A Broken, Once Supposed Fairytale

𓆩𐏑𐀤𓆪

FW: Violence, blood and mentions of past.

She just wrecked the place subconsciously with a single organ. The hell?

Jiyuu stayed stationary as she watched the two in front of her come back to their senses. The Scavenger bent down and retched out a puddle of ebony blood as Kirai struggled to stand up. Coughing, she yanked an axe out of her pocket.

"Our fight isn't over yet," seethed Kirai, gripping the weapon until her knuckles went white.

The Scavenger flexed its long fingers menacingly. Its eyes hadn't regrown yet.

"Thanks to that damn kid, I can't heal for a while," it said sourly. "But you haven't seen the end of me!"

"Cry me a river!" snapped Kirai, rolling her eyes. She held the axe even tighter, awaiting the Scavenger's attack.

The Scavenger snapped its fingers, and a high spiral of writhing flesh encircled Jiyuu and Kirai. Jiyuu retreated away from it, and her sensei slashed it with her axe. As the spiral of flesh grew smaller, Jiyuu found herself back-to-back with Kirai.

"Don't uncover your eye," she whispered.

"This is amusing," chortled the Scavenger. "I'm in a great mood, so I think I'll tell a story."

"What—" started Jiyuu. But she was cut off by a loud snap from the Scavenger again, and the next second, she was hanging upside down in the air.

"Young lady!" yelled Kirai.

Jiyuu looked down towards the sky below her feet. It turns out the Scavenger had manipulated some flesh to grab her. Her blood rushing to her head, she looked up towards the ground. Her hair hung in messy tangles above her head. She tried to scream, but more flesh creeped up her face and covered her mouth.

"That's good," said the Scavenger in a satisfied tone. "After I finish this story, I'll kill you both. Take more knowledge to the grave, hm?"

"The fuck you mean?!" snarled Kirai, continuing to slice at the spiral closing in on her.

"Now, it's not nice to use vulgarities. I think I'll start with how I first knew you." The Scavenger paced around the spiral as if it were a storyteller around a bonfire.

"I had a mother once," began the Scavenger. "She was a sorcerer turned bad, and ever since she fled from the Jujutsu society, she started experimenting with cursed spirits. That was how she created her greatest masterpiece—me.

"I have four siblings. I am the Scavenger, my brothers Fisher and Flier, and my sisters Dancer and Singer. My mother gave herself a name as well, Teleporter. Together, we wreaked havoc, engraving our names in history as one of the most terrifying cursed spirit groups in the Jujutsu world. However, my mother, who was still a human, sought to live longer. She kept searching for a solution.

"One day, she found what she wanted. She had somehow found the perfect vessel for her to use, and once she took over that body, she could become immortal and continue living with us. Before her death, she took out her soul and gave it to us. She told us to release it on the 3rd of March exactly three hundred years after she died. She said that we would be able to see her three days after the soul was released. And we did.

"Precisely three days later, we found the vessel she would use. It was a child's body. Regardless of it, my siblings and I were so glad to have our mother back. We craved destruction, and so the six of us fled and challenged the Jujutsu society, convinced of victory. As we waited for the right time to attack, the vessel took over my mother's will.

"The vessel fled, and I chased it. My siblings, unaware of it, were slain by the sorcerers. I wept and grieved, for I cared about them. My eyes bled with tears, but I did not stop chasing the vessel. If I did not get my mother back, the vessel would then claim her memories and cursed technique and pose the largest threat to me.

"But the vessel escaped my grasp. It fled to the Jujutsu society, and there she was protected and out of reach. But instead of giving up, I decided to grow stronger. I returned to my mother's old home, where she still kept all of her experiments. I tore down the whole place until I found something that was perfect— something that would not only kill the vessel but also get my mother and siblings back along with vengeance.

"And so I set to work. To be able to kill the vessel, I stalked her and followed her around the clock. And dear, did her life seem so tragic. Thinking she had fallen in love, she married a man who was a bastard runt. He raped her and left her, along with his unborn child. Even after her child was born, it died due to a lack of nutrition. How sad.

"With nothing else left for her, she joined the Jujutsu society as a sorcerer herself. Wielding the cursed technique stolen from my mother, she became stronger. One day, I confronted her in the middle of a mission. I almost managed to kill her, but she still defeated me. Filled with even more loathing, I focused on killing the vessel. I decided to let my mother and siblings rest, for I could not keep my mind off of the vessel. I wanted her life so badly that it hurt.

"Once I grew to the top of the Special Grades, I sensed another power. It surfaced at the end of December, and I knew my chance. I would kill, take this power, and then end the vessel. This time, my victory was most certain. I would not lose, not anymore. And wow, would you guess what that power was?

The Scavenger looked feral. Its eyes had regenerated, and its body pulsed with cursed energy. It grinned wide and savagely. "That power is YOU, Jiyuu Kushimoto!" it cackled.

