collapsed or punctured lung. His gait was staggered, crippled from the crushing blows of a small war between sorcerers, both too talented to let the other off easy. Both too stubborn and willed in their oaths to what they've chosen to protect. Only one who truly underestimated the other when it came to the sheer purpose of an existence.

Blood soaked fingers tightly hugged ripped flesh where the joint connecting his bicep to his shoulder used to exist. As a matter of fact, Suguru was only now noticing how much blood he was losing, but not by the amount flooding down over his palm, nor by the trail he'd been leaving with every awkward footstep. It was the amount of weight he put into the wall that set off SOS signals to his brain, letting him know his injuries were just as bad as his breaths were making them seem.

Each rapid inhale was now coupled with a grit of his teeth. A large, still intact, shoulder dragged along the old stone walls of a Jujutsu High alleyway. Of course that wasn't helping him make any progress in escaping any hellfire that may have followed his trail. It was a little too calm, a little too quiet for him to not be followed. Yet, Suguru could only focus on that eerie feeling so much before he tripped over his dragging leg and his bare back scraped along the cold, brittle wall.

"Fuck," came out more as a complaint than a nod to the pain, which he was feeling an excruciating amount of. Suguru's chin nodded forward and his eyes squeezed to deal with the fire burning in all of his muscles.

The cogs in his mind were slowing but not of his own volition. It was forced. His body was failing him. Any internal organ that had been pumping surely was doing less of that now in their weakened state, and Suguru had to accept that he was dying. Here. Alone.

At this god forsaken school that he'd left behind ten years ago. The same place he'd just visited to see the new youth swarming and cohorts of the new classes enjoying each other's company. It wasn't so long ago, days at most, that he'd stopped by to check out the wielder of the freshest curse to hit the scene and declare war for the new era of sorcery. His ideals, those of the right way, the only way, to end the existence of curses once and for all.

In fact, the taste of iron on his tongue was a bitter reminder of what he'd just fought for. The future, their future. One where meager humans didn't reproduce in masses. One where sorcerers alone reigned and eradicated the evils of this world. Suguru knew it wasn't the favored ideal among the populace, of course it couldn't be. The jujutsu sorcerers were too feeble to take such action, like dogs on a short leash to humanity. One where they had bark and bite, protected the home but harbored little control of the world revolving around them due to humanity's recklessness as a whole. Suguru could've saved them all, at least he tried to.

The cough that left his chest interrupted his thoughts, gargling in the back of his throat before he could hack up a blot clot of sorts onto the sidewalk he was now hunched over. The burning sensation coupled with the stone-made scratches down his back made him slump further while attempting to keep himself upright.

He mumbled to himself, low and rasp, "If only I had Rika, I wouldn't have to collect all these curses..."

At least his family wasn't here to witness him like this. The girls and his team still in the middle of the city fighting a battle of distraction while he completed, or at least tried to complete, his plan.

"Next time. Next time, she'll be mine!"

A bloody wet smirk danced across his lips. That last bit of energy he possessed seared through his core. If hope was a curse itself, Suguru was sure to harbor it among the other demons that danced in the pit of his stomach and amongst the cells in his bloodstream.