A LITTLE DEATH | Jujutsu Kaisen

18

Upon stepping over the border, her surroundings changed. "an innate domain... how thoughtful" she mumbled, examining the place. The place looked ordinary, an abandoned house that was often seen around the perimeter of the prefecture. It looked old and the air was filled with dense memories. It was dead quiet, the only thing that would be occasionally heard was a strum of a lyre from a far. That melody was familiar, bringing back memories of when the girl would sit in the main room of the large house, learning how to write while a beautiful lady sat in the corner of the room, playing different songs on the Koto. It was evident that the woman was skilled in her art and enjoyed the sound of the instrument, as she would sometimes hum the song she would be playing and bob her head silently to the rhythm of the songs.

As the young girl wandered around the simple domain, she caught a glimpse of the residuals left of the dangerous cursed object. Examining the interior of the domain, she couldn't help but admire the structure and architecture of the house. Little lizard like curses crawling around the walls and floors, they wouldn't even be classified as grade 4 and using energy on them would be futile and pointless, as they were spawning at every corner and nook there was to find. Further inside the domain there lay the sent of the finger, but it was not alone in that room. Even though the dark haired girl was still quite far from the said room, the energy radiating from the two was too strong to be concealed by old wooden walls. The long hallways with seemingly never ending turns and stairs were starting to become more familiar and comfortable, as if the girl lived in this domain for eternity. This familiarity caused the female to stop in her tracks, deciding to look around the newly found room that she has entered. Despite being in a hurry, for some strange reason, it felt right to look around the room. It seemed to be a bedroom, probably for a maid as the size of the room was not one for a noble or owner of such house. There were burn marks around the walls and curtains and some of the furniture was also burnt. In one of the corners, occupied a stack of metal scraps and a hammer. "maybe a black smith lived here...?" the girl mumbled, her eyes darting around the room as if searching for any answers for what happened in this specific room. The mattress was almost fully burnt and was now covered by layers of dust. There was also a lot of books, not as much as a library would have, but enough to know that the person who used to reside in this room enjoyed to read or was desperate to find something. Slowly walking towards the burnt books, the dark haired female picked up the one at the top of the pile, wiping away all the ashes and dust that the book ended up carrying along. "...leprosy... huh?" the purple eyed girl scanned the remains of the book, before placing it gently on the futon, and scanning the rest of the pile. "'deadly diseases'... 'Mortals: How the fear of death shaped human society'... 'to kill a mocking bird'... what a strange list of books..." the first year girl hummed, scanning more books, that were mostly medical related books as well as some literature books mixed into the stack. This made the girl assume that who ever lived here was terminally ill with something they didn't know of. Scanning the room one more time, the female spotted a half burnt straw hat and a purple veil lying next to the metal scraps. "this is quite a nice veil... maybe I could repair it? huh..." The girl examined the somewhat transparent veil, which didn't seem to be too damaged. Upon inspection and a closer look, the grade one sorceress spotted 2 engraved letters, 'K. R'. "I can't take long here..." she finally sighed still holding up the veil, not knowing if she should take it along with her or leave it. "whatever. Carrying it around would be too much work..." she closed her eyes, dropping the piece of cloth into the ground, making it fall unevenly. Giving the room one last glance, she continued searching for the reason of the chaos outside the domain.

After wandering around the infinite hallways for what seemed like hours, she finally came across a room which was still closed. However the pressure emitting from behind those wooden doors was suffocating. These specific doors didn't look like they would crumble under a child's touch, but looked sturdy and rich. Tracing the golden insignia at the center of the door the girl couldn't help but admire the beauty of it. After a moment of staring and mentally preparing herself for what is about to come, the female let out a staggered breath before pushing the doors into the walls, sliding them open.