Jiyuu's head was spinning. She didn't want to trust this monster; she wanted to kill it, but she couldn't deny that the remark had seemed more than true. That explained why she'd started being chased by cursed spirits after her eleventh birthday, when she had never even seen one before. That explained why Kirai kept fussing over her. It wasn't because of pure kindness; it was because she was a dangerous object that ought to be hidden away.

"You're mad," whispered Jiyuu weakly.

"Mad?" screeched the Scavenger, its face contorting with rage. "You have no idea how much I've yearned for this, brat!" It raised its hand and clenched its fingers. At once, the flesh constricting her tightened. It wrapped around her windpipe, suffocating her. Jiyuu started screaming under the flesh covering her mouth as her eye started hurting again. She tried biting the flesh, but it was so tight she couldn't move her mouth.

"STOP IT!" roared Kirai. She slashed hard against the spiralling flesh, but more kept coming, and she couldn't get out.

"Stop?" shrieked the Scavenger. Its fingers relaxed. "Well, let's have you, hag, take her place!"

It pointed its fist at the spiral of flesh and balled its hand into a fist so hard it bled. The spiral of flesh turned into a sphere suspended in midair, trapping Kirai.

She sliced her way out with her axe and landed swiftly on the ground.

"Sensei..." cried Jiyuu. Tears started to escape her eyes and slide down her face.

"How tragic," mocked the Scavenger. "Do you want to know who my mother's vessel is?"

Kirai's face suddenly went pale as a corpse. "No," she growled. "Don't you dare."

"The vessel..."

"NO, STOP!"

"IS KIRAI YAMAZU!" yelled the Scavenger in triumph.

Jiyuu went rigid with shock. She recalled what the Scavenger had called Kirai when they met in her bedroom.

"Hello, former vessel of my mother's."

It made sense. That was why Kirai had seemed so afraid of powers coming from a long time ago. As Jiyuu looked up towards Kirai, she was even more astonished to see her crying.

"You fucking bastard!" cried Kirai. "I'll kill you!"

"Try me, hag," laughed the Scavenger. "But I recommend you focus on your precious kid first. She's on the verge of dying."






Kirai was torn. She was dying to rip the Scavenger limb from limb, but Jiyuu was about to die. But she couldn't save her unless she killed the bastard.

Another option was for her to use her technique to send her somewhere safe, but it was too risky. Both of them could die.

Being a Grade 1 sorcerer, not many knew about her cursed technique since it was from such a long time ago. Her cursed technique, Portal, allowed her to create portals to travel from one place to another or transport people and things.

She could only create three at a time. However, creating a full portal needed two of them. The entrance and the exit. She had a portal in her pocket, which led to a huge pool full of cursed weapons and tools she could access at any time.

Her third portal was converted into protection and a crucial source of cursed energy for her. Without it, she would've died already. And even if she risk using it, it wasn't guaranteed that Jiyuu would end up in the pool of weapons. And even if she did fall in, she would be badly hurt or dead.

She was stuck.

"Come on," whined the Scavenger. "I know what you're thinking."

It disappeared and appeared behind her, breathing down her neck.

"You have two options. Take out your third portal and risk yourself getting killed by me. Risk your kid getting jammed in your pocket, or risk her dying in your hive of weapons. Or maybe you could remove the portal from your pocket to guarantee she'll fall into that pool. In that time, you'll be cut off from your weapon supply, and your kid could die from the weapon pool, too. Choose your deaths."

Kirai scampered away from the Scavenger, raising her axe threateningly.

The Scavenger dragged its feet lazily towards her and snapped its fingers. It smiled maliciously as her axe was thrust away from her and flesh wrapped her in a cocoon.

"The Flesh Cocoon will create acid that will intoxicate you and burn you. Then you'll turn into nothing but a pile of goo. Your kid will die, too, and I'll be free to take her powers..."

It paused and snickered.

"It's so ironic. Nobody knows what my cursed technique is, yet they all keep guessing it's Flesh. But it's not. It's actually Consume, and it lets me take the abilities and powers of the people I eat. All that flesh is from the people I've killed and eaten. In my stomach, the flesh is mixed with my cursed energy, and then I can control it. Quite amusing, actually," it shrugged. "It was fun toying with you lot. Goodbye; I hope I never see you again."

As the Scavenger turned to leave, the Flesh Cocoon was ripped open, and Kirai emerged, covered head to toe in angry burn marks.

"You're still alive?" muttered the Scavenger quizzically. "Don't worry, I'll make quick work of you myself."

It dropped into a defensive pose, ready to snap its fingers again.

Kirai's face was obscured by her sticky hair plastered to it. Head facing down, she raised her right arm. With her left hand, she made a three-finger sign and slowly traced her arm, starting from the wrist.

"What are you doing? Your death dance?" sneered the Scavenger. It raised its fist, readying itself.

Her fingers reached her elbow.

The Scavenger paused. "Wait, where are your portals?"

It was nearing her shoulder...

"Wait," said the Scavenger, its previous drawl turning into a screech in panic. "Stop—STOP!"




"Domain Expansion, Divine Trinity Portal."